Decoration of hats of postal couriers of ancient Rome. Mail of ancient Rome. Intaglios as stamps

22.12.2015

The history of courier mail delivery begins in ancient times. Then the person involved in delivery was called a messenger, messenger, messenger. He delivered important mail and used horses for quick delivery. And before that, couriers even moved on foot. Their work was associated with numerous difficulties and risks. During his service, the courier even managed to visit foreign lands.

Courier service in Rus'

The courier service as an organized state service appeared in the tenth century. Princely messengers in different cities and villages were provided with horses and carts. That is why the courier service was called “povoz”. The documents delivered by the messenger looked like an envelope or a rolled scroll, sealed with sealing wax with the prince's seal. Since the thirteenth century, the yam chase was used to send messages. It existed until the mid-nineteenth century. To organize the work of the Yamskaya chase, the state service Yamskaya Prikaz was created. Since that time, there has been active development of the postal system. Very quickly routes were established to neighboring states, and later to other cities significant for economic and political relations.

The most ancient information about mail dates back to Assyria and Babylon. The Assyrians back in the 3rd millennium BC. used what can be called the predecessor of the envelope. After firing the tablet with the text of the letter, it was covered with a layer of clay on which the recipient’s address was written. Then the tablets were burned again. As a result of the release of water vapor during repeated firing, the letter-plate and the envelope-plate did not become a single piece. The envelope was broken and the letter was read. Two such letters reached contemporaries - together with envelopes they are kept in the Louvre.

4000 YEARS AGO UNKNOWN EGYPTIAN ARTIST ON ONE OF THE WALLS from the burial cave of Pharaoh Numhoten, he painted a warrior holding a scroll in one hand and an open letter in the other hand, which he hands to his superior. This is how material evidence of the existence of mail in those distant times has reached us. We have also received information about postal messages from other ancient peoples. A written message could be passed from one messenger to another without fear of the message being distorted. Carrier pigeons were also used to transport letters.

During the time of Cyrus and Darius in Persia (558-486 BC), postal communication was excellent. At the Persian postal stations, messengers and saddled horses were constantly ready. Mail was passed by messengers in a relay race from one to another.

The ancient Roman post office was also famous, playing a huge role in the management of the vast Roman Empire. In the most important centers of the empire, special stations were maintained, equipped with horse couriers. The Romans used to say Statio posita in… (“The station is located in…”). According to experts, it was from the abbreviation of these words that the word mail (Posta) appeared.

Documented information about the existence of mail in China dates back to ancient times. China's state postal service already existed during the Zhou Dynasty (1027-249 BC). She had messengers on foot and on horseback. The emperors of the Tang dynasty (618-907 BC) already appointed postmaster generals.

In the Arab Caliphate by 750, the entire state was covered with a network of roads along which messengers plied - on foot and on horseback, camels and mules. They delivered government and private mail. The great importance of the state's postal service is evidenced by the famous statement of Caliph Mansur, who founded Baghdad (762). “My throne rests on four pillars, and my power rests on four people: an impeccable qadi (judge), an energetic chief of police, an active minister of finance and a wise postmaster who informs me of everything.”

IN GREECE THE POSTAL SYSTEM WAS QUITE WELL SETUP IN THE VIEW land and sea postal communications, but it could not develop significantly due to the many city-states warring among themselves. Governments, as a rule, had at their disposal foot messengers to convey messages. They were called hemerodromes. The runners covered a distance of 55 stadia (about 10 km) in an hour and 400-500 stadia in one flight.

The most famous of these couriers was Philippides, who, according to Plutarch, in 490 BC. brought news of the victory in the Battle of Marathon to Athens and died of exhaustion. This run was the first marathon in history. Philippides conveyed only an oral message. Already in ancient times, mounted messengers were sent to convey particularly urgent messages. As Diodorus writes, one of the military leaders of Alexander the Great kept messengers - camel riders - at his headquarters.

The Inca states in Peru and the Aztecs in Mexico had regular mail before 1500. The Incan and Aztec mail used only foot messengers. The fact is that horses were brought to South America by European conquerors only in the 16th century. The distance between neighboring stations did not exceed three kilometers. Therefore, it was quickly overcome by the messenger. The peculiarity of the Inca and Aztec mail was that in addition to mail, messengers had to deliver fresh fish to the emperor's table. Fish was delivered from the coast to the capital within 48 hours (500 km). Rate the speed of delivery. Modern mail is hardly faster, although it has cars, trains, and planes at its disposal. During the heyday of the Mayan culture, there was also a developed messenger service, but little is known about it.

Both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, mail served only rulers and high officials. Other segments of the population did not use mail.

For ordinary people and international relations

Meanwhile, ordinary people also wanted to use mail for their own purposes. At first, their messages were transmitted privately through merchants, wandering monks and university mail messengers. The rapid development of crafts and trade in feudal Europe contributed to the organization of regular postal exchange between cities.

THERE ARE DOCUMENTS CONFIRMING THE PRESENCE OF CITY MESSENGERS already in the 14th century. The most famous is the postal service of the Hanseatic League. Hansa is a trade and political union of North German cities in the 14th-17th centuries. With the entry into the Hanseatic League of the Rhine, the first postal network arose, which, bypassing the borders of cities and small principalities, delivered mail throughout Germany. Further, through Nuremberg, mail went to Italy and Venice, and through Leipzig - to Prague, Vienna and other cities. This is how international mail arose.

The next notable achievement is the postal service of the noble family of Thurn and Taxis. The first mention of the Thurn und Taxis post dates back to 1451, when Roger Taxis established a courier line through the Tyrol and Steyermark. Further, the descendants of the Taxis house make a rapid career in the postal department.

In 1501, Franz Taxis became postmaster general of the Netherlands. Until the beginning of the 16th century. The Taxis postal service was built on the basis of feudal privileges to the Taxis house. The postal business became profitable, and Taxis began to have competitors. First of all, this is the city post office. In 1615, another Taxis-Lamoral became imperial postmaster general. By imperial decree, this position was declared lifelong and hereditary for the Taxis family. By the way, the Taxis added the prefix “Turn” to their surname in 1650, receiving it as a grant from the king. Lamoral Taxis, the new postmaster general, was forced to ask the emperor to issue a new decree against additional posts and additional lines served by messengers. All this marked the beginning of the struggle between the Thurn and Taxis post office and its competitors, which lasted for centuries. Taxis Post survived and won. Accuracy, speed and honesty - this was the motto of the Thurn and Taxis post office, which was strictly observed in practice. For the first time, merchants and bankers, ordinary people and government officials could be sure that letters, documents, money would quickly reach the addressee, and they would soon receive an answer.

In 1850, Thurn and Taxis joined the German-Austrian alliance. By that time, postage stamps had already been issued in many countries. The rules of the German-Austrian Postal Union required its members to issue postage stamps. That is why on January 1, 1852 the first Thurn and Taxis postage stamps were issued. In total, Thurn and Taxis issued 54 postage stamps. This post office also issued stamped envelopes. The postal history of Thurn and Taxis only ends in 1867, when Prussia acquired the rights to all postal facilities of the house of Thurn and Taxis.

Postman is a dangerous profession

In the seventeenth century. Sweden had become a great power and there was a need for regular communication with its possessions across the Baltic Sea. The first postmen were royal couriers. The correspondence was then delivered by so-called postal peasants. They lived near the main roads, were exempt from various kinds of duties, for example, military, but were obliged to transport state mail.

USUALLY THEY SENT A WORKER, WHO RUNNED BLOCKING A HORN, 20-30 kilometers to a neighbor. Having handed over his mail and receiving another in exchange, he went home. If the letters were late, he faced punishment. Correspondence was also delivered by sea, for example, by boat from Sweden to the Åland Islands and further to Finland and St. Petersburg. The "postal peasants" worked all year round, regardless of the weather. The crossing was especially dangerous in the spring and autumn, when they either dragged the boat across the ice, then set the sails, or took up the oars. Many people died during the storm.

Russian mail is one of the oldest in Europe. The first mention of it in chronicles dates back to the 10th century. In Kievan Rus there was a duty of the population called "cart". This duty consisted of the need to provide horses for the prince's messengers and his servants.

However, a clear postal service in Russia appeared only under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The organizer of the “correct” postal race in Russia was the head of the then Russian government, boyar Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin (1605-1681). He is also the initiator of the creation of foreign mail in Russia (postal line Moscow - Vilna).

Since 1677, an international postal service began to operate in Russia. The first lines of public mail went beyond the borders of the Russian state to “German” countries - that’s what Russian people called the lands where they spoke incomprehensible “dumb” languages. In addition to international mail, the German Post also delivered merchant letters and government papers throughout Russia. Thanks to the “German Post,” the postal service established correspondence exchange points and introduced rules to ensure regular mail delivery.

The prototype of the mailbox we are used to is the Florentine vestibules - public mailboxes that were installed near the walls of churches and cathedrals; the first mailbox was installed in the 17th century. in France.

Based on materials livejournal prepared by Zara GEVORGYAN

Interestingly, the terminology of the hospitality industry owes a lot to the Romans. And here they also contributed to the development of many civilizations. The word hospitality comes from the Latin hospitium. The same root words are host (owner), hospice (shelter), hotel (hotel, hotel). Hospitalists - this is what people were called in antiquity, together with their family, who received guests in their home. With the hosts, the foreign state entered into an alliance of mutual assistance, friendship and protection.

After the introduction of regular state postal service (during the time of Emperor Octavian from 63 BC), state inns also appeared. The state established courtyards in cities and on the main roads along which couriers and civil servants traveled from Rome all the way to Asia Minor or to Gaul Batalova L.V. From the history of tourism development, Sat. scientific articles. Vol. Izhevsk, 1999, - 148 pp.

State inns were created, located at a distance of one day's ride on horseback from each other. As new territories were conquered and the Roman Empire expanded, its customs, economic and organizational structures also spread to new provinces and conquered countries. The fact of the special interest of the state testifies to how seriously the reliability of an institution that provided travelers with shelter, food and overnight accommodation was considered in ancient times. Thus, the code of Roman laws provided for the responsibility of such an establishment for the guest’s belongings. It was then that the opportunity arose to safely spend the night in the inn. Even today, the legislation of a number of states regulates this issue, based on the above provisions of Roman civil law. After all, protecting guests in all countries is one of the main goals of the hotel business.

Merchants, merchants and other common people could never be accommodated next to government officials and government messengers. This circumstance affected the quality of the inns. Those in which representatives of the aristocracy and government officials stayed were built according to all the rules of architectural art and offered a wide range of services for those times. Subsequently, Marco Polo said that at such inns “it is not shameful for a king to stop.” Polo Marco. Book of Marco Polo. M.: Geographgiz, 1956..

Taverns and inns, designed to serve lower-class citizens, offered minimal conditions for overnight accommodation and recreation. For example, very often travelers simply slept on straw, and in order not to freeze in the cold season, they snuggled up to the warm side of their horse. There was no talk of any additional comfort. The organization of the hotel business in the Roman Empire was based on a certain classification of hotels developed by the state authorities. There were two types of hotels: only for patricians (mansiones), the other for plebeians (stabularia).

The Roman hotel was a certain complex of premises with a fairly wide functional purpose: these were not only rooms for accommodating travelers, but also warehouses, stables, shops, workshops, etc. Hotels, as a rule, were built of stone and had the necessary list of services. In winter they were heated. Some hotels served only officials with special documents issued by government authorities. This tradition has been preserved to this day in the form of special rooms for VIPs at airports, train stations and other places where tourists stay.

With the improvement of the functioning of postal services in the second half of the 4th century, when for a long time it combined the needs for transport and sending news, visiting yards were established along the roads. They were called "mancio" and "stazio". The first of these terms meant a visiting courtyard, in which there were conditions for accommodating the imperial retinue, the second - a traffic police post.

Later, the leveling of these inns took place. Between the mansio and stazio there were inns of lesser importance, or mutacio (places where the horse team changes), in which the most urgent needs of travelers could be satisfied: something to eat, to spend the night, to replace mounts or pack animals.

The distance between two mansios depended on the nature of the terrain, but on average it was 40-55 km. Between two mansios there could be one or two smaller visiting yards, and this depended not only on the area, but also on its population.

Such inns differed from each other in the volume and quality of their services, ranging from a praetorium, in which the imperial retinue could be received, to modest institutions. A fully equipped inn could offer almost everything a traveler needed. Here one could eat, spend the night, change riding animals (in the stables of large visiting yards there were up to forty horses and mules), carts, drivers, find servants, people who returned draft animals to the previous station, veterinarians, coachmen and wheelwrights repairing damaged carriages Kotler F., Bowen J., Makens J. Marketing. Hospitality and tourism /Trans. from English - M.: UNITY, 1998..

Inns and visiting yards and postal stations were not built specifically for these purposes; they served not only the following travelers, although they certainly had priority in service. The post office, despite the fact that it served mainly the central government, was maintained by local residents. The emperors simply selected pre-existing inns of the quality required for the service and included them in the system, requiring free overnight accommodation for each diploma holder.

Only in remote areas, such as on passes or on secluded roads, was the imperial power forced to build everything from the very foundation. In such places, all travelers, private individuals, as well as representatives of official authorities were accepted for an overnight stay in order to compensate for expenses. Carts, animals, drivers, grooms - everyone was recruited for service there from the local surroundings, if possible. From that time on, people began to appear who worked in inns. Inns, especially on the main roads, were built by the Romans with skill and were quite comfortable for their time.

Over time, the maintenance of a visiting yard became burdensome for its manager, since with the development of society and civilization, the demands on it constantly increased. They were presented not only by those who had the right to use the visiting yard by law, but also by those officials without conscience who arbitrarily confiscated horses and carriages or brazenly brought with them to the visiting yards people who did not have the right to free service. Special inspectors (curiosi, kursus, publici) checked the legality of using diplomas after their expiration date, traveling on a route other than the one that the person presenting the document should have followed, and using a different type of mount than those used by those passing through.

Emperors, one after another, issued strict laws to stop abuses and keep service at visiting courts at an appropriate level.

There were regulations regarding the number of carts and animals that could be used by officials, determining the maximum permitted load, the number of drivers, travel routes, the weight of saddles and packs, even the size and type of whips. One injunction stated that “no one will reward any driver, charioteer or veterinarian serving in a public establishment, because they receive food and clothing that is enough for them.” In other words, it was forbidden to give “tips” to these employees. Instructions not to give them were rarely carried out, and all indications are that these orders were not carried out properly.

Each person using the post office had to know exactly where the various inns were located. Available to travelers were itinerariums, which listed visiting yards along a given road and the distances between them.

There were also conventional maps, from which one could find out not only where the inn was located, but also what they could offer there. A copy of one such map, made in the Middle Ages, the so-called Peitinger table, reached the Renaissance period. It was drawn on a long sheet of parchment, 33 cm wide and 6.7 cm long. It is extremely inaccurate in cartographical terms, but represents the roads of the entire Roman Empire in a way that can be easily read. It contains information similar to that which can be found on a modern automobile map: lines indicating roads, names of cities and large villages and other places where you can stop; numbers indicating the distances between them in Roman miles. It is interesting to note that many of the names have small colored drawings - symbols. They served the same purpose as the surprisingly similar symbols in modern guidebooks. They had to indicate at first glance what the possibilities were for spending the next night while following this road Shapoval G.D. History of tourism. Minsk, IP, "Enoperspective" - ​​1999, - 216 p.

The names, without accompanying drawings, denoted the simplest guest house, which could provide little more than water, a roof over one's head, food and a fresh change of mounts.

For example, a traveler, leaving Rome along the Aurelian Way, leading north along the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, could learn from the map that the first suitable place to stay would be Alsium, eighteen Roman miles from the capital, with a minimum of amenities (there was no picture at the name), from there it was ten miles to Pyrgi with a minimum of amenities, then it was six miles to Punic, where there were also few amenities, but from there it was a stone's throw to Aqua Apollinaris with a first-rate hotel (indicated by a quadrangular building), from there it was four miles to Aqua Tauri with the same amenities, as in Aquas of Apollinaris, etc.

Government messengers hurried from station to station at an average speed of five miles per hour, or fifty Roman miles during a normal day's travel. Thus, news from Rome reached Brundisium in seven days, to Byzantium - about 25 days, to Antioch - about 40 days, to Alexandria - about 55 days. In exceptional cases, moving day and night, messengers could triple this speed. When in 69 AD. e. in Moguntiak above the Rhine (now Mainz, Germany) the legions rebelled, news of this reached Rome within 8-9 days. The messenger in such cases covered an average of 150 Roman miles per day. The traveler, who was given government assignments, counted on the conveniences provided by the public post and had few worries. He presented his diploma at a nearby inn and received the appropriate means of transportation, looked at his list of stations or a map for appropriate stopping places along his route, ate there, spent the night, changed teams and crews until he arrived at his destination. Officially, persons traveling privately were not allowed to use the mail, but human nature being what it is, exceptions were inevitable.

Those who traveled privately and could not legally or illegally use government mail had the opportunity to find overnight accommodation in visiting inns and shelters, since in many provinces they were the only, and in some areas, the best inns. Moreover, if he did not travel in a carriage with his own team, he could hire one, which was quite accessible to someone who was going to travel not on foot, but with the help of vehicles. If, along the open road, he reached the postal station just after the official party, which had requisitioned everything that the station had at its disposal, he had no choice but to wait. In any case, he moved slower than the government messenger.

Already in the 3rd century. BC. The builders of Rome erected tall apartment buildings - insula - to accommodate both the city's growing population and visitors. These were three-, four-, and sometimes five-story buildings with a wooden frame. In Rome, the insulae were inhabited by both the poor and the middle class of townspeople; Rich people lived in mansions. In such a multi-storey building, individual rooms or entire floors were rented out. In the Roman port of Ostia, where the lack of space was especially acute, everyone lived in multi-story insulae (the remains of a number of not only well-appointed insulae, but also decorated with frescoes and reliefs, have survived). In other cities where there was enough space for construction (such as Pompeii), the insula was not erected at all, houses with a garden or mansions were built. Hundreds of cities in Rome had aqueducts - water pipes that supplied water to the city. As a rule, aqueducts were monumental structures on arched supports. The longest aqueduct - 132 km - was built under Emperor Hadrian in Carthage. At the same time, houses appeared - lupanaria (brothels) Shapoval G.D. History of tourism. Minsk, IP, "Enoperspective" - ​​1999, - 216 p..

Some wealthy landowners also built inns on the borders of their properties. They were usually run by slaves who specialized in housekeeping. Those inns and taverns that were located closer to the cities were more often visited by wealthy citizens, and therefore they were maintained by freedmen or retired gladiators who decided to invest their savings in the “restaurant business.” Innkeepers in those days were deprived of many civil rights, including the right to serve in the army, bring cases against someone in court, take an oath, and act as guardians of other people's children. In other words, the moral standards of any person involved in this business were automatically called into question.

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Postal history

Postal history: how postal services appeared

Even in ancient times, people felt the need to receive various news from other countries or populated areas. Oral or written news was brought to the city by messengers. But the more perfect human civilization became, the more changes occurred in the methods and forms of postal communication.

It was through the use of voice to convey information that articulate speech arose. But, the disadvantage of this method of transmitting news was that the human voice is heard only at a short distance. As a result of this, hollow tree trunks and drums were used to amplify the voice, notifying the people of the approach of a messenger. At first, messengers covered various distances on foot, and later horse-mounted messengers appeared. In ancient times, state postal communication was established, which consisted of written messages delivered by messengers according to the relay race principle.

The beginning of the emergence of postal communication is the birth of writing. Since the emergence of slave-holding countries, there has been a need for rulers to be aware of everything that is happening in their country. THEN postal communication became streamlined. The first institutions of such postal service appeared in ancient times. At first, these institutions were exclusively military in nature. Postal communications were considered the most developed in Egypt; they can be considered the predecessor of modern mail.

The mail of Ancient Egypt consisted of numerous messengers supplying the pharaohs with information. Messengers needed to cover long distances in the shortest possible time, so carrier pigeons were also used as postmen. Such a postal system gradually began to appear in other countries.

In Ancient Rome, only the rich could afford their own messengers. The state post office was founded by Julius Caesar. It was subordinated directly to the emperor and was not intended for private use. On land, postal transportation was carried out with the help of horses, and by sea they were transported on ships. In large centers there were special stations that served as shelter for horsemen during the long journey. Here, prepared horses and carts awaited them in case of such need. Between every two such stations there were smaller ones. The phrase used in those days was “Statio posita in...” which meant “a station located at...”. It is from the word “posita” that the word “post” comes from.

With the development of trade and crafts, interest in the transmission of messages increased, sending letters. This contributed to the emergence of various messenger services and posts that served artisans and merchants. Merchant mail was located in large trading houses that had their own couriers.

In the 19th century, with the advent of railways and shipping, and in the 20th century also the airplane, the speed of mail delivery increased significantly. The post office acquired national significance and began to serve all citizens. The railway network developed rapidly and the number of trains increased daily, and the number of post offices increased accordingly. Mail has become more improved, cheap postal rates have appeared, as well as a number of new trade operations and postal services.

Even when the telephone, telegraph and radio were invented in 1876, mail did not lose its important role as a means of mass communication.

| POSTAL SERVICES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

Although the word "mail" appeared in ancient Rome only at the turn of our era, for convenience it is customary to call various communication services that existed earlier. The same applies to terms such as “postmaster”, “sending correspondence” and others.

Post office in the land of the pyramids. It is known that already under the pharaohs of the IV dynasty (2900 - 2700 BC) there was a post office in Egypt with foot (fast) and horse-drawn messengers plying along military roads to Libya, Abyssinia, and Arabia. The local population was obliged to provide accommodation for the messengers. The pharaohs, in the form of special privileges, exempted individual cities from this duty. Information about this is found in ancient papyri. For example, Pharaoh Piopi (Lepi) II from the VI dynasty, which ruled the Old Kingdom in 2500 - 2400. BC e., granted benefits to the cities of Koptu and Dashur: “My Majesty has commanded that for the sake of King Sneferu this city should be freed from all kinds of work and duties assigned in favor of the royal house and court, ... so that all tenants of this city will be free from housing couriers going by water or land, up or down, for eternity..."

The service of royal messengers was difficult and dangerous. According to the customs of that time, a messenger who brought bad news could be executed by an angry ruler. A story about the dangers and hardships of such service was preserved in the diary of a scientist dating back to the XII Dynasty (2000 - 1788 BC): “When a messenger goes to a foreign country, he bequeaths his property to his children for fear of lions and Asians . And if he returned to Egypt, as soon as he reached the garden, as soon as he reached his house in the evening, how soon he must get ready for the journey again." The author bequeaths to his son: “Become whoever you want, but not a messenger.”

Letters were most often written on papyrus, rolled into a tube, tied with twine, and sealed with a clay seal.

Egyptian fellahs in Tel el-Amarna, where Akheta-ton, the capital of the Egyptian king Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton) (1419 - 1400 BC), was located in ancient times, found his archive of foreign affairs in 1887. Several hundred clay tablets written in Babylonian cuneiform contained correspondence between the pharaoh and the kings of the Babylonian, Hittite, Mitanni and Assyrian states, as well as reports to the Egyptian king from the princes of the Syrian and Phoenician cities subordinate to him.

20 years later, in 1906, not far from Ankara, near the village of Boğazköy, the expedition of Professor G. Winkler excavated the Hittite capital Hattusas and found another huge archive (about 15 thousand clay tablets). Among various documents, many letters in Hittite, Akkadian and other languages ​​were kept here. The letters dated mainly from the 14th to 13th centuries. BC e.

Among them was found the famous letter from the widow of the early deceased Pharaoh Tutankhamun to the Hittite king Suppilulium. “My husband is dead, I don’t have a son,” she wrote. “And you, they say, have many sons. If you give me one of them, he will be my husband. Why should I, a slave or something, take my own as a husband?” and honor him?"

On the roads of the huge Achamenid kingdom. The most advanced postal system for its time began to be created by the Persian king Cyrus II the Great (? -530 BC); it reached its highest level under Darius I (522 - 486 BC). In order to more firmly keep numerous peoples in subjection over a vast territory, it was necessary to have a powerful and developed network of roads. Persian roads not only had much in common with Assyrian military roads, but were superior to them; they can be called the predecessors of Roman roads. One of the main roads, the royal one, went from Sardis on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor through Armenia and Assyria to the south of Mesopotamia to Susa. Two other roads branched off from it: one to Tire and Sidon, the other to the borders of Bactria and India. There were many other roads.

The Greek historians Herodotus (484 -425 BC) and Xenophon (430 - 355 BC) admired the condition of the roads and the clarity of the organization of the courier service. Herodotus, who traveled in the middle of the 5th century. BC e. on the Persian state, noted that the roads gave him the opportunity to get to know the country in detail. Along the entire length of the royal road there were royal hotels with beautiful living quarters. Troops were stationed at various points to ensure the safety of mail, travelers, and merchants with goods. To cover the route from Sardis to Susa (about 2,300 kilometers), the traveler, according to Herodotus, needed about 90 days.

The royal mail was delivered much faster. The distance of 20 kilometers between the hotel stations was divided into parasangs (five kilometers), at the end of which there were pickets of couriers, always ready to hit the road. The mail was transmitted according to the principle of a relay race: the rider, having received the mail, raced at full speed to the neighboring picket, passed the package to another, who raced further. Therefore, the state mail covered the enormous distance from end to end of the royal road in six to eight days, passing 111 stations.

The Greeks called this post office "angareion", and the messengers called it "angara". “The Persians were so skillful in organizing the transmission of news,” writes Herodotus, “that no one in the world can surpass their messengers... Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor darkness will delay the messengers of King Darius, will not prevent them from rushing at the highest speed the section of the route allocated to him... Nothing in the world is carried out as quickly as orders delivered by his couriers... " Herodotus is echoed by Xenophon, who writes about the messengers of Cyrus the Younger (? - 401 BC): “No one in the world can compete with them in speed, pigeons and cranes can barely keep up with them.”

The Persians were the first to introduce a regularly operating postal service, which is now commonly called military fieldhowl mail. Behind the army on its conquest was a special service that maintained postal communications with the capital of the state. There is information that particularly important and urgent military news and orders were transmitted from picket to picket by fire signals.

Under the Hellas sky. The peculiarities of the political life of ancient Greece determined the uniqueness of its postal communications. Numerous small states and city-states did not maintain regular postal communication among themselves - they simply did not need it. If there was a need to convey important news (for example, military news), then they used sea vessels (to communicate with the islands and numerous colonies along the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas) or hemerodromes - “day messengers” (if necessary, they fled at night). Grammatophores (“letter carriers”) were used to transmit news over short distances. The service of both was considered responsible and honorable. Hardy and fast runners were selected for it, often Olympians - winners of the Olympic Games.

History has preserved information about Lasthenes, a hemerodrome from Thebes, who overtook fleet-footed horses over long distances. His friend Efhid accomplished a feat by sacrificing his life, like the famous marathon messenger. Efhid ran more than 200 kilometers to deliver the sacred fire from the Delphic Temple when the sacred fire in the temple on the Acropolis of Athens went out due to the oversight of the priestess. Efkhid ran so fast that, returning to Athens, he died from overwork. Another famous messenger, Philip, ran 225 kilometers in 24 hours to convey to the Lacedaemonians the Athenians' request for military assistance against the invading Persians.

In ancient Rome. In the vast expanses of the ancient Roman state and the countries conquered by Rome, from the Middle East to Britain, an extensive communication system operating according to clear regulations was created. Postal service existed even during the times of the Republic, but was streamlined by Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC), was improved during the reign of Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), and reached its peak under the emperors Nerva , Trajan, Hadrian (96 - 138 AD). Individual routes with a total length of about 100,000 kilometers were gradually combined into a single system. The postal service was called "cursus publis" - public mail. To be fair, we note that this name did not entirely correspond to the truth: only members of the imperial family, patricians, officials, and legionnaires could use the mail. But over time, for a certain fee, the post office began to serve wider sections of Roman free citizens. At a distance of one day's travel, there were the main postal stations - mansios, where one could change the cart, the driver, eat and spend the night. Between two mansios there were usually six to eight intermediate stations - mutacios, where horses were changed if necessary. Mail was delivered by both foot ambassadors (cursorius) and mounted messengers (veredarii). In addition to letters, passengers and cargo were transported. For this, strictly defined types of carts were used (Fig. 14, A)- from light two-wheeled ones, drawn by horses, to heavy four-wheeled ones, which were harnessed by 8-10 horses, mules, donkeys or oxen. Everything was described down to the smallest detail: the types of shipments, the carrying capacity of the carts, the categories of passengers and employees, their contents, etc.

We owe the appearance of the word “mail” to this communication system. The stations did not have special names. If it was necessary to indicate a station, they wrote or said: “the station located at the point N" or "an intermediate station located at a point NN". From the word “posita” - “located” - the word “mail” arose over time, which in the 13th century. included in most European languages. Many researchers believe that the word "mail" in medieval Europe was first used in Italian ("poeste") in 1298 in Marco Polo's famous book "Travels"