accomplish in the entire day, but the distance he could bear to be galloped once a day. From the account which Herodotus gives of the post-route between Sardis and Susa, we may gather that the Persians fixed this distance at about fourteen miles."—George Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, London, 1871, vol. iii. pp. 426-7.
Roman Empire.
"The advantage of receiving the earliest intelligence, and of conveying their orders with celerity, induced the Emperors to establish throughout their extensive dominions the regular institution of posts. Houses were everywhere erected at the distance only of five or six miles; each of them was constantly provided with forty horses, and, by the help of these relays, it was easy to travel an hundred miles in a day along the Roman roads. The use of the posts was allowed to those who claimed it by an Imperial mandate; but though originally intended for the public service, it was sometimes indulged to the business or conveniency of private citizens (Pliny, though a favourite and a minister, made an apology for granting post-horses to his wife on the most urgent business)."—Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London, ed. 1896, vol. i. p. 50.
Arabia.
"The first traces of the Arabian postal arrangements date from about fifty years after the death of Mahomed. Calif Mdowija, who died in 679, is regarded as the founder of the Arabian posts. Kodama, a native of Bagdad, who died in 959, gives an account of the service in his work called The Book of Taxes. There were 930 postal stations on the six great highroads starting from Bagdad. At some stations there were relays of horses, but in Syria and Arabia the messengers rode on camels; and in Persia the letters were conveyed from station to station by messengers on foot. The postal service under the Califs was an independent branch of the administration, and in addition to the conveyance of despatches and travellers was added the supervision of all the authorities in outlying possessions. Of the two classes of superior postal officers, the nowaqquium was the postmaster who received the postal packets and letters and attended to their conveyance, whereas the farwaneqqyun was a kind of chief postmaster at the capital of a province, who controlled the work of the postmasters and made his own report on all the civil and military authorities to
the central office in Bagdad. These reports were so valuable that Calif Abu Djafar Manssur is credited with the statement: 'My throne rests on four pillars, and my power on four men—a blameless kazi (judge), an energetic chief of police, an honest minister of finance, and a faithful postmaster who gives me reliable information on everything.' It has been said that the Roman cursus publicus, the frumentarii, the agentes in rebus, and the curiosi served a similar purpose, but the Arabian arrangement was more systematic. In the Post Office of the Califs the letters and packets posted, as well as those received from other places, were entered in special lists, where their number and address had to be stated. This practice was observed in India till a few years ago, and it will thus be seen that the letter bill of the modern posts was in use already among the Egyptians in 270 b.c., and also among the Arabs. From the information that has been preserved, it is inferred that the Arabian posts did, to a certain extent, transmit private letters, but this was not done officially, and the couriers and postmasters conveyed such correspondence, along with the official despatches, on their own account."—I. G. J. Hamilton, Outline of Postal History, Calcutta, 1910, p. 4.
Mexico.
"Communication was maintained with the remotest parts of the country by means of couriers. Post-houses were established on the great roads, about two leagues distant from each other. The courier, bearing his despatches in the form of a hieroglyphical painting, ran with them to the first station, where they were taken by another messenger and carried forward to the next; and so on till they reached the capital. These couriers, trained from childhood, travelled with incredible swiftness—not four or five leagues an hour, as an old chronicler would make us believe, but with such speed that despatches were carried from one to two hundred miles a day. Fresh fish was frequently served at Montezuma's table in twenty-four hours from the time it had been taken in the Gulf of Mexico, two hundred miles from the capital. In this way intelligence of the movements of the royal armies was rapidly brought to Court; and the dress of the courier, denoting by its colour the nature of his tidings, spread joy or consternation in the towns through which he passed."—W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, London, 1903, pp. 20, 21.
A similar system existed in Peru (W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru, Philadelphia, 1874, vol. i. p. 69).