σκυτάλη

1. a staff, cudgel, club , [variant datesAnthology Palantina

2. at Sparta, a staff or baton , used as a cypher for writing dispatches:—;a strip of leather was rolled slantwise round it, on which the dispatches were written lengthwise, so that when unrolled they were unintelligible: commanders abroad had a staff of like thickness, round which they rolled these papers, and so were able to read the dispatches:—;hence σκυτάλη came to mean a Spartan dispatch , (Thucydides); and generally a message , (Pindar)

derivation uncertain (ML)