The earlier R.F. vases preserve the principles of the preceding period; and, in regard to the kylikes, the system of decoration has been discussed in detail elsewhere (Vol. I. p. 427). In all of them we see particular attention paid to arrangement, and the variations in the principles of composition form one of our guides in determining the development of the style. In the amphorae and hydriae of the transition from the severe to the strong period the number of figures employed in one scene was diminished, while they became larger in their proportions and were treated with more care; the usual number on the Nolan amphora is one or two each side. On the smaller vases, such as the oinochoë, the number of the figures never exceeds three. Sometimes the hydriae have an elongated composition on the shoulder, containing a frieze of several figures[2017]; but usually the design runs into both shoulder and body. Designs in framed panels are rare, except on the earlier amphorae and hydriae, and on the column-handled kraters. The latter are unique in preserving the older methods of decoration right through the R.F. period down to the fourth-century specimens from Southern Italy. The influence of Polygnotos and his contemporaries brought about, as we have seen, a great change in the arrangement of the compositions, by the introduction of landscape and perspective, and the depicting of figures at different levels. This new development was subsequently exemplified in the large vases of Kertch and Apulia, but in the late fine period at Athens small vases with single friezes or simple subjects were the rule. In the pyxides and other vases with frieze subjects the figures are often crowded together and of dwarfish proportions (Plate XLII. fig. 3). A return to the old system of several friezes is seen where the figures are arranged in two or more rows divided by bands of ornaments, as in the Meidias hydria, or the early Apulian and some of the Lucanian vases.[2018] The earlier vases of Southern Italy, especially those of Lucania, preserve in some measure the spirit of the best R.F. vases, in the arrangement of the figures, and at all times the composition is one of the best features of these vases; but in the later examples the purely decorative element obtrudes itself; single figures of little more than ornamental character abound, and the old preference for mere ornament asserts itself, the patterns encroaching all over the scenes. § 3. ORNAMENTAL PATTERNS