1. “Proto-Corinthian” wares (called by M. Pottier the Corinthian Geometric style). 750–650 B.C., and later. 2. Corinthian vases with incised scale-patterns or imbrications. 3. Corinthian vases with floral decoration, ground-ornaments, and figures not incised. 4. Similar vases, but with figures incised. [Classes 2 to 4 roughly cover the seventh century.] 5. Corinthian vases without ground-ornaments, and with large friezes of animals or human figures; incised details. 600–550 B.C. 1. Although the priority of the so-called =Proto-Corinthian= or Corinthian Geometrical pottery is certain, the term is, strictly speaking, applied to vases of different dates, which are only connected by form with the original fabrics.[1015] The distinction lies in the fact that the earlier vases have linear decoration without purple accessories or incised lines, both of which occur in the more developed examples as the result of the revolution effected by the Corinthian painters.[1016] They therefore fall into two main classes, of which the earlier includes the larger vases with purely Geometrical decoration of a simple type, doubtless reflecting the original local Geometrical pottery, and sometimes with zones of animals. The figures are merely in black silhouette. In the later class the vases are small, sometimes diminutive, but of developed style, with zones of animals of the later Corinthian type, and with purple accessories and incised lines. The earlier class date from the eighth to the seventh century B.C.; the later cannot be older than the sixth. For the dating of the earlier group some evidence may be derived from the results of excavations at Syracuse, founded from Corinth in 735 B.C. In its earliest cemeteries, as also at Megara Hyblaea, numerous Proto-Corinthian vases of the earlier class have been found.[1017] In Italy Proto-Corinthian wares were found in trench-tombs of about 750–650 B.C., and in the earlier chamber-tombs (see Chapter XVIII.). The older class disappears by the end of the seventh century, when the typical Corinthian _aryballos_ (see p. 197) takes its place.