The Galley

by Paul Howard

  Presently, a number of women emerged through a door bearing trays of bread and other temptations. Like the others, I forgot myself and looked at them in surprise. Was this food for us? Soon others entered pushing a cart containing large pots of something hot that smelled pretty good.

  Soon they produced bowls from the covered trays and they were passed out to us. The women then went about and filled our bowls with the contents of the pots. It would not have been a popular dish among the city’s gentry but it was very welcome to men as hungry as us. It was stew of beef and fish with vegetables and the bread was fresh. We were given a poor wine to drink and allowed to even take seconds!

  After eating our fill, a Tribune entered the hall. He gestured to the guards and they withdrew. The doors on the far end of the room were opened and two rows of lancers entered. The Tribune looked us over and began to speak.

  “Galley slaves,” he said, “Listen carefully, for you will not be told again! Now that you have been fed, you will leave at once for Misenum and galley assignment. You will march on foot.”

  There was a murmur in the room, for Misenum is far to the south. They were going to make us march almost the length of Italy. The Tribune grinned. “Too far for you eh?” he mocked. “Did you think you would go in carts, or would you prefer we hired bearers to take you there?

  “You will march! Some of you will not make it. If you are not strong enough to take a little walk, you would not be strong enough to survive the galleys, and Rome has no use for idle mouths to feed! You will stand and line up for those doors. Place your right hand on the shoulder of the man in front of you and keep it there until you are told you may lower it. Any man who fails to obey will be beaten! Move out!”

  We stood and did as we were told. After about twenty minutes, I could feel the blood rushing from my arm but I kept it in place. Only minutes before, a man near me dropped his arm for a moment and was beaten so badly that he had to be carried out. Those who did not leave with us were taken to the amphitheater for immediate execution. We had no wish to die so we held on.

  Once through the door, we were shackled at the ankle. When my turn came I was told to place my foot in the cut out place on a stone block. My arms were held behind me and the shackle was placed about my ankle. The metal was quite hot and it burned me.

  Then the smith took a red hot rivet from the bucket and slammed it hard with a hammer. A sharp, hot pain moved up my leg so fast I had to catch my breath. No wonder they held my hands! It was all done with great efficiency and speed, for no sooner was he done with me than another foot was in the block.

  I was pushed into another line and was left to wait. I looked down at this new appendage they added to me: it was a flat ring of iron held by a rivet. On one side was an eye with a ring through it. It was tight but not so much that it could not turn on my ankle to either side.

  As I waited in line I looked at the scene about me. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the air outside felt good. The detail that would take us to our destiny was assembled and waiting for the shackling to be completed, which took less than two hours. At the end of the court was a large iron gate that I recognized, as did every citizen of the City: The Gate of No Return. Once a condemned man or woman passed through it they would never be seen or heard from again except in the arena. Already, a crowd was gathering outside for our exit through it.

  As a boy, I remember seeing the condemned march out of this unholy portal and was severely chastised by my father for taunting them. “No matter what they have done,” he told me, “Their fate is harsh enough without us adding to their miseries.”

  Soon I would see how many others did not subscribe to that sentiment. Once all had been shackled, we were given the opportunity to step to the wall and relieve ourselves. This done, we got back in line and a chain was run down each of the six lines through the hooks on our ankles. The detail moved to their places at our sides and the gate swung open, the order to move forward was given and we began to move out.

  I had always loved the people of Rome, but I must confess that I found nothing in them that was lovable in their conduct toward us as we left the city. The crowd shouted vile obscenities at us from all sides. Many spat and threw stones at us. Women and men alike rushed from the crowd and pinched and poked at us before being thrown back by the soldiers.

  Even from behind the silken curtains of palanquins, curses were rained upon us that were so foul that I cannot repeat them here. It was in this awful humiliation that my fellows and I left the Greatest City on Earth, with heads hung low and harpies pressing at us from all sides.

  Once we had reached the city walls, the taunting stopped and the Sun became our chief villain and torturer. The cobblestones were hot under our feet and the drive was merciless. Only when we passed nearby towns was the ritual of humiliation repeated but then only half-heartedly. The farther away from Rome we went the less this punishment occurred. But there was plenty of suffering to go around.

  After a few hours out, the soldiers became bored and amused themselves with the lash and cudgel. They struck us if we looked at them or did not look at all, they struck us if we stumbled or moved too slow to suit them. They struck us for no reason at all and they enjoyed it. I caught the lash on my own back and it sent knives up the back of my head. It was then I realized that my back had turned as red as the others about me.

  That first night we camped by the road. Or, should I say, the soldiers camped. The prisoners were allowed to lie on the embankment still chained together. Our backs were burned so badly that sleep upon them was impossible. Here my fellows and I helped each other to turn our bonds in such a way that allowed those who needed it to sleep upon their stomachs. Including me, of course. Throughout my attempts to sleep I could feel every wrinkle and line upon my back as my pains sung to me all night. In the morning we were given bread and water, just enough to barely survive on and no more.

  This ritual was repeated every day for the three weeks of our march. By the third day a number of our party had developed deep welts in their backs and these became infected in the older and more sickly of the prisoners. No medication was administered for these afflictions, only criticism and abuse.

  By the eighth day two men succumbed to their ailments and, being unable to walk further, were put to the sword. As the sun continued to do its work upon us, draining our strength away, the numbers who shared a similar fate increased until the killing became a daily occurrence. The bodies were simply cut out of the line and pushed to the side of the road.

  On several occasions, wild dogs would appear and feed upon our dead comrades’ remains. It was a sickening sight. By the second week, packs of them would follow us for the smell of death was everywhere. This was too much even for the soldiers, who did their best to drive the dogs away whenever they could.

  During this time I heard few words from the prisoners, for talk among us was not permitted and nobody had anything to say anyway. We were all miserable and the facts spoke for themselves. Two or three times a day we would stop to water the horses. At this time we were also allowed to drink but only after the horses were done.

  Some soldiers would amuse themselves by urinating in the water as we were drinking. For the first few days I refused to drink, feeling quite disgusted by this behavior. After several more days of the hot sun, I was not so particular. The Tribune, to his credit, repeatedly warned the soldiers not to do it anymore but many still did when they thought he was not looking.

  One day however, a soldier was spotted at this activity and the Tribune made an example of him. He was tied to a tree and lashed until he passed out. I must confess that, although I have no taste for such sights, I enjoyed it. I hated those men for their treatment of us.

  Near the end the second week, I have no idea where we were at the time, the sky grew cloudy and it began to rain. My fellows and I thanked the gods for this because it provided some relief from the sun and its punishment…or so we thought.

  The rain came down ceaselessly unt
il the roads turned to a river of mud that we sank into sometimes to the knee. Now every step was hard labor as the thick mud sucked us down with every footfall. The pain gave way to a numbing fatigue that was worse than the lash. Even the soldiers were too miserable to abuse us but that brought no relief, for the fatigue now took an even greater toll upon us.

  By the third day of the rain I could feel my body no longer. My arms and legs were like stone weights and my eyes were becoming rain-blind.

  One of the men next to me stumbled as he sank in to his knees, the men behind him, also blinded, walked right into him. I heard an awful sound as the ligaments in the back of his knees broke and he fell forward, like a fallen tree, with his lower legs still straight down in the mud. His cries of pain were terrible. The column came to a stop as the soldiers tried to stand him up, but to no avail. The ligaments were gone and he could travel no further. They cut him out and put an end to him quickly, leaving his body in the mud where he fell.

  It rained hard for two more days and we drove on. It seemed as if all the devils of hell had planned our route for us. I cannot put the feeling into words. By now, I began to wonder if death might be a better choice than to go on suffering this way. I was tempted to drop and let them kill me on the spot. But I kept seeing that man left to rot in the mud of the road and the dogs devouring the other prisoners’ bodies in my mind. This thought kept me on my feet.

  On the last day of our journey the sun emerged again. Nobody thanked the gods anymore. By noon we could see the port of Misenum before us. Now, there are few things more beautiful than a city by the sea. With its open air and the tall masts in the harbor, standing like a forest of man-made trees against the sea.

  Misenum is the exception to this. It is an ugly place. Drab and smelly, devoid of color and without character or charm. I was glad to see it though, for it meant the end of our march, which could not have come sooner.

  I was beginning to die inside, not emotionally but physically. I had not passed urine in two days, lost all appetite and my color was turning pasty. I was not alone. Many who were healthy a few weeks earlier were now just skin and bones, propelled forward on nerves alone.

  Six hundred men passed through the Gate of No Return on that first day, only four hundred and twenty-six entered Misenum.

  THE ANTONIA

  As we approached the city it was clear that the streets were too narrow for our column to pass through, which now only numbered four ranks wide. The Tribune ordered us into two columns and was just about to take us in when several mounted officers rode up to greet us. I recognized the naval insignia on their uniforms at once. I could not hear what they said but there was brief confusion among the soldiers as they tried to organize themselves. Our four columns were to be separated for assignment to different ships.

  Finally, the Tribune ordered three of his subordinate officers to lead one column each and he took charge of one himself, which I happened to be in. We then marched into the city for the docks. Again, there was the usual amount of taunting and abuse from the citizens of the town as we passed. We were too tired and sick to care anymore. What seemed horrible and shameful to me as we left Rome now only struck me as stupid and pointless. Nevertheless, the habit of looking down to avoid eye contact as we passed through meant that I saw little of the town but the road leading to the harbor.

  As the wooden planking of the dock appeared below our feet I finally began to look about. On our left was a fleet of warships so large that I discounted their size as a hallucination brought on by my illness.

  Presently the Tribune ordered us to stop and the column collapsed to the dock as one. He got off of his horse and looked at the unsavory-looking men gathered near the closest ship. One of them emerged from the group: Gracchus.

  One look at him and you knew all you needed to know. Everything about him suggested filth and meanness. He was not tall but still imposing, with stocky arms and legs like tree trunks. His brown skin was as leathery as his coarse tunic and his close-cropped hair and beard were brown with streaks of dirty grey. His most prominent feature was his left eye, which was gone, leaving an ugly, gruesome open socket that you could see into. Running through this was a deep old scar that dominated the left side of his face. He stared out through a single round eye, which seemed to threaten whatever it looked at simply by gazing upon it.

  He moved to the Tribune, who greeted him with a “Hail Caesar!” and a salute, which Gracchus acknowledged with a raised hand. “One hundred and four prisoners reporting from Rome.” the Tribune said, offering a scroll to Gracchus. He took it and looked us over.

  “By the look of them,” he replied with a gravely, phlegmy voice that grated on the nerves, “You need not have bothered! Half of them look dead already!”

  “That is your problem,” the Tribune replied, “My orders are just to deliver them. Will you take them in charge?” Gracchus glanced at the scroll for a moment and frowned before he answered,

  “I suppose so!”

  Without another word, the Tribune mounted his horse and rode away, as sick of looking at us as we were of him. As Gracchus returned to his fellows I took a look at the ship that would be my prison. I had never seen anything like it before.

  Her name was Antonia and she was enormous, at least two times as large as any warship I had ever seen. So big, in fact, that I wondered at first how a ship of such size could ever stay in one piece on the open sea. The more I looked, the more amazing the sight this freshly varnished giant was, for it incorporated every advance of ship design in use. Amplifying some to new extremes and avoiding the weaknesses of others.

  The keel was flat and wide like the Belgican design, but tapered gracefully at the bow. The construction of this hull was ingenious, instead of the boards running the length it, they were thinner and diagonally placed, running from the keel up to the deck. Inside of it was a second hull which ran in the opposite direction, like a woven basket.

  This double hull was stronger than the standard designs because it was more flexible, yielding to the rhythms of the sea. This flexibility also made it much tougher in battle and impervious to the ram, which simply bounced off of it. It also made Antonia lighter than ships half her size because it was so thin.

  The keel itself was in rabbited sections, which could withstand even the roughest seas and her steer board was huge. So big, in fact, that it could not be controlled by the standard tiller. Instead, a series of ropes was attached to a raised helm just in front of another innovation, which was called the castle. This multi-purpose structure could serve as cabins, stowage, or configured in a number of battle uses as required. There was another, shallower forecastle near the prow and the deck was entirely enclosed!

  Taller than conventional galleys, her rails were turned vertical and rounded to repel the grapnel. She was so light and well balanced that there was no corvis, which would have compromised her seaworthiness and been of little use, as she towered above all she encountered.

  It was only her oars, really, that qualified her as a galley at all. Her arrangement was that of a bireme, which was the most accurate for handling in battle, although at the time I could not imagine how any bireme that size could move at anything faster than a crawl.

  As radical as she was below, the rigging of this new craft was even stranger: her yardarms were longer and the jibs were shallower than normal, allowing for two jibs per arm, which put one third more canvas to the wind. Her mainmast had two sails, one of just below normal size and a smaller rectangular one above, which could be raised and lowered much faster than a single large sail, even at sea. A shorter mizzenmast was located just behind the helm with a double lateen-style sail. I later learned how this innovation made her incredibly fast and agile in the wind.

  Her anchor hung from heavy chains instead of cables, and the crossbeams were held with ferules instead of nails. Whoever designed her was either a madman or a genius! Whether she would hold up at sea I could not guess but it was the greatest marvel of engineering I had ever
seen.

  I was so astonished by her that I had not realized I had risen to my feet to look her over, which is very dangerous for a galley slave. To stand out in any way is to risk attention and the only notice a condemned man can expect is punishment. A quick slap with the lash brought me back to reality and I got back down with my fellows, who looked at me as if I were a fool.

  As I looked up at the ship again I noticed another man of a very different kind, standing at the prow. Our new lord and master, Captain Marcus Urbano. Although I never spoke to him or knew him personally, his manner was familiar to me. For his look was as impeccable as his uniform: A man of detail and intelligence. Never to be taken lightly by anyone, not even his superiors. His every movement spoke of a life at sail, a man who made the sea his home. He glanced at the prisoners and moved below deck without uttering a word.

  We rested on the dock for an hour and were joined by another column marched over from Tarentum and nearly two hundred strong. After a while, Gracchus directed his first subordinate, Rufrius, to get us on our feet. The less said about him the better, for he was an odious creature with tiny eyes that stared out of narrow slits. His manner was not so much that of a man as of something you would expect to duck for cover as soon as you lit a lamp. This inferiority to other men made him all the more vicious in his station, which allowed him to abuse those who did not dare to fight back.

  With yelling and lashing we were forced to our feet. His men moved through our company with a bucket of noxious green liquid, which we were each ordered to drink a small quantity of. It tasted moldy and terrible, and it had a texture that made me want to vomit, but we were told it would help us, and it did. Within twelve hours I was able to pass water again and the clouds began to clear from my eyes.

  We were then counted and brought onboard in single file up the gang, where we were surrounded by lancers and told to wait. A smith set up coals with a hot iron for branding.