IXQ ZLWK FRGHV

By Dick Carlson

If you have trouble reading the title, it’s not surprising—the words have been written in a secret code!

Secret codes are not a new invention. In the book of Jeremiah in the Bible, Sheshach is used as a code word for the city of Babylon. The historical figure Histiaeus, a tyrant who lived before Christ, used a type of code wherein he shaved the head of a slave and tattooed a message on his scalp. When the slave’s hair grew back, he was sent to Aristagoras, who reshaved the slave’s head and read the message.

Coded messages have changed the course of history. Julius Caesar and the Emperor Augustus made good use of them. However, problems with codes led to the defeat of Napoleon at the battle of Leipzig. And King Charles I and Mary, Queen of Scots were driven from their thrones because their “secret” messages were deciphered by their enemies.

During the American Revolution both the colonists and the British used codes. And in 1941 the United States broke the Japanese code and used the information throughout World War II.

The ancient Greeks of Sparta used a scytale, or wooden baton, to code their messages. A leather strip was wound in a spiral around the baton, and a message was then written along the wrapped strip. When the strip was removed, the message resembled a jumbled group of letters and half-letters. The person who received the message wound the strip around another scytale, and the message became visible.

You can use the Spartan code by cutting typewriter paper, instead of a leather strip, into 1/2″ (1.25 cm) strips. Pencils or sticks of the same diameter can be used as scytales.

During the 1600s, Cardinal Richelieu used a coding device with punched holes, called a grille. It was placed over a sheet of paper, and the secret message was written through the holes. When the grille was removed, additional letters were inserted in the spaces between the coded words to hide the message. To anyone reading the entire letter, the coded message combined with the added letters appeared to be an ordinary communication between two people. But when the receiver of the message placed an identical grille over the letter, only the secret message would be seen through the holes.

Cardinal Richelieu’s Grille

You can make a set of grilles by punching identical holes in two 3″ x 5″ (7.6 cm x 12.7 cm) cards. Give one card to a friend, and exchange coded messages.

TOM, BESS WENT BACK HOME AFTER NO ONE SHOWED UP WITH ONIONS FOR THE STEW.

Julius Caesar’s Code

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZA
CDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZAB
DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABC

The top line of the chart demonstrating Julius Caesar’s favorite code is the normal alphabet. The other three lines are the alphabet with first one, then two, and finally three letters taken from the front of the alphabet and added to the end. Caesar coded his messages by substituting the regular alphabet with letters from the third line. Thus, a became d, f became i, and so on. The person who received a message that used this code knew which sequence had been substituted for the regular one and simply reversed the procedure to read the secret.

To find out what the title of this article is, use Caesar’s third alphabet sequence.

Illustrated by Shauna Mooney