Created 3/5/1996
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First Century B.C.
A Brief Description of Life on Board a Roman Galley
Taken from Steven Saylor's book, Arms of Nemesis (New York: Random
House, 1992).
...I strolled once about the deck, then found myself drawn
toward the portal amidships that led down into the galley.
It is curious that a man can sail upon many ships in his life and never
wonder at the hidden motive power that drives them, yet this is how most
people live their lives every day--men eat and dress and go about their
business, and never give a thought to all the sweat of the slaves who labored
to grind the grain and spin the cloth and pave the roads, wondering about
these things no more than they wonder about the blood that heats their bodies
or the mucus that cradles their brains.
I stepped through the portal and down the steps. Instantly a wave of heat
struck my face, warm and stifling like rising steam. I heard the dull throbbing
boom of the drum and the shuffling of many men. I smelled them before I
saw them. All the odors that the human body can produce were concentrated
in that airless space, rising up like the breath of demons from a sulphurous
pit. I took another step downward into a world of living corpses, thinking
that the Jaws of Hades could hardly lead to a more terrible netherworld
than this.
The place was like a long, narrow cavern. Here and there lamps suspended
from the ceiling cast a lurid glow across the pale naked bodies of the oarsmen.
At first, in the dimness, I saw only an impression of rippling movements
everywhere around me, like the writhing of maggots. As my eyes adjusted
I slowly made out the details.
Down the center ran a narrow aisle, like a suspended bridge. On either side
slaves were stationed in tiers, three-deep. Those against the hull were
able to sit at their stations, expending the least effort to power their
shorter oars. Those in the middle were seated higher and had to brace themselves
against a footrest with each backward pull, then rise from their seats to
push the oars forward. Those on the aisle were the unlucky ones. They ran
the catwalk, shuffling back and forth to push their oars in a great circle,
stretching onto their toes at full extension, then kneeling and lurching
forward to pull their oars out of the water. Each slave was manacled to
his oar by a rusted link of chain around one wrist.
There were hundreds of them packed tightly together, rubbing against one
another as they pushed and pulled and strained. I thought of cattle or goats
pressed together into a pen, but animals move without purpose. Here each
man was like a tiny wheel in a vast, constantly moving machine. The drumbeat
drove them.
I turned and saw the drummer at the stern, on a low bench that must have
been just below my bed. His legs were spread wide apart. His knees grasped
the rim of a low, broad drum. Thongs were wrapped around each hand, and
at the end of each thong was a leather ball. One by one he lifted the balls
in the air, and brought them down upon the skin of the drum, sending out
a low pulse that throbbed through the dense, warm air. He sat with his eyes
closed and a faint smile upon his face as if he were dreaming, but the rhythm
never faltered.
Beside him stood another man, dressed like a soldier and holding a long
whip in his right hand. He glowered when he saw me, then snapped the whip
in the air as if to impress me. The slaves nearest him shuddered and some
of them groaned, as if a wave of pain passed over them.
I pressed the blanket over my mouth and nose to filter the stench. Where
the lamplight penetrated through the maze of catwalks and manacled feet,
I saw that the bilge was awash with a mixture of feces and urine and vomit
and bits of rotting food. How could they bear it? Did they grow used to
it over time, the way men grow accustomed to the clasp of manacles? Or did
it never cease to nauseate them, just as it sickened me?
...if a place of damnation exists here on earth, it is surely within the
bowels of a Roman galley, where men are forced to work their bodies to ruination
amid the stench of their own sweat and vomit and excreta, playing out their
anguish against the maniacal, never-ending pulse of the drum. To become
mere fuel, to be consumed, drained, and discarded with hardly a thought,
is surely as horrible a damnation as any god could contrive.
They say most men die after three or four years in the galleys; the lucky
ones die before that...
Men become monsters in the galleys. Some ship captains never rotate the
positions of the slaves; a man who rows for day after day, month after month
on the same side, especially if he runs the catwalk, develops great muscles
on one side of his body out of all proportion to the other. At the same
time his flesh grows as pale as a fish from lack of sunlight. If such a
man escapes, he is easily detected by this deformity...
As I looked from face to face, most of them averted their eyes.... But a
few of them dared to look back at me. I saw eyes dulled by endless labor
and monotony; eyes envious of a man who possessed the simple freedom to
walk about at will, to wipe the sweat from his face, to clean himself after
defecating...
The beat grew faster. The rowers... along the aisle were abruptly driven
to their toes by the heightened motion of the oars, scrambling to keep up,
stretching their arms high in the air to keep the gyrating oars under control.
Manacled to the wood, they had no choice.
The beat accelerated even more.... There was a loud snap and a crack, as
if one of the great oars had suddenly split asunder, so close that I covered
my face.... The whipmaster raised his arm again. The lash slithered through
the air. The boy shrieked as if he had been scalded... faltered against
the oar, tripping on the catwalk. For a long moment he hung suspended from
the manacles around his writss as he was dragged forward, back, and up again.
As he hung from the highest point, desperately trying to find his balance,
the whip lashed against his thighs...
Created 3/5/1996
Go to Brad DeLong's Home
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Associate Professor of Economics
Brad DeLong, 601 Evans
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
(510) 643-4027 phone (510) 642-6615 fax
delong@econ.berkeley.edu
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/
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