§389. Speed.--The lack of public conveyances running on regular schedules (§380) makes it impossible to tell the speed ordinarily made by travelers. It depended upon the total distance to be covered, the degree of comfort demanded by the traveler, the urgency of his business, and the facilities at his command. Cicero speaks of fifty-six miles in ten hours by cart (§384) as something unusual, but on such roads it ought to have been possible to go much faster, if fresh horses were provided at the proper distances, and if the traveler could stand the fatigue. The sending of letters gives the best standard of comparison. There was no public postal service, but every Roman of position had among his slaves special messengers (_tabellāriī_), whose business it was to deliver important letters for him. They covered from twenty-six to twenty-seven miles on foot in a day, and from forty to fifty in carts. We know that letters were sent from Rome to Brundisium, 370 Roman miles, in six days, and on to Athens in fifteen more. A letter from Sicily would reach Rome on the seventh day, from Africa on the twenty-first day, from Britain on the thirty-third day, and from Syria on the fiftieth day. In the time of Washington it was no unusual thing for a letter to take a month to go from the eastern to the southern states in winter. §390. Sending Letters.--For long distances, especially over seas, sending letters by special messengers was very expensive, and, except for the most urgent matters, recourse was had to traders and travelers going in the desired direction. Persons sending messengers or intending to travel themselves made it a point of honor to notify their friends in time for letters to be prepared and also carried letters for entire strangers, if requested to do so. There was great danger, of course, that letters sent in this way might fall into the wrong hands or be lost. It was customary, therefore, to send a copy of an important letter (_litterae eōdem exemplō_, _ūnō exemplō_), or at least an abstract of its contents, by another person and if possible by a different route. It was also customary to disguise the meaning by the use of fictitious names known to the correspondents only or by the employment of regular cypher codes. Suetonius tells us that Caesar simply substituted for each letter the one that stood three places lower in the alphabet: D for A, E for B, etc., but really elaborate and intricate systems were in common use. [Illustration: FIGURE 186. CODICILLI] [Illustration: FIGURE 187. BRONZE STILUS]