compelled to attack them. Their devotedness to piracy explains what to
Mons. Huet appears unaccountable. He observes, that it is remarkable that
neither the Dalmatians, who were powerful at sea by means of their port
Salona, which was their capital, nor the Liburnians themselves, according
to all appearance, had the use of money among them. Commerce cannot be
carried on to great extent, or in a regular and expeditious manner, by
natives ignorant of the use of money; but money seems to be not at all
requisite to the purposes of piracy. The Liburnian ships, or more properly
speaking, those ships which were denominated Liburnian, from having been
invented and first employed by this people, were of two kinds; one large,
fit for war and long voyages, but at the same time built light and for
quick sailing. After the victory of Actium, which Augustus gained in a
great measure by means of these ships, few were built by the Romans of any
other construction. The other Liburnian vessels were small, for fishing and
short voyages; some of these were made with osiers and covered with hides.
But strength and lightness, and quick sailing, were the qualities by which
the Liburnian ships were chiefly distinguished and characterised.

At what precise period the Romans directed their attention to maritime
affairs we are not accurately informed: that the opinion of Polybius on
this subject is not well founded, is evident from several circumstances. He
says, that before the first Punic war the Romans had no thought of the sea;
that Sicily was the first country, out of Italy, in which they ever landed;
and that, when they went to that island to assist the Mamertines, the
vessels which they employed in that expedition were hired, or borrowed from
the Tarentines, the Locrians, &c. He is correct in his statement that
Sicily was the first country in which the Romans had any footing; but that
he is inaccurate with respect to the period when the Romans first applied
themselves to maritime affairs, will appear from the following facts.