Expert: Maria - 3/18/2010

Question
If I were a farmer in Cyrenaica, North Africa, and I needed to transport my crop of silphium to Rome to sell what kind of ship would be used to transport the crop? Would the ship have quarter where one could sleep? I don't think it would be a war ship, but I am not for certain. I'm thinking it would be like a cargo ship. Would this ship also carry passengers who are traveling from Cyrene, to Judah, to Rome?

Answer
Hello,

If you were a farmer in Cyrenaica, North Africa, and you needed to transport your  crop of silphium (Latin,"laserpicium"; "σίλφιον"/"silphion" in Greek) to Rome, you should use a kind of cargo ship/carrier called “navis oneraria” in Latin, just meaning “a ship of burden”,”a ship for freight”, i.e. a merchant-vessel which could be powered by both oars and sails, but usually relied on sails rather than oars, differently from warships that used rowers, for speed.
The large 'oars' at the back of the ship were actually rudders, used for steering.

The 'navis oneraria' was  about 30 meters long  and 8-10 meters large, and could transport 3000 amphoras approximately.
In fact amphoras were used by the ancient Greeks and Romans as the principal means for transporting and storing grapes, olive oil, wine, oil, olives, grain, fish, and other commodities, like silphium, for example.

As for quarter where one could sleep, there was no quarter and seamen had to sleep on deck or in the hold.

Finally the navis oneraria did not usually carry passengers.

Have a nice day,
Maria
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See a navis oneraria, i.e. an Ancient Roman merchant ship of the second-third century AD,  at:
http://www.friendsandheroes.tv/large-cargo-ship.html