Secret Message Scytales

by Angela Ackerman

F OR HUNDREDS OF years, people have used codes and ciphers to send secret messages. In ancient Greece, commanders in the Spartan army needed to communicate over long distances. With no mail system, telephones, or computers to help them, soldiers carried messages on foot. Often enemies would attack the messengers and steal the dispatches, hoping to learn the army’s plans. Because of this, the Spartans came up with a special cipher, using a thin strip of paper or leather and a rod-shaped object called a scytale. These scytales were usually made of wood and could be as thin as your finger or as thick as your wrist. No matter what the size, scytales always came in identical sets of two. An officer would wind a thin strip of paper around…

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Spider Magazine Stories, Games, Activites And Puzzles For Children And Kids (Digital) - 1 Issue, July/August 2021

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