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were listed on a table. Each letter corresponded to a row and a column on the table. By using two groups of torches (five torches in every group), the left indicating the row and the right the column of the table, they could send a message by defining a specific letter through combination of light
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Polybius. The
Histories, Volume IV: Book 10 P. 46. Translated by W. R. Paton. Revised by F. W. Walbank, Christian Habicht. Loeb Classical Library 159. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. "These torches having been lowered the dispatcher of the message will now raise the first set of
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torches on the left side indicating which tablet is to be consulted, i.e., one torch if it is the first, two if it is the second, and so on. Next he will raise the second set on the right on the same principle to indicate what letter of the tablet the receiver should write down"
159:) 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.
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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
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were towers built on selected mountaintops so that one tower (
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535:Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 3.80
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