The torch-race was widely spread throughout Greek lands and its popularity was maintained till Roman times. At Athens there were torch-races at the Panathenaea, at the Epitaphia and the Thesea, and in the time of Socrates a torch-race on horseback was instituted at the festival of Bendis. The torch-race took place at night. There were two principal varieties of it—one a race between individuals, the other between teams. In the former the runners started from the altar of Prometheus in the Academy, and raced into the city, the one who arrived first with his torch lighted being proclaimed victor. The efforts of the runners to keep their torches alight as they ran along stooping like boys in an egg and spoon race caused endless amusement among the spectators, and as they passed through the narrow gateway into the city, the ribald dwellers in the potters’ quarter sped them on their way with loud resounding slaps.[522] The team-race is familiar to all from the famous simile in the _Agamemnon_. The members of the teams were posted at intervals along the way; the first runner handed it to the second as he reached him, and so on till it came to the last. The team that brought their torch still lighted to the finish first was declared the winner. The teams must have been originally representative of the tribes. In the first century B.C. we find teams mentioned from various palaestrae; thus victories are recorded of boys from the palaestra of Timeas, and of Antigenes, or from the Lyceum.[523] The training of the teams was a voluntary service (λειτουργία) performed by the Gymnasiarchoi, or by special officials, the Lampadarchoi, whose names are mentioned on inscriptions when their teams won. There were torch-races for boys and youths of various ages. Aristophanes speaks of torch-racing and hunting as the fashionable amusements of a smart youth.[524] At a later time the torch-race is mentioned in inscriptions as one of the duties expected from the epheboi, rather as a ceremonial duty than as an athletic exercise.[525] The religious character of the race was maintained in Roman times. An inscription from Scyros prescribes penalties for any one, whether slave or freeman, found guilty of unfair practices in the torch-races of the tribes. If a slave, he is to be scourged and his master fined; if a freeman or one of the runners, he is not only to be fined but considered a “sacrilegious person and accursed.”[526]