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22. On riding ‘in post’

[From the early sixteenth century, generals and statesmen ‘laid posts’ (at first temporary ones but later permanent ones) along ‘post-routes’. At each post-stage horses were kept and it was the duty of the post-master or courier to ride at all speed to the next post with the dispatches (or ‘post’). ‘To ride in post’ meant to ride literally as such a postman or else at express speed as a sport, normally in relay-races. It was this sport which Montaigne used to be good at. The military, political and financial advantages of rapid communication also led to the reintroduction of carrier-pigeons into Europe: Rabelais used this fact in his Sciomachie of 1549 to explain otherwise miraculously rapid spreadings of news, especially between bankers. By Montaigne’s time they were more usual but still a source of curiosity.]

[B] I have not been one of the weakest at this sport, which is suited to men of my stocky short build; but I am: giving up such business: it makes too great an assay of our strength to keep it up for long.

[A] I was reading just now that King Cyrus, in order to facilitate the reception of news from all parts of his very wide Empire, found out how far horses could get in a day at one stretch, and then at such distances stationed men with responsibility for holding horses in readiness to furnish to those who were travelling to see him.1 [C] Some maintain that the speed of such journeys is that of cranes in flight.

[A] Caesar said that when Lucius Vibulus Rufus was hurrying to bring a warning to Pompey, he remained night and day on the road, changing horses so as to travel more swiftly. And according to Suetonius, Caesar himself covered a hundred miles a day in a hired chariot. But he was a mad courier! For whenever rivers cut across his road he swam across them, [C] turning off neither left nor right to search for a bridge or a ford. [A] When Tiberius Nero went to see his brother Drusus who was ill in Germany, he covered two hundred miles in twenty-four hours in three chariots.

[C] Livy says that during the war which the Romans fought against King Antiochus, Titus Sempronius Gracchus ‘per dispositos equos prope incredibili celeritate ab Amphissa tertio die Pellam pervenit’ [using relays of horses travelled on the third day with almost unbelievable speed from Amphissa to Pella]. And if you look at the context it is clear that it refers to permanent posts, not ones newly established for that ride.2

[B] Even faster was Caecinus’ new way of sending news to those at home: he took swallows with him which he released to fly back to their nests whenever he wished to send his news home, staining them with the coloured mark appropriate to his message according to a code which he had agreed on with his family.

In the Roman theatres the paterfamilias kept pigeons in the breast of his toga and attached messages to them whenever he wished to ask those at home to do something for him; they were moreover trained to bring back the answers. Decimus Brutus made use of them when under siege at Mutina; others have done so elsewhere.3

In Peru the couriers rode on men who bore them in litters on their shoulders with such agility that the first porters relayed their burden to the next team at the run without missing a step.4

[C] I have been given to understand that the Wallachians, the couriers of the Grand Seigneur, make the fastest speeds of all, since they have the right to force anyone whom they meet travelling on their road to dismount and to exchange his horse for their exhausted one, and also because they wear a tight broad band round their waists to stop them from tiring,5 [95] as quite a few others do. I have found no relief in this method.