Ancient and modern: Going postal

The principle of the Royal Mail is far older than our youthful version, which was founded in 1516 by Henry VIII’s ‘Master of the Posts’ and made publicly available in 1635. When Xerxes, king of the Persians, realised the extent of the disaster he had suffered at the battle of Salamis (481 bc), Herodotus tells us that the Persian equivalent, the angareion, was put into operation to take the news back home. Nothing human is faster, he said, and ‘neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’ [rather, ‘course, race’] — words running along the frieze that fronts New York’s General Post Office (1914).

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This observation is typical of Herodotus, who loved to inform his countrymen of the wonders he had heard about.