Finally, in fig. 80, a design from a black-figured amphora[766], we have the type most frequent of all; Hermes leads the three goddesses, but in the Judgment of Paris _no figure of Paris is present_. Without exaggeration it may be said that in three out of four representations of the ‘Judgment’ in black-figured vase-paintings the protagonist is absent. The scene takes the form of a simple procession, Hermes leading the three goddesses. This curious fact has escaped the attention of no archaeologist who has examined the art types of the ‘Judgment.’ It has been variously explained. At a time when vase-paintings were supposed to have had literary sources, it was usual to attempt a literary explanation. Attention was called to the fact that Proklos[767], in his excerpts of the _Kypria_, noted that the goddesses, ‘by command of Zeus were led to Ida by Hermes’; of this leading it was then supposed that the vase-paintings were ‘illustrations.’ Such methods of interpretation are now discredited; no one supposes that the illiterate vase-painter worked with the text of the _Kypria_ before him. Art had its own traditions. [Illustration: FIG. 80.] Another explanation, scarcely more happy, has been attempted. ‘Archaic art,’ we are told, ‘loved processions.’ Archaic art, concerned to fill the space of a circular frieze surrounding a vase, did indeed ‘love processions,’ but not with a passion so fond and unreasonable, and it loved something else better, the lucid telling of a story. In depicting other myths, archaic art is not driven to express a story in the terms of an inappropriate procession; it is indeed largely governed by traditional form, but not to the extent of tolerating needless obscurity. The ‘Judgment’ is a situation essentially stationary, with Paris for centre; Hermes is subordinate.