The picturesqueness of such a race appealed especially to vase-painters, who have given us all the details of the event. The preparations for the race are seen on a red-figured kylix from Vulci, now in Paris, ascribed to Euphronios (Panaitios), on which one runner is donning his armor, while others are practising preliminary runs.[1479] The start is seen in the right-hand figure depicted on a r.-f. kylix in Berlin (Fig. 41, a).[1480] On another r.-f. kylix we see a pair of hoplites, one slowing up before reaching the central post, the other turning it.[1481] The finish is seen on an obscene r.-f. kylix from Vulci in the style of Brygos, in the British Museum, where the bearded winner, with his helmet in his hand, looks back on his rival, and the latter, apparently in disgust, drops his shield.[1482] The most complete illustration of the race is to be seen on the r.-f. Berlin kylix just mentioned (Fig. 41, a, b, c.) Here on one side is a group of three runners; the right-hand one is bending over, ready to start; the one at the left is about to turn the central post, and the one in the centre, who is turned in an opposite direction, is on the home stretch; on the other side of the vase are three runners in full course, while another appears on the interior of the vase.[1483] Some vases seem to show that the contest often had a semi-comic character, the variations in running being used to amuse the spectators. Thus the shield might be dropped and picked up again,[1484] or it might be held in a peculiar manner.[1485] This comic element is brought out in the _Aves_ of Aristophanes, in a scene in which Peisthetairos, while observing the chorus of birds advancing with their crests (λόφωσις), compares them with hoplite runners advancing to begin the race.[1486] The regular painter outdid the vase-painter in representing the runner in violent motion, if we may rely on Pliny’s description of two paintings of hoplites by Parrhasios.[1487] In one of these the runner was represented as perspiring as he ran, while in the other he was represented as having laid aside his arms and panting so realistically that the observer seemed to hear him. [Illustration: FIG. 41.—Hoplitodromes. Scenes from a r.-f. Kylix. Museum of Berlin.] [Illustration: FIG. 42.—Bronze Statuette of a Hoplitodrome (?). University Museum, Tuebingen.]