"Roman galleys had slave rowers?" Topic

The Roman marines topic got me thinking about this somehow.

Anyway, anybody who has ever seen Ben Hur knows that the Roman galleys were powered by slave rowers, but I seem to remember reading at some point that they were mostly paid free men.

Anybody know more?

Oarsmen on the ships of essentially all nations around the Mediterranean Sea were paid professional freemen, including Roman ships. It was a highly skilled occupation and definitely not one in which slaves were used. Now, the oarsmen of a ship taken captive may have been sold as slaves, but more often they were probably just given an opportunity to switch sides given the constant shortage of skilled oarsmen.

Brian

Being a skilled oarsmen was a nice way to make a living in the ancient world. It wasnt until the Ren. that slaves were used in large numbers. Even then it was not unusual to still have a skilled free oarsman on each oar to oversee the other rowers.

Also most oarsmen on wargalleys were armed and expected to fight in boarding actions and coastal raids. Galleys were just too small to have large dedicated fighting crews, without also using the oarsmen.

It is probably an exageration to call all oarsmen 'paid professional freemen'. Pulling an oar was hardly a profession, even though it was skilled work in some types of ship.

Once galleys moved to using oars manned by more than one man the skill requirements dropped a good deal and, as it was a pretty lousy job, is likely to have attracted the lowest in society – those who had few other employment options.

I don't doubt that all nations used 'pressed' men at times and, while they were not actually slaves, I wouldn't think they could leave the ship when they fancied either. Probably they had a similar status to the ordinary seamen of the British Navy during the 18th & early 19th centuries.

What Doug says is certainly true until the larger ships and navies of the Successors and the Punic Wars came along. Once ships grew in size and became more 'boxed in' the oar crew would be less and less likely to join in a boarding fight.

Not only was it difficult for them to get up on deck but the decks would already be full of fighting men. Add to that the shift of weight upwards could endanger the stability of the ship.

Sorry when I meant the crew joined in boarding actions, this refers more to the ships of the Ren. then the Greek and Roman ships, different type of galleys. But it still applies to raids. It was normal for the rowers to be armed and act as skirmishers and such.

On a galley all it takes is one rower to be out of "step" and you have an instant mess that can break oars. Military, no slaves until the Ren., on civilian shipping, depends on the cargo.

It is assumed that Roman rowing crews fought in boarding actions as well, but unlike the Ren. galleys, it wasn't as easy for Roman rowing crews to join in the fight as their ships were layered with rowing crew banks as apposed to the Ren. ships that just had one level of rowing crew. Cataphract ships were difficult to leave quickly and it has been suggested that Roman rowing crews had to sit at assigned seats, which means that rushing a rowing crew out of their ship and then back in again was not a easy nor a quick task. However, it is believed that Roman rowing crews were armed for hand-to-hand combat if the need arise, which I am sure did from time to time.

There was an "in" joke among rowing crew of the later Roman period that they were slaves to the Emperor, because they were assigned a ship for their term in the navy, even though they were paid. Much like a legionnaire who signed up for his 26 year service -- you are paid, but you still have to serve your 26 years (unless discharged, or course). Once you sign the dotted line, you cannot choose to leave. Not sure if they felt they were underpaid, but I understand they were paid well, at least at the start of the formal Roman navy.

There was also a 'moral' component involved. To a Roman, and also a Greek, free citizen it would have been highly regugnant to have a slave fighting for the state because there were no free men available, and rowing a warship was considered fighting for the state, where the few rowers in a merchant ship were just 2 legged livestock.

That is the reason you often find slaves being freed en-mass to enlist in desperate circumstances in the ancient world.

Hi

Ben Hur is just another example of "historical fiction" not being historical, but creating a myth.

One famous story about the romans involved when they first started fighting the Cathegenians and had no navy. The romans saw military as a sort of duty. So, the very rich hired people to build rowing frames on land to train with. Hired the poor and unemployed to be rowers, trained them on land while the same rich guys were having boats built by doing the russian thing and exactly copying a beached carthegenian quinquereme.

Second point is that "slavery" wasn't quite the same culturally as the anti-bellum south. In some ways, slavery was more a reflection of parts of the economy that were "money poor". Think about there being no money like we think it today. Rathere all money are minted metals. The "minting" is to reduce fraud. And people often had no coins at all in their pocket at all. It was common to do everything with barter or extended "blimply" type barter. That is, on your reputation, someone would give you goods or services today that you might actually not pay the person who did things, but some obligation he might make in the future. Slavery was like this in some respects. People would "sell"themselves to slavery that was paying a debt, be ended with another agreement and the whole while the slave would own property, including other slaves. No money being actually involved in any part of the transaction.

Rocky

I think you are presenting a far too nice picture Rocky, probably tinted by the "indenture" social institution of Anglo-Saxon culture.

Maybe slavery in the more northern parts of Europe,in the steppes, and some slaves in Greece fit the picture. But Roman slaves? "It" instead of "he/she"? branding? or Greek mine slaves (like the Lavrian mines of Attica)? Definitely not the picture you present. Also it would be interesting to see any possible figures about how many slaves were of the "contractual" paradigm Rocky mentions, and how many were the result of coercion or conquest?

Again I am not saying that the picture you describe is totally wrong. But it is an overgeneralization.

I understand the Romans used slaves but not chained to the oar. Sort of career slaves, the sort who would know they were likely to be looked after & eventually freed if they kept their heads down. So pretty motivated/reliable

Rowing was a 'lower-class' profession in Classical Athens

Hi

KT, the issue is that slaves could own property including slaves.

And the society was different and totally unlike that described in Ben Hur which reflected anti-bellum southern attitudes.

In Roman society, one point of view is that the society was such a strong patriarchy that it could be argued that the entire family were slaves to the paterfamilas. He had the power to make and break agreements and even condemn his family members to death.

think "MAFIA"….grin.

So, I am not trying to sugarcoat the slavery issue, just asserting that slaves weren't like the "slaves" we think of. The societal differences involving money and obligations were just too different.

Rocky

Hi

Oh, and I forgot to mention. Multiple rowers didn't change the issue about slaves. In fact, while renaissance ships could be a single oar with up to 8 rowers, there were similar ancients.

In rome, the quinquireme was 3 banks with 2-2-1 rowers. A 6 was 2 2 2 and so on. the 10s and 12s at actium were all 3 banks with mulitple rowers.

Rocky

The only time I have read about slaves being used to row ships, warships, was when ship were being moved from one port to another. Slaves were sometimes used for this purpose. I also read that it is possible that the captain, or high ranking officers "may" have had their personal slaves on board to row, but this would have been limited to one or two slaves. I don't think the "paid" crew would have been very happy having to row next to a slave.