Thus, in the drawn-out Second Punic War with Carthage, both navies are known to have resorted to slave labour. Slaves were usually not put at the oars, except in times of pressing manpower demands or extreme emergency.
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In Roman times, reliance on rowers of free status continued. When travelling over the sea on personal matters, it was common that both master and slave pulled the oar. Slaves accompanying officers and hoplite marines as personal attendants into war are assumed by modern scholars to have also assisted in the rowing when need arose, but there is no definite proof on this point, and they should not be regarded as regular members of the crew.
432–367 BC) once set all slaves of Syracuse free to man his galleys, employing thus freedmen, but otherwise relied on citizens and foreigners as oarsmen. On two other occasions during the war, captured enemy galley slaves were given freedom by the victors. After the victorious Battle of Arginusae the freed slaves were even given Athenian citizenship, in a move interpreted as an attempt to keep them motivated rowing for Athens. However, when put under military pressure by the Spartans in the final stages of the conflict, Athens, in an all-out effort, mobilized all men of military age, including all slaves. Although it has been argued that slaves formed part of the rowing crew in the Sicilian Expedition, a typical Athenian trireme crew during the Peloponnesian War consisted of 80 citizens, 60 metics and 60 foreign hands. In the 4th and 5th century Athens generally followed a naval policy of enrolling citizens from the lower classes ( Thetes), metics and hired foreigners. Also, practical difficulties such as the prevention of desertion or revolt when bivouacking (triremes used to be hauled on land at night) made free labour more secure and more economical than slaves. The special characteristics of the Trireme, with each of its 170 oars being handled by a single oarsman, demanded the commitment of skilled freemen rowing required coordination and training on which success in combat and the lives of all aboard depended. According to Aristotle, the common people on the rowing benches won the Battle of Salamis, thereby strengthening the Athenian democracy. In Classical Athens, a leading naval power of Classical Greece, rowing was regarded as an honorable profession of which men should possess some practical knowledge, and sailors were viewed as instrumental in safeguarding the state. There is no evidence that ancient navies ever made use of condemned criminals as oarsmen, despite the popular image from novels such as Ben-Hur. Slaves were usually not put at the oars except in times of pressing manpower demands or extreme emergency, and in some of these cases they would earn their freedom by this. Ancient navies generally preferred to rely on free men to man their galleys.
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