Communication and the transmission of information among the Ancient Greeks was a slow process characterized by persistence, inventiveness, and ingenuity.
The evolution of communication among the Ancient Greeks began with words transmitted from mouth to mouth, storytelling and myth-telling, inscriptions on stone, artistic depictions, and, after the development of an alphabet, letters on papyrus.
There was face-to-face oral communication and inscriptions on stone during the Greek Dark Ages (1200–800 BC). The Ancient Greeks also developed a primitive but ingenious system to send and receive long-distance messages using fire.
The phryctoria: long-distance communication among the Ancient Greeks
A semaphore system for long-distance communication in Ancient Greece was the phryctoriae (or fyctoriae). These were specially constructed towers on mountaintops, where the first transmitters lit fires to send visual signals over long distances.
The phryctoriae (plural of phryctoria) were built on selected mountaintops so that each tower was visible to the next, usually about 20 miles apart. On top of the tower, there was a fire pan where the signal fire would be lit. The phryctoriae were used to transmit a specific, prearranged message. One tower would light its flame, and the next tower would respond by lighting its own.
In Aeschylus’ tragedy Agamemnon, a slave watchman character learns the news of Troy’s fall from Mycenae by carefully watching such a fire beacon. Thucydides wrote that during the Peloponnesian War, the Peloponnesians in Corcyra were informed by nighttime phryctoriae signals of the approach of sixty Athenian vessels from Lefkada. When Spartan fleet commander Cnemus attacked the island of Salamis, the Salaminians informed the Athenians and asked for help using phryctoriae fires.
In the second century BC, Greeks used a simple encoding system to encode 25 alphabets in order to send message with two groups of torches over mountaintops.https://t.co/Q4XCCEJpig pic.twitter.com/rwSb3KrCHi
— Mandar Gokhale (@mangokhale) February 2, 2021
Oral communication among ancient Greeks as the dominant mode of interaction
In early Greek societies, before literacy became widespread, oral communication among the Ancient Greeks was the dominant mode of interaction. Storytelling, poetry, and performance were the means of preserving history, passing down cultural values from one generation to the next, and entertaining audiences.
The town criers or heralds, known as “kerykes,” served as official messengers of the state and announcers. These individuals, including legendary figures such as Stentor, were responsible for communication of public notices and proclamations. In an era of low literacy, they were essential in disseminating news and official decrees to which the community needed access.
Public oratory was another form of communication among the ancient Greeks. This involved prominent individuals sharing their views in the agora and conveying information. Storytelling, both for children and adults, was highly valued. Communication in the ancient Greek world was not only oral but also visual, symbolic, and written.
Homer’s epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are masterpieces of an oral tradition, originally composed to be sung or recited by rhapsodes. In the Odyssey, Homer highlights the importance of the spoken word to communal life when Odysseus describes himself and his hardships to the Phaeacians:
“For I am a man who has suffered much, and in my heart I think nothing is more noble than when a people sit together at a feast in the halls, listening to the singer, with the tables laden before them.”
Oral communication in Ancient Greece was crucial in political life as well. The oratory skills of political figures could sway the public. In Histories, Herodotus describes how Themistocles persuaded the Greek allies to unite against the enemy in the Persian Wars with a powerful speech.
Another way of delivering and receiving messages in Ancient Greece was through day runners. They were people known for their running skills and were trusted to transmit messages quickly. The most famous day runner in history was Pheidippides, who ran without stopping from Athens to Marathon and then back to Athens with the news of victory. Pheidippides died of exhaustion after delivering the famous message, “We have won” (Greek: Νενικήκαμεν).
Rhetoric in ancient Athens
Rhetoric in Ancient Greece’s Classical period (5th–4th centuries BC) became the fine art of communication. At the height of Athenian democracy, with assemblies and law courts, it was important for citizens to master the art of public speaking.
The great rhetorician Isocrates said that human civilization itself depended on speech:
“The power to speak is the cause of all our achievements. It has not only helped us to escape the life of wild beasts, but also to come together and establish cities, to make laws, and to invent arts.” (Isocrates, Antidosis 253)
The Ancient Greeks believed that language, and especially the good use of it in efficient communication, was the foundation of society. People can only come together when they communicate. In Athens, rhetoric was almost a civic duty, as one’s ability to articulate ideas helped shape decisions in the assembly, influence verdicts in court, and build reputations in public life.
The most famous speech by a great rhetorician was Pericles’ Funeral Oration. It was delivered by the eminent Athenian politician at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) as part of the annual public funeral for the war dead.
Thucydides recorded the “Funeral Oration” in Book Two of his famous History of the Peloponnesian War. He presented the speech in the first person as if it were a word-for-word account of what Pericles said. However, it seems likely that it was edited to convey the main ideas communicated and what the situation called for.
Alphabet and writing
Most scholars agree that the Ancient Greeks adopted and modified the Phoenician script around the 8th century BC, creating the first true alphabet with distinct symbols for vowels and consonants. This innovation promoted literacy, making writing far more accessible compared to earlier scripts, such as Linear B.
The poet Hesiod, who lived near the time of Homer and wrote in dactylic meter, illustrates the transitional moment between oral and written communication. In Works and Days (lines 27–41), he presents his didactic poetry as advice to his brother Perses, an apparent written (but orally transmitted) moral instruction: “Fools, they know not how much more the half is than the whole, nor what great wealth is in mallow and asphodel.” Hesiod’s gnomic wisdom shows that writing would fix proverbial truths in permanent form, such as stone, a valuable extension of oral culture.
From then on, inscriptions became central to the communication of ancient Greeks. Public decrees, treaties, and laws were carved in stone—an expression we still use today—and displayed in Ancient Greek agoras. The Gortyn Code from Crete, dating to the 5th century BC, is an early surviving legal inscription that reveals how laws were communicated to the public.
Writing tools
There was an availability of several tools for written communication among the ancient Greeks since the invention of the alphabet. The first and most primitive method was carving on stone or clay tablets. Later, wooden boards became common, sometimes covered with white paint. They were utilized for a myriad of purposes in various places. In Athens, specifically, they were used for the publication of official texts.
A more sophisticated version of the wooden board was the wax tablet. These were pieces of wood hollowed out and filled with beeswax. They were written on with a stylus constructed of wood, bone, or bronze. One end was pointed, while the other was flat for smoothing out mistakes. Tablets could also be strung together to form codices. They were generally used for everyday recording tasks, such as bookkeeping.
Writing on parchment was also popular. To produce parchment, the Greeks used the skins of calves, sheep, and goats. They cleaned them, scraped off the hair, stretched them to dry, and then treated them with chalk and alum.
Papyrus was the most common writing material in Ancient Greece and the wider world. It was made by cutting the stalk of the papyrus plant into thin strips, and these were laid in two perpendicular sheets: one with fibers running horizontally (the front side) and the other vertically (the back). The plant’s natural juices bound the sheets together. Sheets could be joined to form rolls or stacked to form a codex, a “proto-form” of the book.
Private communication among ancient Greeks
The Ancient Greeks exchanged private written letters, from stone tablets to papyrus in later periods. While archaeological evidence from early periods is scarce, literary sources confirm their importance. In Euripides’ Hippolytus 856–857 (428 BC), Phaedra’s suicide note is an important document, demonstrating the enduring nature of written communication compared with the fleeting spoken word: “I write to you this tablet, for the hand can tell the silent tale of the heart.”
In later years, philosophers like Epicurus (4th–3rd century BC) frequently used letters to communicate their teachings to distant followers. His Letters to Herodotus and Letters to Menoeceus are notable examples, precursors to the correspondence courses of recent decades.
Ancient Greeks also communicated through encrypted messages, symbols, visual arts, and body language. Theater, for instance, was used as a medium to present didactic stories while entertaining audiences. It combined speech, gestures, and masks to convey meaning. Dramatists such as Aeschylus and Sophocles employed visual symbolism to complement dialogue.
The Spartans used a method of encryption during wartime. The skytale (Greek: σκυτάλη) consisted of a wooden rod and a leather strip. Any communicating party needed a wooden stick of the same size. The secret message was written on the leather strip, wound around the rod, then unwound and sent to the recipient by a messenger. The recipient would rewind the leather on a rod of the same size to decipher the message.
Oracles and rituals
Oracles were another form of communication: predicting the future. The oracle at Delphi, delivered by the Pythia, was considered sacred, regardless of how ambiguous and enigmatic it was. There is a famous episode of non-verbal communication between Croesus and the Delphic oracle in Herodotus’ Histories 1.47–56, where the riddle meant the exact opposite of what Croesus believed. As a result, the wealthy king of Lydia lost his kingdom to the Persians.
In Ancient Greece, there was a unique form of communication between gods and mortals. The Greeks believed that the Delphic Oracle at the sanctuary of Apollo mediated divine speech through the cryptic utterances of the Pythia.
Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic philosopher, commented on the exchange between the oracle and the mortal: “The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither speaks nor conceals but gives a sign.” The philosopher emphasizes that the divine communication delivered at Delphi is ambiguous and must be interpreted, rather than taken at face value.
Another form of ancient Greek communication with the gods was through religious rituals, such as animal sacrifices, offerings of fruits and herbs, libations, and processions. These acts served as communicative gestures and requests for the gods’ favor. The faithful performed the rituals believing that the gods would appreciate their devotion and reciprocate by granting their wishes.
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