However one regards Mrs Gun after her betrayal of the Official Secrets Act — selfless heroine of Antigonean stature, or self-important, sanctimonious little twerp — her actions raise an important question: the security of the written word.
In classical Greece, inter-state politics were usually carried out verbally, either by well-briefed ambassadors or by messengers with orders committed to memory. Personal letters between heads of state were long regarded with suspicion. First, they were seen as secretive; unlike a messenger, a letter could not blab about its contents to its fellows and, in a world where literacy was not universal, a sealed letter was a convenient way of keeping information from prying ears. Second, letters were felt to be deceptive; they might be forged, and had a general reputation for containing false information. In sum, they were not the open, face-to-face, ‘democratic’ Greek way of doing business, but a slippery medium espoused by untrustworthy foreign potentates, whose scribes could be guaranteed to use them in some nefarious way to further their masters’ interests.
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