Galley Slaves
A galley slave was a slave rowing in a galley, either a convicted criminal sentenced to work at the oar (''French'': galérien), or a kind of human chattel, sometimes a prisoner of war, assigned to the duty of rowing. In the ancient Mediterranean, galley rowers were mostly free men, and slaves were used as rowers when manpower was in high demand. In the Middle Ages and the early modern period, convicts and prisoners of war often manned galleys, and the Barbary pirates enslaved captives as galley slaves. During the 18th and 19th centuries, pirates in Asia likewise manned their galleys with captives. History Ancient Mediterranean navies relied on professional rowers to man their galleys. Slaves were seldom used except in times of pressing manpower demands or extreme emergency. In the 5th and 4th centuries BC, Athens generally followed a naval policy of enrolling citizens from the lower classes ( thetes), metics (foreigners resident in Athens) and hired foreigners. In the drawn-o ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]