Pass on....”
Anna Swanwick thus renders Æschylus’ “Agamemnon,” London, 1881, p. 13:
“For Priam’s city have the Argives won.
*****
Hephaestos sending forth Idaian fire.
Hither through swift relays of courier flame....”
At page 193 of his “Agamemnon,” London, 1873, E. H. Plumptre refers to the system of posts or messengers which the Persian kings seem to have been first to organize, and which impressed the minds of both the Hebrews (Esther viii. 14) and the Greeks (Herod., viii. 98) by their regular transmission of the king’s edicts or of special news.
What of the passage from the celebrated patriarch Job (xxxviii. 35): “Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, ‘Here we are?’” (original Hebrew, “Behold us”). As has been remarked, this seems prophetic, when taken in connection with the electric telegraph.
The fire beacons are also alluded to by Plutarch in his Life of Quintus Sertorius; and Mardonius prepared fire signals to notify Xerxes, then at Sardis, of the second taking of Athens.
References.—“Le Théâtre des Grecs,” P. Brumoy, Paris, 1820, Vol. II. pp. 124–125; “Penny Encyc.,” Vol. XXIV. p. 145; Knight’s “Mechan. Dict.,” Vol. III. p. 2092.