In Lew Wallace's novel, "Judah Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" and the 1959 film "Ben-Hur", Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) is sent to the galleys as a murderer. He however manages to survive a shipwreck and save the fleet commander, Quintus Arrius, who will take steps to free Judah and adopt him as a son.

Quintus Arrius is played by Jack Hawkins. In a scene where Judah, a convicted criminal, is a slave rowing in the galley of a warship, Arrius tells Judah, "You have the spirit to fight back but the good sense to control it. Your eyes are full of hate, Forty-One. That's good. Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.' Later after their shipwreck, Judah (Forty-One) is told by Arrius that in his eagerness to save Judah, his God also saved the Roman fleet.

Today, historians have noted that the two films — "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" (1925) and "Ben-Hur" (1959) — both perpetuate the historically inaccurate image of Roman galley slaves. Slaves were usually not used on galleys to handle oars except in times of pressing manpower demands or extreme emergency. In some of these cases, they would earn their freedom by serving on warships. There is no evidence that ancient navies ever made use of condemned criminals as oarsmen, despite the popular image depicted in "Ben-Hur".

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