PDA

View Full Version : Nothing new under the sun...



corrocamino
12-05-2012, 04:37 PM
...when it came to the Pony Express, and modern postal-service mottos.

At the zenith of the Persian Empire, a "Royal Road" extended from Sardis, in western Anatolia, to Susa, in Persia -- a distance of some 1,700 miles, on which were 111 post-stations. Caravans took three months to cover the entire distance, whereas royal envoys made the trip in a week. According to Herodotus:

"Now, there is nothing mortal that accomplishes a course more swiftly than do these messengers, by the Persians' skilful contrivance. It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day's journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed. The first rider delivers his charge to the second, the second to the third, thence it passes from hand to hand, even as in the Greek torch-bearers' race...."

[All the above gleaned from "Ancient Turkey: A Traveller's History of Anatolia".]

Mister D
12-05-2012, 04:46 PM
The Persian Empire was well-administered from what I understand.

The rapid pace of technological change is a very recent phenomenon. I'm not sure this was your intent but that's an observation your post brought to mind. For example, far less separated the armies of Alexander and Napoleon in operational terms than separated those of Napoleon and General Petraeus.

Chris
12-05-2012, 04:50 PM
I happened across some history show that talked about Genghis Khan who also created a sort of pony express with which to communicate command and control across his vast empire.

corrocamino
12-05-2012, 04:53 PM
The Persian Empire was well-administered from what I understand.

The rapid pace of technological change is a very recent phenomenon. I'm not sure this was your intent but that's an observation your post brought to mind. For example, far less separated the armies of Alexander and Napoleon in operational terms than separated those of Napoleon and General Petraeus.

No, that wasn't my intent in posting, but it is noteworthy. Technological advance is exponential. (When the curve goes to vertical, time will end (according to the graph), so gird thy loins!)

Mister D
12-05-2012, 04:55 PM
No, that wasn't my intent in posting, but it is noteworthy. Technological advance is exponential. (When the curve goes to vertical, time will end (according to the graph), so gird thy loins!)

:grin: Book of Job reference?

corrocamino
12-05-2012, 04:57 PM
I happened across some history show that talked about Genghis Khan who also created a sort of pony express with which to communicate command and control across his vast empire.

Interesting. GK was also a copy-cat (and well supplied with skilful equestrians!): he did "business" during the thirteenth century AD, some 16 centuries after the Persian Empire.

corrocamino
12-05-2012, 05:41 PM
:grin: Book of Job reference?

No, I'm not at all biblical. It's just that ungirded loins in general make me feel uneasy.

Chris
12-05-2012, 05:45 PM
Wasn't it Ecclesiates who set the theme for this thread?

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

corrocamino
12-06-2012, 05:33 AM
Wasn't it Ecclesiates who set the theme for this thread?

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

The Greek ekklesia was the democratic assembly in Athens. Their invocation probably was something like, "Write my name on an ostracon and you die!"

A symposium (συμπόσιον / symposion) was a drinking party. No scientific papers read! When I worked at a phosphate mine in Idaho, I was told of a memorable meeting of the local chapter of the regional minerals and mining experts in Pocatello, where a notable personage mounted the dais, cleared his throat as he straightened the pages of his prepared lecture, and keeled over backward in a drunken stupor. Must have been Greek, I guess (his lecture probably would have been, too).