preserve Italy from the horrors of war, by
transporting an army across the Adriatic in the coming summer and deciding
the conflict on the shores of Greece. An army of many legions was already
in cantonments on the eastern coast of Italy, or prepared to concentrate
there in the spring. His fleet crowded the ports of Tarentum (Taranto) and
Brundusium (Brindisi), and minor detachments were wintering in the smaller
harbours of southern Italy. Most of his ships were smaller than those to
which they were to be opposed. It was reported that Antony had a
considerable number of huge quinqueremes, and even larger ships of war,
anchored in the Ambracian Gulf. The ships of the Western Empire were
mostly triremes; but there was the advantage that while Antony's fleet was
largely manned by hastily recruited landsmen, Octavian had crews made up of
experienced sailors. Many of them were of the race of the Liburni, men of
the island-fringed coast of Dalmatia, to this day among the best sailors of
the Adriatic,[2] and his admiral was the celebrated Marcus Vipsanius
Agrippa, who had to his credit more than one naval success in the civil
wars, amongst them a victory won off the headland of Mylae, in the same
waters that had been the scene of the triumph of Duilius.

[2] Men of the same race of sailors and fishermen largely manned
the victorious fleet of Tegethoff at Lissa, nineteen centuries
later. See Chapter XI.

Early in the spring, while the main body of Octavian's fleet concentrated
at Brundusium, and the army that was to cross the Adriatic gathered around
the harbour, Agrippa with a strong squadron put to sea, seized the port of
Methone in the Peloponnesus, and using this place as his base of operations
captured numbers of the Egyptian transports that were conveying supplies to
the enemy's camps. Antony ought to have replied to this challenge by
putting to sea with his combined fleet, forcing Agrippa to concentrate the
Western armament to meet him, and deciding by a pitched battle who was to
have the command of the sea in the Adriatic. But Caesar's old lieutenant,
once as energetic and enterprising a soldier as his master, had now become
indolent and irresolute. He was used to idling away weeks and months with
Cleopatra and his semi-Oriental Court. Instead of venturing on a vigorous
offensive campaign he left the initiative to his opponent, and with a
nominally more powerful fleet at his disposal he passively abandoned th