Note Back to Main Text — Chapter IX

The royal galley was about a hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet broad, and was capable of containing about five hundred men. It had fifty benches for rowers, twenty-five on each side. Between these two rows of benches was the raised middle gallery, commonly called the waist of the ship, four feet high and about three or four feet broad. The oars were fifty feet long, of which thirty-seven feet were outside the ship and thirteen within. Six men worked at each oar, all chained to the same bench. They had to row in unison, otherwise they would be heavily struck by the return rowers both before and behind them. They were under the constant command of the comite or galley-slave-driver, who struck all about him with his long whip in urging them to work. To enable his strokes to tell, the men sat naked while they rowed.[48] Their dress was always insufficient, summer and winter—the lower part of their bodies being covered with a short red jacket and a sort of apron, for their manacles prevented them wearing any other dress.