(from the French courier, to run), a messenger sent post, or express, to carry dispatches.

The ancients, too, had their couriers. We meet with two kinds: first, those who ran on foot, called by the Greeks Lemdrodromi, or coursiers of a day, regarding whom Pliny, Cornelius Nepos, and Caesar mention that some of them would run twenty, thirty, thirty-six, and in the circus even forty leagues per day; second, riding coursiers (corsores equitantes), who changed horses as the modern couriers do.

Xenophon attributes the first coursiers to Cyrus. Herodotus says they were very common among the Persians, and that there was nothing in the world more swift than these kind of messengers. That prince, says Xenophon, examined how far a horse would go in a day, and built stables, at such distances from each other, where he lodged horses, with persons to take care of them; and at each place he kept a person always ready to take the packet, mount a fresh horse, and forward it to the next stage, and thus quite through his empire.

But it does not appear that either the Greeks or Romans had any regular fixed coursiers till the time of Augustus. Under that prince they travelled in cars, though it would appear that they afterwards went on horseback. Under the western empire they were called viatores; and under that of Constantinople cursores, whence the modern name.

See Post.