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Phryctoria
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Phryctoria (Greek: φρυκτωρία) was a semaphore system used in Ancient Greece. The phryctoriae were towers built on selected mountaintops so that one tower (phryctoria) would be visible to the next tower (usually 20 miles away). The towers were used for the transmission of a specific prearranged message. One tower would light its flame, the next tower would see the fire, and light its own.
In Aeschylus tragedy Agamemnon, a slave watchman character learns the news of Troy's fall from Mycenae by carefully watching a fire beacon.[1][2] Thucydides wrote that during the Peloponnesian War, the Peloponnesians who were in Corcyra were informed by night-time beacon signals of the approach of sixty Athenian vessels from Lefkada.[3] When Cnemus attacked Salamis Island, the Salaminians informed the Athenians and asked for help by beacon-fires.[4]
- ^ Aeschylus. Oresteia, Agamemnon (in Greek). p. 2.
καὶ νῦν φυλάσσω λαμπάδος τό σύμβολον, αὐγὴν πυρὸς φέρουσαν ἐκ Τροίας φάτιν ἁλώσιμόν τε βάξιν
500-400BC - ^ Sommerstein, Alan H. (2009). Aeschylus. Oresteia: Agamemnon. Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press.
So now I am still watching for the signal-flame, the gleaming fire that is to bring news from Troy and tidings of its capture
- ^ Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 3.80
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, Library, 12.49
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