Did The Message Go Through?

In this present day and age we take communication over distances for granted. We look at the miscommunications that transpire and the messages that fail to send with annoyance, expecting them to always be successful %100 of the time. We forget that these technologies haven’t been around very long and that nothing is perfect. To us, the messages we try to send out and the ideas we try and get across are for  a moment the most important things in the world. What we fail to realize is that in the past, especially in times of war, these same miscommunications could be deadly.
Over 400 years ago Japan was in a state of almost constant war. The warlords of Japan were fighting each other for wealth and power in an attempt to take over all of Japan. thousands of people lost their live and among them some of the most important yet underappreciated people. Messengers were all over the country, delivering messages from warlord to warlord outside of battle and delivering messages from officer to officer in a battle. As you will find out in virtually any warring state type simulation game, messengers can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Often times you’ll find yourself trying to protect your messenger as the rush to carry out important messages to the warlords or other important figures. The death of that one messenger could spell disaster for your entire army. On the flip side you could be trying to kill the enemy messenger to stop them from delivering a potentially dangerous message to their warlords. These situations are a good reminder that during those times of war these messengers could be killed and those important messages could be lost to enemies or to bandits much in the same way that one’s text message may get blocked or fail to send. For some people it may not be to the same degree of importance but for others it could feel like losing a battle.
We treat these losses of communication as the greatest horror in our lives but is it really all that bad? Right now miscommunication could cost us a part of our reputation. In the past miscommunication could cost lives. Sometimes hundreds and sometimes thousands of lives could be lost due to one small error. In order to do something like call a friend could be misinterpreted to not call them and cause a lot of confusion. We have gotten to a point with technology where we take long distance communication for granted. When waiting for emails we often complain that it will take too long to arrive and when we receive mail through the post we react the same way. In more ancient times it took months to get mail across the ocean and this was assuming the boat didn’t sink along the way. Now we complain that it takes weeks to get mail which in comparison isn’t very long at all. Small countries like Japan were able to get mail across the country somewhat faster than in Canada but it may have been even more dangerous. Canada in the 16th century wasn’t exactly known for things like bandits and thieves lurking around its roads. However in Japan there were thousands of bandits, thieves and pirates all over the country. Rarely did these people discriminate against messengers and nobles when picking targets to attack and steal from. In this way avoiding getting attacked by animals and criminals made messages even more likely to be lost en route to their destinations in Japan than in Canada. So should we really be complaining about our “snail mail”? The only real concern we have is that it’ll be delivered to the wrong address.

The Battle of Marathon

This battle took place in the year 490 B.C. It was a conflict between Athens and Persia. This conflict, or rather the first invasion of Greece by Persia, was Persia’s response to Athens’s involvement in the Ionian Revolt.

Before the battle had started, Athens had sent a runner to Sparta to request her aid against the invading force. Unfortunately, because they were in the middle of a religious festival, the Spartans could not come to the aid of the Greeks until at least ten days later.

As the two opposing sides clashed, there was a vast difference in the size of the troops. For Athens, according to Cornelius Nepos, a Roman biographer, and Plutarch, a Greek historian, there were 9000 Athenians and around 1000 Plataeans. As for  the Persians, their numbers varied between 200,000 and 600,000, though 200,000 was the only number repeated twice, by both Cornelius Nepos and Simonides, where they speculated that only half that amount was at Marathon, while the other half were part of the fleet that went on to try and attack Athens directly. However, modern historians place the Persian force somewhere around 20,000-100,000 men. Basically, if the Athenians had been defeated at Marathon, there would have been some serious problems.

When the Athenians launched an attack, the Persians were surprised, because up until now the mere mention of the Medes would send the Hellenes into a panic, and now here they were, charging in, toughing out the sight of the enemy in their dress in order to defeat them.

The battle ended when the Persians panicked, turned and ran, with the Athenians nipping at their heels. Because they did not have much knowledge of the area (really, if I was sending troops into enemy area, I would make sure to find out what kind of terrain I would send them into), an unknown number of them drowned in nearby swamps. Herodotus wrote that, in the end, 6400 Persian bodies were counted, while only 192 Athenians and 11 Plataens were counted.

So, what sorts of communication can one find by examining this battle?  Well, there was definitely a case of mediated communication, when Athens sent a runner to Sparta to request her aid in the upcoming battle. Usually, when one thinks of a media, a phone or a computer will probably come to mind. But they did not have those items back then, so they had to use runners, which, considering they were delivering a message and bringing back a reply, I would say counts as a media.

You can also find a case of miscommunication. This is easily seen in the Persians’ surprise at the Athenians’ charge. The Persians believed their opponents to still be afraid of them, so I bet they were completely shocked to see them charging. Clearly, no one had told them things would be different so close to one’s home turf.

According to Straw, words are a representation of reality and not reality itself. If words indeed represent reality, then could it mean that what we think of the details of The Battle of Marathon, could either be worse or even better than they really are? Translation is always a tricky business; some words could be merely misspelled or their meaning could be totally different…