Unlike the Phœnicians and Carthaginians, the Romans had no inclination to expeditions of mere discovery, and never cared to become acquainted with any country whose remote situation appeared to defy their arms. Vain of their own power and of the extent of their dominions, they did not hesitate, in almost every instance, to bestow the name of barbarians on the civilized inhabitants of India as well as on those of other parts of the world, whose manners or customs were indistinctly known to them. Despising commercial pursuits, they looked to Greece and other nations to regulate their over-sea trade and to supply their wants; and when their fleets obtained the dominion of the sea, their object was less to protect their rapidly extending maritime commerce than to consolidate and preserve their power and dominion upon the land. In the reign of Augustus the plan of fixed naval stations was, for the first time, adopted; two being appointed, one at Ravenna to command the eastern, the other at Misenum to command the western division of the Mediterranean. By this time the Romans had learned from experience that galleys of more than three banks of oars were unsuited for real service, and consequently their more important fleets, from the reign of Augustus, consisted almost exclusively of the light and swift vessels known as Liburnians, from the people who were the first to build them. [Sidenote: Single-banked galleys of the Liburni.] Occupying a district a little north of the present Dalmatia, and devoting their attention almost exclusively to sea-faring pursuits, the Liburnians[286] had obtained a great reputation for their knowledge of the art of navigation. Provided with excellent harbours, and holding in their grasp many of the small islands of the Adriatic, which afforded them shelter from storms and a convenient rendezvous for their swift craft, they unfortunately made but little distinction between the duties of the honest trader and the predatory habits of the buccaneer: but to them Octavianus was mainly indebted for his victory over Antony at Actium, and Rome itself for the introduction of a better and swifter type of war-vessel.[287] [Sidenote: The fleets of Rome.] [Sidenote: Their creation and slow progress.] [Sidenote: The form and construction of their galleys.]