extended essay - madison country day...

Yoli !1

Extended Essay

History

“Tactics of Espionage and Information Gathering, including Ciphers and Codes, the Transport of Intelligence, and Spydom Tools in Ancient Greece and World War One”

By: Yoli

School: Madison Country Day School

Advisor: Bob Camosy

Subject: History

Word Count: 3,887

Abstract:

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The tactics of espionage and information gathering including codes and ciphers, the transport of

intelligence, and spydom tools in between Ancient Greece and WWI when compared can draw

similarities and differences. In regards to the codes and ciphers, a common theme between both

time periods was substitution. The ciphers ranged from difficulty, with the Ancient Greek

versions being slightly simpler than the ones created in WWI, but some of the ciphers from WWI

still significantly incorporated the Polybius square that was created by the Ancient Greeks. There

was also a similarity seen in between time periods in regards to the transport of encoded

messages. Both used the idea of a drop box, and while the Ancient Greek version was only

temporarily effective, the version in WWI proved to be successful. Another commonalty seen

was in regards to the tools used to keep the messages secret. Invisible ink was used in both time

periods, but it was more prevalent in WWI due to a higher supply and demand, while invisible

ink in Ancient Greece was only used only briefly. While there were many similarities, there were

also a few differences. A tactic that was not seen in Ancient Greece was the use of another

language as a code, such as when the United States in WWI used the language of Navajo through

the Navajo code talkers because Navajo was barely spoken and incredibly difficult to translate.

Another difference was also that some tools to encode messages used in Ancient Greece such as

the astragal had no similarity seen in WWI. Taking into account the differences between Ancient

Greece in WWI in relation to espionage and information gathering, 2000 years still did not make

as significant a difference as one would have expected.

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Table of Contents:

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….p.2

Extended Essay…………………………………………………………………………….p.4

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….p.19

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Tactics of Espionage and Information Gathering, including Ciphers and Codes, the Transport of

Intelligence, and Spydom Tools in Ancient Greece and World War One

“The name is Bond. James Bond.” This line has been heard everywhere and the character

to whom it is referring has become the stereotypical spy we know today. The era of the “modern

spy” most likely began around WWI, with tales of invisible ink, code-crackers, and disguises.

We also can’t forget how the spies obtained their necessary intel and kept it secret. But how did

these tactics of espionage and information gathering come to be? Espionage and information

gathering have been around since the Ancient Egyptians, but it was also quite prominent in

Ancient Greece. This essay will analyze the extent of espionage and information gathering 1

tactics in Ancient Greece and WWI, specifically codes, transfer of intel, and tools of spydom.

Espionage has existed in various forms throughout history, but it has all circled around

the main theme of being “the practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments to

obtain political and military information.” In the period of Ancient Greece, the country itself 2

was divided into its city states to the extent that they each had their own culture, myths, and

festivals. These contrasting aspects brought tension, causing city-states to turn to espionage and 3

information gathering to obtain intel on each other. Ancient Greece was therefore not unified, 4

leading to espionage and information gathering being on a national level due to the inner-

Newman, Bernard. Epics of Espionage. New York: Philosophical Library, 1951. 13.1

"Definition of Espionage in English:." Oxford Dictionaries. Accessed October 3, 2015.2

"Greek City-States and Governments." Study.com. 2013. Accessed October 2, 2015.3

Ibid.4

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division, and at the same time on an international due to outside threats. Within the national 5

sector, spying was used specifically to watch over slaves and to monitor the stabilization of

Greek city states, and in the international sector to keep an eye on Rome among other countries. 6

What we refer to as espionage, or spying, was known as strategemata, or in other words,

stratagems “lying in art and cleverness”, underneath the group of strategika, “things, which are

done by a general with foresight, expediency, fame, and tenacity” in Greece . 7

Similar to in Ancient Greece, in WWI espionage was of use to the nations involved

because it was during war-time, in which information on the comings and goings of other

countries was very advantageous. Countries spied on each other to obtain information about 8

strategies, movement of troops, and attacks. This information could determine the number of 9

casualties, success in battles, and even the final outcome of the war.

While both Ancient Greece and WWI used espionage, information gathering was also an

important aspect, and was just as, if not more common. Information gathering was very similar

to espionage, but it was not limited to only spies retrieving information. It could have been 10

"Espionage and Intelligence, Early Historical Foundations." Espionage Information. 2015. Accessed October 2, 2015.5

Ibid.6

Wheeler, Everett L. Stratagem and the Vocabulary of Military Trickery. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988.7

"Espionage and Intelligence, Early Historical Foundations."8

Ibid.9

Russell, Frank S. Information Gathering in Classical Greece. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999.10

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officers, soldiers, civilians, politicians, any type of person that was gathering information. It 11

was used generally in relation to more sensitive topics, in which information would be valuable,

and like espionage, would be about strategies, movement of troops, attacks, or other details. 12

To put this into historical context, espionage and information gathering was first seen in

Ancient Egypt, and was recorded in hieroglyphics on walls. Court spies were first used to 13

observe subversiveness and rebellion among slaves. It was also used to find other areas that 14

could be then conquered, but as soon as Greece and Rome became world powers Egypt then

focused its espionage effort in the direction of fighting them. Then later on in Ancient China 15

espionage specifically was first primarily recorded in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. “Hence the use 16

of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4)

doomed spies; (5) surviving spies.” He then goes on to describe each class of spies; local spies 17

are using the people that live in that specific city, inward spies are using officers of the other

army as spies, converted spies are using captured enemy spies for your own purposes, doomed

spies are spies who do things for the purpose of getting caught, and surviving spies are spies who

Ibid.11

Russell, Information Gathering in Classical Greece.12

"Espionage and Intelligence, Early Historical Foundations."13

Ibid.14

Ibid.15

Tzu, Sun. "The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Chapter 13: The Use of Spies." Sun Tzu's Art of War. Accessed October 1, 2015.16

Tzu, Sun, “The Art of War,”17

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return alive. However other than in the Art of War, espionage is rarely mentioned in other 18

sources in Ancient China.

An essential tactic of espionage and political information gathering would include ciphers

and codes from Ancient Greece. Ciphers are the systems in which a message is rewritten, while

the code is the message itself once it has been rewritten. Codes and ciphers have existed for 19

millennia, beginning with a visible use in the period of Ancient Greece. An example of a simple 20

cipher that was used was recorded by Aeneas, who was known as Aeneas the Tactician, or

Aeneas of Stymphalos, general of the Arcadian confederacy. The example was a simple 21

substitution, involving the replacement of vowels with dots, an amount or orientation of dots

would correspond to a specific vowel. 22

"DIONYSIUS DOCKED" D:.::N:::S:.:.:S D::CK:D

"LET HERACLEIDES COME" L:T H:R.CL::.D:S C::M: 23

Ibid.18

"Codes & Ciphers." Codes & Ciphers. Accessed October 2, 2015.19

Sheldon, Rose. "Tradecraft in Ancient Greece." Accessed May 2, 2015. 20

Atchity, Kenneth John. The Classical Greek Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 201.21

Rose, “Tradecraft in Ancient Greece,” 41.22

Ibid.23

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Another type of cipher used a tool; a disk with holes punched in on the outer edge with

each hole representing a letter. A string was woven through the letter holes, and then when it 24

was undone, the reader would receive the message reversed. 25

Cipher tools also used the art of disguise. An example was an astragal, a four-sided

object, resembling a very rough spool, and occasionally substituting as one, with the sides being

rectangles instead of circles. It was used commonly in board games as a die, because it would 26

fall on one of four sides with the usual values of either 1,3,4, or 6. Aeneas used it to encode 27

messages by having six holes on each side, adding up to be the Greek 24 letter alphabet. One 28

would then thread a needle through the holes corresponding to the wanted letters, and like the

disk, unwrap it to view the message. When wrapped it would be seem as though there was just 29

string wrapped around the astragal, instead of a secret message. 30

Ibid.24

Ibid. 25

Kowalski, Wladyslaw. "Roman Board Games -- Tali & Tropa." Roman Board Games -- Tali & Tropa. Accessed October 3, 2015.26

Wladyslaw, “Roman Board Games.”27


Ibid.29

Ibid.30

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31

There was also the method of encoding that used a similar system as the disk and

astragal, but was more intricate. It was seen commonly throughout Ancient Greek history with

the first recorded use in Sparta by the 7th century Greek poet Archilochus and is called the

scytale, also spelled skytale. It comprises of two parts; two wooden cylinders or sticks of equal 32

length and width, and a parchment or a strip of leather such as a belt on which there was a

sequence of letters. The letters would first appear as gibberish, but when wrapped around a 33

cylinder or stick, the message could be seen because the letters would align into words along the

length of the stick. 34

35


Djekic, Milika. "A Scytale – Cryptography of the Ancient Sparta."Australian Science, November 25, 2013.32

"Lysander." In Plutarch: Lives That Made Greek History, edited by James S. Romm, by Plutarch, translated by Pamela Mensch, 163-164. 332012.

Milika, “A Scytale-Cryptography of the Ancient Sparta.”34

"Cryptography Its History Application and beyond." LinkedIn Slideshare. Accessed October 4, 2015.35

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The scytale was used between two officers in this fashion; each officer would have an

identical stick or cylinder, wind the long parchment all around it without empty spaces and one

officer would then write the actual message lengthwise along the stick. He would then take the 36

now seemingly incomprehensible message off, send it to the other officer, and then the other

officer would wrap it around the matching stick or cylinder and read the message. The enemy 37

would have to know the exact diameter of the tube or stick to accurately be able to wrap the

message and then read it. 38

In the section of ciphers there was also the Polybius square, created by Polybius who was

a Greek historian who wrote “The Histories,” a book for the purpose of history detailing the rise

of the Roman Empire. He created the square for the purpose to be a torch signaling code. 39 40

41

Plutarch, Romm, Mensch,”In Plutarch.”36

Ibid.37

Ibid.38


Ibid.40

"The Beginning." Ohgwisxtluya. November 9, 2011. Accessed October 2, 2015.41

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“A” would be 11, B 12, E 52, and so on.

While encoding messages was quite important, so was transporting them and making sure

they were received at their wanted destination. One system that was used was when Democratus

informed the Lacedaemonians of a Persian invasion in the fifth century by writing with ink on a

wooden tablet, and then covering it with wax. Normally, if the message was not secret then one 42

would write on top of the wax, but by writing underneath it would make it seem as if it was a

blank slate. It was then sent and delivered, and the receiver would then melt the wax and read 43

the message. 44

Another example of the different systems of transporting secret messages was provided

by Herodotus, another prominent Ancient Greek historian author of “The Histories.” He 45

records the instance of a tyrant named Histiaeus who wanted to rebel against his king, so he sent

a message writing of revolt to his cousin/brother-in-law Aristagoras who was a regent at the

time. He did this by taking a trusted slave, cutting his hair, tattooing the message to his head, 46

waiting for the hair to grow back and then sent him to Aristagoras. The slave was to tell 47

Aristagoras to cut the slave’s hair to then see the message. 48


Ibid.43

Ibid.44

Lendering, Joan. "Herodotus of Halicarnassus." Herodotus of Halicarnassus. 1995. Accessed October 3, 2015.45

Singer, Kurt D. Three Thousand Years of Espionage; an Anthology of the World's Greatest Spy Stories. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948. 8.46


Kurt D,”Three Thousand Years of Espionage,” 8.48

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Another way to transport encoded messages, although minimum information exists on it,

was the letter given from Diogenes Laertius to Dionysius Meathemenus, which was a poem and

the first letter of each line was then used to spell out a message. Aeneas in his writings 49

mentions dogs transporting messages, as well as messages being hidden in clothes, on earrings,

or on the inside of straps of sandals, although much more briefly. 50

Along with the direct transportation of messages there were also tactics that are now

known as “dead drops,” or when a message is left at a designated location and then is picked up

at a different point in time by the other person. An example from the early fifth century is of 51

Timoxenus, the commander who was sent to defend the besieged city of Potidaea that had tried

to rebel against Persian control, and he was sent in representation of Scione, another community

in the surrounding area of the Potidaea. Timoxenus in the beginning was helping to defend 52

Potidaea but then later worked to betray it. To help capture Potidaea and create the plan to 53

betray Scione and the city, he corresponded with Artabazus, who was controlling the Persian

forces attacking Potidaea. They shot arrows with letters wrapped around to predetermined 54

locations to communicate, but were discovered when Artabazus shot an arrow that missed and

wounded a man, which then exposed their correspondence. 55

Russell, Information Gathering in Classical Greece, 154.49

Ibid.50

Herodotus. "The Histories." Perseus Under Philologic. Accessed October 3, 2015.51

Rickard, J. "Siege of Potidaea, 480-479 BC." Military History Encyclopedia on the Web. June 22, 2015. Accessed October 5, 2015.52

Herodotus, “The Histories.”53

Ibid.54

Ibid.55

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Aeneas also wrote about another “dead drop” system; the idea of using shrines dedicated

to heroes as places to leave messages. Normally, one would write a prayer or message to the 56

hero on a votive tablet, and that was then placed at a shrine or temple with the purpose of

offering it to the deity or hero. A votive tablet was a message inscribed into a piece or slab of 57

rock as a message or prayer, and in a similar fashion there were also votive offerings that were

gifts to the deities and heroes as well, although those were not recorded as being used to send

secret messages. The votive tablet could be easily dropped off because one would be seen as a 58

worshipper, or “a foreigner asking directions to a local shrine would not be suspect.” The 59

intended reader would know what they were looking for, and then both could then send and

receive messages in plain sight. 60

Along with different systems for transporting codes and secret messages, Ancient Greece

also had tools to make sure the messages were encoded and stayed secret. Specifically, Ancient

Greece used invisible ink as a tool of transmitting codes. It was first mentioned by Pliny the 61

Elder in 1st century AD, who mentioned in his Natural History a tithymallus plant. The plant’s 62

Russell, Information Gathering in Classical Greece, 160.56

Ibid.57



Ibid.60

Kahn, David. The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient times to the Internet. Rev. and Updated 61

ed. New York: Scribner's and Sons, 1997. 522.

Kahn, “The Codebreakers,” 522.62

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milk was used to write the message, and then when dried the message could be seen if ashes

were sprinkled on top. 63

There were many ciphers and codes, different modes of the transportation of those secret

messages, and tools to help encode and transport the messages that were used by the Ancient

Greeks, and some of these aspects of espionage and information gathering were also seen in

World War One. There were not exactly identical Ancient Greek tactics seen in World War One,

but many of the concepts remained the same and some had a clearly direct relation. Other tactics

were only singular to WWI, or singular to Ancient Greece and no direct relation can be seen.

Ciphers just like in Ancient Greece were also present and important, and one of the

primary ciphers was the ADFGX cipher, that involved only using those five letters. It was used

in WWI to send messages by the Germans towards the end of the war, being used first on March

5th, 1918. It was primarily a substitution cipher, but involved another element which was a 64

reorganization of the encoded words. It worked in this manner: the letters ADFGX were written 65

on the top and bottom in what was known as a checkerboard pattern, with the letters of the

alphabet being randomly placed on the “checkerboard” correlating with a letter of ADFGX from

the top and side. 66

Ibid.63

Ibid.64

"ADFGVX Cipher." Practical Graphy. 2009. Accessed October 1, 2015.65

Goebel, “Codes & Codebreakers in World War I.” 66

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67

Then each letter in an example phrase such as “urgent send more ammunition now”

became two letters, such as “a” became “FX”. The word “Warthog” as the keyword for example,

was then used as another part of the code. The pairs of ADFGX that corresponded with each of 68

the letters were then combined into a long string of letters, and the message was written

horizontally, without any spaces one letter per column like the following : 69

W A R T H O G _____________ G F G X D A F G A G A F D G F G A G D F X D X A G X F G F X X D X D G F A G A X A F A X X A A G A G X A G G 70

Then, the columns were arranged so that the letters of Warthog were arranged

alphabetically:

A G H O R T W _____________ F F D A G X G A G F D G A G G X D F A G F X G X F A G D X G X D X D F A F X A G A F X A A G X A A

Ibid.67

Goebel, “Codes & Codebreakers in World War I.” 68

Ibid.69

Ibid.70

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X G A G G 71

The final code was then just the columns combined into one long string of letters: FAGXXAXX

FGXGGFA DFDXXXAG ADFFDAG GGAAXGXA XAGGDAAG GGFDFFAG, became

FAGXXAXXFGXGGFADFDXXXAGADFFDAGGGAAXGXAXAGGDAAGGGFDFFAG. T72

he ADFGX cipher soon evolved in June 1918 to the ADFGVX cipher which was exactly the

same, but with an extra letter added into the mix, and to compensate for the extra letter the

numbers 0-9 were also added randomly into the beginning table. It was used by the Germans 73

and then cracked, as shown by Georges Painvin, “the ADFGVX cipher, which had reportedly

been chosen from among many candidates by a conference of German cipher specialists.” He 74

was a French cryptanalyst who actually broke the ADFGX code, and then solved the ADFGVX

version several days later stopping an important German offensive. 75

Another cipher, although it was called the Morse code, that was also very popular during

WWI, was created by Samuel Morse, but it only had a dot-dash correlating code for the numbers

0-9. Later Alfred Vail added the alphabet and other symbols that became better-known Morse

code. It was used to wire messages inside camps by telegraph, even all the way up to the front 76

lines, sending messages faster and more reliably than pigeons or dogs. 77

Ibid.71

Ibid. 72



Ibid.75

Mangan, Mike. "The Morse Code with a Short History of How It All Started." DL7MV Mike G1FON. Accessed October 3, 2015.76

Gannon, Paul. "WW1: First World War Communications and the 'Tele-net of Things'" The Institute of Engineering and Technology, June 16, 772014.

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Another version of a cipher was the Choctaw language that was used to encode messages

by the United States towards the end of WWI. In 1918 the codes from the Allies were almost all

easily decoded by the Germans, who heard everything whether coded or not coded due to them

tapping the telegraph lines. An unlikely solution arose to solve this problem, which was the use 78

of Choctaw Native Americans. Choctaw was a language almost obsolete in the United States, 79

and due to them living mainly in the United States, their language could be used to send

messages without the Germans easily translating them. Short of capturing a Choctaw and 80

having them translate it, there were not many actions the Germans could take to decode the

messages. The Choctaw also did not write down many parts of their language, leading to barely 81

any words for the Germans to use as a basis to translate. Due to the language not being as 82

widespread, the language lacked the vocabulary of modern-day warfare, meaning that new words

had to be created for weapons and other items, making it even more difficult to translate. Some 83

of these words were “big gun” for artillery, “little gun shoot fast” for machine gun, “stone” for

grenade, and “scalps” for casualties, thereby expressing that the Choctaw language was a code

within a code, or word substitution within an incomprehensible language. They first used their 84

skills on October 26th, 1918, when they were simply told to transmit the message to pull back

Greenspan, Jesse. "World War I's Native American Code Talkers." History.com. May 29, 2014. Accessed October 3, 2015.78

Winterman, Denise. "World War One: The Original Code Talkers." BBC News, May 19, 2014.79

Winterman, “World War One: The Original Code Talkers.”80

Greenspan, “World War I’s Native American Code Talkers.”81

Ibid.82

Winterman, “World War One: The Original Code Talkers.”83

Greenspan, “World War I’s Native American Code Talkers.”84

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two companies. The use of the Choctaw as code talkers is believed to have brought a quicker 85

end to the war due to the transmissions now being able to be actually kept secret. 86

While the systems of using the Choctaw and other methods of encoding were very

invaluable to keep messages secret, the safe delivery of that information was also incredibly

necessary, because otherwise the intel would be useless. Due to the messages needing to be

brought all across Europe, the transport of messages to be secure as well as innovative was

essential. One of the systems of transportation and delivery was created by Henry Landau, a

British agent who invented a system in Belgium to tell when and how many German soldiers

were being transported on trains. He named his system La Dame Blanche, and it involved 87

many citizens and drop boxes. When a citizen saw a train pass, they would write down the 88

information and then put it in a drop box, usually in an inconspicuous place such as a shop or

bar. Spies would then take that information and transport to the Netherlands where the 89

information would be interpreted. 90

Tools to help aid the encoding and safe transportation of information, invisible came into

use. Invisible ink was used to hide the contents of a letter, and it was an ongoing battle to keep

the other side from discovering which reagent was used to make the words appear. Invisible ink

Ibid.85

Ibid.86

Wheelwright, Julie. "Spies of the First World War: Under Cover for King and Kaiser. (Book Review)." History Today, November 1, 2010.87

Bearce, Stephanie. "La Dame Blanche." In Top Secret Files: World War I Spies, Secret Missions, & Hidden Facts from World War I. Waco, 88Texas: Prufrock Press, 2015.

Bearce, “Top Secret Files.”89

Ibid.90

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worked in the way that a substance was used to write the message, and then a chemical was used

to react with the substance making it turn a color that could then be seen. The Germans in WWI 91

used a type of invisible ink that involved a sock or a shoelace that had a solution or paste in it

that when soaked in water and squeezed, the liquid produced could be used as invisible ink. A 92

German spy named George Bacon from Minnesota, was a reporter recruited by the Germans and

one of the first to use an invisible ink that German chemists had created. He was caught, but 93

this helped the British discover that he was using Argyrol, normally used as an antiseptic and

made out of compound solutions of mild silver proteins, therefore “decoding” the invisible ink. 94

When all of these WWI tactics of espionage and information gathering are compared with those

from Ancient Greece, similarities can be drawn to many of them, although not to all. The ciphers

were quite similar because both used the repeating theme of substitution, the transportation of

code also had similar tactics such as dead drops, and the specific tool used to help transport and

keep the messages secret known as invisible ink in both time periods was also quite related.

However the use of Choctaw Native Americans to encode messages had no parallel seen in

Ancient Greece, and also there were not many parallels between items such as the astragal or

scytale as tools of encoding in WWI.

The Ancient Greeks used ciphers that involved substitution, such as the dot-vowel

replacement cipher, and the more intricate Polybius code which are both similar in different

"UCSB Science Line." UCSB Science Line. Accessed October 2, 2015.91

Macrakis, Kristie. "The Art of Love and War." In Prisoners, Lovers, & Spies: The Story of Invisible Ink from Herodotus to Al-Qaeda, 12. Yale 92University Press, 2014.

Kristie, “Prisoners, Lovers, & Spies.”93

Ibid.94

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aspects to the ADFGX code used in WWI. While the Greek substitution codes ranged in

difficulty, they were not as complicated as the WWI one. The ADFGX code is interesting

because it is based on the Polybius square of Ancient Greece, and is actually almost the exact

same but slightly more complicated. His square comprised of numbers going down the side and

across the top instead of ADFGX. The ADFGX code is very similar, but as well as switching the

numbers for letters, to complete the encoding it is also ordered along a keyword and then mixed.

The ADFGX code is a direct descendant of the Polybius square, and the similarities can easily be

seen, showing that the cipher technologies did not evolve as much as one would think.

In regards to systems used to transport and deliver secret messages, the dead drops or

drop boxes were also a commonality seen between Ancient Greece and World War One. Both

systems used the idea of a predetermined spot to place messages, in Ancient Greece it was

between Timoxeneus and Artabazus, and then in World War One with Henry Landau and the

Dame Blanche. The version during World War One was simpler, but also more effective because

the drop boxes did not carry as much liability as a moving arrow. While the Ancient Greek

version ultimately failed and the Dame Blanche operation worked, it still should be noted that the

Ancient Greek version was still successful for at least a temporary amount of time.

Not only did the transportation of codes and messages in WWI and Ancient Greece have

aspects in common, but so did the tools of keeping them secret. The use of invisible ink was seen

in Ancient Greece by Pliny the Elder, and then seen in WWI by many Germany among other

countries. The idea of making something seem blank or unimportant was taken advantage of by

both time periods, because it was effective due to no one being able to see that there was any

form of a secret message, unlike a code that from the start was usually obvious in its purpose.

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This broader idea of using blank seeming items to hide messages was also used by Democratus

and his wax tablets because the messages were not etched in the wax but hidden underneath it,

making the tablet, like the paper with invisible ink on it, seem blank or with no secret message.

While many espionage and information gathering tactics can be seen between Ancient

Greece and WWI, in WWI the tactics did become more sophisticated. The ciphers in WWI all

involved substitution, something that the Ancient Greeks used in many of their codes, but also

became more complex. The basic Ancient Greek substitution system evolved into the Polybius

square, which in turn became the ADFGX cipher in WWI. Then there was the similar systems of

transporting and delivering messages specifically portrayed in the use of dead drops, or

predetermined locations to place messages at so that direct contact between parties did not have

to be made. The tool of invisible ink was also seen in both time periods, along with the theme of

using something seemingly blank to in fact hide a secret message. While the use of another

existing language in which to encode messages was not seen in Ancient Greece, it was more of

luck than innovation for the United States in WWI to discover a language that barely anyone

knew, but just enough people did for the language to be effective. Inversely, the use of an item

such as an astragal or scytale from Ancient Greece could have evolved into a different and more

complex form in WWI due to its original simplicity, but there is little to show that there was any

tools similar to those emerged in WWI. Even in the light of the lack of encoding tools in WWI

and the use of another language to encode messages in Ancient Greece, the lapse of almost three

thousand years interestingly did not bring as many changes as one would have expected.

Yoli !22

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