Postal Services History
HISTORY
Mail, consisting mostly of government dispatches, was carried from place to place by
horse or horse-drawn wagon in ancient Egypt and Persia. Most mail was still being
transported the same way in the middle of the 19th century, when stagecoaches
carried letters and packages to the West coast.
Ancient and Medieval Service
Historical references to postal systems in Egypt date from about 2000 BC. The
Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great (6th century BC) used a system of mounted
relay messengers. The riders would stop at regularly placed posthouses to get a
fresh horse or to pass on their packets of dispatches to another messenger for the
remainder of the distance.
On the other side of the world, in China, a posthouse service had been started early
in the Chou Dynasty (ruled 1122-221 BC). It was used mostly to convey official
documents. The far-reaching system consisted of relays of couriers who changed
horses at relay posts 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) apart. The system was enlarged under
the Han Empire (202 BC-AD 220), when the Chinese came in contact with the
Romans and their postal system.
The Roman Empire built the most advanced postal delivery system known until that
time except for the service in China. Its area was the whole Mediterranean world.
Reliable communication from Rome to governors and military officials in faraway
provinces was a necessity. Rome met the need by developing the
cursus publicus
literally, "public course" a state-sponsored series of post roads with relay stations at
intervals. The speed with which government dispatches and other mail could be
carried about the empire was not equaled again in Europe until the 19th century.
Using the relay stations, riders could cover about 170 miles (270 kilometers) in a 24-
hour period.
The collapse of the empire in the West did not immediately destroy the postal
system. Vestiges of it endured until at least the 9th century before it became
fragmented and fell into disuse. In the Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire the system
lasted longer because it was eventually absorbed into the Islamic kingdom based in
Baghdad.
Reemergence of Postal Services
With the growth of international commerce during the Renaissance, there was a need
for business correspondence. Corporations and guilds set up their own messenger
services. The great merchant and banking houses of the Italian city-states provided
the most extensive and dependable postal service of the time. By the 13th century
links were maintained between the commercial centers of Florence, Genoa, and
Siena and several communities in northern France that held annual fairs. These fairs
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