in Grecian antiquity, an Athenian festival in honour of Vulcan, the principal ceremony of which consisted of a race, performed in the following manner: The antagonists were three young men, one of whom, by lot, took a lighted torch in his hand, and began his course; if the torch was extinguished before he finished the race, he delivered it to the second, and he in like manner to the third; and the victory was his who first carried the torch lighted to the end of the race. To this successive delivering of the torch we find many allusions in ancient writers, particularly the poets.