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[17]

We have observed still another device of1 Cyrus to cope with the magnitude of his empire; by means of this institution he would speedily discover the condition of affairs, no matter how far distant they might be from him: he experimented to find out how great a distance a horse could cover in a day when ridden hard but so as not to break down, and then he erected post-stations at just such distances and equipped them with horses and men to take care of them; at each one of the stations he had the proper official appointed to receive the letters that were delivered and to forward them on, to take in the exhausted horses and riders and send on fresh ones.

1 Cyrus inaugurates a postal system

Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 5 and 6. Walter Miller. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1914.

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