Ben-Hur Read online

  “And where will you fly off to in your new command?” Caius asked, shading his eyes against the sudden brilliance as the massive golden sun slid clear of the bay.

  ROMAN NAVAL PERSONNEL

  The Roman navy appointed duumviri navales as needed to equip a fleet.

  A praefectus classis (“fleet prefect”) was put in charge of a naval fleet.

  Each squadron, likely made up of ten ships, was under a nauarchus. Individual ships were commanded by a trierarchus and a centurion. Other officers included optio (deputy commander), gubernator (helmsman), proreta (lookout), medicus (ship’s doctor), and celeusta (supervisor of the rowers). Lew Wallace opted to use the poetic term hortator for the chief time beater.

  A Roman ship also had numerous nautae (sailors) and remiges (rowers). Although rowers are often depicted as galley slaves, in reality most were freemen, though slaves were pressed into service when manpower was scarce.

  “We head to the Aegean,” Arrius answered, his eyes still on the ship.

  Lentulus, who had been vomiting into the harbor, straightened up and wiped his mouth. “Why go so far for glory, Arrius? Why not stay here with us and take an easier command?”

  Arrius turned to face his friends. “Because this is what the emperor needs. There’s a fleet of Crimean pirates harassing the grain merchants in the eastern seas. They’ve actually broken out through the Sea of Marmara into the Aegean. A hundred galleys leave Ravenna today to bring them under control, and I will join them in the Astraea. As commander.” He pointed to the ship still speeding toward them.

  “Well, that is an honor!” Caius exclaimed. “Next thing we know you will be promoted to duumvir.”

  Arrius looked at his friend sharply, then pulled a scroll from his toga. He handed it over without a word, and Caius unrolled it, letting Lentulus read the words aloud:

  “Sejanus to C. Caecilius Rufus, duumvir

  “Caesar has heard good reports of the tribune Quintus Arrius, especially of his courage in the western seas. He wishes Quintus to be transferred to the East, where he will command the fleet against the pirates who have appeared in the Aegean.”

  Arrius, meanwhile, watched the galley’s approach. He tossed the broad, purple-banded end of his toga in the air, and seconds later, a scarlet flag unfurled at the vessel’s stern. Several men swarmed up the rigging, and the vast sail was taken in while the ship’s bow came around. The rhythm of the oars increased so that she bore down on the broad stone jetty, directly toward Arrius and his friends. He watched the maneuver with satisfaction—the ship’s instant response to his signal, her speed and her efficiency, suggested she would perform well in battle.

  Lentulus tapped him on the elbow with the rolled scroll. “We can no longer tease you about your future greatness, Arrius,” he said. “Obviously you are already great. What other surprises do you have for us?”

  Arrius slipped the scroll back into his toga and said, “None. My detailed orders are on board in a sealed packet. But if you plan to make offerings at any of the altars today, pray to the gods for a friend at sea somewhere near Sicily.” He looked again toward the harbor and shaded his eyes.

  As the galley raced toward the breakwater, its details became clearer. The prow sliced through the water so fast that it cast waves on each side rising almost to the deck, twice a man’s height above the water’s surface. The lines of the hull were long, low, and rakish, suggesting speed and menace. The three men watching all knew—as would any enemy—that speed and maneuverability were not the galley’s only weapons: extending forward from the prow was the armored beak, a kind of underwater spear that would be used in battle to ram and pierce the hulls of enemy ships.

  But of course it was the oars that defined the galley, as they continued to flash in the morning sun. One hundred twenty of them moved as one, cutting into the sea and propelling the ship recklessly forward. Soon more details were visible: the seams on the one great square sail, the shrouds and stays that held the single mast upright, the handful of sailors hanging on the yard to reef the sail, the solitary armed man in the prow. The regular splash as the oars cut the water was audible, along with the rhythmic thump that gave the rowers their pace. One of the torchbearers gasped as the galley came ever closer at breakneck speed.

  Then, past the point when collision with the breakwater seemed inevitable, the man in the prow raised his hand. Suddenly all the oars flew to vertical, poised a moment in the air, and fell straight down. The water boiled around them, and the galley shook in every timber as its momentum was blocked. Another gesture of the hand, and again the oars arose, feathered, and fell. But this time those on the right, dropping toward the stern, pushed forward, while those on the left, dropping toward the bow, pulled backward. Three strokes, and the galley pivoted around, then settled gently broadside to the breakwater.

  Lentulus, still somewhat drunk, began to applaud, but Caius shushed him as a trumpet blew on deck. Out from hatchways poured a troop of marine soldiers in brilliant bronze helmets and breastplates, armed with javelins and shields. More soldiers ran barefoot along the deck and scrambled onto the yardarms. Arrius’s friends understood: this was the welcoming salute of his new crew. As he stood between them with the freshening breeze ruffling his hair, he was no longer their affable gambling companion. He plucked the wreath from his head and handed it to Caius. “If I come back, I’ll look for revenge at the dice. But if I don’t destroy the pirates, you won’t see me again. Hang this in your atrium until you hear my fate.”

  A gangplank had appeared with the same silent efficiency that seemed to rule Arrius’s new command, and his crew awaited him, prepared to salute.

  “The gods go with you, Arrius,” Lentulus said. The tribune nodded and turned to step onto the plank. As his foot touched the wood, more trumpets sounded, and at the stern of the vessel rose a purple flag, the pennant of a commander of the fleet.

  Quintus Arrius had spent the entire night at the dice table, risking his gold with little success despite his frequent and generous offerings at the altars of the veiled goddess Fortuna. At sea, though, he placed less trust in her. He knew that his life now depended on his officers and crew, so as soon as he had read his orders and instructed the pilot to set his course, he inspected his command. He paced the deck from stem to stern, experienced eyes assessing every knot in the rigging and every gesture of the men who handled the sail.

  Arrius spoke to the commander of the marines, the supply master, the master of the fighting machines, the chief of the rowers, the sailing master. Though he had not mentioned the fact to his friends, this command was more than an honor—it was also very dangerous. As Arrius had seen over and over again, the smallest error or flaw in equipment would sink a ship in battle. The pirate fleet terrorizing the shipping in the eastern seas was surely well equipped and well manned. Luck—dealt out by the veiled goddess—would certainly play a part. But Arrius was sure that Roman training and discipline, so evident on board the Astraea, would tip the scales toward victory.

  By noon, the galley was skimming the sea off Paestum, with the wind still coming from the west. An altar had been set up on the foredeck, sprinkled with salt and barley. Arrius solemnly made offerings to Jove, Neptune, and all the deities of the ocean, praying for success and lighting incense to waft his prayers skyward. But even as he performed the ritual, he found his mind wandering below, to the banks of rowers.

  Galleys were rowed by slaves. They were men who came from all over the Roman Empire. Maybe they had been taken captive in battle or tried to escape from a cruel master. Most of them had fallen afoul of the law, and it was the Roman practice to put these criminals to use rather than simply executing them. Few men survived the galleys longer than a year or two, but it was worth feeding them for that long. The Roman navy was responsible for keeping peace in the Inland Sea and beyond. The job could not be done without the speed and reliability of galleys; winds might shift or dwindle, but men with oars could always keep a ship on course. If they died, they wer
e replaced; there were plenty of slaves.

  As the sun passed the zenith and the color of the sea became a darker blue, Arrius mentally summed up what he had seen. His ship was brand-new, well provisioned, and well equipped. His officers and seamen seemed capable. The marines, as seagoing soldiers, could not be assessed until they went into battle, but Arrius had spent enough time among fighting men to know that these were seasoned warriors. Yet none of this would matter if the galley could not move swiftly and accurately under the worst conditions. So, after a glance at the brilliant sky, Arrius stepped belowdecks, into the main cabin.

  It was the heart of the ship, a compartment sixty-five feet long and thirty feet across. Square shafts of sunlight from the gridded hatches in the deck provided what light came below. Just aft of the center, the immense mast pierced the space, surrounded by circular racks bristling with axes, spears, and javelins.

  But it was the smell that hit Arrius, who had been breathing the fresh sea air on deck. He was startled for a moment—how could he have forgotten? Sixty unwashed men sweating as they pulled on the immense oars for six-hour shifts; no room, no time for bodily needs; no water, no rest. The stench was overwhelming.

  All the way aft, facing the slaves, sat the hortator, or chief of the rowers, on a low platform, pounding the oars’ pace on his table with a large, square gavel. Arrius walked toward him, glancing from side to side at the rowers’ backs. The muscles shifted beneath the skin as each man hauled his massive blade through the water, turned it horizontal, and set it down again to slice into the next wave. It was a constant struggle between man and matter, wood and water, ship and sea.

  Beyond the chief’s platform, elevated by a set of steps, was the tribune’s own quarters, separated from the oarsmen by a gilt railing and elegantly furnished with a couch, a table, and a cushioned chair. Turning to face the slaves, Arrius sat and leaned back, his legs stretched out before him.

  The chief of rowers ignored his commander’s presence and continued to beat the rhythm. As in other biremes, the rowers were on staggered banks, some sitting and some standing, to pack as many men—and oars—as possible into the hull. The arrangement was duplicated in the cabin below with another sixty men. They all moved together, reaching forward, pulling, feathering the blades, dipping them; relentless, automatic movements, forward and back, like an enormous loom.

  The Roman Empire encompassed most of the known world, and every part of it was represented on the galley’s benches: Briton and Crimean, Libyan and Scythian, Goth and Longobard. Skin colors ranged from inky to milky, though marked with scar tissue and whip wounds. Arrius saw hair pale as flax and dark as a crow’s wing; long, tangled beards and cheeks barely marked with pale fuzz.

  They had all learned different languages as children, and few could have spoken to each other in any setting, but conversation was no part of the galley slave’s life. There was nothing for him beyond his oar and his bench. He rowed past exhaustion; the watches changed and he wolfed down his rations, then slept as long as he was allowed. He had no name; he was known by the number of his seat. A slave was brought to the galley as if to his grave; he left his identity behind him.

  Ben-Hur has been published in over fifty languages, including those shown here: (left to right) German, Thai, Korean, Bengali, Greek, and French.

  A sketch of a first-century Roman galley ship with an armored beak prow

  Yet as Arrius sat quietly, his eyes roving along the benches, he noted differences among the men. A few had begun to waste away from sickness or starvation, and they would die soon. Their bodies would be tossed overboard and other men would replace them as number 33 or number 8. If the upcoming battle went well, Arrius thought, the brawniest of the pirates taken captive could replace some of the feebler slaves.

  There was a momentary check in the ship’s motion, and Arrius’s eye flew to the knot in the pattern, the unmanned oar where a small redheaded rower had suddenly crumpled to the deck. A loose oar could be a calamity, entangling the others, catching the sea, changing the ship’s course—but Arrius saw that a dark-haired man caught the long shaft, while somehow maintaining the grip on his own oar. In an instant, the limp body of the fallen slave was hauled aside and a hatch opened from below. A wiry, golden-skinned man with a long black braid slipped onto the bench and seized the oar. Within seconds, the entire company was restored to unison.

  Arrius continued to scan the company of slaves. His eyes flickering through the gloom were drawn here and there by a streak of light on a shoulder gleaming with sweat or teeth flashing in a grimace as a slave hauled his oar through yet another wave. The regular creak of the oars overlapped the rhythmic crack-crack as the chief of rowers kept hammering out the pace. The crew, for Arrius, was a unit—120 slaves formed into a tool that propelled his galley eastward to the battle waiting for them. And yet he found himself glancing again at one man, the slave who had rescued the stray oar. The fellow’s bench was near Arrius’s platform, and with each forward push of his oar handle, his face moved into a column of light striking down from the deck above. He lingered there for an instant, his wrists turning the massive wooden cylinder to position the blade and lower it exactly perpendicular to the water—then his weight shifted back, and as he pulled, the muscles in his arms and chest rippled.

  OAR PULLING

  The oars the slaves pulled in the 1959 film’s galley sequences were attached to elastic lines to give the actors and extras a more realistic experience.

  Charlton Heston called the galley scenes among the best of the film and said the rowing motion was “very good exercise,” though he added: “I’ve done all the oar pulling I want to do.”

  He was very young, barely twenty, and tall. Dark curls were held out of his eyes and off his shoulders with a filthy rag while his cheeks and chin were obscured by a straggling growth of beard. He moved with a kind of economical grace, and Arrius noted the leanness that revealed every muscle on his torso.

  A view of Mount Aetna on the coast of Sicily, Italy

  He must have felt Arrius’s gaze on him, for his dark eyes met the tribune’s. With a start, Arrius realized the young man was a Jew, unusual in the galleys. For his part, the slave seemed equally startled, for he hesitated and his grace left him for an instant. He paused too long, dropped his oar half-feathered, and took only half a stroke, but recovered. He kept his eyes on his hands after that.

  What was he doing in the galleys? Arrius wondered. Under Roman rule, the Jewish people were generally hardworking and law-abiding. Arrius’s eye wandered once again along the packed banks of rowers. Not one seemed elevated much above the animals. But this man’s momentary gaze revealed a lively spirit and . . . could that be a kind of judgment in his eyes?

  A voice from the deck called out, and Arrius climbed the steps to respond. The salty air, whipped by the stiff breeze, had never smelled so good. In the distance, a dark plume from Mount Aetna streaked the vivid blue of the sky. Arrius answered the sailing master’s question and set the new course, then stayed on deck for the next few hours as the galley slipped through the Strait of Messina and rounded the Calabrian coast. From time to time he wondered about the young Jewish slave, but when he returned to the cabin, the shift had changed and the youth was nowhere in sight.

  CHAPTER 9

  A SLAVE

  Three days later the Astraea was speeding eastward on the waters of the Ionian Sea. Arrius wanted to catch up with the large Roman fleet before they reached the island of Cythera, so he had spent most of the intervening days on deck, helping the sailing master coax the most speed from the combination of sail and oar. Periodically he descended to the cabin to rest or consult with the chief of rowers. Sometimes the young Jew was at his oar, and sometimes not. Finally, unable to contain his curiosity, he asked, “What do you know about the slave who sits at bench 60?”

  JUDAH’S SLAVE NUMBER

  In the 1959 film, Judah is referred to as slave 41, not 60, as the author numbered him. Lew Wallace likely made him number 60
so that he would be closest to Arrius.

  “Over the course of a day, Your Honor, that could be several men. Which one do you mean?”

  “The young Jew,” Arrius answered.

  The hortator nodded. “I thought he might be the one who caught your eye. He is our best rower.”

  “Anything besides that?”

  “Remember the ship is only a month old, and we are all new to her. The slave works hard; I can say that. And once he asked me to switch him daily from the right side to the left. He believes that men who row only on one side become misshapen. And that in a sudden storm or a battle, it might be important to shift men from one side to another. He thinks they should be equally strong rowing on either side of the ship.”

  Arrius nodded, struck by the idea. “He could be correct. Is there anything else?”

  “He goes to great lengths to stay clean. Some of them . . .” The hortator shook his head. “They might as well be beasts.”

  Arrius ignored this. “Do you know anything about his past? Why he is here?”

  The chief of rowers shrugged. “With all due respect, sir, you must remember: These are slaves. They row; they die; we throw them overboard. All I know about any of them is how well he pulls his oar.”

  “Well, I am curious about this one,” Arrius insisted. “When his next rest comes, send him to me. Alone.”

  Two hours later, Arrius was on deck, standing astern. It was a quiet moment. One sailor stood watch on the yardarm but several more slept in the shade of the sail. The rower emerged from the hatchway and walked silently toward Arrius, but he paused for an instant to look around at the blue sky and the tautly curved sail. As he approached, he bowed his head and said, “I was told you wished to see me. Sir.”