07-13-2015, 05:13 PM
General Lew Wallace and Hollywood between them are responsible for this misunderstanding. The soldiers who rowed the Imperial Navy's warships were free men - they had to be, by law. because :-) basically, they were forbidden to join up - on pain of death.
The most telling evidence is in an exchange of letters between the younger Pliny, when governor of Bithynia and his emperor, Trajan. One of his junior officers had passed a case up to him, in which 2 men who had joined up were found to be slaves. Pliny thought the problem important enough to get Trajan's opinion. Trajan wrote that if the slaves' owners had put them into the army, he was to be fined, heavily, if the recruiting officer had signed them up without checking their status he was to be disciplined, but if the slaves had joined up on their own account, they were to be executed immediately. (The story can be found in letters 20 and 21 of Sherwin-White's 'The Letters of Pliny')
Also, fossilised in Justinian's digest, is the law: 'Slaves are prohibited from joining the military.' Although this is generally taken to mean the Legions, the law also applied to the auxiliaries, including the Navies and the Vigiles, as is shown by a legal opinion by a jurist named Ulpian in the late 2nd/early3rd cent CE. I'm currently looking for the actual quote - I've got it somewhere!
The most telling evidence is in an exchange of letters between the younger Pliny, when governor of Bithynia and his emperor, Trajan. One of his junior officers had passed a case up to him, in which 2 men who had joined up were found to be slaves. Pliny thought the problem important enough to get Trajan's opinion. Trajan wrote that if the slaves' owners had put them into the army, he was to be fined, heavily, if the recruiting officer had signed them up without checking their status he was to be disciplined, but if the slaves had joined up on their own account, they were to be executed immediately. (The story can be found in letters 20 and 21 of Sherwin-White's 'The Letters of Pliny')
Also, fossilised in Justinian's digest, is the law: 'Slaves are prohibited from joining the military.' Although this is generally taken to mean the Legions, the law also applied to the auxiliaries, including the Navies and the Vigiles, as is shown by a legal opinion by a jurist named Ulpian in the late 2nd/early3rd cent CE. I'm currently looking for the actual quote - I've got it somewhere!
