The second oldest job in the world

[diegis]

The first documents about espionage was about babylonians and egyptians, and soon the jews "come in game", when arrive in Caanan. But the first actions closest to modern spionage was done by Hannibal, who haved a spy network in Roman republic, long before the begining of war (even an agent in Rome ), who try to know all about peoples, agriculture, and roman military. Caesar as well, haved a kind of operative inteligence service, who bring him infos about the terrain where he move, and about enemy army, and, as well, try to infiltrate the enemies with a kind of "fifth column", a spy network much agressive than one of Hannibal. Chinese have as well a lot of spy activities ( even Sun Tzi spoke about ), but the most keept military secret was the "greek fire". Byzantines keep him for 4 centuries, until, in unknow circumstances, the arabs manage to stole him. If anyone know some spectaculous spy actions from that time, i will be glad to know about.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

The first documents about espionage was about babylonians and egyptians, and soon the jews "come in game", when arrive in Caanan. But the first actions closest to modern spionage was done by Hannibal, who haved a spy network in Roman republic, long before the begining of war (even an agent in Rome ), who try to know all about peoples, agriculture, and roman military. Caesar as well, haved a kind of operative inteligence service, who bring him infos about the terrain where he move, and about enemy army, and, as well, try to infiltrate the enemies with a kind of "fifth column", a spy network much agressive than one of Hannibal. Chinese have as well a lot of spy activities ( even Sun Tzi spoke about ), but the most keept military secret was the "greek fire". Byzantines keep him for 4 centuries, until, in unknow circumstances, the arabs manage to stole him. If anyone know some spectaculous spy actions from that time, i will be glad to know about.

Hannibal came late in the spy game, we got spies in the western world as early as the 6th century BC and certainly in the 5th, during both the Persian wars and the Peloponnese's War, not even mentionning the spies and scoots of Philip II and Alexander the Great. Just take a look at the information network Alcibiade built in both the Egean, the Peloponnese, Sicily and southern Italy !

[caldrail]

Spies are as old as tribal living. Once human beings had enough intelligence to plan the downfall of the rival tribe, someone had the idea of looking to see what they were up to first.

[Kosmo]

A good deceit it's mentioned by Procopius. The persian king faked an attack against Mesopotamia, leting information leak to roman spies. Belizarius rushed to defend, but the king struck much more to the north in Lazica.

Another example was the way Crassus was misled by his arabian guide in service of the Parthians on the way to Carrhae. Arminius performed similar tasks against Octavian's legions leading them to a trap.

Propaganda and coups were used in many instances against greek cities. Pyrhus and Antigonas Gonatas fought to influence the politics of the cities of Pelopones. Antigonos got the upper hand in Argos but Pyrhus party open the gates for his last attack.

Various action that we consider espionage and influence were used but I don't know of any institution created for this purpose.

[caldrail]

Spy organisations are indicative of organised and sophisicated societies that can find enough profit/necessity to operate with justification. Other than that, spies are simply committed or trusted people who either volunteer or obey orders to go under cover for their master. Its easy to slot in an unknown person who lurks in the background apparently working innocently.

[miguel]

Sun-Tzu, as you've mentioned, had spoken about spying about a hundred years before the Persian War. The Use of Spy is from Sun-Tzu's The Art of War Chapter XIII.

 

More information on spying in Rome, you can refer to this article.