Читать книгу The Secrets of Spies - Weldon Owen - Страница 10

Every ruler has always wanted to know what their adversary is

thinking and doing, and what their own reaction should be. The

traditional response to this problem was to seek divine inspiration.

In Ancient Egypt and in the early civilizations of China and India,

priests and oracles would perform elaborate rituals in an attempt

to discover what the future might hold. In Greece and Rome, animal

entrails were closely examined to help make key decisions. But

some more clear-sighted leaders looked to their fellow humans

for assistance in the form of spies or secret agents.

The Chinese manual on statecraft, The Art of War, was the first

work to provide a framework for spycraft: gathering information

while spreading disinformation; bribing or seducing officials; and

even assassinating troublesome individuals. Over time, many of

the intelligence techniques we know today came into being, not

least the sending of coded messages and the counter-methods—

developed by Arab scholars—of breaking these codes. Foremost

among medieval spy pioneers was the city state of Venice, which,

by the early 1500s, had developed an elaborate intelligence

network spread across Europe and Asia.