The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-17
HOW ROMAN EMPIRE . !. HANDLED ITS MAILS Service Was Confined to the
 Government SLAVES WERE USED Caesar Perfected System to Enable Him to Keep in Close
 Touch With -the
 Provinces
 

From the Philadelphia North American
 One of the greatest civil commissions of antiquity which attracts our atten- tion, incites most of our curiosity and with which we are so Httle acduainteo is the mall systeA of the Romans.
 When the Roman mails were first es- tablished they were 9ety poorly con |ducted, but we know that they exist
 ed in the time of the republic and grew
 rapidly with the great political organi-
 cations and with the construction or
 the military commercial roads; as, for
 instance the Appian Way which led
 southward from Brindisi Cbegun by
 Appius Claudius in the year S11 B. co and the F1aminian Way. which led northward from Rome by the way of
 Rimini to Aquiliea and which was con structed by Flaminius Nepos in the year 221 B. c. It Is certain that the Romans got their idea of the mails from the Creeks. so much so that they adapted the word han gariae, from the Greek word hang arieon; and we are informed by learn ed men that the Greeks in their turn got their ideas on this subject from the Persians. s5sf s.ss ss The Roman mail, or cursus publicus as it. was ecalied, was for a long time used as the exclusive instrument of the government and private persons were obliged to use their slaves as letter carriers Such persons, for Instance, we're used by Cicero to carry his epis- ties to his friend Attcus, then residing in Athens; and it seems that in those times, as in the later times of Rche- lieu, Napoleon and Metternich, 1t was the custom of the government officials to delay and even open the letters or Iprivate persons, if we may believe that same Cicero himself who protested firmly, acusing Antony, his eternal ene- my, of having violated the public faith. Letters were written with the style on the tabe la pugil aris. that is, waxed tablets, or written with ink on parch- ment. s..t
 In thes case of letters that required great secrecy, or those that were of great importance, the slave was com pelled by his master to commit the mes sage to memory; or in other cases the head of the slave was shaved and the communication written with dye on the scalp after which the hair was per
 mitted to grow and the slave sent on his mission.
 u ids SeHcidhS peeh pciieNSu ih"r
 the Roman mails were a private mat
 ter: but the cursus publicus was any
 thing but that, possessing an organiza
 tion that was marvellous. Ii was main
 tained by the prefect of the pr etor
 and intrusted to the directors of the transport (procuratores) whose duty 1t was to watch the special function
 aries (agents in rebus)
 Julius Caesar, who desired to com- municate more rapidly and with great CT regularity with the provinces, es- pecally Gaul, divided the malls into two divisions-fast and slow. The fast mail was carried by messengers drawn
 by the neetest horses which were
 changed at stations (stationes) placed
 at convenient points along the mili-
 tary roads. These last named stations
 were situated about 20 miles apart and
 had in constant readiness about 20