Certain commodities were, however, undoubtedly not allowed to be exported, as for example, timber, tar, wax, rigging, and “leathern bottles, articles which,” as Bœckh observes, “were particularly important for the building and equipment of the fleet.”[1621] But the word which this distinguished scholar conceives to mean “leathern bottles,” had a very different signification, and meant that leathern defence through which the oars passed, and which was designed to keep the sea from rushing in at the row-port. This we gather as well from the scholiast on Aristophanes,[1622] as from several passages of Pollux overlooked by Bœckh. This writer observes, that the leathern defence of the row-port was called ἄσκωμα,[1623] and elsewhere he says that a woman’s breast, when full of milk, was also so called;[1624] from which we may conjecture what form the askoma assumed, when the oar forced it outwards during the act of rowing. Nor do I suppose that such prohibition existed only during time of war, for it would have been equally imprudent to furnish such articles to men preparing for war, as men always are in peace, as to such as were actually engaged in it. From a passage in Theophrastus, it has been inferred that permission to export timber for ship-building was sometimes granted free of duty to individuals; but as it is the Boaster who makes the assertion, adding that, to avoid envy, he never made use of it,[1625] it may be regarded as no less a joke than the reason for prohibiting lamp-wicks from Bœotia, viz., that they might set the fleet on fire![1626] ----- Footnote 1621: Economy of Athens, p. 75. Footnote 1622: Ran. 364: ἄσκωμα δὲ δερμάτιον τι ᾧ ἐν ταῖς τριήρεσι χρῶνται, καθ᾽ ὁ ἡ κώπη βάλλεται. Footnote 1623: Pollux. i. 88: τὸ δὲ πρὸς αὐτῷ τῷ σκαλμῷ δέρμα ἄσκωμα. Footnote 1624: Pollux. ii. 164: τὸ δε ὑποπιμπλάμενον τοῦ γάλακτος, κὸλπος καὶ ἄσκωμα. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 97. Hescych. Etym. Mag. et Suid. in v. But more especially Scheffer, De Militiâ Navali, p. 13, Cf. Brunck ad Ran. 364. This confirms the extremely ingenious conjecture of Mitford, though he was mistaken in supposing the thing to have been called ὑπηρέσιον, which meant simply “a cushion.” Hist. of Greece, iii. 154. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 344, is very unsatisfactory. Footnote 1625: Theoph. Char. p. 63. Casaub. 344. Footnote 1626: Aristoph. Acharn. 916. -----