At its peak, the military of Ancient Rome was without peer.  Enterprising commanders developed advanced weaponry, employed innovative strategies on the battlefield, and implemented incredible engineering feats.  With this expertise, one might wonder: did the Roman military ever utilize a pigeon post?

Before fully delving into this query, we first need to dispel a long-standing myth. It’s been frequently mentioned online and in print that Julius Caesar sent news of his victories in Gaul back to Rome via pigeons.  Most recitations of this purported fact fail to cite any ancient sources for support. A few older sources attribute it to a “Prontius” or “Prontinus,” which is clearly a corruption of the name of Roman writer Sextus Julius Frontinus.  While Frontinus did write about the use of pigeons during wartime (more on that later), he never mentions Caesar doing so.  The notion that Caesar relied on military pigeons during his Gaul campaign has no basis in history. 

Instead, credible sources writing in the latter-half of the 1st century describe pigeons being used at the siege of Mutina (modern-day Modena, Italy) in 44-43 B.C.  That conflict was the culmination of a series of clashes between the Senate and Mark Antony—Caesar’s former right-hand man—in the leadup to the Second Triumvirate.  Antony desired the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul (modern-day northern Italy), yet it was under the control of Decimus Brutus, an assassin of Caesar, and the Senate declined to remove him from office.  Fed up with the Senate’s support of Brutus, in November 44 B.C., Antony gathered several legions and launched a siege against him at Mutina (Modena, Italy).  

The Senate greatly disapproved of Antony’s actions, declaring him a public enemy in January 43 B.C.  Seeking to curry favor with the Senate, Octavian–Caesar’s adopted son–and consul Aulus Hirtius combined their forces into a formidable army.  With the Senate’s approval, their army advanced toward Mutina.  On April 21st, Octavian and Hirtius attacked Antony’s troops, trying to create a route for supplies to pass through. A fierce battle broke out with mixed results for both sides.  Both sides suffered nearly the same amount of casualties.  Antony ultimately retreated from Mutina, but Hirtius died in combat.  Nevertheless, the Republican faction declared victory over Antony’s forces.

Per our written sources, Brutus and Hirtius relied on pigeons during the siege to keep in contact with one another.  Let’s take a closer look at these episodes, the first of which appears in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, written in 77 A.D.   Encyclopedic in scope, Pliny’s work details the known world over the course of 37 books.  In book 10, which is on the natural history of birds, Pliny mentions that:

[P]igeons 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 besieging army? his nets, too, which he had spread in the river, while the messenger of the besieged was cleaving the air?

A similar account surfaces in Frontinus’ Stratagems.  Composed around 84 – 96 A.D., it’s a treatise on military strategies.  Like Pliny, Frontinus claims that pigeons were used at the siege of Mutina, but attributes their use to Hirtius:

Hirtius also shut up pigeons in the dark, starved them, fastened letters to their necks by a hair, and then released them as near to the city walls as he could. The birds, eager for light and food, sought the highest buildings and were received by Brutus, who in that way was informed of everything, especially after he set food in certain spots and taught the pigeons to alight there.

Reading the sources together, a striking scene emerges: encircled by Antony’s troops, Brutus sends pigeons with vital information to Hirtius’s camp; receiving the latest despatch from Brutus, Hirtius attaches a reply to his birds and releases them near the city’s walls.  If these reports are to be believed, then Brutus and Hirtius had devised a system for two-way communication in spite of Antony’s attempts to cut Mutina off from the world. 

We at Pigeons of War are inclined to believe Pliny and Frontinus’ accounts.  Throughout history, inhabitants of cities under siege have resorted to pigeons for communicating with the outside world—the sieges of Leiden (1574-75) and Paris (1870-71) are prominent examples.  At Mutina, as in Leiden and Paris, the pigeons seem to have been employed only after other attempts at communication failed.  Frontinus mentions that Hirtius had tried reaching Brutus by inscribing messages on lead plates, which were  fastened to the arms of soldiers, who then swam across the Scultenna River.  However, Antony put a stop to this when he spread nets over the river.  The differing placements of the messages on the pigeons—on the neck for Hirtius and on the feet for Brutus—indicate that this was a hastily-assembled pigeon post, formed directly in response to siege warfare. 

The only possibly erroneous information in these accounts is Frontinus’ claims that Hirtius’ birds flew toward tall buildings in Mutina in search of food and light.  In reality, pigeons return to the area in which they were born and raised. For their pigeon system to have been effective, Brutus would’ve had to obtain pigeons from outside Mutina, while Hirtius would’ve needed pigeons raised within the city.  This is plausible, however, as Pliny noted his fellow countrymen were obsessed with pigeons:

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.

Perhaps pigeon fanciers in Mutina and the surrounding villages secretly exchanged their birds at the outset of the siege. 

Thus, in answer to the question posed earlier, Roman military officers relied on an improvised pigeon post to communicate with each other during the Siege of Mutina.  But this appears to have been an isolated incident. The Roman military did not routinely set up pigeon posts across the Republic or Empire.  In spite of that, the Romans deserve credit for being the first to use pigeons in conflict. 

Sources:

• Bennett, Charles E., Frontinus, The Stratagems and The Aqueducts of Rome, at XX (1925).
• Bostock, John, Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK X. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. Perseus. Retrieved October 26, 2022, from https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D10 
• Chamberlain, Edgar, The Homing Pigeon, at 16, (1907).
• Kelley, Charles M., “Feathered Messengers in Heroic Role,” Machinists’ Monthly Journal, Vol. 43, No. 5, May 1931, at 285.
• Lewis, Sian, The Culture of Animals in Antiquity: A Sourcebook with Commentaries, (2018).