Criers

One appointed in a town or community to make public announcements. A common or town crier. An auctioneer. A hawker.

"'You know how long I have been without news of my runaway slave girl. So you simply must make a public announcement offering a reward to the person who finds her, and insist on my orders being obeyed at once. Her person must be accurately described so that nobody will be able to plead ignorance as an excuse for harbouring her. Here is her dossier; Psyche is the name, and all particulars are included.' She handed him a little book and immediately went home. Mercury did as he was told. He went from country to country crying out: 'Oyez, oyez! If any person can apprehend and seize the person of a runaway princess, one of the Lady Venus's slave-girls, by name PSYCHE, or give any information that will lead to her discovery, let such a person go to Mercury, Town-crier of Heaven, in his temple just outside the precincts of Our Lady of the Myrtles, Aventine Hill, Rome. The reward offered is as follows: seven sweet kisses from the mouth of the said Venus herself, and one exquisitely delicious thrust of her honeyed tongue between his pursed lips.'"

Apuleius, The Golden Ass, (2nd Century A.D.)

[translation by Robert Graves]