degree the form of a raft or float.  Their government, which at first was aristocratical, was afterwards changed to a democracy; and it is to this popular form of government that their prosperity and wealth are ascribed.  The number of people in the whole state amounted to 300,000; Tarentum had twelve other cities under its dominion.  Besides a considerable fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, they had constantly on foot a very large army, principally of mercenaries.  Eighteen years before the first Punic war, the Romans had entered into a maritime treaty with the Tarentines; according to this treaty, neither party were to navigate beyond the Cape of Lacinia.  Soon afterwards, however, the Roman fleet accidentally appearing near Tarentum, the inhabitants took the alarm, sunk four of the ships, killed or took prisoners the commander and some other officers, sold the seamen for slaves, and behaved with great insolence to the ambassador whom the Romans sent to remonstrate and demand satisfaction.  They were soon, however, obliged to submit to the superior power of the Romans.  In the second Punic war, it was finally subdued, and a Roman colony planted there.

The Spinetes, Liburnians, and Locrians, were also celebrated for their skill in naval affairs, and for their commerce, before Rome manifested the slightest wish to distinguish herself in this manner.  Indeed, the situation of Italy naturally turned the attention of its inhabitants (especially of those who were early civilized, as the Tuscans, or those who had emigrated from a civilized country, as the nations in the south of Italy,) to naval affairs and maritime commerce.  Washed by three seas, the Adriatic on the north-east, the Tyrrhenian on the west, and the Ionian on the south, Italy enjoyed advantages possessed by few nations of antiquity.  Of the first of these seas, the Spinetes became masters, of the second the Tuscans, and of the third the Tarentines.  The Spinetes, were originally Pelasgi, who had emigrated and settled by chance rather than design, on the south banks of the Po.  Spina, their capital, was situated on the north side of the southernmost mouth of that river.  We do not possess any particular account of their commerce, but that it rendered them powerful and rich we are assured; and their dominion over the Adriatic is a decisive proof of the former, while their magnificent offerings to Delphos may as justly be deemed a proof of the latter.  Spina was strong both by nature and art, on the sea side, but the reverse on the land side; so that at last it was abandoned by its inhabitants not being able to withstand the attacks of their neighbours, who were either jealous of their prosperity, or attracted to the assault by the love of plunder.  In the reign of Augustus it was reduced to a small village; and the branch of the Po, on which it was situated, had changed its course so much, that it was then upwards of fifteen miles distant from the sea, on the shore of which it had been built.  The gradual alteration in the course of the river, it is probable, contributed with the other cause already mentioned to reduce it to comparative insignificance.