Cursus Publĭcus
The postal-service of the Roman Empire.
Persia under Darius, son of Hystaspes, affords the earliest instance of a national
postal-service. Mention is indeed made (
Liberat. Brev. 23) of a class called
symmaci as existing in the most ancient times among the Egyptians for
the conveyance of letters by land, but we have no grounds for thinking that a postal-system
was established in Egypt as a branch of the administration. In the Persian dominions, however,
as we learn from Herodotus (iii. 28; vi. 105; viii. 98), horsemen, stationed at intervals and
relieving one another, conveyed the imperial will in all directions from Susa, Ecbatana, or
Babylon. The service was called
ἀγγαρήϊον, and the
couriers,
ἄγγαροι. Messages of lesser urgency were carried
by
ἡμεροδρόμοι. In Greece there are no evidences of any such
service, at least upon a similar scale, for the
hemerodromi mentioned by
Corn. Nepos (
Milt. iv. 3) can scarcely have been a permanent institution. This was
probably due to the geographical smallness of Greece; still more, however, to the utter
absence of political unity among the Greeks, and the want of facilities for land traffic, in
contrast with the easy communications by sea. But the vast extent of the Roman dominions, and
the centralization of imperial functions in a single hand, again furnished the conditions of a
postal-service, which accordingly arose and became a most important instrument of State
administration. The practical wisdom of the Romans had from the beginning of their conquests
taught them to make roads throughout the territories which they subdued, whence resulted a
system of highways connecting the remotest parts of the Empire with Rome. These not only
facilitated the marching of troops, but served the general purposes of transport and the
conveyance of intelligence, forming, as they did, the material
condicio sine
qua non of the future
cursus publicus. Within the last century of
the Republic, also, certain practices had already been established, by which the development
of the postal-service was largely conditioned. We now proceed to give some account of
these.
Under the Republic, after the conquest of Italy, government officials despatched from Rome
on public business were empowered to impose arbitrary requisitions on the subject Italians
(
dediticii) to supply them with necessaries for travelling. Among the
Italian allies such functionaries usually obtained food, lodging, and means of transport from
their guest-friends or from the principal personages in the friendly States which they
visited. But when the Roman dominions included extra-Italian provinces, the fine distinction
made in Italy between subjects and allies (
socii) was in the provinces
neglected, and the provincial allies were as summarily requisitioned by a
legatus as were the provincial subjects. Senators or citizens employed on a public
mission abroad received from the Senate a mandate (
diploma) requiring
subjects and allies alike to supply them with means of transport and other necessaries at all
the successive stages of their journey. This in the natural course of things led to grave
hardships, and complaints frequently arose. Restrictive enactments became necessary; and we
read that Cato the Elder, when praetor in Sardinia, diminished or removed the expenses
entailed upon the people of that island by the entertainment of the praetors officiating among
them (
Liv.xxxii. 27). It is doubtful, however, whether Cato issued
a formal edict, or whether his good example alone operated towards the relief of the
sufferers.
Among the various embassies which thus became grounds of hardship to the provincials there
was one which deserves especial notice. This was called
libera legatio,
being a sort of mission from which all State employment was absent, granted as a favour
sometimes to distinguished men, lasting for several years, and carrying with it all the
previously mentioned liabilities on the part of the provincials. The
libera
legatio, owing to the indefiniteness of the privileges it conveyed, became a fearful
cause of oppression. A law was carried in B.C. 63 by Cicero (
De Leg. iii. 8,
18) restricting abuses of the
libera legatio and limiting its duration to
one year; but the reform thus effected was short-lived, for Iulius Caesar (
Ad
Att. xv. 11) again extended the term of a
libera legatio to a
possible five years.
During the last period of the Republic the Senate had frequent occasions for communicating
in despatches with their generals or provincial governors, as well as with allied kings and
States. For the conveyance of such despatches the authorities employed freedmen, slaves, or a
certain class of couriers called
stratores (
sternere, “to saddle”). A class of messengers also existed called
tabellarii. For pressing messages a general usually employed mounted men
detached from his own staff. The
publicani, as especially interested in
transmitting and receiving intelligence to and from Rome, had a special class of
tabellarii, whose services, however, were often borrowed by the magistrates,
or by the
negotiatores, speculators in corn or money, who were in
constant relations with the provincial governors and with the
publicani.
The ships of the allies also were employed for the use of magistrates engaged abroad on public
business. Thus for the purposes of transport and the conveyance of intelligence the dealings
of the home government with the provincials were regulated mainly by the
principle that the incidental labour and expenses should be borne as far as possible by the
latter, while the interests to be served were those of the government alone.
It only remained for the Empire to organize and develop the system which had been
established under the republican
régime. The immense
advantages of such an organization as a portion of the imperial administration were
sufficiently obvious. Augustus accordingly appointed mounted couriers (
stratores or
speculatores) to be employed along the principal
roads (
Suet. Aug. 49). This implies the
institution of stations (
mutationes), at which they should relieve one
another. But as this arrangement provided only for the conveyance of intelligence, it required
to be supplemented by a transport system for the conveyance of money or other valuables of
considerable weight. The necessity of constructing postal-stations ensued. The stations were
called
mansiones, which, being intended for lodgings, as their name
indicates, were furnished not only with a supply for the immediate wants of man and beast, but
also with the accommodation suitable for travellers. The
mansiones were
not so numerous along a road as the
mutationes, or changing-stages. In
accordance with republican precedent the expenses of the transport and postal system generally
continued to fall upon the communities through whose territories the lines of stations lay.
They accordingly had to provide conductors, guards, drivers, together with beasts of burden
and rolling-stock, on receipt of the emperor's order (
diploma), or that
of the head of the postal system (a functionary designated in Trajan's time as
ab vehiculis), who was generally a freedman of the emperor. Such warrants for the use
of the post were issued occasionally by the consul, by the praefect of the praetorians, or by
the governor of a province, but in all cases only with the emperor's special authority. While
the document entitling to the use of the
cursus, by virtue of being
stamped with the emperor's seal, was called
diploma (and other names
which will hereafter be referred to), the right of issuing postal-warrants was, at least until
a late period, called
evectio. The expenses, moreover, of constructing
stations and stocking them with necessaries had to be borne by the neighbouring communities.
Along the line of one day's journey there were six or eight sets of stables, each of which had
to maintain a total of forty beasts, including horses, mules, asses, etc. The communities also
were bound to furnish and maintain the teams and to keep the stables in repair; they had
further to secure the services of muleteers (
muliones), mule-doctors
(
mulomedici), wheelwrights (
carpentarii), grooms
(
hippocomi), and conductors or guards (
vehicularii). From these heavy burdens Nerva relieved the people of Italy, and to
commemorate his act a medal was struck bearing the inscription
vehiculatione Italiae
remissa (where
vehiculatio=cursus publicus). Trajan, however,
re-authorized (
Plin. Ep. x. 121) the issue of
postal-warrants in Italy, but restricted them to cases in which he had been personally
consulted. We read (Spart.
Hadr. 7) that Hadrian
statum cursum
fiscalem instituit, ne magistratus hoc onere gravarentur. According to Hirschfeld, in
his note to these words,
cursus fiscalis is in Spartianus equivalent to
cursus vehicularius, and the emphasis lies upon the word
statum. According to his view, therefore, the meaning of the whole sentence is
that Hadrian made the postal-service throughout the Empire a department of the State
administration, and appointed fixed stations, superintended by government officials, in order
to relieve the
municipal magistrates of all responsibility for them.
Despite, however, these and other efforts in this direction, it was not until the time of
Septimius Severus (Spart.
Sever. 14) that the expenses of the post generally
were made chargeable to the imperial treasury. But, even when this had been done, the subjects
still continued to suffer, nor did any subsequent legislation materially alleviate the burden
with which the
cursus pressed upon them. Differences of opinion exist as
to the exact nature of the reforms or changes attributed respectively to Nerva , Trajan, and
the others above mentioned. Humbert says we must at least suppose, as Hudemann does, that
Nerva entirely remitted, though only to Italy, the expenses of the service, so that the
salaries of officials engaged in it, as well as the material cost, became alike chargeable to
the treasury; that Trajan contented himself with merely checking the abuse of
evectio; while Hadrian, besides extending the organization of the post through the
whole Empire, must apparently have imposed the charges of it upon the
fiscus; that Antoninus Pius again, like Trajan, making a step backwards, confined the
contemplated reform to a mere restriction of expenses and of the right of issuing
post-warrants; that Septimius Severus completely reorganized the
vehicularium
munus, and imposed the charges of it, in Italy and the rest of the Empire alike, upon
the
fiscus alone; but that the last and radical reform was incapable of
maintaining itself, owing to the burdens it entailed upon the treasury. Diocletian,
Constantine, and their successors all strove to perfect the organization of the post, and to
define exactly what the liabilities of the cities in regard to it should be, together with
determining the question who should have the
evectio, or right of
granting postal permits, and under what circumstances they might be justly granted.
In the later times of the Roman Empire the post became an ever-increasing burden to the
cities; and as it injured them, in the same degree it prepared the way for its own ruin.
Nevertheless a treaty ratified between Rome and Persia in A.D. 565 (Menander,
Prot. p. 360, ed. Bonn) assured to the natives of the frontier provinces of the
two empires the uses of the postal-service to and fro between them. See A. de Rothschild,
Hist. de la Poste aux Lettres depuis ses Origines (Paris, 1873).
