£96 
Of Telegraphic Communication . 
still greater distance : and by this help the necessary aids 
may be obtained in time. 
Formerly, this method of giving notice was of very 
little advantage, because of its too great simplicity ; for, 
in order to the making use of it, it was necessary that 
certain signals should be agreed upon ; and as events 
are infinitely various, it was impossible to communicate 
the greatest part of them by this method. As for instance, 
not to depart from the present history,. it was very easy 
to make known, at a distance, that a fleet was arrived at 
Orsea, at Peparethos, or at Chalcis, because the parties 
whom it concerned had foreseen this, and accordingly 
had agreed upon such signals as might denote it : but an 
unexpected insurrection, a treason, an horrid murder 
committed in a city, and such like accidents as happen 
but too often, and which cannot be foreseen ; this kind of 
events, which require immediate consideration and re- 
medy, cannot be signified by a beacon ; for' it is not pos- 
sible to agree upon a signal for such events as it is im- 
possible to foresee. 
iEneas, * who wfbte a treatise on the duties of a gene- 
ral, endeavoured to complete what was wanting on this 
occasion ; but he was far from succeeding so well as 
could have been wished, or as he himself had proposed, 
of which the reader may now judge. 
Those, says he, who would give signals to one ano- 
ther, upon affairs of importance, must first prepare two 
vessels of earth, exactly equal in breadth and depth ; and 
they need be but four feet and an half deep, and 0 a foot 
* iEneas was cotemporary with Aristotle. He wrote a treatise on the art of 
war. Cineas, one of Pyrrhus’s counsellors, made an abridgment of it. Pyrrhus 
also wrote on the same subject. -Elian. Tact. cap. 1. Cicero mentions the two 
last in one of his epistles. “ Summura me ducem liters tuze reddiderunt. Plane 
nesciebam te tarn peritum esse rei militaris. Pyrrhi te libros et Cinese video 
lectitasse.” Lib. ix. Epist. 25. ad Papir. Poutam, 
