Plausibility Check: Roman Carrier Pigeons

How plausible would it be for the Romans to set up a post for carrier pigeons to carry messages around the empire?

They apparently did for military purposes, OTL. Frontinus records their use by Julius Caesar, for instance. The use of carrier pigeons goes back even further in antiquity.
So, quite plausible, at least at some scale.
 
How plausible would it be for the Romans to set up a post for carrier pigeons to carry messages around the empire?

Possible (as the previous poster said, it existed in military matters), but for a wider use it would be much effort for replacing something as used as messengers or horses, in an empire where road network allowed fast transmission.
 
Hmmm, I did not know that Herzen. Quite an interesting anecdote. Is there any way their use could become more regular, at least at the military level.
 
Hmmm, I did not know that Herzen. Quite an interesting anecdote. Is there any way their use could become more regular, at least at the military level.


I'm not sure we really know the extent they were used, militarily. Only that I doubt it stopped with Julius Caesar. As the previous poster indicated, the Romans were blessed with really a multitude of options for fast (by the standards of the day) communications. The Road network, of course (there was a military post system), but also by taking advantage of its geographical position as a Mediterranean based polity -- by sea.

Given that, later, the Abbasids had a Carrier Pigeon post between Damascus and Baghdad, the potential of "connecting" distant points of the Empire by this method might have been employed (or could have).
 
I'm not sure we really know the extent they were used, militarily. Only that I doubt it stopped with Julius Caesar.
There's no positive mention in Caesar's works that he used pigeons. It's a possibility, but given the absence of it and the mention of messengers and messages that fell into Caesar's hands (and when he cut the hands of said messengers), it's best considering he used more traditionnal features.

Now, Frontinus (that lived a century after the facts) does mention them, but it seems that is far less for military manners strictly speaking than to make accounts of his campaigns to the Senate. In campaign, messengers were probably more used critically when the armies were moving. Being knowledgable about military matters, I think he would have mentioned such use.

In fact, he mention these almost only as intelligence and counter-intelligence use in his Stratagems (Second book, XIII, 8)

The only uses of homing pigeons in warfare I could found in historical sources are when they were used by besieged.
So they were used in such context, but more when other choices were impossible or too risky.

EDIT : You have as well mention of these in Pliny, book ten, LII, where he mention them being used for "important matters".
It seems you had a really important breeding pigeon custom, with pedigree being accounted.
 
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Part of the problem with carrier pigeons is that you have to have a pigeon breeding center in every city you want to send messages TO, and then distribute large numbers of said pigeons to all the cities you want to get messages FROM. Moreover, before you had light paper and good pens, the size of messge you could carry would be pretty small.

What would be the economic benefit? It would be very expensive to set up and run, and provide fairly minimal advantages. Imo.
 
Part of the problem with carrier pigeons is that you have to have a pigeon breeding center in every city you want to send messages

I believe meat pidgeons where at least known...

Using the source mentioned just above :
Pliny's natural history said:
In addition to this, pigeons have acted as messengers in affairs of importance. During the siege of Mutina, Decimus Brutus, who was in the town, sent despatches to the camp of the consuls fastened to pigeons' feet. Of what use to Antony then were his intrenchments, and all the vigilance of the be- sieging army? his nets, too, which he had spread in the river, while the messenger of the besieged was cleaving the air?

Many persons have quite a mania for pigeons—Building towns for them on the top of their roofs, and taking a pleasure in relating the pedigree and noble origin of each. Of this there is an ancient instance that is very remarkable; L. Axius, a Roman of the equestrian order, shortly before the Civil War of Pompeius, sold a single pair for four hundred denarii, as we learn from the writings of M. Varro. Countries even have gained renown for their pigeons; it is thought that those of Campania attain the largest size.
There's no need to speculate about what would be needed to have that, or if Romans knew that pigeons had another use than being eaten.

Breeding pigeons, up to having pedigree, was a thing IOTL.
 
Using the source mentioned just above :

There's no need to speculate about what would be needed to have that, or if Romans knew that pigeons had another use than being eaten.

Right. But there's a huge difference between the case you cited and the OP. Random point back to home base (eg a general encamped somewhere outside a major city). That makes sense. But no one could pigeon-post messages TO him.

Thats also a case wher small messages : (eg help, surrounded by 6000 Auverni; or won glorious battle over 8000 Helvetii, proceding to Geneva) makes a lot of sense.

Communication between, say the Milan and Florence offices of a company or family would make sense.

But a postal network equivalent sending messages from any of several dozen cities to any of the others, which is what I understood the challenge to be, would be complex, take a lot of work, and be very expensive for limited return.
 
But no one could pigeon-post messages TO him.
Nothing is said about that.
In fact, without a contrary mention, it's safe to assume that their role of "messengers" worked both ways.

If we look at Frontinus' Strategems, and while it's far from being the equivalent of a post service, it's quite clear the communication was recurrent.

But a postal network equivalent sending messages from any of several dozen cities to any of the others, which is what I understood the challenge to be, would be complex, take a lot of work, and be very expensive for limited return.
Well I agree, critically with the efficiency of road network.

But the technical needs, as breeding and known use by both civilians and militaries, are there. What you need is an impetus (probably implying a communication distrupt, in the Late Antiquity).
 
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