Ancient Influence: The Warning Beacons of Gondor

It’s a wonderful scene in Peter Jackson’s film of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers: Gandalf and Pippin light a signal fire in the city of Gondor, and it is seen by watchmen on a mountaintop who then light their own fire, which is then seen by other watchmen on another mountaintop who light their own fire, and in this way the call for aid travels along a chain of mountaintop beacons all the way to Rohan, where Aragorn and King Théoden are waiting. The scene is beautifully shot with a swelling musical score, capturing the romance and grandeur this fantasy system of long-distance communication.

As is often the case with incredibly cool ideas, this scene (which is close to—but not exactly the same as—what Tolkien describes in his novel) owe a debt to ancient history. We know signal beacons such as those in the Two Towers were not uncommon in the ancient world, and it is just possible that Tolkien borrowed the idea from an ancient Greek play. In his tragedy Agamemnon, the Athenian playwright Aeschylus imagined that—during the Trojan War—Agamemnon’s wife, Queen Clytemnestra, had arranged a chain of fire beacons stretching from Troy on the west coast of modern Turkey all the way to Argos in Greece, so that she would know the instant Troy was captured (she planned to murder her husband when he returned home, and so wanted to know when to expect him). Aeschylus has Clytemnestra describe the relay of beacon fires that she had prepositioned in expectation of Troy’s capture, and she narrates for the audience how the flame ignited in Troy was passed from blaze to blaze until it came to her in Argos. Aeschylus’ poetry brings grandeur and majesty to the visual map her narration creates, and the musical rhythm of the poetry anticipated Peter Jackson’s epic musical score by almost twenty-five centuries. Robert Fagles translates Clytemnestra’s description of her signal beacons beautifully:

The god of fire—rushing fire from Ida!

And beacon to beacon rushed it on to me,

my couriers riding home the torch. From Troy

to the bare rock of Lemnos, Hermes’ Spur,

and the Saving Father’s face, Mount Athos hurled it

third in the chain and leaping Ocean’s back

the blaze went dancing on to ecstasy—pitch-pine

streaming gold like a new-born sun—and brought

the word in flame to Mount Makistos’ brow.

No time to waste, straining, fighting sleep,

that lookout heaved a torch glowing over

the murderous straits of Euripos to reach

Messapion’s watchmen craning for the signal.

Fire for word of fire! Tense with the heather

withered gray, they stack it, set it ablaze—

the hot force of the beacon never flags,

it springs the Plain of Asôpos, rears

like a harvest moon to hit Kithairon’s crest

and drives new men to drive the fire on.

That relay pants for the far-flung torch,

they swell its strength outstripping my commands

and the light inflames the marsh, the Gorgon’s Eye,

it strikes the peak where the wild goats range—

My laws, my fire whips that camp!

They spare nothing, eager to build its heat,

and a huge beard of flame overcomes the headland

beetling down the Saronic Gulf, and flaring south

it brings the dawn to the Black Widow’s face—

the watch that looms above your heads—and now

the true son of the burning flanks of Ida

crashes on the roofs of Atreus’ sons!

And I ordained it all.

Torch to torch, running for their lives,

one long succession racing home my fire.

This speech and its description of a sequence of fire signals stretching across the Aegean Sea passing the flame one to the next would have enthralled Greek audiences just as the scene in Jackson’s film demands the viewers’ attention. Of course, the perspective is different. Jackson’s audience flies with the eagles and observes the path of the fire signals from above, while a Greek audience listening to Aeschylus’ lines would imagine looking up at mountaintops that passed a signal flame one to the next far above their heads.

Of course, it is unlikely that Aeschylus’ system of fire beacons was real, or that the Greeks in the time of the Trojan War would have organized such a system. Homer’s text does mention the use of fire signals, but mainly for short distances—generally signaling from the mainland to a nearby island. In fact, Stephen Tracy argued that Aeschylus’ words were meant to remind his Athenian audience of the system of fire signals that the Persians had used when they sacked Athens for a second time in 479 BC. The Greek historian Herodotus suggests that the Persian general Mardonios may have used a relay of signal fires to send a message reporting the sack to his king, Xerxes, back in Persia. Since the Greeks in Aeschylus’ day did not have such a grand system of fire signals, it is likely that Aeschylus got the idea from the Persian system. Indeed, the Persians seem to have frequently used such beacon systems in their own empire to connect their capital cities with the outer reaches of their empire. There is also evidence that other near-eastern cultures used fire signals, and there are references to such beacons in the Bible.

The early Greeks did not use extensive beacon signals because their world was comparatively smaller—the average Greek city-state controlled roughly 100 sq. km., so messages rarely had to travel long distances. Indeed, when the Persians invaded Greece in 480 BC, the Athenians had to send a runner to inform the Spartans, since that was the fastest form of communication they had readily available. Yet smaller beacon systems were indeed used, especially to communicate across water to send messages warning of enemy advances. During the Persian War (480-479 BC), an Athenian fleet at Artemisium was said to have received important messages through beacon fires, and during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) the Athenians seem to have maintained signal beacons on islands in and around the Saronic Gulf, placed there to send advanced warnings of the approach of an enemy fleet. Such beacons would have signaled the Athenian navy in their port city of Piraeus to launch and prepare to fight. Similarly, the Athenians maintained watchtowers in the hills separating their territory from Boeotia, presumably to send advanced word of enemy incursions (especially by the Thebans in the fourth century BC). Even the Spartans were said to have used signal fires to warn their soldiers of the approach of the Athenian navy. When one adds up all the different references in the sources, it seems that signal beacons were fairly common in ancient Greece, although they probably did not have the extremely long chains of communication maintained by the Persians.

I do not know if J. R. R. Tolkien’s wide knowledge and expertise extended to ancient Persia and their signal systems, so I cannot say whether he borrowed Gondor’s signal beacons from the historical Persian system. On the other hand, his classical education almost certainly gave him access to the stories in Greek literature, including Aeschylus’ (probably fictional) account of Clytemnestra’s chain of beacons that stretched more than 600 km.. Of course, he could have been influenced by later uses of signal beacons: the Byzantine Empire maintained an elaborate beacon system—running throughout parts of the former Persian Empire that had been conquered by Rome—to warn them of incursions by Islamic forces. Perhaps more famous was Paul Revere’s use of lanterns (“one if by land, two if by sea”) to warn of the British advance in the American colonies—the phrase that was made immortal by the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Great authors often like to borrow ideas from other authors, placing them in their stories for knowledgeable readers to find and recognize—not unlike the modern idea of the Easter egg, which refers to a hidden clue in a movie or other form of media that sharp-eyes viewers can spot. Perhaps Tolkien wanted his readers to make the connection between the beacons of Gondor and those of Aeschylus, connecting his own magnificent novel to one of the great plays in the canon of ancient Greek literature. I’m afraid I’m no expert on Tolkien, but when I see that scene in Jackson’s movie I always think back to ancient Greece!