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.
In the first place, the Romans (as we have already shown in our account of
the Carthaginian commerce,) had several treaties with the Carthaginians,
which may properly be called commercial treaties, before the first Punic
war. The earliest treaty, according to Polybius himself, was dated about
250 years before the war; and in this treaty the voyages undertaken by the
Romans on account of trade to Africa, Sardinia, and that part of Sicily at
that time possessed by the Carthaginians, are expressly mentioned and
regulated.
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