There is also the West Africa-Eastern Brazil way, no more than 3 squares IIRC.
Your understanding is correct. Galleys we intended for warfare, not exploration, and were crammed with crew with very little in the way of storage - particularly of fresh water. Not to mention that they were not designed to be particularly seaworthy.
A Roman (sailing) merchant ship could concievably have made an Atlantic crossing. A Roman galley could not. The “rate limiting” cause would be lack of drinking water.
I remember reading a while back a description of the first punic wars naval actions could be mostly summed up as “The Romans won the battle then promptly lost the entire fleet to a massive storm”.
To answer the question, a number of amphora have been found at the bottom of a South American harbour, either Rio or in Argentina. They were found lying on top of the remains of a unidentifiable ship. So unless its a hoax, that means at least one ship, either intentionally of unintentionally, made a one way journey across the Atlantic.
As to which type, alomst certainly a merchant Roman ships weren’t universely of distinct type or pattern. Cargo carriers, built for the grain route from Eygpt to Ostia, were three times the size of the Santa Maria, let alone the Pinta or Nina, both of which made it there and back.
The Veneti ships that dominated the northern seaboard pre Julius Caesar were ten meters longer tha the Santa Maria, had high freebords to deal wth the North Atlantic, were more seaworthy than the Santa Maria and were better built, as they were designed to take on Roman galleys. Big thick forward hulls wide beamed to roll in the waves.
Veneti ships were used by the Romans to carry the invasion force in both 55 and 54 BC. They continued to serve as the model of merchant ships for centuries later, especially in the northern coastal provinces. And remember, coastal shippig remains, even up till the steam engine, the fastest way to get from Britain to Rome. A merchant , with a valuable cargo, would not trust it to teamsters to carry it across Gaul and the Alps. He would ship it. The ship, heading south along the coast of Gaul / France, leaves the safety of the shade of Ibernia / Spain and goes down the coast towards the straights. A storm brews up off Cape Trafalgar and bang, the ship is in the same current Colon took within hours. With a driving storm behind them, a strong current carrying them, four weeks later the ship arrives off the coast of Brazil.
Highly plausible scenario. Probably happened several times, maybe dozens, durig the 400 years the empire was sending ships to and from Britain. The only reason the history of the world isn’t different is that none of the ships made it back. To do that you had to know of the currents north of the Caribbean, or by sailing on the current that runs out into the Atlantic from Rio, that evently dumps you offf Africa and then you would have had to slowly make your way north. No wonder no one got back to tell about the strange places they had been.
Think Gilligans Island in togas.
I’ve often believed several peoples made it to the new world way before Columbus or the Vikings.
-
Dumb luck…you get caught out at sea and the currents carry you there. Luckily you know enough about ocean survival (drinking fish lymph in lieu of water, etc) to survive long enough to where the currents are going to take you. Very likely for the Pacific I think.
-
Follow the food…again easier in the Pacific because of the currents, but essentially there is a land arc in the north of both oceans.
Most, if not all were one way trips, and even if they got back some how, they may have only got back part way and their saga vaporized.
On the other hand I hate these recreations to prove someone would have made it. There is a HUGE advantage if you know where you are going to begin with.
The Vikings of course, their voyage was just a logical extension of what they were doing anyway.
The Polynesians, well they already knew how to navigate huge distances, and lie the Vikings certainly had the travel bug.
A Roman galley? I kinda doubt it, and in the 1960’s I seem to remember some jerk who loved throwing around Roman coins into digs in the Carribean in the middle of the night.
As I recall he travelled with whatever traders he met who were going in the right direction. So he’d have travelled on a variety of boats but almost certainly not galleys.
Romans would not have used war galleys for such a voyage. They were only suited for war on relatively calm seas.
But their tough sailing merchant ships could certainly have done such a voyage. Especially the larger merchant sailing ships. Rome regularly, each year, sent more than 100 merchant ships from ports in the northern area of the Red Sea on voyages down the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean, crossing to the Malabar Coast of south India, on trading voyages. This was primarily for the spice trade, especially black pepper corns. Black pepper was highly prized in ancient Rome and ancient Greece. That voyage was almost 3,000 miles. Roman coins and glass have been found in Southeast Asia in Vietnam. They traded as far as that distance. Well educated Romans also knew that the world was round. Eratosthenes of Cyrene had measured the circumference of the Earth back around 225 - 250 B.C.E.
And other ancient Greeks and Romans were well aware the Earth was round. The well respected great minds of the time, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Plato, Socrates and Aristotle were all aware the Earth was round. And wealthy Romans were taught that knowledge by their teachers. So yes, they could have done the Atlantic trip, especially from the English Channel to Newfoundland. Or from the Azores and crossed the Atlantic there.
It would not have been unusual for some merchant ships to get blown across the Atlantic in storms as well. But Rome had its hands full with what it already had. If anyone was aware of the lands across the Atlantic, they didn’t feel it worthwhile to exploit the knowledge.
I’ve been skeptical in this thread, but I think I can trust a poster named Cato on things regarding Roman history!
Of course if you have hobbits in your crew, they’re going to expect more than three squares a day.
To be a ‘confirmed’ sighting of amphora we’d need to narrow it down a bit from ‘either Rio or in Argentina’.
Could you find a cite for this, if possible?
I don’t know about that…
Here’s a NY Times article from 1985.
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/25/science/underwater-exploring-is-banned-in-brazil.html
Anyone get anything more recent on this?
Thanks for the link-fascinating.
On a related matter, the Spanish did send some galleys with the Armada (in the attack upon England)-I imagine they didn’t last too long. Galleys are not suited to the North Atlantic.