Roman convicts cast down to consort with Goths and Longobardi, Jews, Ethiopians, and barbarians from the shores of Maeotis.

Here an Athenian, there a red-haired savage from Hibernia, yonder blue-eyed giants of the Cimbri.
In the labor of the rowers there was not enough art to give occupation to their minds, rude and simple as they were.

The reach forward, the pull, the feathering the blade, the dip, were all there was of it; motions most perfect when most automatic.

Even the care forced upon them by the sea outside grew in time to be a thing instinctive rather than of thought.

So, as the result of long service, the poor wretches became imbruted--patient, spiritless, obedient--creatures of vast muscle and exhausted intellects, who lived upon recollections generally few but dear, and at last lowered into the semi-conscious alchemic state wherein misery turns to habit, and the soul takes on incredible endurance.
From right to left, hour after hour, the tribune, swaying in his easy-chair, turned with thought of everything rather than the wretchedness of the slaves upon the benches.