Such was the position adopted at the start in the fifth century, and it continued as long as and wherever the double-grooved starting lines continued to be used. It seems, however, that sometimes the runners were stationed behind a barrier formed by a rope (ὕσπληξ) or by a wooden bar, and that the signal for the start was given by dropping this rope or bar.[484] Ropes, as we know, were used in the chariot-race, a separate rope being stretched in front of each chariot. Aristophanes uses the phrase “from a single rope” (ὥσπερ ἀπὸ μιᾶς ὑσπλάγιδος) to denote a simultaneous movement “of one accord.”[485] The vase paintings do not furnish the faintest indication of the use of a rope in the foot-race. The only possible trace of its use revealed by excavation is the line of herms at Athens, which cannot be earlier than imperial times. The posts, which were placed in the square sockets along the starting line, cannot have been used to support a rope; for such a rope is incompatible with the use of the starting lines. There is no evidence of its use in the foot-race till the third century B.C., when we find reference to the ὕσπληγες in inscriptions relating to the stadia at Epidaurus and Athens,[486] and an undoubted allusion to it in the poet Lycophron, who speaks of a “winged runner bursting through the balbis rope.”[487] Even then we may doubt whether its use was ever universal. With a rope a false start is impossible; and yet allusions to runners poaching at the start occur in literature from Herodotus to Plutarch, or even later.[488] Still, it is certain that a rope was sometimes used, that it was raised at some height above the ground and stretched tight in front of the runners, and that the signal to start was given by the dropping of the rope. A late epigram tells us that this was accompanied by an audible sound.[489] In default of definite evidence, it may be suggested that it was worked by a spring, perhaps somewhat after the manner of the modern starting-gate. Some support for this suggestion is afforded by the use of the word ὕσπληξ to denote a spring hunting-trap. Allusion is also made to a bar of wood placed in front of the runners, the removal of which gave the signal to start.[490] Such a barrier can hardly have been introduced earlier than the time of the Empire, and was probably borrowed from the Roman circus. As stated in the last chapter, it is possible that the grooves in the pillars at Athens and Epidaurus served to hold some solid barrier of this sort.