Montaigne says he has been none of the least able at posting, an exercise proper for men of his pitch, well-knit and short. He gives it over. It shakes the body too much to continue it long. He was at that moment reading that King Cyrus, the better to have news from all parts of a vast empire, caused it to be tried how far a horse could go in a day without baiting, and at that distance appointed men whose business it was to have horses always in readiness to mount those despatched to him. Some say this swift way of posting is equal to the flight of cranes.
Caesar says Lucius Vibullius Rufus, in great haste to carry intelligence to Pompey, rode night and day, still taking fresh horses for speed. Caesar himself, as Suetonius reports, travelled a hundred miles a day in a hired coach. He was a furious courier: where rivers stopped his way he passed them by swimming, without turning out of his way to look for bridge or ford. Tiberius Nero, going to see his brother Drusus sick in Germany, travelled two hundred miles in four-and-twenty hours, having three coaches. In the war against King Antiochus, Livy has T. Sempronius Gracchus ride from Amphissa to Pella in three days by pre-arranged relays. Those were established posts, not horses laid in only for that occasion. Cecina's invention was quicker still: he took swallows along with him from home and turned them out toward their nests when he would send news, setting a mark of some colour according to a code agreed with his people. At the theatre at Rome, masters of families carried pigeons in their bosoms, tied letters to them, and the birds were trained to bring back an answer. D. Brutus used the same device when besieged in Modena.
In Peru they rode post upon men, who took them upon their shoulders in litters and, in full speed, transferred the load to the second without making any stop. Montaigne understands that the Wallachians, the grand Signior's couriers, perform wonderful journeys because they have liberty to dismount the first person they meet upon the road, giving him their own tired horses. To keep from being weary they gird themselves straight about the middle with a broad girdle. He tried that fix. He could never find any benefit from this.
Coming Up in Chapter 79
Nature's government shows a wonderful correspondence: kingdoms flourish and decay as bodies do, and states, like wrestlers, are bled of a repletion of humours. Families are turned out to seize new land. The Romans keep war with Carthage as a blood-letting, for fear idleness, the mother of corruption, should bring a worse inconvenience.
