you brought it on yourself miss twiddle

Now I picture that future triumph: dripping not with plunder from the provinces or gold extorted from our allies, but with enemy arms and the chains of captive kings. I picture myself noting one by one the impressive names of chieftains and the bodies appropriate to those names. I imagine gazing on the litters burdened with barbarians’ massive and bold works, each one, his hands bound, following his own deeds. Then you yourself on high, standing on a chariot on the backs of conquered peoples, and before your chariot shields that you yourself pierced. Nor would you lack the “richest spoils”, if any king should dare to come within range, to shrink back as your throw not only your spear, but your threatening eyes across the whole field and the whole army.
--Pan.17.1-4

Send a man bearing a message or a letter about something unconcealed. When he is getting ready to set out, secretly put a message inside the soles of his sandals and sew them back up. (In case of mud or water, you should engrave it lightly on tin to provide against the letters vanishing because of the wet). When he arrives at the appropriate person and has gone to sleep, the recipient undoes the seams of his sandals, takes out the letter and reads it, writes another secretly while he is still sleeping, and, sewing it back up, sends the man back either to report or with another unconcealed letter. This way, no one else, and not even the bearer himself, will know. But you must make the stitching on the sandels as invisible as possible.

A letter was brought to Ephesus in the following manner. A man was sent with a letter written on leaves, and the leaves were bound into a poultice upon a wound on his leg.

A letter could also be sent via a woman's ears, if, instead of earings, she wore thin lead plates rolled up.
Aeneas Tacticus, "How to Survive A Siege", 31.4-7.

For after deth clerkis lityl drede
After desert for to bere witnesse     185
Nor of a tyraunt the trouthe to expresse,
As men disserve withoute excepcioun;
With lak or prys thei graunt hem her guerdoun.
Wherfore me semeth every maner man
Schulde be his live in al that ever he can     190
For vertu only eschewe to don amys,
For after dethe, pleynly as it is,
Clerkis wil write, and excepte noon,
The pleyne trouthe whan a man is goon.

Ovide also poetycally hath closyd
Falshede with trouthe, that maketh men ennosed    300
To whiche parte that thei schal hem holde;
His mysty speche so hard is to unfolde
That it entriketh rederis that it se.
Virgile also for love of Enee
In Eneydos rehersyth moche thyng
And was in party trewe of his writyng,
Exsepte only that hym lyst som whyle
The tracys folwe of Omeris stile.

Nemean 11
ll. 13-16
εἰ δέ τις ὄλβον ἔχων μορφᾷ παραμεύσεται ἄλλους,
ἔν τ᾽ ἀέθλοισιν ἀριστεύων ἐπέδειξεν βίαν,
θνατὰ μεμνάσθω περιστέλλων μέλη,
καὶ τελευτὰν ἁπάντων γᾶν ἐπιεσσόμενος:

If someone has wealth and outpaces everyone else in beauty, and showed his strength by excelling in competitions, let him remember that he decks out mortal limbs and will put on everyone's last garment of earth.

ll.39-48
ἐν σχερῷ δ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ὦν μέλαιναι καρπὸν ἔδωκαν ἄρουραι,
δένδρεά τ᾽ οὐκ ἐθέλει πάσαις ἐτέων περόδοις
ἄνθος εὐῶδες φέρειν πλούτῳ ἴσον,
ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ἀμείβοντι. καὶ θνατὸν οὕτως ἔθνος ἄγει
μοῖρα. τὸ δ᾽ ἐκ Διὸς ἀνθρώποις σαφὲς οὐχ ἕπεται
τέκμαρ: ἀλλ᾽ ἔμπαν μεγαλανορίαις ἐμβαίνομεν,
ἔργα τε πολλὰ μενοινῶντες: δέδεται γὰρ ἀναιδεῖ
ἐλπίδι γυῖα: προμαθείας δ᾽ ἀπόκεινται ῥοαί.
κερδέων δὲ χρὴ μέτρον θηρευέμεν:
ἀπροσίκτων δ᾽ ἐρώτων ὀξύτεραι μανίαι.

Since, you know, black fields don't give fruit in a row, and branches don't tend to bear at all the turns of the years a fragrant flower that is equally rich; but they alternate. Fate leads the mortal race, too, this way, and clear signs do not come from Zeus to humankind. But all the same we embark on proud ambitions, eager to do many deeds. For our limbs are fettered to unrestrainable hope, and Foreknowledge's streams are not nearby. But one must hunt out moderation in gain; and unattainable passions come with bitterer obsession.

utque per ingentis populus discribitur urbes,
principiumque patres retinent et proximum equester 735
ordo locum, populumque equiti populoque subire
vulgus iners videas et iam sine nomine turbam,
sic etiam magno quaedam res publica mundo est
quam natura facit, quae caelo condidit urbem.
sunt stellae procerum similes, sunt proxima primis 740
sidera, suntque gradus atque omnia iusta priorum:
maximus est populus summo qui culmine fertur;
cui si pro numero vires natura dedisset,
ipse suas aether flammas sufferre nequiret,
totus et accenso mundus flagraret Olympo.

Just as throughout great cities the population is apportioned, and the senators have the first place, and the rank of Knights the next, and you can observe the common people coming after the knights and the idle crowd after the common people, and then the herd without report, so even the great universe has its republic, which nature made, which founded its city in the sky. There are stars just like leading men, there are stars just inferior to those highest in rank, and there are gradations of status and all the due privileges of higher rank. Greatest in number is the populace which is born on that highest summit; had nature given it strengths according to its number, the upper air itself would be unable to endure the flames, and the whole universe with enflamed Olympus would burn.

But if my accusers really think, in the manner of οἱ πολλοί, that I am actually a magician, one who commands the power of speaking with the immortal gods for whatever he desires, by a certain awesome virtue in his enchantments, then I really wonder why weren't afraid to accuse someone who they admit is capable of so much. For no caution can be taken around such a hidden and divine ability the way it can in other cases. Anyone who takes a hitman to court comes with a bodyguard; one who accuses a poisoner dines more carefully; he who lays charges against a thief guards his own possessions. So, one who is bringing such a magician as these men claim I am to court on a capital charge, with what bodyguard, with what precautions, with what safeties is he to prevent an invisible and inexorable destruction? Why with none at all. And that's why a charge of this nature does not arise from the sort of man who actually believes it.-- Apologia 26

Καὶ τοῦ Ἀχαιμένους ἀποδεικνύναι τι καὶ ὑφηγεῖσθαι τῶν οἰνοχοϊκῶν πειρωμένου προσδραμὼν ὁ Θεαγένης ἑνὶ τῶν κυλικοφόρων τριπόδων καὶ φιάλην τῶν πολυτίμων ἀνελόμενος «Οὐδὲν» ἔφη «δέομαι διδασκάλων, ἀλλ´ αὐτοδίδακτος ὑπουργήσω τῇ δεσποίνῃ τὰ οὕτω ῥᾷστα μὴ θρυπτόμενος· σὲ μὲν γάρ, ὦ βέλτιστε, ἡ τύχη εἰδέναι τὰ τοιαῦτα καταναγκάζει, ἐμοὶ δὲ ἡ φύσις τὰ πρακτέα καὶ ὁ καιρὸς ὑπαγορεύει.» Καὶ ἅμα προσέφερε τῇ Ἀρσάκῃ προσηνὲς κερασάμενος εὔρυθμόν τέ τι καὶ ἄκροις τοῖς δακτύλοις ἐποχῶν τὴν φιάλην.

When Achaemenes tried to demonstrate and instruct him in the arts of a wine-pourer, Theagenes, running up to one of the stands that held the cups and taking up one of the most valuable vessels, said, "I need no lessons, but I shall serve my mistress self-taught, not prancing around for such an easy task as this. For you, my good fellow, have been forced by your fortune to learn such things, but my nature and the moment instruct me in what has to be done." And at once he mixed an appropriate drink and carried it to Arsake, bearing the vessel in a rather graceful manner and in the tips of his fingers.

How could a certain violent and bitter indignation not have beset his noble mind more each day and deeply disturbed it? Who does not see that what contributed so much to the pleasing and happy style of writing, which he used as a young man, must have been altered? For this is the rule and nature of the human mind: if someone who has been enraged and savaged once achieves a moment of expounding what things anguish and oppress his mind, he will indulge his everlasting anger with voluble, outpouring speech. If on the other hand for a length of time he is forced to force in his soul's impetus, when at last the power of speaking is returned, having spent so much time in angry thoughts he will lay bare his old indignation in harsh, short, truncated, bitter turns of phrase. Tacitus, for fifteen years forced into unwilling idleness and shameful silence, oppressed and injured by exceptionally cruel rule, in which Domitian, with no intervals of time and pauses for breath, but, as it were, with a single blow drank down the commonwealth, Tacitus, who watched so great a slaughter of former consuls, so many exiles and near-escapes of the most highly-born ladies, drenched as if with "the blood of innocent Senecio," in mental suffering and anguish spent a life full and packed with continuous anger and indignation.

For which reason it is not strange at all that he, when he finally began to compose "the memory of prior servitude and witness of present goods," the ability to speak freely finally restored, he was unable to revive that blooming and luxuriant, copious and even style in which he had flourished as a young man, just as a field injured and stricken down by continuous rains does not resurrect its earlier original and luxuriant growth, especially when it had begun to put up rich and frequent ears of grain. Such a style no longer fit his stricken, afflicted, embittered soul; he was almost unable to use another style than the one he did: short and vigorous, sometimes harsh and bitter.

Quare fieri non poterat, quin dolor quidam vehemens et acerbus nobilem eius animum in diem magis occuparet et penitus perturbaret. Quod quantum valuerit ad gratum illud ac laetum diceudi genus, quo iuvenis usus erat, immutandum, quis non videt? Nam haec est animi humani ratio ac natura, ut, si quis iratus ac lacessitus statim nanciscatur occasionem aperiendi, quae animum angant et premant, oratione volubili, profluente, perenni irae indulgeat, si vero per quoddam tempus ad animi impetum coercendum cogatur, oblata tandem libere loquendi potestate, diu in cogitationibus iracundis versatus, indignationem inveteratam patefaciat sententiis asperis, brevibus, abruptis, acerbis. Per quindecim annos Tacitus ad invitam desidiam et turpe silentium coactus, durissimo imperio pressus ac vexatus, quo Domitianus non per intervalla et spiramenta temporum sed continuo et velut uno ictu rem publicam exhausit, tot consularium caedes, tot nobilissimarum feminarum exsilia et fugas intuitus, innocenti Senecionis sanguine quasi perfusus, vitam degerat animi dolore et angore, continua ira ac indignatione plenam ac refertam. Quare minime mirum, eum, cum recuperata tandem libere loquendi facultate „memoriam prioris servitutis et testimonium praesentium bonorum" componere inciperet, redintegrare non potuisse floridum illud ao laetum, numerosum et aequabile dicendi genus, quo iuvenis viguerat, sicut continuis imbribus vexata et prostrata seges non ad priorem integrum laetumque florem resurgit, cum praesertim uberes iam et frequentes spicas conceperit. Animo eius concusso, exacerbato, indignato talis sermo non amplius conveniebat; uti potuit oratione non fere alia, quam qua usus est, brevi et nervosa, interdum aspera et acerba. --De Tacito Dialogi Auctore, Johann Andreas Heinrich Gerard Jansen (Gronigen: 1878), 69-70

The Possibilities of Mind Reading


Nikola Tesla........The Scientific American

It can be taken as a fact, which the theory of the action of the eye implies, that for each external impression, that is, for each image produced on the retina, the ends fo the visual nerves concerned in the conveyance of the impression to the mind must be under a peculiar stress or in a vibratory state. It now does not seem improbably that, when by the power of thought an image is evoked, a distant reflex action, no matter how weak, is exerted upon certain ends of the visual nerves, and, therefore, upon the retina. Will it ever be within human power to analyze the condition of the retina when disturbed by thought of reflect action, by the help of some optical or other means of such sensitiveness that a clear idea of its state might be gained at any time.

If this were possible, then the problem of reading one's thoughts with precision, like the characters of an open book, might be much easier to solve than many problems belonging to the domain of positive physical science, in the solution of which many if not the majority implicitly believe. Helmholtz has shown that the fundi of the eyes are themselves luminous, and he was able to see, in total darkness, the movement of his arm by the light of his own eyes. This is one of the most remarkable experiments recorded in the history of science, and probably only a few men could satisfactorily repeat it, for it is very likely that the luminosity of the eyes is associated with uncommon activity of the brain and great imaginative power. It is fluorescence of brain-action, as it were, in all its essential essence.
Current Literature vol. 14, 626 (1893)