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ANGARI

Volume 17 · 105 words · 1810 Edition

or ANGARI, in Antiquity, denote public couriers, appointed for the carrying of messages. The ancient Persians, Budeus observes, had their ἀγαρίους ἀνεμοκεφάλους; which was a set of couriers on horseback, posted at certain stages or distances, always in readiness to receive the despatches from one, and forward them to another, with wonderful celerity, answering to what the moderns call postes, q.d. postes, as being posted at certain places or stages. The angari were also called by the Persians affandes; by the Greeks ἀγαρίους, on account of the long journeys they made in one day, which, according to Suidas, amounted not to less than 1500 stadia.