Harbour and River Boats of Ancient RomeAuthor(s): Lionel CassonSource: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 55, No. 1/2, Parts 1 and 2 (1965), pp. 31-39Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/297428Accessed: 05/01/2010 17:47

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HARBOUR AND RIVER BOATS OF ANCIENT ROME

By LIONEL CASSON

From the moment Rome's port city of Ostia was founded, boats of all kinds were needed to take care of the traffic about the Tiber's mouth and up-river to the capital. As the centuries passed, and both Rome and Ostia grew, the number and variety of such boats increased apace.

Ancient writers and, more important, inscriptions give the names of many of these craft and of the men who specialized in operating the particular types. We hear of codicarii, lenuncularii, scapharii and so on. What were their boats like? What special service did each perform?

The attempt to answer these questions has already produced a long bibliography. Yet, despite all that has been written on the subject, many key questions are still unanswered. For a long while those who took up the topic worked only or largely with written evidence, a procedure that necessarily limited the results to be obtained.' Gradually the pictures of boats preserved on reliefs and frescoes came to be introduced as evidence, and two recent investi- gators have succeeded in clearing much ground and in making important new contributions.2 But none of the many who have worked over the material thought to start with what is, after all, fundamental to the problem: a consideration of the practical context, of precisely what were the conditions and requirements at Ostia and on the Tiber at given periods and what, as a consequence, were the types of boats needed to fit these.

I. THE CARGOES

Let us begin by taking a brief look at what Rome imported, to gain some idea of the magnitude of the service these boats were called upon to perform.

The chief item, outstripping all others by a wide margin, was grain. Its import in quantity began in the early second century B.C., and by Nero's day reached an annual figure of perhaps half a million tons. The standard vessels employed by the government as carriers had a capacity of 50,000 modii (Dig. L, 5, 3) or 340 tons; since grain travelled in sacks of a size to make a load for one man (see pl. II, 2), when any such ship entered port there were some 7,500 or so sacks to be unloaded and sent up the Tiber-and grain ships arrived in fleets and not singly.3

Next in importance were wine and oil. During Republican times anything better than vin ordinaire had to come from Campania, and gourmets went further and insisted on exotic vintages from overseas (Pliny, NH XIV, 95); oil too, though direct evidence happens to be lacking, must have been imported to a certain extent. Under the Empire both commodities all but flooded in. They arrived packed in large-sized amphorae holding roughly from 20 to 30 litres; each jar with its contents weighed up to one hundred pounds or more-stevedores handled them one at a time (see pl. II, 3), and vessels of merely average tonnage carried 2,000 to 3,000 such jars in their holds.4

Two more items well up on the list were the bulkiest of all-timber and building stone. Timber appeared on the scene as early as 192 B.C., when the city erected near the Tiber

'The following abbreviations have been used: Frank = T. Frank, An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, vol. v (Baltimore, 1940); Le Gall J. Le Gall, Le Tibre, fleuve de Rome, dans l'antiquite (Paris, 1953); Meiggs = R. Meiggs, Roman Ostia (Oxford, 1960); Waltzing = J. P. Waltzing, g?tude historique sur les corporations professionelles chez les romains, vol. ii (Louvain, I896).

A survey of the subject with references to the older literature can be found in Waltzing 69-76. M. Botti- gelli, ' Ricerche epigrafiche sulla marineria nell'Italia romana ', Epigraphica IV (1942), 69-87, esp. 77-87, for the most part paraphrases Waltzing. Waltzing and the writers he refers to (69-76) used chiefly written evidence, as did Frank 246-8, published in 1940, and E. de Ruggiero and S. Accame in de Ruggiero's Dizionario epigrafico, s.v. lenuncularius, written after 1946.

2 F. Miltner used a relief on a sarcophagus from Ostia in ' Schiffsdarstellungen auf einem Relief', Mitteilungen des Vereines klassischer Philologen in Wien iII (1926), 72-84. Le Gall (2I6-231) was the first to present a picture based on a thorough-going review of all the evidence, both written and pictorial, and his results were brought up-to-date and improved upon by Meiggs (289-298).

3 See Meiggs 28 and Frank I39-140 for discussion, with references, of the trade in grain, and L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners (New York, I959), 236-8, 26i for the grain fleet.

4 See Frank 220-I for discussion, with references, of the trade in wine and oil, and F. Benoit, L'epave du Grand Congloue a' Marseille (Supplement 'a Gallia xiv, Paris, I96I), 46 for the weight of wine jars, I63 for the capacity of wine-ships.

32 LIONEL CASSON

facilities for merchants in the trade (Livy xxxv, 4I, iO), and building stone a century and a half later, when Augustus started the fashion of using marble in place of the local tufa and travertine. The swaying, gyrating poles of pine and fir and the ponderous loads of Luna marble that scared the wits out of pedestrians in Rome (Juvenal III, 254-8) had all come up by way of the river, and the barges assigned to such duty had to include some capacious enough to float elephantine chunks of stone weighing dozens of tons.5

Heavy sacks and jars, unwieldy poles, ponderous blocks-such cheap and bulky mer- chandise arriving in huge volume demanded, over and above an ample and specialized pool of labour, an ample and specialized fleet of service craft.

II. BEFORE THE IMPERIAL HARBOURS

Until the inauguration, in the middle of the first century A.D., of Claudius' great harbour of Portus, there was nothing better than an open roadstead at the mouth of the Tiber.6 By the time of Augustus, when the flow of traffic reached massive proportions, Ostia had long lines of quays and ample warehousing space,7 but absolutely no protection against wind and waves.8 Oared merchantmnen or craft shallow enough to navigate the Tiber found this no drawback; they simply continued on their way to Rome,9 the former propelled by their oars and the latter propelled, as river craft were to be until the coming of steam, by teams of men or beasts trudging along a towpath on the bank hauling on a towline.10 But larger, seagoing freighters had to take their chances. Some, willing to run the risk, lay off shore and unloaded into lighters,11 but more preferred to put in at the well-protected harbour of Puteoli and send their cargoes along in coastal vessels small enough either to make the trip up the Tiber or to be unloaded in a minimum of time at the river's mouth ;12 these last need not have been particu- larly small, but could have run perhaps as big as 200 tons in burden (see n. iO).

Under such conditions what type of service craft were needed? The prime need was for lighters, small barges, driven by oar or sail or both, which could quickly unload and reload the big merchantmen standing in the open roads.13 The cargoes they handled they either delivered to the docks and warehouses at Ostia, or, by having themselves towed upstream, delivered to Rome. We know the name for these lighters: in Greek they are called MTrnPETIKai aKacai (Strabo v, 3, 5, p. 232) and in Latin very likely lenunculi auxiliarii (see below).14 Since few pictures of boats of this age have come down to us, we cannot be sure of what these lighters

5Trajan's column, for example, required I8 cubes of Parian marble each weighing 50 tons (Frank 222). Of two cargoes of building stone that came to grief off the east coast of Sicily and have been investigated by divers, one consisted of I5 blocks totalling I72 tons, of which the biggest single piece weighed 40, and the other of 39 blocks totalling 350 tons, of which the single biggest piece weighed 28k; see G. Kapitain, ' Schiffsfrachten antiker Baugesteine und Architek- turteile vor den Kusten Ostsiziliens ', Klio xxxix (I96I), 276-3I8, especially 284, 290.

6 Strabo v, 3, 5 (23I): TrapaK1vUivcos. 6ppldovTat pETiCOpa ?v TrX ca6cXc -r vauyAtpta. Cf. Dion. Hal. III, 44, 3; Dio Cassius LX, II, 2.

7Meiggs I24 (warehouse of the Pre-Sullan period); 126 and I32 (warehouses of the Julio-Claudian period).

8 The mouth of the Tiber was an area where wind and waves had to be reckoned with: in A.D. 62 a bad storm was able to sink even vessels sheltered within Claudius' harbour (Tac., Ann. xv, i8, 3).

9 Dock facilities for traffic coming up the Tiber had been available at Rome since at least 193 B.C.; see E. Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London, i96i-62), s.v. Emporium.

10 Dion. Hal. III, 44,3: ai PV OiV vTTIKCYTrO V15E 6TrTjiKal

TroT' av oi5aat -xrC~JX Kai TCOV 6XK&8CoV at ,UXpi TPICXIo10- 4p6pcV EC&yOVC31 ... Kal p?Xpl T-S PT rIUS Eip?EC1 Kai ~apacI napENK6PEval KOPI'OVTai, which I take to mean that oared ships of any size rowed themselves up to Rome and that sailing merchantmen up to ' three-thousanders ' got towed up. These merchantmen were not little coast- ing vessels of 78 tons burden or less as is commonly

assumed (e.g., 78 tons, Meiggs 5i, n. 3; 20-25 tons, Frank 237, n. 45), but fair-sized freighters very likely of 200 tons burden; see H. T. Wallinga, ' Nautika I: The Unit of Capacity for Ancient Ships', Mnemosyne xvii (I964), I-40, esp. I3-14 and 20. In later ages, right up to the early igth century, the standard and preferred size was 300 rubbia = ca. I90 tons, which accords nicely with Wallinga's sug- gested figure; see G. B. Rasi, Sul Tevere e sua navigazione da Fiumicino a Roma (Rome, I827), 64, n. Father Jeremiah Donovan in his Rome, Ancient and Modern iII (Rome, I843), IOI9 reports I90 tons as the upper figure for boats that could navigate the Tiber up to ioo miles from the mouth. Meiggs (292-3 and 487) takes Pliny, NH XXXVI, 70 to mean that the great ship which brought over the Vatican obelisk dis- charged its cargo at Rome. The ship was a Brobding- nagian merchantman which could not possibly have gotten up the river. Indeed, Pliny's words (' alia ex hoc cura navium quae Tiberi subvehant ') imply that special barges had to be prepared for taking obelisks up the Tiber. The Lateran obelisk, to be sure, was carried right up to a point just three miles south of Rome, but that was only because it left Alexandria on a specially built galley manned by 300 rowers (Am. Marc. XVII, 4, 13-I4).

11 Dion. Hal., l.c. (n. 6). 12 Cf. Meiggs 50, 56-7. 13 Strabo V, 3, 5 (232) distinctly emphasizes the

large number of lighters available: j T-c7,v OTrTIPETIKCOV

cxamp)ov E1TTopia. 14 Cf., e.g. Waltzing 74 and n. 4, Le Gall 223.

JRS vol. LV (I965) PLATE I

(i) TUGBOAT ON A TOMB PLAQUE OF HADRIANIC DATE FROM THE ISOLA SACRA. (2)

BARGE OF THE L.^TE

IMfPERIAL

PERIOD l:OUND NEAR THE MOUTH OF CLAUDIUS' HARBOUR (see pp. 3; f.). Photographts by courtesy of (I) Fototeca Unione, Romze, (2) Otello Testaguzza. Copyright reser?ved.

JRS vol. LV (I965) PLATE II

Aw~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o

I ~~~~~~~~Isw ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* . , . . ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ .:) -Il.

(I) BARGE UNDER TOW': RELIEF ON BASE OF STATUE OF THE TIBER IN THE LOUVRE, ca. A.D. 100. (2, 3) CODICARIAE NAVES FROM (2) SECOND/THIIRD-CENTURY A.D. FRCO FROM TOMB AT OSTIA, (3) MbOSAIC OF Ca. A.D. 200 FROM OSTIA

(see pp. 3I, 36-38). Phaotographas by (I) Gi.ra7Jda, (2) Antderson, (3) thze authlor. Copyrighzt reservd.

JRS vol. LV (I965) PLATE III

(I) CODICARIA NAVIS FROM LATE-THIRD/FOU~RTH CENTURY A.D. CIPPUS FOUND IN ROME, (2) HAULINl%G RIVER-BOAT UPSTREAM RELIEF IN MUStE CALVET, AVIGNON (see P. 37).

Photographs by (i) the author by permission of the Soprinendenza delle AntiqNita', Rome, (2) Alinari,from a cast in the Museo della Civilta, Romrte. Copyright reserved.

JRS vol. Lv (I965) PLATE IV

N -~~ ? ~ '~S L ,0^^

CODICARIAE NAVES FROM (I) SARCOPHAGUS FROM OSTIA OF THE BEGINING OF THE THIRD CENURY A.D., NOW IN

NY-CARLSBERG GLYPTOTHEK, (2) TOMB PLAQUE OF TRAJANIC OR HADRIANIC DATE FROM THE ISOLA SACRA (see p. 37).

Photographs by the authtor, (x )from a cast in the Miiseo della Civilta, RomJe, (2) by permiissionl of the Soprinwtendenza delle Antiquit, Ostia. Copyright reserted.

JRS VXol. LV (I965) PLATE V

(I ) A CODICARIA ON THIRD-CENTURYr A.D. RELIEF IN SALERNO CATHEDRAL. (2) VIEW OF THE BRENTA BY GIANFRANCESCO COSTA (see pp. 37 f.).

Photographzs (I) by thle aulthor, (2) after Ville del Bre)ta iwlile vedu(te di Vwincenz*o Coronelli e Gianfrancesco Costa, E:dizionzi ' II Polifilo ' (MIilanZ, I960), pl. xxxr. Copyrightt reserved.

HARBOUR AND RIVER BOATS OF ANCIENT ROME 33

looked like; but, given the stubborn conservativeness of boatmen and sailors, there is every reason to believe they were little different from their counterparts of the next century (see below).

In addition to such barges, there was also in use a special type of boat designed specifically for going up the Tiber, the navis codicaria;l15 the curious name is partly responsible for the mention of the craft in literature.16 In effect, the naves codicariae were a special form of lighter, one used for trans-shipment up-river, and, since their only way of getting up the river was by being hauled, they must have been particularly fitted for this. The evidence concerning these boats all stems from a later period, so I shall leave further discussion for the next section.

Lastly there would be tugboats. A sailing ship, totally dependent on wind from the proper direction, has a very limited mobility. In narrow quarters in particular, where there is ever-present danger of collision, it has to have help-and, until the age of steam, the only help available was a sturdy skiff manned by well-muscled oarsmen. At Ostia, such skiffs would haul bigger vessels to as close to land as possible and smaller ones right up to a quay-or, if these were to make the voyage up-river, to the point where the towing teams were waiting. Perhaps they even pitched in to haul lighters when foul winds or heavy weather made the going too hard for these clumsy craft to handle with their own oars and sails. Again, since evidence for this period is lacking, we must leave further discussion of such tugs for the next section.

III. AFTER THE FOUNDING OF PORTUS

It was Claudius who decided that the Empire's capital had put up with inadequate harbour facilities long enough. In A.D. 42 he embarked on the ambitious project of creating, two miles up the coast from Ostia, Portus, a mammoth man-made port.'7 Thanks to excavation sparked by remains that came to light accidentally during the construction of Rome's new international airport at Fiumicino, we now have a good idea of what Claudius' harbour looked like.18 Two arms encircled a basin about 900,000 square metres in extent. The right arm ran more or less along the land and provided a long series of dock facilities and warehouses. The left consisted of two parts: the first segment was a spit of land that extended from the coast parallel to the right arm; the second was a great masonry breakwater running off at right- angles from the end of the spit toward the outer end of the right arm; this stopped short of the tip of the right arm to form an entrance of just over 2zo metres.19 Theoretically, once inside the spacious basin embraced by these arms, a vessel was safe; experience revealed that this was not the case.20 So Trajan added an inner harbour behind, a completely sheltered octagonal

15 Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae I3.4: 'naves ... quae ex antiqua consuetudine commeatus per Tiberim subvehunt codicariae vocantur.'

1" E.g. in a passage from Varro preserved in Nonius Marcellus (ed. Lindsay vol. iII, 858).

Le Gall's remarks (230-I) on the possible original nature of the codicariae are marred by a number of errors. He concludes that they could not have been a form of raft at first because rafts never develop into boats; this is not so-compare, e.g., the history of Egyptian reed rafts (L. Casson, Illustrated History of Ships and Boats, New York, I964, 12, 15, 17-I8) or the origin of the sampan and junk (J. Hornell, Water Transport, Cambridge, 1946, 89-go). His suggestion that they may have been originally of sewn planks and that this primitive type went out of use at the latest during the second century B.C. is most un- likely; in the second century B.C. Pacuvius was able to refer to a boat made of sewn planks as something that belonged to the dim mythical past; see L. Casson,' Sewn Boats', CR LXXVII (I963), 257-9.

17 Suetonius, Claud. 20, 3; Dio Cassius LX, I I, 1-5. 18 0. Testaguzza, 'The Port of Rome', Archae-

ology xvii (I964), 173-9. There is an excellent discussion of both Claudius' and Trajan's port in Meiggs 149-171; it is a pity the results of the new excavations came out only after his book had gone to press.

19 The great ship that had brought over the Vatican obelisk (see n. I0 above) was sunk and used as a caisson for part of the breakwater (Suet., Claud.

20, 3; Pliny, NH xvi, 2oi-z). Suetonius and Dio (11. cc., n. 17) assert that the breakwater bore Ostia's famous lighthouse and that the whole stood by itself, a sort of island of masonry which, set between the two arms of the harbour, formed two entrances. Pliny, on the other hand, reports that the ship was sunk to aid in making part of the left arm of the harbour. On the whole problem, see Meiggs' dis- cussion, I54-7. Excavation supports Pliny's descrip- tion: the breakwater runs from where it leaves the spit without a gap to the entrance; 300 metres before the entrance it swells out into a mighty mass of con- crete one hundred metres long which must have been the foundation for the lighthouse. Yet Suetonius and Dio may also be right: perhaps the harbour was originally built with entrances on either side of the lighthouse, and the one nearest the left arm for some reason was very shortly afterwards filled in, making the breakwater the continuous line that is visible today.

20 See n. 8, above. Two hundred boats bearing grain for Rome were sunk in Claudius' harbour (another hundred burned alongside the docks at Rome). Frank (240, n. 51) is wrong in suggesting that the boats were caught in the open waters between Portus and Ostia. Tacitus distinctly states that they were caught in the harbour, probably nestling side by side in a pack in the middle of the basin as they waited for the towing teams that were to haul them up-river (see below).

34 LIONEL CASSON

basin lined with quays and warehouses. A canal was dug to connect it directly with the Tiber. Rome finally had the harbour facilities she deserved.

One effect was to start the demoting of Puteoli from a great entrepot to a provincial port, for all seagoing vessels could now safely put in at Rome's new harbour.22 A second was to introduce important changes in the services required from small boats.

No big sailing vessels travelled about within the new harbour under their own power; this was beyond the capabilities of big sailing vessels with their highly limited mobility. Nor did very many of them unload in the middle of the basins, for Claudius' harbour and particu- larly Trajan's furnished ample quays to which ships could be moored ;23 during times of peak traffic these quays must have looked like, e.g., New York's South Street a century ago when its seaward side was one solid line of jutting bowsprits. The only way to get a big sailing ship safely into harbour and moored up to a dock is to tow it. Before the creation of the new harbours, the service boat most in demand had been the lighter, to unload vessels that were standing in the open roadstead; now there was no longer an open roadstead, and a big fleet of lighters was no longer a prime requisite. What were needed, and in large numbers, were tugboats to pick up every big sailing vessel as it entered Claudius' basin and tow it to a berth at a dock.

The inscriptions which provide us with the names of the various types of small boats in use all belong to the second century A.D. or later. They therefore reflect the conditions just described. The boats mentioned fall roughly into three classes: (i) lenunculi; (2) codicariae; (3) lintres and scaphae. The last category need not detain us: these were the myriad skiffs, punts, dories, dinghies and what not that have been found in all harbours at all times until the coming of the powerboat.24 Let us turn, then, to the first two categories.

Inscriptions reveal that there were five guilds or corporations of lenuncularii at Ostia.25 Two were the lenuncularii pleromarii auxiliarii 26 and the lenuncularii tabularii auxiliarii.27 Probably the lenuncularii trajectus Luculli 28 made up a third. This last is clearly a ferry service, and perhaps the two missing to make up the five came from the other ferry services we know existed in the area.29

The term lenuncularii auxiliarii by itself is understandable enough; these are the operators of the second century A.D. equivalents of Strabo's JTrflpaTIKaI cYkapi.30 But what is the distinction between those identified as pleromarii and those as tabularii? The explanations offered have been many, and no two have agreed.31 Yet there is little reason for such diver- gence of opinion. The inscriptional evidence taken into consideration with the harbour's requirements, as I have sketched them, provides an unmistakeable clue.

The inscriptions reveal that the guild of lenuncularii tabularii auxiliarii was far more important than its sister the lenuncularii pleromarii auxiliarii: in A.D. J52, for example, its membership numbered I25, in I92 it numbered 258, in 2I3 it was up to about 290; the guild's patrons included Roman senators.32 These boatmen clearly must have performed a service much in demand. As we have just seen, once the imperial harbours came into use, the prime service needed was the moving of new arrivals through the harbour to berths alongside the quays. In a large, busy, and well-run port, arrivals and departures could not have been

21 The standard work on Trajan's harbour is G. Lugli and G. Filibeck, II Porto di Roma imperiale e l'agro portuense (Rome, 1935). For a convenient summary see Meiggs I62-171.

22 See Ch. Dubois, Pouzzoles antique (Bibl. des ecoles fran9aises d'Athenes et de Rome 98, Paris, 1907),78-82.

23 The well-known Torlonia reliefs (Meiggs, pl. xx and xxvi)-both Severan in date-show how ships were unloaded at Portus-lying up to a dock, nose to.

24 For details see the discussion in Le Gall 2I6-22I. 25 'quinque corpor(a) lenunculariorum Ost(ien-

sium)', CIL xIv, 352 = ILS6I49 (A.D. 25I); cf. 170 = ILS 1433 (A.D. 247 or 248) and 4144 = ILS 6173 (A.D. 147).

26 CIL XIV, 252 = ILS 6176 (A.D. 200), 253, and CIL xiv, suppl. i, p. 614.

27 See n. 32 below. 28 CIL XIV, 409 (cf. Meiggs 559), 5320, 5380. 29 'corpus traiectus togatensium ', CIL XIV, 403 =

ILS 4213 ; ' corpus traiectus marmorariorum ', CIL

XIV, 425 = ILS 6170 ; ' corpus traiectus Rusticelii' CIL XIV, 431, 4553-6, 5327; cf. Meiggs 297.

3 See p. 32 above and n. 14. 31 The older literature is conveniently reviewed in

Waltzing 73-6. Le Gall (224) suggests that the lenuncularii pleromarii used full-scale boats equipped with oars and sail and the tabularii smaller and simpler oar-propelled barges; what he suggests for the former would better suit the codicarii (see below). F. Miltner, P-W, RE xxi, I (I95I), col. 233, S.V. pleromarius, suggested that the pleromarii were police officials of a sort, charged with the care and super- vision of the lenunculi.

32 Le Gall 224, Meiggs 296. We have no less than five registers of this guild: CIL XIV, 250 = ILS 6174 (A.D. 152, complete); 4567 and 4568 (shortly after 152, both fragmentary); 251 = ILS 6I75 (192, complete); H. Bloch, ' Ostia: Iscrizioni rinvenute tra il 1930 e il 1939' (NSA Serie viii, VI (I953), 239- 306), no. 42 (pp. 278-282). CIL XIV, 341 = ILS 6144 is a dedication to one of the patrons.

HARBOUR AND RIVER BOATS OF ANCIENT ROME 35

left to chance. Any ship that came in had to be cleared: it had to present its ship's papers,33 be acknowledged by the harbourmaster, be assessed the appropriate port fees, and, most immediately, be assigned and conducted to a berth. The term lenuncularii tabularii has given rise to a whole series of conjectures but none carry much conviction.34 Now, in the period with which we are concerned, the second and third centuries A.D., the word tabularius occurs most commonly as a substantive meaning ' accountant', 'auditor', 'checking or recording clerk '.3 Why could not the lenuncularii tabularii be boat operators charged with such duties? Men who would race out to meet every newcomer, check its papers in a preliminary way sufficient to establish in which general part of the harbour it ought to go, assign it a provisional berth, and take it in tow?

I have added the words 'and take it in tow' even though there is no demonstrable connection between the lenuncularii tabularii and towing operations and, indeed, even though large sailing vessels had ship's boats trailing astern 36 which, manned by sailors from the regular complement, were presumably available to do the hauling. However, we happen to know that the harbour had its own special boats for the job. The evidence is a plaque from a tomb on the Isola Sacra, the burial ground for Portus, which shows, as such plaques do, an occupation of the deceased. It portrays him at the helm of a craft that is surely to be identified as an ancient tugboat (pl. I, I).37 We see three oarsmen straining hard as they row a sturdy dory from the end of which a stout taut line runs outward and upward, a line that can only be a cable made fast to the prow of a lofty ship under tow. The dory has two special features. The first is a single oversize steering oar mounted on the sternpost instead of the customary pair of oars mounted on the quarters; this apparatus gave the steersman the leverage he needed to direct a clumsy tow. The second is a mast stepped so far up in the bows that it could only have carried some form of fore-and-aft sail,38 a versatile type that allows maximum mobility; this little tug, then, was equipped to sail out to meet a tow with a wind blowing from almost any quarter-the rowers' energies were to be conserved for the hard pull back. Why could not the operator of this craft have been a lenuncularius tabularius? The lenuncularii tabularii were necessarily the first to sail out to meet newcomers; why not assume that they discharged two key duties at once, that they not only checked in the arriving vessels but also warped them into their berths? If we do not make this assumption we must perforce conclude that there existed a separate guild of tugboatmen which, despite its manifest importance, disappeared without trace. Indeed, assigning the two jobs to the same boatmen was a natural expedient: it relieved the harbour of maintaining two fleets of boats for what could easily be done by one, and it reduced the danger of error that can occur when instructions have to be transmitted.

The corporation of lenuncularii pleromarii auxiliarii was small and insignificant in comparison. In A.D. ZOO, for example, it had but I6 members and the patrons were of modest social standing.39 It follows that these men were the owners of lighters which, now that there were ample quays for a freighter to nose up to, had little to do; perhaps they serviced what vessels continued to use Ostia's open roadstead. The name offers no difficulty. The term -rMlpcoxua signifies that which 'fills out' a ship: in a man-of-war its crew of rowers and marines, in a merchantman its cargo.40 The lenuncularii pleromarii operated vessels which were

33 W. Schwahn, ' Schiffspapiere ', Rheinisches Museumfiur Philologie LXXXI (1932), 39-44, deals with the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. in Greece. For an example of a cargo manifest (third century B.C.) found among the Greek papyri from Egypt see L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners (New York, 1959), 177, 258. Rome's elaborate organization for collecting the portorium could not have functioned without such things as ship's papers.

3 See, e.g., Waltzing 75-6. Le Gall, since he con- sidered the lenuncularii tabularii operators of lighters (224; cf. n. 3I above), suggested that the name came from the flattish appearance of their boats.

35 cf. P-W, RE iv A, cols. 1975-198I, S.V. tabularius. 36 References in C. Torr, Ancient Ships (Cam-

bridge, I894), 103-4. 37 I suggested this identification first in The

Ancient Mariners (see n. 33), 225 and pl. Isb. It has since been seconded by Meiggs (298). The tomb is Hadrianic in date; see M. Squarciapino, 'Piccolo

corpus dei mattoni scolpiti Ostiensi ', Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma LxxVI (1956-58), I83-204, esp. I89-I90.

38 The ancient world knew at least two varieties of fore-and-aft rig, the sprit-rig and the lateen; see L. Casson, o.c. (n. 33), 2I9 and 'The Sails of the Ancient Mariner', Archaeology VII (1954), 214-19. From the position of the mast, it is practically certain that the rig this tug carried was the sprit-rig, a highly useful type that has found favour in all ages and many places; see L. Casson, o.c. (n. I6), 56, I83, I89, I90. Le Gall (222-3), not recognizing the nature of the craft and apparently unaware that the ancients knew fore-and-aft sails, mistook the nature and function of the mast. Meiggs (298) suggests that it may have been a towing mast, but its location in the very bows of the boat rules that out (see below and n. 52).

39 Meiggs 297. 40 Suidas s.v. TTA'Icoipa; cf. Miltner. I.c. (n. 31).

36 LIONEL CASSON

' filled out 'with loads from incoming freighters. When the harbour of Claudius was excavated in I958 the remains of three flat-bottomed barges were found (pl. I, 2).41 In size-the two larger were between i8 and I9 metres long and between 5 and 6 wide-and shape these suit perfectly the requirements of a lighter; I would suggest that they are the craft of the lenunculariipleromarii. A relief on the Louvre's famous statue of Father Tiber shows a group of shallow-draft barge-like boats, one of which is being towed up the river (pl. II, i).42 They are not codicariae, the special craft for Tiber transport, for, as we shall see in a moment, they are totally different in shape and equipment.43 They too could very well be lighters of the lenunculariipleromarii. The relief gives proof, if proof is needed, that the lighters carried loads up-river as well as to the docks of Ostia and Portus.

The mention of towing brings us to the next and probably most important type of service craft mentioned in the inscriptions, the (naves) codicariae.

Of the identification of these vessels there is no doubt: they were the boats specially designed to carry supplies up the Tiber.44 One group worked between Ostia and Rome and a separate group between Rome and points further up the river, a natural division that reflects the different conditions and nature of service involved.45

The codicarii, the men who owned and operated these boats, formed one of the most important corporations of the harbour.46 Their fleet numbered at least 300 craft, and very likely more than that.47 Unquestionably, all sorts of boats carried merchandise up and down the river including, as we have just seen, ordinary lighters, but the codicariae were something special. All indications point in this direction-the curious name, the notices in ancient authors, the important and separate corporation that the owners of codicariae maintained.

What were these special boats like? The first to identify a navis codicaria was B. Nogara in his publication of a well-known fresco in the Vatican (pl. II, 2).48 The painting shows a harbour craft that is no barge but definitely a boat, fully decked and with a hold below; a navis and not a lenunculus. It has a number of distinctive features: a rounded hull, a stem and prow of very special shape, and a mast placed not amidships but forward of amidships. It is shown in the picture being loaded with sacks of grain by stevedores who work under the eyes of the owner and a government inspector. Since the fresco was found on an Ostian tomb, clearly the vessel was one of the harbour craft involved with transhipment of this most essential of Rome's imports. Since the tomb whose wall it decorated belonged to a guild, the guild had to be either that of the operators of such boats, the codicarii, or that of the stevedores who loaded them, the saccarii.49 And, since the central figure in the painting, distinguished by having his name written in over his head, was the boat's owner, Nogara naturally and rightfully concluded that we are dealing here with a guild of codicarii and that the craft represented was one of the special type they used. This identification has never been questioned; indeed, subsequent finds have confirmed it,50 and Giuseppe Cozzo put the matter beyond doubt by identifying the mast-a bare pole with no sign of yard, sail, or the lines needed for handling these-as the special type used in towing.5'

In hauling a boat up a river by a towline, the line is generally not made fast to the hull proper but is led to a mast which is set forward of the centre of gravity, i.e., in the forepart of

41 See Testaguzza, o.c. (n. i8), I79 and figs. 4, 5. The barges date from the late imperial period.

42 See Le Gall, Recherches sur le culte du Tibre (Paris, I953), I5-I9 and pl. Iv-v. He dates (22) the statue at the earliest after A.D. 75, and very likely Hadrianic.

'3 The relief shows smallish barges steered by a long scull set on the sternpost. The codicariae, as will appear shortly, were true boats of fair size.

44 See n. I5 above, and cf. Le Gall 226-23I. 4 The inscriptions record codicari naviculari

infernates (CIL xiv, I3I = ILS 687) and codicari nav(iculari) infra pontem S(ublicium?) (CIL XIV, I85). Waltzing's suggestion (7I) of a division between the codicarii serving ships from the Adriatic (the ' upper ' sea) and ships from the Tyrrhenian (the ' lower ' sea) is unnecessary.

46 Meiggs 293-4, 3I2; theirs is one of the few guilds which js attested right through to the end of the fourth century.

"I The 300 vessels which Tacitus reports lost to storm and fire while bearing grain to Rome (see nn. 8 and 20) must have been codicariae. Tacitus does not call them lenunculi or the like, but naves (sc. codicariae).

48 Le Nozze Aldobrandine, i paesaggi con scene dell' Odissea e le altre pitture murali antiche conservate nella Biblioteca Vaticana e nei Musei Pontifici (Milan, I907), 63-5, Vi-2; fig. 4 on p. 65 shows the picture before restoration and pl. XLVI after restoration. Nogara dates the fresco second century A.D., at the latest third.

49 Cf., e.g., Frank 250, Meiggs 332. 50 Miltner, o.c. (n. 2), 75-6; Casson, o.c. (n. 33),

xix and pl. I4b; Le Gall 230, Meiggs 294. 51 G. Cozzo, II luogo primitivo di Roma (Rome,

I935), I36.

HARBOUR AND RIVER BOATS OF ANCIENT ROME 37

the vessel (pl. III, 2 ; V, 2).52 This serves to keep the line clear of the water and from rubbing along the bank. Since codicariae were used particularly for being hauled up the Tiber, their masts would presumably be so placed, and the one in the Vatican fresco indeed is.

The next to take up the subject was Joel Le Gall, who brought in additional evidence, pointing out two similar craft that must also be codicariae, one on a mosaic in the so-called Piazzale delle Corporazioni at Ostia (pl. II, 3) and the other carved on a cippus found near the Ponte Rotto at Rome and now in the Museo delle Terme (pl. III, i). The two revealed still another feature of at least some codicariae : each mast is fitted with a series of cleats to enable the crew to climb it. Le Gall, though erring in the interpretation of the cleats, recognized that the masts were for use in towing.53

As it happens, Le Gall had collected but half the evidence that was available. Besides the three he cited, there are four more representations of boats that can be identified with certainty as codicariae.54 One is carved on a sarcophagus from Ostia that is now in the Ny-Carlsberg Glyptothek 55 (pl. IV, i). Two others are on an almost identical pair of sculptured brick reliefs that decorated a tomb on the Isola Sacra (pl. IV, 2).56 And the fourth is on a relief, provenience unknown, in the Cathedral of Salerno (pl. v, i).57 All have the distinctive rounded hull and the distinctive stem and prow; the last three have the distinctive climbing cleats going up the mast. With this much evidence at our disposal we are in a position to draw a complete and accurate picture of these humble but all-important craft.

To begin with, the mast need not be merely a towing mast. As the relief on the sar- cophagus shows, it could also carry sail. Since it was stepped in the forward part of the vessel, the sail had to be of the fore-and-aft variety, the only kind able to be hung on a mast in such a position; in this particular case it is that eminently useful type, the spritsail.58 In other words, codicariae were equipped to travel under their own power as well as be towed. This reinforces the impression gained from the appearance of these boats: they are not barges, they are clearly of a design and size fitted for coastal work and not merely for traversing the course of a river. On the sarcophagus, the codicaria is shown at the mouth of Claudius' harbour, beating through heavy seas against a foul wind.59 Inscriptions attest codicariae at Salonae in Jugoslavia, Merobriga on the Portuguese coast, the Isle of Giglio off the Italian coast-all points where there are no rivers; there is no reason to doubt their presence there. 60

Secondly, as the Salerno relief reveals, the mast could be unstepped and lowered. In the Vatican fresco, the codicaria is being loaded for the journey up-river, so the mast, since it will shortly be in use, is left standing. In the Salerno relief, where the boat is shown in the process of unloading, the mast has been lowered since it is no longer of any use; the vessel will drift

52 The Avignon relief shows a boat being hauled upstream probably on the Durance, cf. Heron de Villefosse in Bulletin archedologique du Comite des travaux historiques et scientifiques (1912), 96. See P. Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XJXe siecle, s.v. ' halage ': ' le halage d'un bateau se fait ordinairement en le tirant avec une corde fixee au mat place dans son axe, en avant du centre de gravite ' cf. n. 64 below. Le Gall, in Revue arche'ologique xxii (I944), 42-3, presents calculations to prove that, in view of the physical forces involved, this is the only possible place for a towing mast. In a relief of a boat being hauled along the Moselle no mast is now visible, but it very likely was originally painted in; see H. Dragendorff and E. Kruger, Das Grabmal von Igel (Trier, I924), 46-9, esp. 49 and pl. 16, 3.

63 Le Gall 226-23 i and pl. xxxi and xxxii; cf. Meiggs 294-6 and pl. xxv a and b. The mosaic dates ca. A.D. 200; see G. Becatti, Scavi di Ostia, IV: Mosaici e pavimenti marmorei (Rome, I 96 I), 74. The cippus dates either A.D. 284 or some 75 years later; cf. Le Gall 228 f.: he cogently suggests that the line which appears to lead forward to a small stick in the bows is actually a towing line leading off on a long slant to the shore. For Le Gall's view of the cleats, see n. 62 below.

" Meiggs (294, n. 4) mentions a hull pictured on a

dedication put up by 'the salt workers of the right bank ' and, on the basis of its crescent shape, suggests that it may be of a codicaria. The relief no doubt shows one of the river-craft that handled salt cargoes, but whether a codicaria or not is hard to tell without some indication of the rig.

65 The sarcophagus dates about the beginning of the third century A.D. The identification of the boat on the relief was first made by Miltner (o.c., n. 2).

56 M. Squarciapino, o.c. (n. 37), I93-4 and pl. vi, I-2. The tomb dates from the time of Trajan or Hadrian. The bar running upward from near the end of the steering oar is the tiller bar, which socketed into the tip of the steering oar. The rounded object beneath it may possibly be a capstan: cf. pl. v, i.

57 The relief was reported by E. Assman in Jahr- buch des K. deutschen archdologischen Instituts Iv (I889), I03-4 and discussed by F. Gilli in 'Zum salernitaner Schiffsrelief', ibid. v (I890), I80-5. Nobody to my knowledge has identified the boat as a codicaria.

58 See the references in n. 38 above. 69 L. Casson, o.c. (n. 33), 2I9-222; id., 'A Sea

Drama in Stone', The American Neptune xv (I955), 2I7-I9.

60 As, e.g., Le Gall (227) does.

38 LIONEL CASSON

with the current downstream, just as the Tiber boats of later ages did.6' That the mast could be unstepped explains the presence of the climbing cleats, a unique feature found so far only on codicariae. Large-sized ancient vessels were equipped with a ladder set permanently abaft the mast; since the mast of a codicaria was removable, no such ladder was possible and presumably the standing rigging, i.e. the supporting lines that ran to the gunwales, was too light to take a man's weight-hence the cleats to enable the crew to get aloft.62

A third distinctive and key feature is the capstan placed on the afterdeck of two of these codicariae (pl. II, 3 ; v, i). The explanations offered so far for this piece of equipment have been totally unsatisfactory. It has been suggested 63 that the capstan was for the anchor, and that on small boats the anchor must have been stored at the stern; the suggestion overlooks the fact that anchors on small boats hardly need capstans; much larger vessels than codicariae are shown without them. Le Gall (230) sought to explain it as a mechanism to help in the handling of the twin steering oars. The same objection applies: why such a mechanism on these boats, when we have pictures of helmsmen steering far larger vessels and never with the aid of a capstan ? It would be far more natural to seek an explanation for this special equipment in the special service these craft were designed for, to be towed up-river.

Towing by teams of men or animals was not something known only to the ancient world. It was carried on right up to the introduction of steam tugs and, in some areas, even after. If, on the very reasonable assumption that methods could not have changed drastically, we use the evidence of later ages, we quickly find an explanation for these capstans placed on the afterdeck. The standard way of rigging the towline in, e.g., the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was not to tie it to the mast itself but to the stern of the boat: it was led over a block (pulley) near the tip of the mast, carried down and aft to the stern and made fast there (see pl. V, 2).64 On small boats, if the line for any reason had to be hauled in, this could be done by hand; on large craft the mechanical power provided by a capstan would be of great help. Moreover, the usages of later ages show still another reason for a capstan. To have a team pull the towline was not the only way boats have been hauled upstream. Another method was to make one end of the towline fast to a fixed point on land, a stout tree for example, and then propel the vessel forward by having the crew wind up the other, shipboard, end on a capstan.65 This system was used by large boats which were too much for teams of pullers to handle. At all events, there is ample evidence from the practice of later ages to explain the presence and position of the capstans on these codicariae. Almost certainly, the vessels so equipped were the largest of their class, big enough to need mechanical power as well as muscle to move them.

A last point to be discussed is the nature of the teams that did the hauling. Le Gall asserts categorically that, until the later Roman Empire, the hauling was done only by men,

61 e.g., in the aquarelles of Ettore Roesler-Franz; cf. A. Munioz, Roma Sparita (Rome, I931-36), serie I fasc. iII, no. Xi.

62 For ladders on the masts of Mediterranean craft, see L. Casson, o.c. (n. i6), 4I. Le Gall (228) con- cluded that the presence of cleats proved the mast was a towing mast, arguing that, with such projec- tions to get in the way, a mast could not possibly have carried a yard and sail. One look at, e.g., Piranesi's view of the Ripa Grande (see n. 64 below) would have enlightened him: the cleats were used, in later times as in ancient, whenever the absence of a ladder or of standing rigging left the crew no way to get aloft.

'13 Gilli, o.c. (n. 57), I84. 64 This view of the Brenta was done by Costa in

1747 (Le Delizie del Fiume Brenta i, no. 40, 'Palazzo del N. H. Pisani ' [alla Mira] ). For the towing rig, cf. Dizionario di marina medievale e moderno (Reale Accademia d'Italia: Dizionari di Arti e Mestieri, i, Rome, 1931), s.v. alaggio: ' Nei fiumi l'alaggio si fa con una corda (alzaia) legata a poppa e che passa a prua per una puleggia attaccata al capo di un albero di giusta altezza, affinche l'alzaia non tocchi nel acqua o non sfreghi contro terra '. In Piranesi's well-known view of the Ripa Grande (Vedute di Roma, No. 51 =

A. Hind, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London, I922),

pL. xvii) the large vessel in the foreground, by an interesting coincidence, has a capstan on the after- deck and a series of cleats up its mast; the latter is a pole so short and heavy that, despite the big lateen sail it carries, it stands unsupported by any standing rigging. It is the vessel's aftermast, but the foremast, which would have been the one to carry the towline, must have had cleats as well. The capstan was no doubt used to aid in raising sail as well as in working the end of the towline.

65 Cf. P. Larousse, l.c. (n. 52): ' le halage a points fixes s'opere en faisant mouvoir des treuils au moyen de machines placees sur le bateau, de maniere 'a enrouler une corde attachee a un point fixe. On peut avoir des points fixes etablis d'espace en espace et qui forment autant de stations; mais cela exige que, pendant que le bateau parcourt une station, la corde destinee 'a lui faire parcourir la station suivante soit portee en avant et d6roulee '. A model in the Rhein-Museum at Koblenz of an eighteenth-century ferry used between Koin and the opposite shore has the towline led to a windlass at the stem. A print by Charles-Claude Bachelier (mid-nineteenth century) of the chateau at Amboise shows a barge with a powerful windlass at the stern ; the massive towing mast is unstepped, since the barge is moored.

HARBOUR AND RIVER BOATS OF ANCIENT ROME 39

never by beasts, no matter what size of boat was involved. His reasoning is based purely on an argumentum ex silentio, and a particularly feeble one to boot.66 Moreover, Procopius (History of the Wars v, 26, IO-I3) provides incontrovertible proof that, in his day at least, teams of oxen were used; Le Gall must consequently assume that the traditional use of manpower was at some time abandoned and a new system introduced.67 This is overcomplicated and un- necessary. Barges and smaller codicariae would be hauled by men, exactly as was done on the Tiber until shortly after i8oo, when the humaneness of Cardinal Alessandro Lante finally got rid of the practice.68 But, also exactly as was done on the Tiber until the introduction of steam tugs about I825, larger vessels-up to perhaps 200 tons (see n. io)-would be hauled by animal-power.69 And the very largest were perhaps hauled by the muscle of their own crews turning capstans.

IV. SUMMARY

Let us summarize our findings. So long as the port of Ostia had nothing more than an open roadstead, the prime requisites were lighters, either for unloading at the local quays or for towing upstream to Rome, and codicariae, the special boats designed particularly for the haul up the river; some tugs were also needed. After the creation of the imperial harbours, the craft primarily needed were tugs and codicariae, and lighters took second place. The tugs were sturdy skiffs pulled by rowers, and, since they were a natural choice to check in all arriving ships, are very likely the craft whose operators are called in the inscriptions lenuncularii tabularii auxiliarii. The ordinary lighters, shallow-draft barges which could function about the quays of the port or be towed up-river by teams of men or beasts, are the craft whose operators are called in the inscriptions lenuncularii pleromarii auxiliarii. The codicariae, the special craft for hauling up the Tiber, were true boats, not barges; they carried an effective spread of sail and were able to be used for coastal as well as harbour and river work. As special equipment, they carried a mast which, stepped on the foredeck, served to take a tow rope; it could be unstepped when not needed. The heavier types were also fitted with capstans aft to help in the towing.

New York University.

66 Le Gall 257. There is but one certain reference to the Tiber's helciarii, as the men who did the hauling were called, namely Martial iv, 64, 22, where allusion is made to the rhythmic chant they uttered as they trudged along. Perhaps Ovid in Tristia Iv, I, 7-8, which also alludes to the hauliers' song, was thinking of the Tiber. Teams of oxen, of course, do not pro- duce any characteristic noise a poet would care to mention. The three reliefs preserved that portray towing scenes all picture small boats (pl. ii, i ; iII, 2 ; n. 52 above) that could easily be hauled by human power.

67 Le Gall 325-6. Both Le Gall and Meiggs, who

accepts (296) Le Gall's view, proceed to base con- clusions about shortage of slave labour on this flimsy foundation.

68 See G. Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico- ecclesiastica xxxvii (Venice, I 846), I i 8.

69 In the seventh century A.D. the water buffalo was introduced into Italy and replaced oxen on the tow- paths. M. Pensuti, II Tevere nei ricordi della sua navigazione attraverso i secoli (Rome, 1925), 140,

supplies some figures for the size of the teams: for boats of 38 tons, 8 bufali; of 95 tons, Io; of 140 tons, I2.