30& Of Telegraphic Communication . 
city should be taken, he would give notice of the victory 
by tires kindled for that purpose. He kept his word, as 
appears from the tragedy of JEsehilus, which takes its 
name from that prince : where the she- sentinel, appointed 
to watch this signal, declares she had spent many tedi- 
ous nights in that uncomfortable post. 
We also find* by the writings of Julius Caesar, that 
he himself used the same method. 
Caesar gives us an account of another method in use 
amongst the Gauls. Whenever any extraordinary event 
happened in their country, or they stood in need of im- 
mediate succour, they gave notice to one another by re- 
peated shouts, which were catched from place to place ; 
so that the massacre of the Homans in Orleans, at sun- 
rise, was known by eight or nine o’clock in the evening 
at Auvergne, 40 leagues from the other city. 
f We are told of a much shorter method. It is preten- 
ded that the king of Persia, when he carried the war into 
Greece, had posted a kind of sentinels at proper distan- 
ces, who communicated to one another, by their voices, 
such news as it was necessary to transmit to a great dis- 
tance ; and that advice could be communicated from 
Athens to Susa (upwards of 150 leagues) in 48 hours. 
It is also related, that a£ Sidonian proposed to Alex- 
ander the Great an infallible method for establishing a 
speedy and safe communication between all the countries 
subject to him. He required but five days for giving no- 
tice, from so great a distance as between his hereditary 
kingdom, and his most remote conquest in India : but 
the king, looking upon this offer as a mere chimera, re- 
jected it with contempt : however, he soon repented it, 
* Celeriter, ut ante Caesar imperaverat, ignibus significatione facta* ex proxi- 
mis castellis eo concursum est. Cass. Bell. Gall. 1. ii. 
-}- Coel. Rhodig. 1. xviii. c, 8. 
$ Vigenere, in his remarks on the seventh book of Caesar’s wars in Gaul, re- 
lates this without citing directly the author. 
