The technique of the white ground for painting and much in the filling ornament and the animal-drawing unites these insular vases with the artistic circle of S. W. Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, through which obviously, as well as through Crete, Oriental decorative motives principally found their way into Greece. The impulses which guided the weak Geometric style of this district into new paths can with certainty be traced to metal work, especially Phoenician bowls, and to textile products. Miletus, the head of East Ionic civilization, had a flourishing textile industry in the 7th century, the decoration of which was quite under the spell of the East. An attempt has been made to fix at Miletus a manufactory, the extension of which coincides exactly with the commercial sphere of this great maritime town; the coast of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, the colonies on the Black Sea and in the Delta are the most important, a secondary part is played by the Cyclades and the Italo-Sicilian area, but the Greek mainland is unaffected. But since Miletus need not have done more than distribute, just as Corinth did for the Protocorinthian ware, since closely allied and almost inseparable wares were made in several places, and the bulk of these vases were found in Rhodes, we may retain the traditional name ‘Rhodian.’ The transition from the Geometric phase (p. 26) to the developed style of animal decoration can be to some extent followed. We see, for instance, the old shape of the jug (Fig. 22) become metallically rounded, the cable on the neck drive out the old zig-zags, and on the shoulder two animals antithetically flank the central metope (Fig. 54). The stiff division into metopes of the shoulder stripe is next dropped, the animals and fabulous beings of the East are placed heraldically one on either side of a central vegetable motive, and under this heraldic band, in obvious rivalry with textile work adorned in bands, continuous friezes of animals in rows, of dogs pursuing hares, of grazing wild goats and deer, of running goats, which in spite of their decorative character often testify to a very fresh observation of nature. Bands of different ornament, cables, and continuous loops, Geometric motives in metope-like arrangement, especially the upright garland of lotus buds and flowers, are added to [Illustration: PLATE XXVIII. Fig. 55. RHODIAN JUG. Fig. 56. LATE RHODIAN JUG. Fig. 57. EUPHORBOS PLATE FROM RHODES: MENELAOS AND HECTOR FIGHTING OVER THE BODY OF EUPHORBOS.]