It cannot reasonably be doubted that in the maritime states a large proportion of the boys, at any rate of the lower classes, were taught to _row_, since each trireme required a crew of 200, nearly all of whom had to use the oar. In the good old days, according to the _Wasps_, the main object was to be a good oar,[479] and rowing-blisters were a sign of patriotism.[480] In an emergency, the Athenians could make the whole citizen force under a certain age embark on the fleet and could win a victory with these rowers; this would have been impossible if the average citizen had been ignorant of rowing.[481] On such occasions many even of the Hippeis embarked: Aristophanes jestingly asserts that in an expedition to Korinth the horses tried also, shouting, “Gee-ho, put your backs into it. Do more work, Dobbin.”[482] Before the close of the war,[483] Charon, the ferryman of Styx, assuming that every Hellene knows the way to row, makes the souls of the departed row themselves across. Boat-races were certainly known at this period. A client of Lusias asserts that he has won a race with a trireme off Cape Sounion.[484] Probably the trierarchoi, the rich men appointed to fit out the State navy, either voluntarily or by regular custom, made the ships race one another. Thus the races would be as much inter-tribal contests as the dithyrambs or torch-races. Two crews of the epheboi of a later date used to race in the two sacred triremes. The vessels sailing out for the Sicilian expedition raced as far as Aigina.[485] A fragment of Plato the comic poet[486] refers to similar contests: Thy high-heaped tomb on this fair promontory Shall take the greetings of our far-flung fleets, And watch the merchants sailing out and in, And be spectator when the galleons race. EXCURSUS I The “gumnasiarchoi” have created some confusion among those who have discussed Attic ways. Some authorities would make them rich men performing a “leitourgia” and holding a similar position to the trierarchoi and choregoi: others make them officials appointed to superintend the gymnasia.