Roman and Ancient Sailors

Bump for interest
Also can anyone recommend good read on ancient seamanship

>>1711061
It's fiction but Over the Wine Dark Sea is good

File: rowing roman.jpg (34KB, 306x305px) Image search: [Google]

34KB, 306x305px

Nah, we just row, man

>>1711073
Being reminded that conditions like those existed makes me so glad to be a NEET in 2016.

>You will never be surrounded by muscular, sweaty men bound in chains

Hnngggg, why even live?

I just can't believe sailors didn't sing to keep rhythm or stay focused on task. I can't believe something like that only showed up in the Age of Piracy.

Were ancient galleys memefully manned by slaves?

>>1711414
The Roman ones were.

Greeks and Carthaginian Citizens manned the oars of their warships. They didn't trust slaves in their warships and believed its a point of pride to man a warship anyway.

What do ya do with a drunken sailor
E'riy in the mornin'?
Weigh hay and up't he rises
E'rly in the mornin'
Put him in da mail wit' jamacian bacon
E'rly in the mornin'

>>1711417

The Romans were not keen on the idea of galley slaves, they existed by they were a minority. Oarsmen were usually citizens and freemen and was actually a well-paid profession.

>>1711673
But did they sing?

>>1711900
Probably wouldnt have the breath for it while rowing

>>1711673
funfact: an assembled team of olympic rowers can't sustain for a single hour, the pace that would have been required of bronze age rowers to make historical shipping times over the course of a week

>>1711938
That pace accounts for wind, rowers substitutions and shit. I quite doubt the average pro rower would be that much better if at all than an actual olympic rower.

>>1711021
What did Roman ships look like?

>>1711414

Of course it's a meme. These things are expensive, and the first line of defense of your nation/polis. They require enormous levels of coordination, as if the oars on one side are going faster than the other side, your galley turns around in circles helplessly.

You really think that they'd entrust something so vital and requiring such close coordination to slaves?

>>1711938

I thought that most classical mediterranean ships used sails for most movement, only breaking out the oars when you needed extremely precise movement. If you were shipping cargo, it was the wind carrying you, not banks of oarsmen.

>>1711081
>glad to be a NEET

you're disgusting

>>1712515
It did happen, most famously with the Barbary Pirates.

I imagine some sort of work song took place, as that seems to crop up whenever coordinated physical labor is done.

>>1712520
You set to the oars for battle (sails were usually left ashore, if possible, before a battle to save weight) or, when traveling long distances, if you became becalmed.