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KF5JRV > TECH 11.04.16 13:33l 56 Lines 3114 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Sent: 160411/1129Z 1349@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQK1.4.65
The Royal Road Circa 450 BCE – 420 BCE
By the time of Herodotus (circa 484-425 BCE) the Persian Royal Road ran
some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the lower Tigris to
the port of Smyrna (modern Izmir in Turkey) on the Aegean
Sea. A highway built by the Persian king of kings Darius I to
facilitate rapid communication and intelligence gathering throughout
the Persian Empire, the Royal Road was protected by
Persian rulers and later used by the Romans. On this road couriers,
riding in relays, could travel 1,677 miles (2,699 km) in seven or
nine days.
Herodotus wrote:
There is nothing that travels faster, and yet is mortal, than these
couriers; the Persians invented this system, which works as follows.
It is said that there are as many horses and men posted at intervals
as there are days required for the entire journey, so that one horse
and one man are assigned to each day. And neither snow nor rain nor
heat nor dark of night keeps them from completing their appointed
course as swiftly as possible. The first courier passes on the
instructions to the second, the second to the third, and from there
they are transmitted from one to another all the way through, just
as the torchbearing relay is celebrated by the Hellenes in honor of
Hephaistos. The Persians call this horse-posting system the
angareion".
By having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers
may have carried messages the entire distance in 7 to 9 days, though
normal travelers, or an army on foot, might have taken about three
months. This Royal Road linked into many other routes in the overall
trade network known as the Silk Road. Some of these roads,
such as the routes to India and Central Asia, were also protected,
encouraging regular contact between India, Mesopotamia and the
Mediterranean. There are accounts in the Old Testament Book of Esther
of dispatches being sent from Susa to provinces as far out as India
and Cush during the reign of Xerxes (485-465 BCE).
"The postal system during the reign of Xerxes I is also described in the
Biblical Book of Esther. While the historical details of the Book of
Esther are difficult to verify, it would appear that a swift messenger
system connecting all provinces of the Persian Empire was at the
disposal of the ruler. In this case, the system was used not to gather
information about provincial affairs but to send royal decrees
throughout the realm. Thus, when Haman secured the King’s permission
to kill the Jews of the empire, ‘Letters were sent by courier to all
the King’s provinces with orders to destroy, slay and exterminate all
Jews’ (Esther 3: 13). When, through the efforts of Mordecai and Esther,
the King agreed to spare the Jews, ‘Letters were sent by mounted
couriers riding on horses from the royal stable. By these letters
the King granted permission to the Jews in every city to unite and
defend themselves …’ (8: 10); thus ‘the couriers, mounted on their
royal horses, were despatched post-haste at the King’s urgent command;
and the decree was issued also in Susa the capital’ (8: 14).
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