The roman courier system, precursor of the postal system, at the beginning was called vehiculatio and later on cursus publicus, was established by the Emperor Augustus in between 27th and 20th year B.C. In the beginning cursus publicus was reserved for civil and military state officers. In every province men were placed by the military roads where they past on messages to one another. Later on, transport vehicles were introduced (vehicula), that had shown to be much more efficient. Whoever would use state transportation would have to possess transportation identification most commonly from sheepskin and after wards on waxed plates. In the time of Emperor Hadrian (117. - 138.) a special prefect was appointed that was in charge of issuing transport permits and in charge of cursus publicus in the Roman Empire. At the time of Emperor Septimius Severus (193. - 211.) cursus publicus was divided in two parts:the fast part (cursus velox), that had saddled horses, draught horses, mules and mullah, and various types of vehicles - two-wheeled vehicles (carrus, birota, carpentum, cisium) or four-wheeled vehicles (raeda, carruca) and the slow part (cursus claburalis), that used heavy vehicles (angaria) that were able to transport up to 500 kg of cargo. Cursus publicus was carried out through an outspread road network, about 80.000 km of it - viae militares, consulares, praetoriae and publicae, and afterwards viae privatae and vicinales. From Salona (today Solin near Split) many military and other roads were built through the Dalmatia province. A very busy and significant military road Salona - Narona (85 roman miles, 126 km) even from the first century went through Herzegovina, through Tihaljina, Klobuk, Vitina, Humac, Hardomilja and Bijača to Vid. In order to obtain parcel, goods and passenger transportation security, in time, stations (statio) were set up with armed guards. The Latin compound „posita statio“ (risen station) in folk Latin was shortened to posita" (station), from which we have todays internationalism Post. (Radoslav Dodig)
