The new training required no little expenditure of time and money. The would-be victor at Olympia must have lived in a constant state of training and competition, which left time for little else. Theagenes of Thasos, who lived at the time of the Persian wars, is said to have won no less than fourteen hundred crowns.[95] To such men athletics were no longer a recreation, but an absorbing occupation. The professional amateur is but a short step removed from the true professional. For a time wealth and leisure gave a great advantage to the wealthy individual, and the wealthy city. In the sixth century the most successful states are the rich cities of Sicily and Italy. The sons of noble families still figure prominently in the epinikia of Pindar and Bacchylides. But the increase of rich prizes was soon to put the poor man on a level with the rich. Before the close of the fifth century we shall find athletics left to the professional, while princes and nobles compete only in the chariot-races and horse-races. For this result states like Sybaris and Croton were hugely responsible. They thought to encourage athletics by offering large money prizes; in reality they killed the spirit of sport. Sybaris indeed—or, according to another account, Croton—endeavoured to outshine Olympia by holding a festival of her own at the same time as the Olympia, and attracting away the pick of the athletes by the magnificence of the prizes.[96] When such an attempt was possible, professionalism was near at hand.