It cannot have played a leading part, but must soon have been put in the shade by its near neighbour and rival. For that the so-called Protocorinthian fabrication is also at home in the Argolid is proved by the fact that the chief places, where the ware is found, are Argos and Aegina, and that quantities of small and hardly exportable ware are found at various places in the district. The alphabet of the inscriptions agrees with this locality, and so does the style, which leads up to the Corinthian, whence the name has been given, as well as the fact that the great trading-centre of Corinth looked after the sale of the wares; for the area in which they were sold is identical with that of the Corinthian vases. On account of these close relations with Corinth, the home of the Protocorinthian vases has been sought with great probability in the neighbouring town of Sicyon, of which we are told that it was the place to which Cretan artists migrated, that it was the birthplace of Greek painting and seat of a flourishing metal industry, so that we are able to account for three ingredients of the new style. For the Protocorinthian style of the 7th century gave the most delicate development of Cretan ‘Daedalic’ types, particularly near its end; fixed a clear style of figure representation and an ample store of types, and developed its vase-shapes, system of decoration and technique, under the influence of metal patterns, more severely, precisely and richly than any [Illustration: PLATE XVI. Fig. 31. Fig. 32. PROTOCORINTHIAN LEKYTHOI WITH BATTLE-SCENE AND SLAUGHTER OF THE CENTAURS. Fig. 33. PROTOCORINTHIAN JUG OF POST-GEOMETRIC STYLE FROM ÆGINA. EARLY SEVENTH CENTURY.] other contemporary centre of fabrication. In it the vase history of the post-Geometric century culminates.