The Agony at the Oars.
Can there be a more dreadful fate for a slave than to be condemned to the galleys?
Imagine the dehumanising of the slave as a man, the relegation of him to the level of a beast-of-burden, the backbreaking labour, the torture of oxygen starved lungs, the hunger and thirst, the sweat and always the threat and fear of
"THE WHIP!!"
Video clip from the TV series "Ben Hur": the text is mine.
Video clip from the TV series "Ben Hur": the text is mine.
No, Chris, there cannot be a more dreadful and atrocious fate for a slave than to be condemned to the galleys. This is for sure. In another post I reminded that the life of a galley slave rarely was longer than one and half year or two years at the upmost.
ReplyDeleteHowever there is another “horror” about those poor galley-slaves ….. at least at the time of ancient Rome …… that is little known and often ignored.
It is well known that ancient Romans had a strong terror of the revolts of their slaves; and they tried to use every “caution” and means for avoiding rebellions …..even if the bloody and numerous servile wars and revolts, tell how much they were right in this fright.
A revolt of slaves would have been particularly and totally DISATROUS on a SAILING SHIP !
As I mention in another comment, big mercantile ships could have hundreds of rowing slaves, that for huge “cargo galleys” (used e.g. for the transport of cereals) might reach more than 500 slaves !
It’s obvious that the guards and sailors that were present on the ship were much, much less numerous than the slaves. And, differently from what happened in case of possible slave-revolts on the mainland, where soldiers could quickly arrive for subduing a slaves’ revolt, if the guards of the Master were not sufficient …… of course on a sailing galley there were no Legions of soldiers that might rush for quashing and subduing an uprising of the galley slaves !
Therefore rather often, the most cautious ship-owners in ancient Rome even CASTRATED their galley-slaves !
In most cases this horrible and cruel behavior had nothing to do with sadism ……. and in most cases those ship-owners who sentenced their thousands of poor galley-slaves to be castrated, were not even particularly sadistic or cruel Masters.
Generally this barbaric behavior was simply dictated by very “practical” considerations of “good sense” and of “prudence” !
If a young man is castrated (i.e. his testicles are severed ) after the completion of his “masculine growth”, i.e. about from 18 / 19 years of age and above, castration does not impair (especially on a time frame of no more than two years, like it was the life of a galley-slave !) his muscular mass and so his physical strength and his ability to labor (and row !) with the maximum vigor !
On the other side, as Roman Masters knew well, castration –both for men and for beasts- makes the slave (or the beast) much more “docile”, much more “tamed” and not at all inclined to revolt.
The ideal behavior for hundreds of galley slaves on a ship, in the middle of the sea !
This “taming by castration”, that by a simple operation made much more docile and submissive animals, both slaves and beasts, was well known and practiced by Romans, and not only for galley-slaves.
In his treaty “DE RE RUSTICA” (i.e. “ABOUT AGRICULTURE”) Columella, who lived in the 1st century AD, advises to castrate the most rebellious and unruly slaves.
The reason that he gives for this is simple …… and shocking:
“We need to emasculate our wildest male slaves, for the same reasons for which we yoke an ox to a plow and not a bull” !
Karel
As I understand it (and contrary to popular mythology and fantasy) many (if not most) of those manning the oars on Roman galleys were highly trained professionals (especially on military galleys). This seems logical for several reasons.
ReplyDelete1. It is not easy to coordinate the the action of 50 or more individual long oars.
2. If a ship is in battle (or trying to flea from attacking pirates) a captain would not want to be dependent on exhausted and unwilling slaves for his source of motive power.
I think that there are a number of alternative theories about the crew of Roman galley. Of course slaves could be forcefully "motivated" with whips or by chaining them in place to the ship itself in order that they would definitely drown if the ship is sunk (fictional novel "Ben Hur" anyone?). Surely a professionally-trained crew motivated by loyalty to their highly trained peers would be more trustworthy (and without the distracting need for guards).
I'm sure the a punishment sentence to be a galley slave was probably used. But such slaves would be purchased by those who needed the muscle for private commercial voyages.
And in fact, in ancient Rome the greatest need for "human muscular power" was not in military ships but in commercial ones.
ReplyDeleteFor example the enormous NAVES ONERARIAE (i.e. the cargo-ships, the "tankships" of ancient times), that were essential for transporting cereals from Egypt to Italy, or for transporting valuable stones for buildings (marble, granite, porphyry etc.) from the Orient and Africa, were in most cases the properties of rich merchants and private citizens who could own even fleets of dozens and dozens ships.
Some of them were so big that could require even the rowing strength of more than 250 men; and to assure that a ship could sail 24 hours a day, it was necessary to have aboard almost the double of rowers, who toiled in shifts.
So actually some Roman private citizens were the greatest owners of galley-slaves. And because the life of a slave at oars rarely exceeded 1.5 to 2 years ..... their greatest "headache" was to continuously find new "fresh" muscular slave-flesh to buy.
Karel