But the historical method is not entirely of modern growth. As long ago as 1767 the first attempt was made by D'Hancarville[37] to classify vases according to their age. Taking such scanty data as were available, he divided Italian vases into five classes, ranging from “some centuries before the foundation of Rome” down to the reigns of Trajan, the Antonines, and Septimius Severus, which “announc’d the total decadency of the Art.” The earlier vases he sought to fix more precisely by reference to the history of painting as told by Pliny. The Duc de Luynes, writing in 1832,[38] hesitates to define the exact age of the various styles, though he arranges them generally in six classes, ranging from the “Doric” or “Phoenician” vases down to barbaric imitations by the natives of Italy. According to him the red-figured vases lasted from the time of Perikles down to that of Pyrrhos. Millingen was content with three periods only, his division[39] being: (1) ancient style, 700–450 B.C.; (2) fine style, 450–228 B.C.; (3) late style, 228 to Social War. Kramer distinguishes five epochs: (A) Egyptian style, 580–500 B.C.; (B) older style, 500–460 B.C.; (C) severe style, 460—420 B.C.; (D) fine style, 420–380 B.C.; (E) rich style, 380–200 B.C.[40] Gerhard[41] surmised that the earliest vases might date from the ninth or tenth century B.C., the fine style extending over the fifth and fourth, while the decadence culminated in the second, and in the first century fictile vases were entirely supplanted by those of metal. De Witte made a more detailed classification, extending to nine groups, and based rather on technical differences, as several of the groups are contemporaneous; but his classification is essentially a practical one, and may be regarded as forming a sound basis for all succeeding catalogues and treatises, as also for the arrangement of museums. Jahn in his Introduction is content with four main headings, which for a general classification of a large collection is convenient enough, and has, in fact, been adopted in the Vase Rooms of the British Museum. Under this system the four divisions are: (1) Primitive; (2) Black-figured; (3) Red-figured; (4) Vases of the Decadence. In the Louvre, on the other hand, the arrangement is mainly geographical, according to the sites from which the vases have come.