But it would seem that Airy was not quite convinced of the soundness of

his own reasoning. ‘If,’ he says, ‘any reader thinks that the reasons

for excluding the Portus Itius from the land of the Morini are not

sufficiently cogent, the whole is easily reconciled with the hypothesis

that the Portus Itius was the mouth of the Somme by supposing that in

the time of Caesar the Morini stretched south-west of the Somme ... the

geography which limits their territory to the north of the Somme is 120

years later. Any one who reflects on the change of boundary of Russia,

of Prussia, of Turkey, and of other European States, within a period

of much less than 120 years, will find no difficulty in admitting this

change in the limits of the Morini.’[2736]

It is sufficient to answer that there is no analogy between the

political history of Europe in the earlier half of the nineteenth

century and that of Gaul in the 120 years that followed the invasion of

Britain by Caesar. The Gallic peoples during that period were not at

war with one another; and there is not the slightest reason to suppose

that the Morini possessed a wider seaboard in Caesar’s time than 120

years later. Lewin’s reply to Airy is worth quoting[2737]:--‘He offers,

as a solution of the difficulty, that in the time of Caesar the Morini

stretched south-west of the Somme. If so, then the Somme itself, from

which Caesar sailed, and to which he returned, was, according to the

Astronomer-Royal, in the country of the Morini; and yet, a few lines

before, the Astronomer-Royal had stated that the order (after Caesar’s

second return) for legions to march into the country of the Morini made

it _certain_ that he was _not in their country_! Thus to avoid Scylla,

it is laid down, as _certain_ that Caesar did not sail from the Morini;

and then, to avoid Charybdis, the reader is invited to assume that the

place of embarkation was amongst the Morini.’

Finally, Airy affirms that the mouth of the Somme was by far the best

harbour which Caesar could have selected, and that its capability for

his purpose ‘is proved by the ... experience of William of Normandy,

who at one tide floated out of it 1400 ships’.[2738]

Now William the Conqueror assembled his fleet and embarked his army not

in the mouth of the Somme but in the mouth of the Dive:[2739] he was

merely obliged, as Lewin says,[2740] ‘to take temporary shelter ... at

the mouth of the Somme.’ But this blunder is of no great consequence.

The Somme might have served Caesar’s purpose if only it had not been

twice as far from that part of Britain to which he intended to go as

Boulogne.

VI. AMBLETEUSE

The _Commission de la Topographie des Gaules_[2741] identify the

Portus Itius with Ambleteuse; and Mommsen[2742] is disposed to agree

with them. They argue that Strabo[2743] affirms the existence of

two ports in the country of the Morini; that one of the two was

evidently Gesoriacum; and that the Portus Itius was therefore something

different. The passage in Strabo to which the commission refers will

be most conveniently examined in a later section.[2744] Meanwhile

it is enough to say that if it proves that the Portus Itius was not

Gesoriacum, it does not prove that the Portus Itius was Ambleteuse.

General Creuly[2745] decides for Ambleteuse on the ground that

its distance from Wissant corresponds with Caesar’s statement of

the distance which separated his own port of embarkation from the

_ulterior portus_, and that the intervention of Cape Grisnez between

Ambleteuse and Wissant would have justified Caesar in describing the

latter as the _ulterior portus_. He remarks that if the Portus Itius

is identified with Boulogne, the _ulterior portus_ must have been

Ambleteuse. But, referring to Vergil’s well-known line--_tendebantque

manus ripae ulterioris amore_[2746]--he argues that the word _ulterior_

implies the intervention between the Portus Itius and the _ulterior

portus_ of an ‘objet disjonctif’, such as a promontory; and he insists

that no such ‘objet’ intervenes between Boulogne and Ambleteuse.

But Heller[2747] observes that a passage in the _Germania_[2748] of

Tacitus--(Gerunt et ferarum pelles), _proximi ripae negligenter,

ulteriores exquisitius_--would seem to show that _ulterior_ means

much the same as _longinquior_.[2749] Besides, if the distance from

Ambleteuse to Wissant justifies us in identifying Ambleteuse with the

Portus Itius and Wissant with the _ulterior portus_, the distance from

Boulogne to Ambleteuse, as I shall presently show, equally justifies us

in identifying Boulogne with the Portus Itius and Ambleteuse with the

_ulterior portus_.[2750]

Not a single valid argument ever has been or can be adduced in favour

of Ambleteuse. The harbour is far too small to have contained Caesar’s

fleet; and the merest tiro in his army could have decided at a glance

between its merits and those of Boulogne.[2751]

VII. CALAIS

I only consider the claims of Calais because their one modern advocate,

General von Göler,[2752] was a distinguished Caesarian scholar. There

is no evidence that Calais was ever used as a harbour in, or for twelve

centuries after, the time of Caesar. If Caesar started from the Portus

Itius on his first expedition, it is impossible, on the theory that

Calais was the Portus Itius, to find the _ulterior portus_. Moreover,

it would have been impossible for Caesar to sail, on his second

expedition, from Calais to any point of the Kentish coast between

Walmer and Sandwich.[2753] For, as the wind was from the south-west,

he would have had to sail within seven points and a half of the wind

on a flood tide, which would have tended to carry him into the North

Sea, and with shallow flat-bottomed vessels which made excessive

lee-way.[2754] Finally, Calais Harbour is not natural but artificial;

and it is certain that it did not exist in the time of Caesar.[2755]

VIII. WISSANT

Wissant is between Cape Grisnez and Cape Blancnez, both of which, in

Caesar’s time, projected somewhat further out to sea than they do

now.[2756] Dr. Guest argues that the sandy waste, more than two miles

long and varying in breadth from a quarter to half a mile, which

lies between the uplands and the sand-hills, was once covered by the

sea;[2757] and he conjectures that the ‘pool-harbour’ thus formed

communicated with the English Channel by ‘the gap through which flows

the Rieu des Aiguilles’, a rivulet which crosses the sandy plain. At

the same time he admits that it is very difficult to say what the

limits of the ancient harbour were.[2758]

Dr. Guest’s theory, which was regarded by Mr. Freeman and Dean Merivale

as conclusive, is a theory and nothing more. Mariette, the famous

Egyptologist, states that the dunes themselves (without which Dr.

Guest’s harbour could not have been) were not formed before the time

of Edward the Third;[2759] and M. H. Rigaux concludes, from a recent

minute exploration of the coast between Cape Grisnez and Sangatte,

that the dune which extends from the ‘ruisseau de Guiptun’, near

Tardinghem, to the ‘ruisseau d’Herlan’ at Wissant did not exist in

Caesar’s day.[2760] Moreover, pottery, pre-Roman and Roman, has been

found in the sand behind the dunes between Wissant and Tardinghem

as well as east of Wissant;[2761] numerous finds have proved that

the coast between Sangatte and Dunkirk has undergone subsidence and

extended further seaward in Roman times than now;[2762] and it may

be concluded that the sandy plain at Wissant was not then covered by

the sea. It would appear, then, that Dr. Guest’s pool-harbour was

imaginary. Haigneré,[2763] moreover, remarks that if there ever had

been such a harbour, it must have been speedily choked up by sand blown

from the very dunes which _ex hypothesi_ formed it; and this argument

is confirmed by the fact that irruptions of blown sand, before the

dunes were ‘fixed’ by being planted with coarse grass, engulfed many

buildings at Wissant.[2764] It has, however, been pointed out by Mr.

E. C. H. Day[2765] that ‘a shoal having less than a fathom of water on

it at the lowest tides, extends from Cape Grisnez, in a north-easterly

direction, in such a manner as to cut off a channel about half a mile

in width, and having a depth of from two to three fathoms of water

in it, directly abreast of Wissant. The shoal,’ he adds, ‘during the

course of centuries of exposure to the heavy seas that break upon the

coast, must have undergone some considerable amount of destruction.

Formerly, therefore, this shoal must have formed a natural breakwater,

and have rendered the channel within it a convenient harbour.’ But,

assuming the correctness of Mr. Day’s deduction, this ‘harbour’ would

have been exposed to the fury both of the west and of the north-east

wind. M. Léon Lejeal,[2766] who tells us that a French engineer, M. J.

Voisin, supposes that the shoal was once connected with the mainland,

and thus formed a partially-sheltered harbour, concludes that there

is nothing to show that it was large enough to shelter the fleet ‘que

voulut y ancrer l’imagination d’une archéologie en délire’;[2767] and

M. Leblanc, who in the year 1863 was engineer of the port of Calais

and was intimately acquainted with the geology of Wissant, ridicules

such a notion. ‘Toutes les fois,’ he remarks, ‘que j’allais de Calais

au Gris-Nez ... je traversais Wissant, en étudiant cette question, et

je me disais à moi-même: quelle preuve peut on avoir d’une pareille

absurdité?’[2768] Hariulf, a chronicler who lived in the eleventh and

twelfth centuries, described the harbour of Wissant as an ‘inlet’

(_ingressum maris_),[2769] which would seem to imply that it was

simply a creek formed by one of the rivulets which meander across the

sand. Henry, the historian of Boulogne, who was bent upon proving

the identity of Wissant with the Portus Itius, would certainly have

anticipated Guest’s theory if he could have done so with truth; but,

after a careful examination of the site, he came to the conclusion that

Caesar’s ships must have been drawn up on an exposed beach.[2770]

1. Long[2771] argues that the distance of Wissant from Sangatte

corresponds with the distance between the port from which Caesar

started on his first expedition and the _superior portus_; that its

distance from the English coast agrees ‘at least as well as any other

place’ with Caesar’s estimate of the distance from the Portus Itius to

Britain; that its name, which [according to Michel Baudrand,[2772]

a writer of the seventeenth, century] French sailors used to call

Esseu and the Flemings Isten, ‘is near enough to Itius to add to the

probability of the identity of the two places’; that there are traces

of a Roman road from Wissant to Thérouanne; that in the neighbourhood

of Wissant ‘fresh water was abundant, the soil rich, and the beach

the best that there could be for such ships as Caesar’s’; and that,

if Wissant was not, strictly speaking, a port at all, ‘Caesar did not

want a port in the modern sense of the word. He wanted his ships at

the nearest place to Britain.... His vessels would be hauled up on the

beach till the wind was fair. He had no port on the British coast, and

he hauled up all his ships after they were damaged by a storm.’ ‘This

long sandy beach,’ he says, ‘was the best place along all this coast

for Caesar’s purpose.’[2773]

Of these arguments the first, _mutatis mutandis_, is equally applicable

to Boulogne. The argument from nomenclature is worthless:[2774]

‘Wissant’ is not derived from ‘Itius’; it is said to be merely a

corruption of ‘Weiss-sand’ (Whitesand).[2775] There is no evidence for

the alleged Roman road. The Roman road which, according to Henry,[2776]

led from Thérouanne to Wissant, really led to Sangatte.[2777] Dr.

Guest, who carefully explored Wissant and its neighbourhood, found that

the soil, which Long calls ‘rich’, is ‘notoriously barren’.[2778]

And, in reply to the last of Long’s arguments, it is sufficient to say

that, although Caesar did perforce beach his ships on the coast of

Britain, yet he suffered heavily from not having a port; and the mere

fact that he sent Volusenus to ascertain what ports on the British

coast were capable of accommodating a large fleet proves that his

original intention was to land in a port, and not on an open beach.

Long’s assertion, that the beach at Wissant ‘was the best place along

all this coast for Caesar’s purpose’, Dr. Guest, who agrees with him

in identifying the Portus Itius with Wissant, treats with utter scorn;

but his criticism is founded upon the groundless assumption that the

sand-dune between Wissant and Tardinghem then existed.[2779] However,

Long admits that ‘it would not be possible _now_ to draw up a fleet

like Caesar’s on the beach’. ‘But,’ he persists, ‘if there have been

such great changes on this coast that Dr. Guest’s huge harbour is

filled up, why may not my beach have undergone some change also?’[2780]

The reply is obvious. What Long calls ‘my beach’ may have undergone

changes: but, unless it can be proved not only that ships could have

been hauled up on the beach of Wissant in Caesar’s time, but also that

there then existed at Wissant a harbour large enough to accommodate

Caesar’s fleet, the claim of Wissant to be identified with the Portus

Itius cannot be admitted.

But Long is not the only writer who maintains that the Portus Itius was

not a port properly so called; and this question is so important that

we must fairly examine the arguments that have been adduced in support

of Long’s view.

Heller argues that since Caesar beached his ships on his return from

the second expedition, we may conclude that the Portus Itius was not

a harbour in the strict sense, as, if the shelter of a harbour had

been available, he would not have taken the trouble to draw them up on

shore.[2781]

But Heller forgets that the ancients never left their ships at anchor

for any lengthened period, but invariably laid them up high and dry for

the winter.[2782] Moreover, if eight hundred ships had been beached at

Wissant, would it not have been necessary, in order to protect them

from storm-driven spring tides, to construct an enormous naval camp,

the earth necessary for which did not exist?

Professor Ridgeway insists that, if Strabo is to be believed, the

Portus Itius can only be identified with Wissant.[2783] Strabo[2784]

calls Caesar’s place of embarkation το Ιτιον. This word, the professor

observes, is obviously an adjective, and, as it agrees with a neuter

word understood, it cannot agree with λιμήν or κόλπος (a harbour), but

must agree with ἄκρον or ἀκρωτήριον (a headland). Evidently, then,

Strabo’s το Ιτιον is the same as Ptolemy’s Ἴτιον ἄκρον. Similarly

Strabo[2785] speaks of Cape Finisterre as Νέριον, while Ptolemy[2786]

calls it Νέριον ἀκρωτήριον. Now Strabo does not call το Ἴτιον a

harbour, but only a roadstead ναύσταθμον, a term which Thucydides[2787]

applies to Cape Malea. Thus, if Strabo was right, the Portus Itius was

the roadstead sheltered by the Itian promontory.

The professor’s argument is not convincing. Granted that Ιτιον must

agree with ἄκρον, on him lies the burden of proving that the headland

in question was not Cap d’Alprech, which shelters the estuary of the

Liane, and the geographical position of which corresponds closely

enough with that which Ptolemy assigns to Ιτιον ἄκρον.[2788] When

the professor remarks[2789] that ‘the advocates of both Wissant and

Boulogne support the claim of Grisnez’ against Alprech he is mistaken.

Desjardins is only one of many French writers who ‘support the claim’

of Alprech against Grisnez. Moreover, supposing that the professor is

right in identifying the Itian promontory with Grisnez, he is wrong

in assuming that the word ναύσταθμον necessarily excludes the idea of

a harbour. Sometimes it is used to denote a port already described as

a λιμήν, or harbour properly so called, in order to draw attention to

the fact that that harbour was a naval station. Thus Strabo,[2790]

immediately after mentioning the Piraeus and the other two harbours of

Athens, says that the ναύσταθμον was capable of accommodating the four

hundred ships which composed the Athenian fleet. And Pausanias,[2791]

speaking of Nauplia, the port of Argos, which, according to

Strabo,[2792] was the ναύσταθμον of the Argives, says, ‘there are

harbours in Nauplia’ (λιμένες εἰσὶν ἐν Ναυπλίᾳ).[2793] To anybody who

knows anything about ancient navigation, the suggestion that Caesar

would have kept 800 ships riding at anchor for several weeks in an open

roadstead, exposed to the fury of the north-west wind, while, a few

miles off in the Liane, there was an ample sheltered harbour available,

must appear simply ridiculous. And, assuming that Strabo did intend to

convey that το Ιτιον was merely a roadstead, the answer is that Strabo

is refuted by Caesar, who says that his ships assembled _ad portum

Itium_,[2794]--‘in the Itian harbour.’ The Portus Itius must have

been a port, properly so called; and the more discerning advocates of

Wissant naturally accept this view.[2795]

Long maintains, further, that, although Caesar does not say directly

that the passage from the Portus Itius to Britain was actually the

shortest, yet he does so indirectly; for he tells us that he went to

the country of the Morini ‘because the shortest passage to Britain was

from their country’; and the port in their country which he selected

was the Portus Itius.[2796] But, as all who are familiar with the

_Commentaries_ will admit, Long throws an undue strain upon Caesar’s

language. Caesar tells us, in general terms, that the shortest passage

to Britain was from the country of the Morini: but it is bad logic to

conclude from this statement that the passage from the Portus Itius

must have been actually the shortest as the crow flies. Caesar would

never have chosen the passage which was in this sense the shortest if

it had been on other grounds objectionable: obviously what he meant to

say was that of the regular passages to Britain that from the country

of the Morini was the shortest; and the passage from the Portus Itius

being, as he says, ‘the most convenient,’ was, for all practical

purposes, the shortest.

It is clear, then, that Long failed to establish the identity of the

Portus Itius with Wissant. Let us see what better informed advocates of

the same theory have to say.

2. Not to mention the arguments which are common to him and Long, Dr.

Guest gives the following reasons for his belief:--that the (assumed)

harbour of Wissant was large enough to hold Caesar’s fleet; that

it lay beneath Cape Grisnez, which he identifies with the Itian

promontory; and that William of Poitiers, a chronicler of the eleventh

century, called it ‘Portus Icius’.[2797] He will not admit that William

was simply stating his own opinion: ‘I think,’ he says, ‘this name may

have been handed down to him by the Romanised Gauls, inasmuch as the

name of Ician seems to have been long kept afloat in the recollection

of the Celtic population of these islands’; and he points out that

‘the old Irish name for the English Channel is _Muir n’ Icht_’, or

‘the Itian sea’. But the fact on which he lays most stress is the

proximity of Wissant to Cape Grisnez. He freely admits, indeed, that

Cap d’Alprech may, in Caesar’s time, have been a more considerable

promontory than it is at present;[2798] but he cannot conceive that

the promontory which Ptolemy selected for especial mention should have

been any other than the famous cape which is and must always have been

the most conspicuous feature of the north-eastern coast of France, and

which marks the point where the coast, making a sharp angle, begins to

trend towards the east. ‘Cape Grisnez,’ he concludes, ‘there can hardly

be a doubt, was the Ician promontory, and if so, the great port which

lay beneath it must have been the Ician Port.’[2799]

‘The great port which lay beneath it,’--these words, Dr. Guest, beg

the whole question. That the harbour of Wissant was large enough to

hold Caesar’s fleet would be true, if Dr. Guest’s conjectural tracing

of its outline were _correct_: but the fact, if it were a fact, would

simply remove one of the objections which have been brought against

Wissant; it would not prove that Wissant was the Portus Itius. For

the harbour of Boulogne was also large enough, and was also, as will

presently appear, in other respects far more convenient. The argument

that William of Poitiers called Wissant the Portus Itius has no weight.

Maistre Wace, who wrote about a century after William of Poitiers,

believed that Caesar had sailed from Boulogne.[2800] Moreover, Hericus,

a monk of the ninth century,[2801] identified Bibracte with Autun; but

it is now universally admitted, and it is certain, that Hericus was

wrong.[2802] It may be admitted that _a priori_ it would seem much more

likely that the Itian promontory was Cape Grisnez than that it was

Cap d’Alprech; but if the former identification is to be accepted,

it is necessary to assume that Ptolemy made a gross blunder. It is

of course quite true, as Dr. Guest says,[2803] that Ptolemy did make

mistakes; but still the fact remains that the geographical position

which he assigns to the Itian promontory is, allowing for a slight

error in longitude, that of Cap d’Alprech. As Mr. Peskett puts it,

‘Ptolemy, proceeding northward, places the headland between the Somme

and Boulogne’;[2804] and I may add that if you only know Cap d’Alprech

by the map, you will be surprised, when you actually see it, to find

how bold a headland it is. Moreover, even if Ptolemy was mistaken, it

does not follow that the Itian harbour was Wissant. Professor Rhys, who

believes that the Gauls as well as the Irish called the Channel ‘the

sea of Icht’, remarks that ‘in that case Portus Ictius would designate

Caesar’s place of embarcation, somewhat in the same way that Dover

might in English be termed the Channel Harbour. The former probably

had a Gaulish name of its own, which may have become the Latin one

also as soon as the Romans began to be a little more at home in the

north of Gaul; so that it would be labour in vain to try to detect

_Ictius_ in any place-name still current on the French coast.’[2805]

Let us, however, assume, for the sake of argument, that Professor

Rhys is mistaken. Even then it does not follow that the Portus Itius

was Wissant. For it will not be denied that Boulogne was, in Caesar’s

time as in the time of the emperors, a frequented harbour; and it is

certain that Wissant was not a harbour capable of containing Caesar’s

fleet. Therefore Boulogne, which is only nine statute miles south of

Cape Grisnez, was obviously the nearest important harbour to that

promontory. Why, then, if Cape Grisnez was the Itian promontory,

should Boulogne not have been called the Itian harbour? Even on the

desperate theory that when Caesar spoke of a harbour, he did not mean

a harbour but only a roadstead, that roadstead was not at Wissant; for

if Caesar’s ships had waited there, either at anchor or on the beach,

exposed to the north-west winds for twenty-five days, they would have

been in extreme peril.

Dr. Guest admits of course that Boulogne, not Wissant, was the

permanent harbour of the Romans in North-Eastern Gaul under the empire;

but in this fact he sees no objection to his theory. He believes that

the Romans, when they had to choose a permanent harbour, rejected

Wissant and chose Boulogne because of the sterility of the country in

the neighbourhood of the former. ‘Wissant,’ he remarks, ‘or rather the

port adjacent to Wissant, may have answered Caesar’s purpose, when he

had hundreds of ships to supply the wants of his commissariat; but when

a port was to be provided to meet the ordinary purposes of traffic, it

was necessary to select one that possessed local resources.’[2806]

The reason which Dr. Guest gives for the choice of Boulogne is sound

enough as far as it goes; but what support does it lend to the theory

that Caesar used Wissant as a temporary harbour? The sterility of

the neighbourhood would hardly have recommended it. It must have had

some great advantage to compensate for this defect if it was really

to be preferred, even as a temporary harbour, to Boulogne. But it is

impossible to point out one single advantage which Wissant could have

had, for Caesar’s purpose, over Boulogne, save only that, as the crow

flies, it was a little nearer to Britain.

Dr. Guest, indeed, assures us that ‘Caesar had no time for weighing

the comparative merits of the ports north and south of him, and for

determining which of them was “the most convenient”’.[2807] No time!

Had he not five days to spare for Volusenus’s reconnaissance? A

single day would have sufficed to ride along the coast from Wissant

to Boulogne; a few minutes spent at each of those places would have

sufficed ‘for determining which of them was “the most convenient”’: but

the greatest general of Rome could not spare even one day for a duty

which the worst would not have neglected; so he pitched upon Wissant,

because, as Dr. Guest tells us, ‘it afforded him the shortest passage’!

So argued the man who, according to Freeman, ‘settled the whole

matter,’ the man who, from Freeman’s point of view, appeared to stand,

side by side with Stubbs, ‘at the head of living students of English

history.’[2808]

3. Heller is not as ardent an advocate of Wissant as Guest; but he

has written some very ingenious papers in defence of Guest’s view.

Many of his reasons are virtually identical with those of the English

scholar; but from Caesar’s narrative of his second voyage he deduces a

fresh argument, which deserves special attention. Caesar, as we have

seen, set sail about sunset with a light south-westerly wind. About

midnight the wind dropped: the fleet, borne by the tide, drifted out

of its course;[2809] and ‘at daybreak Caesar saw Britain lying behind

on the port quarter’ (_orta luce sub sinistra Britanniam relictam

conspexit_[2810]). From the last statement Heller infers that Caesar’s

ship must have drifted to some point off the North Foreland: otherwise,

he argues, the word _relictam_ would be meaningless. For, he remarks,

Caesar believed that one side of Britain faced the north. Therefore

it must be assumed that he had no knowledge of that part of the coast

which trends northward beyond the mouth of the Thames: he must have

thought that the coast, at the North Foreland, turned sharply towards

the west. Otherwise he could not have believed that he had left Britain

behind; nor could he have believed this unless he had drifted to some

point off the North Foreland. Now Caesar started on his voyage about

the 6th of July.[2811] On that day the sun set about 8.16; and on the

following morning it rose about 3.54. There must have been light enough

to show the British coast as early as 3.15 or 3.20. Heller maintains

that Caesar could by daybreak have reached a point about 2 German [or

9½ English] miles south-east of the North Foreland, not quite as far

north as the latitude of Ramsgate, if he had sailed from Wissant; but

he insists that if he had sailed from Boulogne, he could not have

drifted further northward than the latitude of Deal, in which case he

could not have said that he ‘saw Britain left _behind_ on the port

quarter’.[2812]

This argument rests upon a strained interpretation of the word

_relictam_. It is probably true that Caesar could not have drifted

as far north as the latitude of Ramsgate if he had sailed from

Boulogne;[2813] but even if he had only drifted as far north as the

latitude of Walmer, he would have been perfectly justified in using

the word _relictam_. For that word does not imply that Caesar believed

himself to have left the _northern_ coast of Britain behind: it simply

implies that, as the current was carrying him in a north-easterly

direction[2814] and therefore sweeping him every minute further and

further away from Britain, ‘he saw Britain lying behind on the port

quarter.’ There is a parallel passage in the twenty-first chapter of

the _Acts of the Apostles_, which shows that this was his meaning.

In the second and third verses of that chapter the writer, after

describing the voyage of himself and St. Paul from Ephesus by way of

Cos and Rhodes to Patara, says, ‘Having found a ship crossing over unto

Phoenicia, we went aboard, and set sail. And _when we had come in sight

of Cyprus, leaving it on the left hand_, we sailed unto Syria, and

landed at Tyre’ (καὶ εὑρόντες πλοῖον διαπερῶν εἰς Φοινίκην ἐπιβάντες

ἀνήχθημεν, ἀναφάναντες δὲ τὴν Κύπρον καὶ καταλιπόντες αὐτὴν εὐώνυμον

ἐπλέομεν εἰς Συρίαν καὶ κατήλθομεν εἰς Τύρον). If the reader will look

at his map, he will see that the writer of the _Acts_, when he came in

sight of Cyprus and left it on the left hand, was in precisely the same

position with regard to Cyprus as Caesar would have been in with regard

to Britain if, drifting in a north-easterly direction, he had descried

the coast of Britain from some point in the latitude of Deal.[2815]

And if Heller will use his common sense he will see that if a ship

about the latitude of Deal were drifting away from Britain, that ship

would have left Britain behind just as really as if it had passed Cape

Wrath and were drifting towards Iceland.

Lastly, even if Heller’s explanation of the word _relictam_ were

correct, the argument which he builds upon it would be unsound; for

obviously that argument would only hold good if Caesar had drifted

north of the latitude of the North Foreland. Heller himself admits that

he had hardly drifted so far north as the latitude of Ramsgate; and at

this point, on Heller’s own theory, he could no more have said that he

had left _the northern coast_ of Britain _behind_ than if he had been

in the latitude of Deal.

Both Heller[2816] and Guest[2817] deduce an argument in favour

of Wissant from a well-known passage of Strabo.[2818] It runs as

follows:--‘There are four regular passages from the Continent to the

island, namely, from the mouths of the Rhine, the Seine, the Loire, and

the Garonne. People who cross from the country near the Rhine do not

sail from the mouth of that river, but from the country of the Morini

... _and_ in their country is the Itian (harbour), which Caesar used as

his naval station, when he was crossing to the island’ (τέτταρα δ’ ἐστὶ

διάρματα, οἷς χρῶνται συνήθως ἐπὶ τὴν νῆσον ἐκ τῆς ἠπείρου, τὰ ἀπὸ τῶν

ἐκβολῶν τῶν ποταμῶν, τοῦ τε Ῥήνου καὶ τοῦ Σηκοάνα καὶ τοῦ Λείγηρος καὶ

τοῦ Γαρούνα. τοῖς δ’ ἀπὸ τῶν περὶ τὸν Ῥῆνον τόπων ἀναγομένοις οὐκ ἀπ’

αὐτῶν τῶν ἐκβολῶν ὁ πλοῦς ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμορούντων τοῖς Μεναπίοις

Μορινῶν, παρ’ οἷς ἐστι καὶ τὸ Ἴτιον, ᾧ ἐχρήσατο ναυστάθμῳ Καῖσαρ ὁ

θεός, διαίρων εἰς τὴν νῆσον). I have italicized the word _and_, because

the meaning of καί has been disputed. Dr. Guest argues that the port

from which the inhabitants of the country near the Rhine sailed must

have been Boulogne; and, he continues, ‘every unprejudiced reader ...

will be of opinion that he (Strabo) distinguishes it from his “Itium”.’

In other words, Guest would translate the doubtful clause by ‘in whose

country there is _also_ the Itian (harbour)’.

I, for one, fully agree with Dr. Guest; but some scholars are unable to

do so. Long,[2819] remarking that a similar use of καί, particularly in

clauses which begin with a relative, as παρ’ οἷς, is common in Strabo

and also in Thucydides, affirms that ‘the purpose of καί, when it is so

used, is to mark emphatically some thing or circumstance in addition

to one which has been mentioned’. Guest[2820] retorts that Xylander,

in his Latin version of Strabo, first published in Casaubon’s edition

of 1597, and revised by Siebenkees, who did not alter Xylander’s

translation of the passage in question, and Groskurd, in his German

version of 1831--‘the most careful and conscientious translation of

Strabo that has yet appeared’--both render και by ‘also’. This array

of authorities does not disconcert Long. He remarks[2821] that the old

Latin versions of Strabo and other Greek writers, although they were

very useful in their day, ‘are not of much value when there is any

great difficulty.’ Groskurd’s translation--‘wo auch der Hafen Ition

ist’--he regards as ambiguous. Had Groskurd desired to express, in

his translation, that Strabo meant to affirm the existence of another

harbour, besides those which he had just mentioned, he would have

written, not ‘wo _auch_’, but ‘wo _ebenfalls_’ (der Hafen Ition ist).

But, says Long, ‘Strabo mentions four usual points of transit from

Gallia to Britain, and if in this passage he means that there was

another besides the Itius, then there would be five points of transit

instead of four, and Strabo would contradict himself.’[2822] Long then

quotes two passages in support of his interpretation of και. ‘Strabo,’

he remarks, ‘says that Sinuessa is in the gulf of Setia, and adds αφ

ου και το ονομα.[2823] Groskurd translates και by “auch”, which has no

meaning here.... Again, Strabo, speaking of the high Alps, says περι

ὁ δη και συνισταντο οι λησται;[2824] which Groskurd translates, “die

Gipfel, um welche denn auch die Räuber sassen.” Xylander simply says

“ubi degebant latrones”, which I prefer to Groskurd’s version, though

Xylander’s version is not quite exact.’

To these arguments Guest made no reply; but Heller[2825] did so. He

admits that Thucydides, in relative sentences, often did use καί in

the sense which Long claims for it; but this sense, he maintains, is

restricted to phrases of which the meaning is unmistakable.

If Strabo did really mean to say that the Itian port was different

from that port of the Morini which was commonly used as the point of

departure for Britain, then I can only say that I believe, with Rudolf

Schneider,[2826] that Strabo was mistaken. As Caesar was the only other

ancient writer who mentioned the Portus Itius, and as he did not say

exactly where it was, it would have been quite natural for Strabo to

suppose that the Portus Itius was not the same as the well-known port

of the Morini.

4. Finally, it has been affirmed by Henry[2827] and many other writers

that the so-called ‘Camp de César’ and the various hillocks known as

‘mottes’ which are to be found in the neighbourhood of Wissant were

defensive works erected by Caesar or his lieutenants for the protection

of the Portus Itius; and de Saulcy tells us that an inhabitant of

Wissant, whose trustworthiness he had proved, informed him that

about two kilometres north-east of the village, at Haute-Sombre,

there existed a camp several hectares in extent, in which, he says,

‘il faudra reconnaître le camp des trois légions et des deux mille

cavaliers de Labienus.’[2828]

All these allegations have been disproved. The so-called tradition

which ascribed the ‘Camp de César’ to the invader of Britain originated

in the eighteenth century:[2829] at all events it is not mentioned by

any of the earlier advocates of Wissant; and the camp has been proved

to be of post-Roman date.[2830] Moreover, its area is not more than

50 ares 30 centiares, or 6,016 square yards, less than one acre and a

quarter, which would not have sufficed to accommodate more than 500

men.[2831] As for the ‘mottes’, they have been excavated, and have

been proved to be simply _tumuli_, which contained skeletons, flint

implements, and bone pins. And the Abbé Haigneré[2832] has shown, in an

amusing paragraph, that the so-called camp of Labienus, which, needless

to say, is not marked on the _Carte de l’État-Major_, is purely

imaginary.

Every argument which has been adduced in favour of Wissant has now been

examined; and if I could have accepted them or any one of them, I would

gladly have done so, for I myself once argued that the Portus Itius was

at Wissant. But my knowledge was then imperfect. It is not possible to

prove that the Portus Itius was at Wissant: it is possible to prove

that it was not.

1. Although Wissant is nearer to England than Boulogne, yet Caesar

would have gained nothing, even in regard to his mere voyage, by making

Wissant his place of departure. Captain Iron, the harbour-master

of Dover, unhesitatingly affirmed, after we had studied the chart

together, that the fleet would have ‘made a better run’ from Boulogne

than from Wissant. The reader will have no difficulty in understanding

this if he will consult the Admiralty Chart (_Dungeness to the

Thames_), and the Atlas entitled _Tidal Streams in the English and

Irish Channels_. It must be remembered that both in 55 and in 54 B.C.

Caesar started from Gaul when the tide was running down the Channel;

and that on his first voyage the tide turned north-eastward between

4.30 and 5 a.m., when he had been three or four hours at sea, and on

his second about 9.30 p.m., two hours or so after he had set sail.

Thus, on each occasion, the latter and greater portion of the voyage

was made on the flood tide.[2833]

Wauters does indeed succeed in proving that, in the middle ages,

Wissant was very frequently used as a place of embarkation by

travellers, merchants, and even troops sailing for the opposite

coast;[2834] and the point of his argument is that if, in the middle

ages, a large army could embark at Wissant, Caesar’s army could have

done the same; and that if Wissant was a convenient point of departure

for a voyage to Britain in the middle ages, it was not less convenient

in the time of Caesar. Haigneré[2835] retorts, truly enough, that the

quantity of merchandise which passed through the port at any one time

was very small, and that, as a rule, not more than two or three vessels

left the port simultaneously; but when he affirms[2836] that the

largest army which ever sailed from Wissant was a force of 2,000 men,

which John of Hainault led in 1327 to assist Edward the Third against

the Scots,[2837] he lays himself open to criticism. Wauters[2838]

replies that the force with which the Earl of Leicester sailed from

Wissant in 1173 must have been very large; for in the battle of

Fornham, in which the earl suffered defeat soon after he had landed

in Suffolk, 10,000 of his men were killed. This statement, which was

accepted by the late Bishop of Oxford,[2839] was made on the authority

of Benedict of Peterborough,[2840] who also describes the army of the

Earl of Leicester as _infinitus exercitus_. But (if we are to accept

the statement of a mediaeval monk as to the number of men who were

killed in a battle) Benedict does not say that _the army_ set sail

from Wissant, while Ralph de Diceto[2841] merely says that the Earl

of Leicester embarked in a ship at Wissant, accompanied by a numerous

band (_venit apud Witsant, ubi ... plurima comitante caterva, navem

ascendit_); and, assuming that the troops all embarked at Wissant,

there is no evidence that all the transports which carried them sailed

together. It is generally admitted even by the partisans of Wissant

(though not by Dr. Guest) that the mediaeval port was merely the creek

formed by the Rieu d’Herlan, otherwise called Rieu de Sombre; and if it

is true that an army which lost 10,000 men in a single battle embarked

at Wissant in 1173, the bulk of the ships which carried it must have

been anchored in the roadstead. The frequency with which Wissant was

used as a place of embarkation in the middle ages undoubtedly proves

that it was convenient, and this fact has been slurred over by the

advocates of Boulogne; but it nevertheless remains certain that Caesar

would not have found it convenient to sail from Wissant when _the

greater part of his voyage would have to be made upon the eastward

stream, and with a south-west wind_. At the same time I admit that we

do not know from what quarter the wind was blowing in his first voyage:

we only know that when he set sail it was favourable.[2842]

2. There is another objection to Wissant, which Dr. Guest, if he had

been consistent, would have been the first to urge. Like all the

other advocates of Wissant, he identifies the _superior portus_ with

Sangatte. Yet he tells us himself that it is hard to see how there

could ever have been a harbour at Sangatte.[2843] Similarly, H. L.

Long, himself an advocate of Wissant, who was well acquainted with the

coast between Boulogne and Calais, observes that ‘as a port, in our

acceptation of the term, Sangatte has fewer pretensions ... than even

Wissant; but still it is, and always has been a small station’.[2844]

The theory that it was a naval station is no doubt supported by the

fact that it was the terminus of a Roman road: but Caesar speaks of a

_portus_; and when Dr. Guest has to confute George Long, he is most

emphatic in insisting that _portus_ means ‘a harbour’ in the strictest

sense of the word.[2845]

Let us, however, assume that Sangatte may conceivably have possessed

a harbour in Caesar’s time. Even so, it is impossible to admit that

Sangatte can have been the _superior portus_. For, if the eighteen

ships which carried the cavalry had started from Sangatte, the

conditions of wind and tide which would have rendered a voyage from

Wissant to Kent less favourable than from Boulogne would obviously have

been more unfavourable still.

3. There is one passage in Caesar’s narrative which, to a sailor, would

be alone sufficient to prove that Wissant was not the port from which

Caesar sailed in 55 B.C. We have seen that the gale which drove some

of the cavalry transports from the point where they were first sighted

westward down the coast carried the others back to the port from which

they had started. I will assume that the latter were laid to on the

port tack:[2846] if they could not work to windward, a glance at the

map will show that they could not have returned to any point east of

Wissant. The gale must obviously have blown from some point between

the east and the north; and, if Caesar sailed from Wissant, the place

from which the transports started must, as we have seen, have been

Sangatte. Now it is absolutely incredible that a gale which drove some

of these ships from a point near the South Foreland[2847] westward down

the coast should have carried the others back to Sangatte. Caesar says

that the former were ‘in great peril’, and that, when they anchored,

the waves broke over them. A sailor would at once understand what their

peril was. They were in no danger of being driven ashore; for while the

gale was at its height they stood out to sea.[2848] They ran before

the wind; and they were in danger either of broaching to or, possibly,

of being ‘pooped’.[2849] From this we should conclude that the wind,

when it struck the ships somewhere east or north-east of the South

Foreland,[2850] blew from about the north-east: indeed, as the waves

broke over the ships, it may have blown from north-east by east; for,

if it had blown from the north-east or north-east by north, the ships,

if they anchored close in shore, west of Folkestone, would have been in

a sheltered position.[2851] The most easterly point at which they can

be assumed to have been when they were caught by the gale is NW. 4° N.

of Sangatte. Therefore if the wind had blown from the north-east, the

ships that were carried back to the port from which they had started

would have had to sail within less than eight points and a half of it

in order to reach Sangatte. But, as Falconer[2852] says, a ship laid to

in a gale makes from 5½ to 6½ points of lee-way. Reduce this estimate

to four, and you will see that the transports would have had to lie

within less than four points and a half of the wind in order to make

Sangatte. No ancient ship could have done this. Close-hauled and under

short canvas, as they would necessarily have been, the transports, as

Commander Richmond remarked to me, would ‘just have sagged to leeward’.

It may be objected that the tide would have helped them if it was

running up the Channel. But the flood tide is almost neutralized by a

north-easterly gale, and simply makes the sea more vicious: the ships

would have moved so slowly that they could not have crossed the Channel

in one tide; and when it turned and began to sweep them westward, their

prospect of reaching Sangatte would have been more hopeless than ever.

With a north-easterly gale, or even one which blew from north-east by

north, it would have been absolutely impossible, so Commander Richmond

and the harbour-master of Dover have separately and independently

affirmed, for the vessels to fetch that anchorage.[2853]

4. Desjardins[2854] shows that, whereas four Roman roads, meeting at

Gesoriacum, are mentioned in the itineraries,[2855] not a single Roman

road led to Wissant. The advocates of Wissant have, indeed, replied

that this proves nothing, since, in Caesar’s time, there were no Roman

roads in any part of Gaul.[2856] But this reply is nugatory. Since

no Roman roads led to Wissant, it is clear that if Wissant was the

Portus Itius, this harbour, which Caesar had ascertained to be ‘the

most convenient’ port of departure for Britain, was regarded by his

successors as useless. Such a hypothesis is not tenable.

5. The mention of roads suggests another objection to Wissant. We

have seen that Caesar’s army, consisting of five legions and 2,000

cavalry, remained weatherbound at the Portus Itius in 54 B.C. for

about twenty-five days; and that with them were three other legions

and 2,000 cavalry, who were left behind under the command of Labienus

to guard the ports during Caesar’s absence.[2857] Thus for twenty-five

days a force amounting to at least 32,000 men and 4,000 horses had to

be fed; and of these not less than 12,500 men and 2,000 horses for

about ten weeks more.[2858] No calculation is needed to show that these

multitudes could not possibly have been supplied by the country in

the neighbourhood of Wissant, even if it were as fertile as (according

to Dr. Guest himself) it is ‘notoriously barren’.[2859] Their food

must have come from a distance; and to transport it to Wissant without

roads would have been a task of extreme difficulty. Dr. Guest assumes

that Caesar’s fleet would have supplied his wants.[2860] But the fleet

could only have procured grain from a port. Surely, then, Caesar

would have found it most convenient to start from a port which was in

communication by road or by river with the interior. Such a port was

Boulogne, which enjoyed both these means of transit. What would have

been gained by abandoning it for the isolated Wissant?

Again, it will be remembered that Labienus built sixty ships during

Caesar’s absence in Britain;[2861] and we have seen that most of the

modern advocates of Wissant admit that there was no harbour there,

except the tiny creek formed by the ruisseau d’Herlan, or possibly

a roadstead which may have been partially sheltered by the Banc de

Laine. Not one of them has attempted to explain how Labienus could have

found the means of building sixty ships upon an exposed beach. But let

us admit that his genius could have improvised dockyards.[2862] Let

us even admit that the harbour of Dr. Guest’s imagination did really

exist. Still, sixty ships cannot be built without timber. How was all

this timber to be brought to Wissant without roads and without a river?

Even assuming that there was a Gallic road, it is doubtful whether

Labienus could have impressed the amount of carriage necessary to

transport the timber from the forests. But a few miles off at Boulogne

the difficulty would have disappeared.[2863]

6. Another objection is so obvious that it must impress every candid

inquirer. If Wissant was the Portus Itius, why was Wissant never

once mentioned during the first millennium of our era? There is no

evidence worthy of the name that it was used as a port before the

year 1013.[2864] It is surely inexplicable that the port which Caesar

regarded as the most convenient for his purpose should have been found

so inconvenient or so superfluous by his successors that during the

imperial epoch it fell into entire disuse. Wauters indeed retorts that

if Wissant was eclipsed by Gesoriacum under the Empire, so was the

Gallic town of Bibracte by the Gallo-Roman Augustodunum, and that,

although the naval station was Gesoriacum, Wissant _may_ have been

a great commercial port.[2865] But he omits to explain how a great

commercial port could have been left unnoticed by history, or how it

could have existed without a river and roads to connect it with the

interior. Nor is there any analogy between Wissant and Bibracte. The

hill-fort of Bibracte gradually fell into disuse because when Gaul

settled down under the Roman dominion it was no longer required.[2866]

7. Finally, Mariette[2867] argues that the mere name of Wissant, which,

like the names of many other villages in the Boulonnais, is of German

origin, proves that it was not founded before the fifth century, and

consequently that there could have been no frequented harbour there in

Caesar’s time.

It has now been demonstrated that Caesar did not sail from Wissant.

That it was the point of departure of his first expedition is out of

the question; for in that case the _portus ulterior_, from which the

cavalry transports set sail, must have been Sangatte; and we have seen

that they could not have returned to Sangatte when they were dispersed

by the gale. The _portus ulterior_ can only have been Ambleteuse; and

therefore Caesar sailed in 55 B.C. from Boulogne. But nobody will

believe that, having had experience of the advantages of Boulogne, he

would have discarded it in favour of a place which, for his purpose,

was in all respects inferior.

Nevertheless, to satisfy doubters, I shall state the case for and

against Boulogne.

IX. BOULOGNE

The reasons which point to the identification of the _Portus Itius_

with Boulogne are, speaking generally, that Boulogne, and Boulogne

only, satisfies all the requirements of Caesar’s narrative.

To begin with, the passage for sailing-vessels from Boulogne to the

south-eastern part of Britain is, and always has been, in circumstances

such as Caesar described, not only very convenient but by far the most

convenient. This is the testimony of seafaring men, both English and

French, who have practical experience of the winds and the currents

in the Channel: it was admitted, or rather strenuously maintained,

by Henry,[2868] who advocated the claims of Wissant; and any man

who studies the Admiralty Chart--_Dungeness to the Thames_--the

_Channel Pilot_, and the Atlas, published by the Admiralty, which

is entitled _Tidal Streams in the English and Irish Channels_, may

convince himself of its truth. Captain Pollet, the harbour-master of

Calais and Boulogne, furnished information to Ernest de Saulcy, who

was determined, by hook or by crook, to make out a plausible case in

support of Wissant; but he avowed his own opinion that Caesar must have

sailed from Boulogne.[2869] Captain Iron, the harbour-master of Dover,

in conversation with me, has done the same.

Secondly, the whole of Caesar’s fleet could easily have assembled in

the port of Boulogne; and they certainly could not have assembled in

any other port, properly so-called, on the coast of the Morini,[2870]

except the mouth of the Canche, which was several miles further

from Britain than Boulogne, and was in no respect more convenient.

Desjardins[2871] has shown that the estuary of the Liane was much

broader and deeper in Caesar’s time than it was in the nineteenth

century before the harbour was modernized, and that, as the headland

which sheltered it has suffered greatly from erosion, it extended

further seaward; and not only was it ample in extent, but it was the

only port protected from every wind.[2872] No one has described its

merits more eloquently than Henry, the advocate of Wissant; and no one

was more competent to form an opinion. He describes Gesoriacum as ‘le

havre le plus commode et le mieux situé de toute la Gaule-Belgique,

pour le commerce, la construction et l’équipement des vaisseaux’.[2873]

But, although it is certain that there would have been ample room in

the Liane for Caesar’s 800 small vessels,[2874] Airy insists that it

would have been impossible for them to clear the harbour in a single

tide.[2875] Now Caesar does not say that they did clear the harbour in

a single tide; nor is it necessary to assume that they did. Captain

Iron has, however, assured me that Caesar’s fleet of shallow vessels

could have cleared the harbour in a single tide even if the depth of

the water then had been no greater than in 1877. In that year the depth

_at low tide_ was 1 metre 60, or more than 5 feet[2876]; and it may

be regarded as certain that the draught of Caesar’s vessels in the

second expedition was much less than five feet.[2877] The estuary of

the Liane has been silted up so much since Caesar’s time that it would

hardly be an exaggeration to say that its depth then was three times as

much as in 1877;[2878] and it has been ascertained from the sinking of

artesian wells at the cement works of M. Demarle at Capécure[2879] that

at that place the ancient bed of the river is 19 metres below the level

of spring tides.[2880]

Thirdly, the distance of Ambleteuse from Boulogne corresponds closely

enough with Caesar’s estimate of the distance of the _ulterior portus_

from the Portus Itius. This does not prove the identity of the Portus

Itius with Boulogne: but, if it is not a fact, the Portus Itius was

not Boulogne; and it is therefore necessary to examine the arguments

of those who have denied it. ‘On measuring,’ says Airy,[2881] ‘upon

the beautiful Admiralty Chart the distance between the centre of the

entrance to Boulogne and the centre of the entrance to Ambleteuse, I

find it to be not quite 4½ nautical miles, or 5½ Roman miles; instead

of the 8 miles given by Caesar.’ This estimate is accurate; but it is

also irrelevant; for Airy measures the distance by sea; and Caesar

must have meant the distance by land. ‘It was quite immaterial,’ says

Lewin,[2882] ‘what was the distance by sea, for the eighteen transports

were windbound, and could not reach him; but, as he could not dispense

with the vessels, he had to consider what portion of his force could be

most conveniently despatched thither, and as the transports lay eight

miles off, he thought it best, in order to save time, to send thither

his cavalry ... by the nearest road from the port of Boulogne, through

Wimille and Slacq to the church at Ambleteuse, the distance is twelve

kilometres.’[2883] It is amusing to find that Airy, who lays so much

stress upon the accuracy of Caesar’s (assumed) estimate of the distance

by sea from the Portus Itius to the _ulterior portus_, maintains on the

preceding page (_Essays on the Invasion of Britain_, &c., p. 27) that

Caesar’s estimates of distances by sea were valueless.

Fourthly, Caesar’s narrative of the adventures of his cavalry

transports is easily comprehensible on the hypothesis that the port

from which he himself sailed was Boulogne, but on no other.[2884] As we

have seen, the storm of the 30th of August, 55 B.C., which prevented

them from making the Kentish coast near Caesar’s camp, drove some of

them westward to a point on the south coast, and carried the rest back

to the point whence they had started, namely, the _ulterior portus_.

That port, if Caesar sailed from Boulogne, was Ambleteuse; and there is

no difficulty in believing, nor has it ever been denied, that the wind,

before which some of the ships ran from the neighbourhood of the South

Foreland[2885] in the direction of Dungeness, would have carried the

others, which were laid to, back to Ambleteuse.

Fifthly, Caesar, as we have seen, sailed from the Portus Itius with a

south-westerly wind;[2886] and it is needless to tell any one who will

consult the map that to sail with a south-westerly wind, especially

with flat-bottomed vessels which made a great deal of lee-way, and on

the easterly going stream, from Boulogne either to Sandwich, Deal,

Walmer, Hythe, or Lympne, would have been easier than to sail from

Wissant.

Sixthly, it is universally admitted that Boulogne, which Pliny[2887]

calls the _portus Morinorum Britannicus_, was the permanent naval

station of the Romans in the imperial epoch, and that it was the

harbour from which they habitually sailed for the coast of Kent.[2888]

An inscription preserved in the Boulogne museum[2889] proves that this

station was established at least as early as the reign of Claudius,

while Suetonius[2890] tells us that Claudius embarked at Gesoriacum for

Britain. Indeed there is indirect evidence that the station existed in

the time of Augustus; for the road which ran from Mediolanum (Milan)

past Lugdunum (Lyons), Durocortorum (Reims), and Ambiani (Amiens),

to Gesoriacum[2891] was constructed by Agrippa. It has been argued

that, although Gesoriacum was the recognized harbour from the time of

Augustus, the fact does not prove that it was the harbour from which

Caesar sailed. But to those who admit that it has been proved that no

other port existed which would have served Caesar’s purpose the fact

will appear conclusive.[2892]

Seventhly, Desjardins[2893] has pointed out that Gallic ports were

always either in the mouths of rivers or otherwise sheltered from

storms. Such a port was Gesoriacum; and if Wissant was a Gallic harbour

at all, it was a solitary exception to the rule.

Lastly, Rudolf Schneider[2894] lays great stress upon the fact that,

according to Pomponius Mela,[2895] no harbour on the northern coast

of Gaul was better known than Gesoriacum; and he reminds us that

Pliny[2896] mentioned no other harbour in the country of the Morini.

Unless, he argues, the Portus Itius was identical with Gesoriacum,

Mela, Pliny, and the later writers must have forgotten its existence.

Now nothing would be easier than to make a dialectical reply to this

argument,--Is it not equally remarkable that none of these writers

even hints that Gesoriacum was the Portus Itius? This was the reply

which I made myself on another occasion. But the reply was sophistical.

Schneider’s argument depends upon the assumption that the Portus Itius

was one of the great harbours of Gaul; and considering that it could

accommodate 800 vessels, this assumption is certainly reasonable.

At all events it is impossible to suggest any other explanation of

the fact that after Strabo no writer mentioned the Portus Itius for

more than a thousand years, except this,--that the Portus Itius and

Gesoriacum were one.

It would be waste of time to repeat the arguments, which have already

been stated by implication in the section on Wissant, based upon the

unique advantages that Boulogne possessed in being connected with the

interior by river and road.[2897]

It remains only to consider the objections which have been made to the

identification of the Portus Itius with Boulogne.

1. The very fact that Boulogne was called Gesoriacum is regarded by

Long[2898] as presumptive evidence that it was not called Portus Itius.

Desjardins,[2899] who evidently regards this as a serious objection,

has taken great pains to remove it. He argues that the Portus Itius

was not exactly the same as the imperial harbour of Gesoriacum, but

that it comprised that part of the estuary of the Liane which lies

between Bréquerecque and Isques; and, he triumphantly remarks, the name

‘Isques’ is derived from _Itius_. But ‘Isques’ cannot have been derived

from _Itius_: the names ‘Ausques’,‘Quesques’, ‘Clerques’, ‘Setques’,

and ‘Wisques’ are derived from _Alciacum_, _Kessiacum_, _Quertliacum_,

_Sethiacum_, and _Wiciacum_; and the inference is that not _Itius_

but _Isiacum_ would have been transformed into ‘Isques’.[2900] Rudolf

Schneider,[2901] who is too honest and too hard-headed to be deluded

by Desjardins’s attempt to draw a distinction between Gesoriacum and

Portus Itius, frankly admits that the unrecorded change of name has not

been explained. But is there anything to explain? ‘Portus Itius’ is

not, properly speaking, a name at all: it does not designate a town;

it means simply ‘the Itian harbour’. Long saw nothing inexplicable

in the fact that Gesoriacum was called by Pliny _portus_ [Morinorum]

_Britannicus_: why, then, should he have found it impossible to

believe that its harbour was called by Caesar _portus Itius_?[2902] Was

not the port of Athens called the Piraeus?

2. Long, after making the amazing remark that ‘such a port as Boulogne

would have been quite useless in Caesar’s second expedition’, says that

‘the Romans estimated the distance from Boulogne to the British coast

at fifty Roman miles; but this is too much.... However, they were right

in making the distance more than the distance from Itius to the nearest

point of the British coast; and the conclusion is that Gesoriacum and

Itius were different places.’[2903]

The conclusion is simply that, assuming the identity of Gesoriacum with

the Portus Itius, Caesar’s estimate of the distance from Gesoriacum to

Britain was different from that of later writers. Besides, the only one

of ‘the Romans’, as far as we know, who ‘estimated the distance from

Boulogne to the British coast at fifty Roman miles’ was Pliny;[2904]

and it may be presumed that by ‘the British coast’ he meant Rutupiae,

or Richborough, which was a port, if not the chief port, of arrival in

his day. For he estimated the shortest passage at fifty Roman miles:

according to Dion Cassius,[2905] the shortest passage was 450 stades;

and this, according to the _Itinerary_ of Antonine,[2906] was precisely

the length of the passage from Boulogne to Richborough.

Long goes on to say that in the _Itinerary_ of Antonine the distance

from Boulogne to Richborough ‘was estimated at 450 stadia; and, if

we follow d’Anville in estimating this maritime stadium at ten to

the Roman mile, the distance is fairly given. So if we take the 320

stadia which Strabo gives as the length of Caesar’s voyages, we have

thirty-two Roman miles; or, if we take the reading which Eustathius,

copying Strabo, has in his commentary on Dionysius, 300 stadia, we

have exactly thirty Roman miles, as in Caesar’s text. The conclusion

is that, in addition to the fact of Boulogne (Gesoriacum) and Ouissant

(Itius) having different names, the ancient authorities place them at

different distances from the British coast.’[2907]

Again Long’s conclusion is at fault. To begin with, Strabo did not

estimate the maritime stadium at ten, but at eight to the Roman

mile.[2908] Assuming, however, that he did estimate it at one-tenth of

a Roman mile, there is no reason to suppose that when Caesar estimated

the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain, he meant the distance

to Richborough; and the only conclusion that can be drawn from Long’s

data is that ‘the ancient authorities’ reckoned the length of Caesar’s

voyage less than the distance between Richborough and Boulogne. And

when Long says that the estimated distance, 450 stadia, from Boulogne

to Richborough ‘is fairly given’, it is amusing to find him admitting

that Caesar’s estimate of 30 miles ‘exceeds the distance from Wissant

to the nearest part of the English coast, and it is about the true

distance from Boulogne to the same part of the English coast’. Thus, on

Long’s own showing, Caesar’s estimate of the distance from the Portus

Itius to the British coast corresponds with the actual distance from

Boulogne to the same, and the estimate of the _Itinerary_ is equally

true. The reader who has followed him so far will hardly be surprised

by his remark, that ‘even a real good harbour would have been useless

to Caesar’.[2909]

3. Heller,[2910] after quoting the statement of Pliny as to the length

of the shortest passage from Boulogne to Britain, and the statement

of the _Itinerary_ of Antonine as to the distance from Boulogne to

Richborough, argues (_a_) that, as they overestimated the distance from

Gaul to Britain, Caesar probably did the same; (_b_) that if Pliny had

identified Boulogne with the Portus Itius, he would not have estimated

the distance of Boulogne from the nearest point of Britain at 50 miles,

but would have followed Caesar and written ‘about 30’; (_c_) that if

Caesar had started from Boulogne, he would, according to the usual

tendency of the ancients, have overestimated the distance from Boulogne

to Britain, and would therefore have reckoned it at considerably more

than ‘about 30 miles’, seeing that the actual distance from Boulogne to

Dover is 33.

The first of these arguments, if it had come from a tiro, might have

been passed over with a smile; but one would hardly have expected it

from Heller. The third is based upon a misleading statement;[2911] and

even if we could be sure that Caesar overestimated the length of his

voyage, it would be inconclusive, for, as we have seen,[2912] it is not

improbable that he estimated it at 40 Roman miles. And as for Pliny,

‘the shortest passage,’ which he estimated at 50 miles, was probably, I

repeat, the passage from Boulogne to Richborough.

4. H. L. Long,[2913] if I do not misunderstand him, argues that there

could have been no port at Ambleteuse in the days of Caesar. Speaking

of ‘the immense irruption of blown sand’, he maintains that ‘this dune

... acts as a dam to the drainage of the valley; an interruption which

must have produced swamps in former days, and is now but imperfectly

corrected by an artificial channel, the embouchure of which forms the

little harbour of Ambleteuse’.

This argument obviously depends upon the untenable assumption that the

sand-dune existed in Caesar’s time; and it is shaken by the fact that

Roman antiquities have been discovered at Ambleteuse.[2914] Moreover,

according to the writer of the article _Ambleteuse_ in M. Vivien de

Saint-Martin’s _Nouveau Dictionnaire de Géographie Universelle_ (i,

1879, p. 115), Ambleteuse, under the rule of the English, had an

excellent harbour,[2915] and was not choked up by the accumulation of

sand until after 1549.[2916]

5. General Creuly,[2917] referring to the attack made by 6,000 of the

Morini upon the Roman soldiers who disembarked from the two ships which

failed to make the harbours in 55 B.C. and were carried ‘a little

further down’, insists that Caesar’s account of this episode[2918] is

incompatible with the view that the Portus Itius was Boulogne. For,

he argues, the 6,000 Morini could not have belonged to the _pagus

Gesoriacus_, that is to say, the district of Boulogne, since the

inhabitants of this region had submitted to Caesar, and, moreover, it

was so sparsely populated that 6,000 men could not have assembled on

the spur of the moment. He also reminds us that on the day following

the attack Labienus marched against the rebellious Morini, and soon

subdued them, as, owing to a drought, they were unable to take refuge

in the marshes which had served them as an asylum in the preceding

year;[2919] and he denies that there were any marshes in the _pagus

Gesoriacus_ large enough to serve such a purpose.

Creuly can only make a show of sustaining these objections by resorting

to Airy’s fantastic theory,[2920]--that Caesar, when he said that two

of his ships were carried ‘a little further down’, meant not ‘down the

coast’ but ‘in the direction of the wind’. If the inhabitants of the

district of Boulogne had submitted, why should they not have rebelled?

The Aduatuci submitted and afterwards rebelled:[2921] the Nervii

submitted and afterwards rebelled;[2922] the Britons submitted and

afterwards rebelled:[2923]--but it is needless to multiply examples.

For Caesar expressly states that the Morini who attacked his soldiers

_had_ submitted to him before he sailed for Britain.[2924] I am not

concerned to defend the accuracy of his statement, that their number

was 6,000: but Creuly admits that 6,000 Morini did assemble somewhere

in their own country; and how can he prove that the district of

Boulogne was more sparsely populated than any other? As to the marshes,

there is no evidence that they were in the immediate neighbourhood of

the spot where the soldiers were attacked; but if they were, what is

there to prevent us from identifying them with the marshes south of

Boulogne, between Camiers and Dannes?[2925]

6. Heller’s objection,[2926] that if Caesar had sailed from Boulogne

in 54 B.C. it would have been impossible for his ship to drift so

far by daybreak on the following morning as to justify him in saying

that he ‘saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter’ (_sub sinistra

Britanniam relictam conspexit_[2927]), has been already answered.

7. Caesar, describing his return to Gaul in 54 B.C., says that ‘at

daybreak he reached land’ (_prima luce terram attigit_), and that

his ‘ships were hauled up on the shore’ (_subductis navibus_[2928]).

It has been argued that ‘both of these expressions point to the

conclusion that he did not enter the mouth of a river’, and that ‘if

the Portus Itius was in the estuary of the Liane, to haul up the ships

over the banks on to the meadows would surely have been a difficult

operation’.[2929] The author of this argument forgot that the ships

need not have been hauled up on to the meadows at all unless they had

gone far up the river, and that they may have been docked. But an

expert whom he has since consulted assures him that, even if it had

been necessary to haul up the ships over the banks on to the meadows,

the operation would have involved no serious difficulty.

If this inquiry had merely established the probability of the

identification of the Portus Itius with the harbour of Boulogne, it

would not be possible to justify the labour which has been expended

upon it except on the ground that it will save those who may wish to

inform themselves a vast amount of research, and provide them with

complete equipment for arriving at an independent conclusion. But that

conclusion, if it is reached conscientiously by an unbiassed mind, can

only be one.

THE PLACE OF CAESAR’S LANDING IN BRITAIN

I. INTRODUCTION

After I had completed the researches which I undertook for the purpose

of writing this article, I saw that if an able soldier, or even an

intelligent civilian, who had a sufficient knowledge of ancient

warfare, were to ask himself where Caesar landed in Britain, he could

solve the problem after a brief inspection of the Ordnance Map. He

would perceive that there was only one part of the Kentish coast on

which Caesar could have expected to land, in the face of an enemy,

and then to march into the interior, without incurring unnecessary

loss. If he were told that a study of the tides had proved that Caesar

must have landed elsewhere, he would reply, ‘There must be something

wrong in your calculations. Perhaps you have neglected to allow for

the influence which strong winds and other causes exert upon the tidal

currents. Perhaps you have misinterpreted or unduly strained certain

parts of Caesar’s narrative. It is even possible that Caesar himself

may, from lapse of memory, have mis-stated the day on which he first

landed. Any one of these suppositions is credible: but it is incredible

that the experienced officer whom he sent to reconnoitre the British

coast should have advised him to land below a range of hills when open

country was more easily accessible; still more that he should have

accepted the advice. It is absolutely certain that Caesar did not

commit an act of folly which any general who knew his business would

have avoided.’

But such a summary mode of treating the question would not convince the

scholars who must be convinced before it can be set at rest; and the

conclusion at which they have arrived is that it is insoluble. So said

Mommsen:[2930] so say Mr. Warde Fowler,[2931] Mr. Tozer,[2932] and,

apparently, Dr. Hodgkin;[2933] so said the late eminent geographer, H.

Kiepert, according to whom the numerous attempts which have been made

to determine Caesar’s landing-place ‘have, because of the vagueness

of many expressions of the principal source [the _Commentaries_ of

Caesar], not attained more than a hypothetical value, even after three

centuries of learned quarrels’.[2934] Not because of the vagueness

of Caesar’s expressions, but because those who have commented upon

them have not taken the trouble to inform themselves. The indications

which Caesar gives are sufficient to enable any attentive reader to

determine the place where he landed with such certainty that every

doubt shall be removed,--if he knows how to use them; if, that is to

say, he possesses sufficient collateral knowledge to enable him to

understand what he reads. It is not enough to be a Latin scholar. It

is necessary also to study the ancient geography of the coast of Kent;

to be acquainted with the tidal phenomena of the English Channel; to

have at least an elementary knowledge of seamanship; to know Caesar’s

writings intimately, and not merely read the Fourth and Fifth Books

for the occasion; and, above all, to gain that understanding of the

principles of ancient warfare which can only be acquired by one who has

studied the history of modern campaigns, and has learned, by experience

or from intercourse with practical men, how things actually happen. No

genius is needed; only industry, backed by common sense and by some

intelligence and acumen; but such industry as may, perhaps, be thought

disproportionate with the object. Not even Mommsen, with his colossal

power of work, could spare the necessary time.

II. THE DATA FURNISHED BY CAESAR AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITERS

The data which we find in the _Commentaries_ are the following. Before

starting on his first voyage, Caesar sent a military tribune, named

Volusenus, whom he believed to possess the necessary qualifications,

in a ship of war, to make a thorough reconnaissance of the British

coast, and to ascertain what harbours were capable of accommodating a

large flotilla.[2935] Volusenus returned to Gaul four days after his

departure, having made all the observations that it was possible for

him to make without landing; for he had not ventured to put himself

in the power of the natives. Caesar himself marched his army into the

country of the Morini, as the shortest passage to Britain was from

their coast. The fleet which he ordered to assemble consisted of about

100 country-built merchant vessels, collected from the neighbouring

districts, as well as some ships of war and small fast-sailing

vessels, called _speculatoria navigia_, or ‘scouts’. His intention

had been made known in Britain by traders; and while his ships were

assembling, envoys sent by several British tribes presented themselves

before him, and promised to give him hostages, and to submit to the

Roman People. On their return they were accompanied by Commius, a

Gallic chieftain, who acted as Caesar’s political agent and who took

with him about thirty of his own horsemen. Of the merchant vessels

eighteen had assembled in a harbour 8 Roman miles ‘beyond’ that which

sheltered the rest of the fleet,[2936] and were prevented by contrary

winds from joining them. Caesar set sail ‘about the third watch’

(_tertia fere vigilia_) in favourable weather, having ordered the

cavalry to march to the ‘further’ port, embark there on the eighteen

transports, and follow him. Their movements, however, were somewhat

dilatory. ‘About the fourth hour’ (_hora circiter diei quarta_) the

leading division of the fleet had approached so close to the British

coast that Caesar could see an armed force of the enemy drawn up

‘on all the heights’ (_in omnibus collibus_). ‘The formation of the

ground,’ he says, ‘was peculiar, the sea being so closely walled

in by precipitous heights that it was possible to throw a missile

from the ground above on to the shore.’[2937] Regarding the place as

unsuitable for landing, he waited at anchor ‘till the ninth hour’ (_ad

horam nonam_) for the arrival of the rest of the fleet. Meanwhile he

assembled his generals and military tribunes, communicated to them

the report which he had received from Volusenus, and gave them all

necessary instructions. They returned to their respective vessels; and,

‘getting wind and tide simultaneously in his favour,’ Caesar weighed

anchor, sailed on (_progressus_) about 7 Roman miles, and ran the

ships aground ‘on an open and evenly shelving shore’ (_aperto ac plano

litore_).[2938]

The natives, divining his intention, had sent on ahead their cavalry

and charioteers, who were followed by the rest of the forces. The

important points in Caesar’s description of the disembarkation are

as follows:--some of the enemy, in opposing it, threw missiles from

the shore; others advanced a little way into the water, riding or

driving their horses. The transports, on account of their relatively

considerable draught, had necessarily grounded in deep water; and on

this account the Roman soldiers hesitated before jumping into the sea

to wade ashore. During the conflict Caesar made some of his war-galleys

sheer off a little from the transports, and take up a position on

the enemy’s exposed flank; and later on, when legionaries who had

just dropped into the sea and gathered in small groups were being

hard pressed, he manned the small fast-sailing craft and the small

boats belonging to the galleys, and sent them to the rescue. The enemy

derived an advantage from their knowledge of the places where the water

was shallow. Caesar concludes his description of the landing by saying

that it was impossible to pursue the enemy far, because ‘the cavalry

had not been able to keep their course and make the island’.

On the fourth day after the landing (the day of the landing being

doubtless reckoned as the first day)[2939] the eighteen transports that

carried the cavalry again set sail from the ‘further’ harbour with a

light wind. They were approaching the British coast and were visible

from Caesar’s camp, when a sudden storm came on with the result that

some of them were carried back to the harbour whence they had started,

while the others ‘were driven down in great peril to the lower and

more westerly part of the island’ (_ad inferiorem partem insulae, quae

est propius solis occasum, magno suo cum periculo deicerentur_). They

anchored: but the waves broke over them; and they were obliged to stand

out to sea in the face of night[2940] and make for the Continent.

On the same night there was a full moon; and Caesar remarks that full

moon causes extraordinarily high tides in the ocean. Owing to the high

tide and the gale, the ships of war, which had been drawn up on the

shore, were waterlogged, and many of the transports, which were riding

at anchor, were driven ashore and wrecked. A few days later one of the

legions was sent out in the ordinary course to cut corn. Presently

Caesar was informed by the troops on guard in front of the camp that

an unusual quantity of dust was visible in the direction in which the

legion had gone. When he had advanced ‘some little distance’ (_paulo

longius_) from the camp, he saw that his troops were in difficulties;

and he tells us that the place to which they had gone was the only

[accessible] spot in which the corn had not been cut, and that there

were woods close by. In repelling an attack which was made upon his

camp just before his departure, he made use of Commius’s small troop of

cavalry, and immediately afterwards he ‘burned all the buildings far

and wide’ (_omnibus longe lateque aedificiis incensis_). On his return

voyage he set sail soon after midnight.

The flotilla with which he sailed for Britain in the following year

consisted of more than 800 vessels. Of these over 540 were transports

and 28 war-galleys, while the rest belonged to individuals.[2941] Some

of the vessels used in the former expedition had been repaired: the

rest were built and rigged by Caesar’s troops during the winter of

55-54 B.C., and the following spring. The transports drew very little

water, and were adapted for rowing as well as sailing; and, to provide

room for troop-horses and stores, they were made proportionately

broader than the trading vessels used by the Italians in the

Mediterranean. Carrying five legions and 2,000 cavalry, they sailed

from the Portus Itius ‘about sunset’(_ad solis occasum_), with a light

south-westerly breeze. About midnight the wind dropped: the fleet was

carried far out of its course by the tidal stream; and at daybreak

Caesar ‘descried Britain lying behind on the left’ (_Britanniam sub

sinistra relictam conspexit_). He then followed the turn of the tide,

and, as he tells us, ‘rowed hard to gain the part of the island where,

as he had learned in the preceding summer, it was best to land’ (_remis

contendit ut eam partem insulae caperet qua optimum esse egressum

superiore aestate cognoverat_). He remarks that the soldiers who

rowed the heavily-laden transports deserved great credit for their

unremitting labour, which enabled them to keep up with the war-galleys.

The whole fleet had reached the coast by about noon. No enemy was to be

seen; and Caesar learned afterwards from prisoners that large forces

had collected at the landing-place, but that, panic-stricken by the

sight of 800 vessels, they had abandoned the shore and retreated to

‘higher ground’ (_superiora loca_).

After the disembarkation Caesar selected a suitable spot for his camp.

‘About the third watch’ (_de tertia vigilia_) he marched to encounter

the enemy, whose whereabouts he had ascertained from prisoners. He left

the ships riding at anchor in charge of ten cohorts and 300 cavalry;

and he describes the anchorage as on ‘a nice open shore’[2942] (_litore

molli atque aperto_). The force which accompanied him consisted of

four legions and 1,700 horse. After a march of about 12 Roman miles

he descried the enemy. They advanced with their cavalry and chariots

‘from the higher ground’ (_ex loco superiore_)[2943] to the banks of a

stream, and attempted to prevent the Romans from crossing. Repulsed by

Caesar’s cavalry, they took refuge in a stronghold in the neighbouring

woods, which is described by Caesar as ‘a well-fortified post of great

natural strength’ (_locum egregie et natura et opere munitum_).

In a storm which occurred on the following night most of the ships were

driven ashore, about 40 being totally wrecked; and in order to prevent

a repetition of this disaster, the ships were all hauled up on dry land

and ‘connected with the camp by one entrenchment’ (_cum castris una

munitione coniungi_).

In his general description of Britain Caesar says that neither the

beech nor the fir grow in the island.[2944] He describes it as

triangular, and says that one of its sides faces Gaul, and that ‘one

corner of this side, by Kent--the part which almost all ships from Gaul

make for--has an easterly, and the lower one a southerly outlook’.

Of the other two sides one, he says, ‘trends westward towards Spain’

(_alterum vergit ad Hispaniam atque occidentem solem_); while the

other has a northerly aspect, and ‘its corner looks if anything in

the direction of Germany’ (_eius angulus lateris maxime ad Germaniam

spectat_).

The territories of Cassivellaunus were ‘separated from those of the

maritime tribes by a river called the Thames, about 80 [Roman] miles

from the sea’.

On the second of the two voyages by which the troops were transported

back to Gaul in 54 B.C., the ships started in a dead calm (_summa

tranquillitate_) at the beginning of the second watch, and reached

harbour at daybreak.[2945]

The only piece of evidence worth quoting which is not in the

_Commentaries_ is the statement of Dion,[2946] that Caesar, in

sailing from his anchorage to his landing-place in 55 B.C., rounded

a promontory. Some commentators, however, believe that important

additional evidence is furnished by Plutarch and Valerius Maximus; and

the statements in question will be considered in subsequent sections of

this article.

III. THE DAY ON WHICH CAESAR LANDED IN 55 B.C.

It is absolutely certain, and is universally admitted, that the full

moon which Caesar mentions occurred on the night of August 30-1, 55

B.C.:[2947] to speak more precisely, it occurred at 3 h. 33 m. a.m.

on the 31st.[2948] Now, with one or two exceptions, which shall be

presently considered, the commentators have concluded that Caesar

landed on the fourth day before the full moon, that is to say, on

the 27th of August. But any one who has read this article with close

attention will have seen that their conclusion rests upon a careless

interpretation of Caesar’s narrative. Caesar says that the eighteen

cavalry transports sailed from Gaul on the fourth day after he landed

in Britain; that when they were approaching the island they were

prevented from keeping their course by a storm; that some of them were

driven westward down the coast and anchored, but were obliged to run

back, in the face of night, for the Continent; and that on the same

night there was a full moon.[2949] Whereupon the commentators leap

to the conclusion that the day on which Caesar landed was the fourth

before the full moon. They forget that what Caesar said was, not that

the transports approached the British coast on the fourth day after he

landed, but that on that day they started from Gaul. The distinction

is important. The transports may have weighed anchor in the night. On

all his four voyages Caesar set sail at night; and Strabo says that

for vessels sailing from Gaul this was the regular practice.[2950]

Let us assume that Caesar landed on the 26th of August. Then, if we

adopt, as almost all the commentators have done, the inclusive mode

of reckoning, the transports may have sailed from Gaul on the night

of the 29th.[2951] On the 30th, in the morning, they would have

been approaching Britain. Then came on the storm. On the following

night--the night of August 30-1--occurred the full moon.

It may be objected that if Caesar had landed in Britain on the 26th of

August, and if his transports had set sail on the night of the 29th,

but after midnight--say between 2 and 3 a.m.--he would have said that

they set sail not on the fourth but on the fifth day after his landing.

I will take note of this objection, but I doubt whether it is valid.

In the thirty-third chapter of the Second Book of the _Commentaries_,

after describing the sortie made by the Aduatuci, which took place in

the third watch of the night, that is to say after midnight, and their

repulse, he goes on to say that ‘on the following day the gates were

broken open’ (_postridie eius diei refractis portis_ &c.); in other

words, he loosely reckoned the third watch of the night as part of the

day that preceded the one which he calls _postridie eius diei_. It is

therefore at least possible, I think it probable, that he landed on the

fifth day before the moon which he described as full.

But it has been argued that Caesar may have made a mistake in

describing the moon as full. He remarks, as we have seen, that the full

moon produces very high tides in the Channel; and he states that on the

night of this particular full moon many of his ships were waterlogged

by an extraordinarily high tide. But the strongest spring tides, in the

eastern part of the Channel, between Dungeness and Beachy Head, occur,

not at the time of full moon, but a day and a half later, and east

of Dungeness two days later.[2952] Airy,[2953] premising that ‘it is

impossible to judge precisely of the day of full moon, either from the

appearance of the moon’s diameter ... or from the time of moon-rising’,

argues that the moon which Caesar described as full was probably, as

a matter of fact, that which produced the spring tide. Accordingly he

assumes that Caesar landed on the third day before the full moon.

Airy’s argument, however, is unsound. No well-informed man needs

to be told that, long before Caesar’s time, astronomers were able

to predict the phases of the moon with sufficient accuracy for all

ordinary purposes. Livy records that in 168 B.C. a tribune in the army

of Aemilius Paullus told his men that a lunar eclipse would occur on

the following night.[2954] It is therefore at least not unlikely that

Caesar should have known on what night the full moon which followed his

landing occurred. The fact that the extraordinarily high tide occurred

on the night which he calls the night of the full moon, presents no

difficulty. The tide on the night of the full moon, even though, in

normal circumstances, it would not have risen as high as a spring tide,

properly so called, would in any case have been unusually high; and

under the influence of the gale which Caesar mentions, its height would

of course have been increased. Extraordinarily high tides, indeed, have

occurred in such circumstances even at neaps;[2955] and it would be

just as reasonable to argue that Caesar ante-dated the day in question

as that he post-dated it. For, as Airy himself assures us, the moon

would have appeared full on the night before it really was so, that is

to say, on the night of August 29-30; and if, as Airy assumes, full

moon had occurred on the night before that to which Caesar assigned it,

he would surely have noticed that the moon appeared full on the two

successive nights which preceded what, on Airy’s hypothesis, he called

the night of the full moon.

The conclusion is that it is not possible to say with absolute

certainty on what day Caesar landed. It is morally certain that he

adopted the inclusive method of reckoning.[2956] It is, as we have

seen, probable that he landed on the fifth, but he may have landed

on the fourth day before the moon which he described as full. It is

highly probable that he fixed the day of the full moon correctly; but

we cannot be perfectly sure. Accordingly it seems to me probable that

he landed on the 26th of August: but he may have landed on the 27th, or

possibly even on the 25th.

Nevertheless, I assure the reader that this uncertainty matters

nothing. If he will bear with me to the end, he will see that we shall

be able, notwithstanding, to determine the place of landing.

IV. DID CAESAR LAND AT THE SAME PLACE IN BOTH HIS EXPEDITIONS?

It remains to inquire whether, in both his expeditions, Caesar landed

at the same place. The commentators are virtually unanimous in holding

that he did; and Napoleon, whose view is an exception to the rule,

believes that the landing-place of 54 B.C. was only a few kilometres

north of that of the preceding year.[2957] He and von Göler[2958]

both rely on the express statement of Dion Cassius[2959]; but Dr.

F. Vogel,[2960] who attaches no importance to Dion’s testimony on

matters of this kind, reminds us that Caesar ‘speaks only of the

place which he had ascertained in the preceding year to be the best

for landing’,[2961] and does not say that he had actually landed

there. I agree with Vogel that Dion’s statement proves nothing; for

there is no reason to suppose that it represents anything but his own

interpretation of Caesar’s words. Nevertheless, it is certain that

Caesar did land in the same ‘part of the island’[2962] in 54 B.C.

and in 55. For, as we shall subsequently see, if he landed on both

occasions in East Kent, the coast which answers to the requirements of

his narrative lies within the extreme limits of Walmer and Sandwich:

if in 55 B.C. he landed at any point west of the South Foreland, it is

not possible to suggest any reason why he should have chosen in the

following year a new landing-place also on the west of that promontory

but in a different ‘part of the island’; and not only has it never been

suggested, but it is incredible that he should have landed in 55 B.C.

on one side, and in 54 on the other side of the South Foreland.

It is hardly necessary to add that before his fleet hove in sight in

54 B.C. the Britons assembled in great force to oppose his landing: in

other words, they felt sure that he would attempt to land at or near

the place where he had landed the year before.

V. THE VARIOUS THEORIES ABOUT CAESAR’S PLACE OF LANDING

Not less than a dozen different theories have been formed regarding the

place of Caesar’s landing. It has been identified with Weybourne on the

coast of Norfolk; with Richborough; with the neighbourhood of Sandwich;

with Deal, or, to speak more correctly, the coast between Deal Castle

and Walmer Castle; with Dover, Folkestone, Hythe, Lympne, Hurst on

the northern fringe of Romney Marsh, Bonnington near Appledore, Rye,

Bulverhythe, and Pevensey. Most of these theories, however, obviously

fall into groups. Richborough, Sandwich, and Deal; Hythe, Lympne,

Hurst, and Bonnington; Bulverhythe and Pevensey,--these three groups

represent three main theories, each of which has undergone modification

in detail. The rest may be summarily dismissed. The absurd suggestion

that Caesar landed in Norfolk was elaborated in two successive

pamphlets;[2963] and, what is still more amazing, a zealous antiquary

thought it necessary to devote a third[2964] to its refutation.

Neither Folkestone nor Rye has now any advocates; and the absurdity

of their pretensions must be self-evident to every intelligent reader

of the _Commentaries_. The theory that Caesar landed at Dover is only

worth mentioning because it was seriously maintained by the eminent

geographer, Konrad Mannert;[2965] and perhaps Heller underestimated the

acumen of his readers when he took the trouble to confute it.[2966]

The claim of Bonnington was maintained with considerable ingenuity by

a professional advocate in a book[2967] which George Long,[2968] who

dissented from its conclusions, commended as ‘a work of real value’;

and it would not be safe to ignore it. Even the view that Caesar landed

at Pevensey demands consideration. It was first put forward in 1852 by

the late Astronomer Royal, who defended it against a series of attacks

with equal ability and vivacity: a few years ago it was resuscitated

by Professor Ridgeway: Mr. Warde Fowler[2969] observes that ‘much can

be said in favour of this opinion’; and the late Camden Professor of

Ancient History in the University of Oxford[2970] was inclined to

accept it. But the controversies which have attracted most attention

have been centred between the advocates of Lympne or Hythe on the one

side and of Deal or Sandwich on the other. And, although there are

many collateral questions, the chief point at issue is this,--when

Caesar sailed with wind and tide in his favour from the place where

he anchored on the morning of his first voyage, and steered for the

place where he landed, was the tidal stream running up or down the

Channel? Among those who have recently approached the subject the

prevailing belief would appear to be that it has been proved that he

sailed down. ‘The old belief,’ writes Mr. Warde Fowler,[2971] ‘that he

turned eastwards and landed at Deal cannot, in the present state of our

knowledge of the tides, be any longer maintained.’ I engage to convince

every reader who will give me his attention that the so-called proof is

no proof at all.

VI. THE QUESTION OF THE TIDES

Before we attempt to construct a tide-table for the 26th and 27th of

August, 55 B.C., we must first satisfy ourselves whether in that year,

at any given period of the moon’s age, the tidal stream in the eastern

part of the English Channel began to flow and to ebb at precisely the

same time as it does in similar circumstances now. On this point there

has been much divergence of opinion. Dr. Guest, the late geologist

George Dowker, and Professor Montagu Burrows have all argued that the

changes which have taken place in the configuration of the coast[2972]

must have produced changes in the tidal currents. The points on which

Dr. Guest laid special stress were, that in Caesar’s time Thanet was

an island; that Dungeness did not then exist; that Romney Marsh was

covered at high tide by an estuary 50,000 acres in extent; and that the

estuary of the Thames was far wider than it is now.[2973] Dowker called

attention to the great changes which, since Caesar’s time, must have

taken place in the Goodwin Sands: ‘would no effect,’ he asked, ‘be

felt by the tides if the Goodwins were now an island?’ Again, observing

that Drew ‘points out how the beach formerly near Rye had been swept

away, and re-deposited in a different direction’, he concluded that

‘geological changes of outline have altered the direction and velocity

of the currents’.[2974] Some years later he returned to the subject.

‘If,’ he wrote,[2975] ‘we assume the Straits are now one mile wider

than when Caesar visited our shores,[2976] the tide which runs with

a velocity of about three miles an hour up Channel, would carry more

water into the German Ocean than a river a mile wide and 15 feet

deep.... There are other changes also that have taken place in the

German Ocean, which must have exerted immense influence on the tides

when we remember that a north-east wind will materially heighten the

tidal lever by forcing up the water of the North Sea. The travelling of

beach in an eastward direction shows that the set of the tide is more

strong in that direction now on some part of the coast than formerly.’

Finally, Professor Montagu Burrows remarks[2977] that ‘Not only may the

depth of the Channel have largely varied, but the space over which the

tides travel must be at least two miles wider than it was some 2,000

years ago,[2978] and therefore the point of meeting of the North and

South tide-streams cannot possibly be exactly the same’.

On the other hand, Airy says, ‘I express my opinion without hesitation

that no conceivable changes in the coast within historical times can

have produced any sensible change in the relation of the tidal currents

to the moon’s age.’[2979]

I have submitted these remarks to Sir George Darwin, the author of

the articles on the tides in the Ninth Edition of the _Encyclopaedia

Britannica_ and the Supplement to that edition. ‘In my opinion,’ he

replies, ‘Airy is absolutely right and Burrows and the others wrong.

A channel from Sandwich to Reculver could not have made any sensible

change, and so also it would be impossible to detect the difference if

Goodwin Sands were an island. All the phenomena now observed must have

occurred at the same times within, say, a minute, and with an intensity

measurably identical in the days of Caesar. Even if you were in a

position to indicate exactly the nature of the changes in the channel

since that time, it would be impossible to compute the nature of the

_excessively minute_ changes in the currents.’

This decisive answer will not be seriously gainsaid. Evidently the

divergence of opinion is between those who are not and those who are

qualified to judge.

Airy says that ‘on the day of Caesar’s landing the tide off Dover

turned to the west about 1 h. in the afternoon, and at 3 h. it would

be running with a strong stream to the west’.[2980] Airy, as we have

seen,[2981] supposes that the day of Caesar’s landing was the 28th of

August; but if the statement which I have just quoted is accurate, it

follows that even on the 26th the tide at 3 p.m. was running westward.

Again, in 1866, the Admiralty Hydrographer affirmed that on the 27th of

August, 55 B.C., the current ran westward until 6.30 p.m.;[2982] and if

he is right, it must on the previous day, unless the circumstances were

abnormal, have continued flowing in the same direction until 5 p.m. or

later. Lewin,[2983] relying upon a table compiled by a Mr. Barton of

Dover, and based upon observations made by ‘some experienced pilot or

fisherman’, and upon another table filled up from actual observation

‘on every day of July, 1862’, states that ‘with high water ... at

7.31 a.m., the tide could not turn eastward at the earliest until

4.26 p.m., and at the latest not until 5.21 p.m.’ Nevertheless, he

admits[2984] that, with high tide at 7.31 a.m., the tide might possibly

have turned eastward at 4 p.m. Finally, Mr. H. E. Malden tells us that

‘at any time that afternoon between two o’clock and seven, in any part

of the Channel between Dunge Ness and Dover, the tidal current was

running westward ... when Sir George Airy, the greatest authority of

the century upon the tides, says that they were the same then as now,

_cadit quaestio_. We are lifted out of the uncertainties of historical

topography into the certainties of scientific knowledge.’[2985]

This pronouncement is certainly calculated to overawe the timid

inquirer. Nevertheless, I venture to suggest that a man who knows

little or nothing about the tides should refrain from patting on the

back one who knew a great deal, but who did not think it necessary for

his purpose to tell all that he knew.

Airy may have been the greatest authority of the century upon the

tides: but, apart from his asseveration that they were the same then

as now, in the contribution which he made to the solution of the

problem which we are investigating he relied upon authorities which

are accessible to everybody. Those authorities (I will mention a few

besides those which Airy used) are the _Nautical Almanac_; _Tide Tables

for the British and Irish Ports_ (published by order of the Lords

Commissioners of the Admiralty); the _Channel Pilot_; _Tidal Streams,

English and Irish Channels_ (an Atlas of 12 charts published at the

Admiralty in 1899); Captain Usborne Moore’s _Report on Observations ...

in the Straits of Dover_ (also published at the Admiralty in 1899);

an article by Admiral Sir F. W. Beechey published in _Philosophical

Transactions_, volume cxli, 1851, pages 703-18; and an article

published in _Archaeologia_, volume xxxix, 1863, pages 277-302. The

last-named article includes a report of observations on the tidal

streams in the Straits of Dover, made in 1862 under the superintendence

of E. K. Calver, R.N. These observations were made for the purpose

of settling the question whether the stream with which Caesar sailed

from his anchorage ran up or down the Channel. They were made ‘in

comparatively still weather’ on the 21st of August, the 4th and 5th of

September, and the 4th of October, 1862, at eleven distinct stations

within a space extending to one mile and a half from the shore, and

from the South Foreland to Shakespeare’s Cliff. The days on which

they were made were, reckoning inclusively, respectively the fifth

before the new moon, and the fifth, the fourth, and the fourth before

the full moon. ‘From the average of these observations,’ says Calver,

‘it appears that, when high water at Dover occurs about 7 h. 30 m.

a.m., the inshore flood or easterly-going stream ... turns 4 h. 48 m.

after it is high water upon the shore. Taking then, for example, a 7

h. 31 m. a.m. high water, and assuming that the ebb or westerly-going

stream runs on the average for 6¼ hours, it follows that the flood or

easterly-going stream on that day would turn off Dover at 12 h. 19 m.,

and the succeeding ebb ... would run to the westward until 6 h. 34 m.

p.m.[2986]’ Vice-Admiral W. H. Smyth, summing up the results of the

observations, remarked that the tide turned westward ‘soonest near

the beach and latest in the offing’, and that ‘the turn is sooner to

the east of Dover than to the west, still not differing more than one

hour’.[2987]

So far as we have yet examined them, the results of these observations

fully bear out what Airy and Lewin maintain,--if it is assumed that

high tide at Dover on the day of Caesar’s landing must have occurred

about 7.30 a.m. But if we scrutinize the tables more closely, and give

due weight to certain other facts emphasized by our authorities, we

shall see that the dogmatism of Airy and Lewin is unjustifiable. They

and their followers make no allowance for the great influence which

winds exert upon the tidal streams in the Channel.[2988] Moreover, it

is useless to base conclusions upon the average of the results obtained

in Surveyor Calver’s observations. If we scan the tables which give

those results in detail, we shall find that although, on the average,

the stream turned westward 4 h. 48 m. after high water at Dover, yet on

the 21st of August it turned only 3 h. 40 m. after high water.[2989]

We shall also find that the duration of the flood, as observed by

Calver, varied from 4 to 7 hours; and although the duration of the ebb

was only observed twice,[2990] it may actually have varied as much.

On the first of the two occasions on which it was observed it was 6

hours, 10 minutes; on the second, only 5 hours, 53 minutes;[2991]

and, according to the _Channel Pilot_,[2992] it is occasionally only 4

hours. Therefore it is possible that if on the day of Caesar’s landing

high water occurred at Dover at 7.31 a.m., the tide may have turned

westward as early as 11.11 a.m., and may have continued to run westward

for a period not longer than 5 hours, 53 minutes, that is to say, until

5.4 p.m.

But this is not all. It is desirable that the reader should become

acquainted with Lewin’s methods of reasoning. Lewin himself, after

studying the _Admiralty Tide Tables_ for the year 1859, admits that ‘on

January 14th, being the fourth day before the full moon, high water at

Dover is at 5.31 a.m.’, and that it may possibly have occurred as early

on the day of Caesar’s landing. This admission throws a breaking strain

upon his theory; but by dint of dexterous manipulation of the facts he

is just able to make a show of saving it from ignominious collapse.

‘As’ he says, ‘the stream turns at four hours after high water, and

continues for seven hours, it turns at the earliest at 9.31 a.m. and

runs till 4.31 p.m.... In no case, therefore, would the tide be running

east at 3 p.m.’ But Lewin is here compelled to ignore observations

of which, in another part of his book, he makes free use. As we have

already seen, he admits[2993] that on a day when high tide occurred at

7.31 a.m. the stream might turn eastward at 4.26 or even at 4 p.m. If

he is right, it follows that on a day when high tide occurred at 5.31

a.m. the stream might turn eastward at 2.26 or even at 2 p.m. To make

this admission, from which, if he had been confronted with his own

words, he could by no subtlety have escaped, would have been to throw

up his case; and such candour would have been too much to expect from

a professional advocate. Let him, however, shift his ground, if he

pleases, and rely upon Calver’s observations. They will not avail him.

We have just seen that, according to Calver, the stream turned westward

on the 21st of August, 1862, 3 h. 40 m. after high water; and the

duration of the westward stream, on one of the two occasions on which

he observed it, was only 5 h. 53 m.[2994] According to these data, if,

on the day of Caesar’s landing, high tide had occurred at 5.31 a.m.,

the westward stream might have ceased at 3.4 p.m. It would have been

impossible for Lewin, if he had been required to take account of this

statement, to deny it. But to admit it would have been to sign the

death-warrant of his own theory.

So far I have only been concerned to show that Lewin’s whole train

of reasoning, examined in the light of the evidence which he himself

adduces, is radically unsound. I have argued on his hypothesis--that

high tide at Dover, on the day of Caesar’s landing, _may_ have

occurred at the earliest time at which it can possibly occur on the

fourth day before the full moon. Neither Lewin nor Airy nor any other

commentator has attempted to determine, by the aid of lunar tables,

the hour at which, on the day in question, high tide did actually

occur.[2995] Nevertheless, if the problem which we intend to solve is

to be attacked in a scientific spirit, the hour ought to be determined.

Messrs. John A. Sprigge, William Fraser Doak, M.A., F.R.A.S., and T.

Charlton Hudson, B.A., F.R.A.S., all of the Nautical Almanac Office,

have been so kind as to determine it for me. Their calculations are

preserved; and at the end of this article, on page 665, will be found

a memorandum, in which they have described the method on which they

worked. It will be sufficient here to state the results, the error in

which, as they point out, is probably insignificant. On the 26th of

August, 55 B.C., the Greenwich mean time of high water at Dover was

6.21 a.m.; on the 27th, 7.42 a.m.; and on the 28th, 8.44 a.m.[2996]

Thus it turns out that on the day of Caesar’s landing high water did

not occur at all early. This fact, however, will not sustain the theory

of Airy and Lewin. Since high water at Dover on the 26th of August

occurred at 6.21 a.m., and since the tidal stream, according to one of

Calver’s observations, turned 3 hours, 40 minutes after high water,

the stream may have turned westward at 10.1 a.m. Assuming that the

duration of the westward stream was 5 hours, 53 minutes--the same as

that recorded on one occasion by Calver--the stream would have ceased

at 3.54 p.m. But Calver’s observations were made ‘in comparatively

still weather’;[2997] and, to quote Admiral Beechey, ‘winds greatly

affect the time of turn of the stream.’[2998] Now Caesar sailed from

his anchorage with wind as well as tide in his favour; and the wind

which carried him to his landing-place may have accelerated the turn of

the stream. It is clear, therefore, that on the day of Caesar’s landing

the stream may have turned eastward earlier than 3.54 p.m.; and if it

turned twenty-five minutes earlier, it turned in ‘the ninth hour’.

But, it will be objected, Caesar may have landed on the 27th of August;

and in that case the stream could not have turned eastward before the

close of the ninth hour. Certainly it could not have done so unless it

had turned westward unusually early, or unless its westward duration

had but little exceeded four hours; and although this has been shown

to be within the bounds of possibility,[2999] it is to the last degree

improbable. But if he landed on the 26th of August, an assumption which

has been proved to be not inconsistent with his narrative,[3000] it is

not improbable that the stream may have turned eastward in the ninth

hour; and this is all that I am concerned at present to show.

It may be said that, in order to refute the dogma of Airy and Lewin,

I have supposed an extreme case. I can only say that I did not start

with the intention either of refuting or defending that dogma: I

merely examined it, and found that it would not bear examination. And

I am justified in supposing an extreme, or rather an exceptional,

case because Airy and Lewin have both affirmed that it is absolutely

impossible that in the ninth hour on the day of Caesar’s first landing

in Britain the tidal stream can have been running towards the east.

But, supposing that it did not turn eastward until after the ninth

hour, still the theory that Caesar must have sailed in the opposite

direction will not stand. For the reader, if he has patience to bear

with me to the end, will convince himself, from Caesar’s own words,

that Caesar did not stir from his anchorage until after the ninth hour

had passed.

VII. THE THEORY THAT CAESAR LANDED AT PEVENSEY

The two distinguished advocates of the theory that Caesar landed at

Pevensey are not in complete accord. Airy holds that he sailed both

in 55 and in 54 B.C. from the mouth of the Somme;[3001] Professor

Ridgeway from Wissant.[3002] It has been proved in my article on the

Portus Itius that he started from Boulogne; and whoever accepts that

proof will, perhaps, skip this section. I am willing, however, for the

sake of argument, to accept in turn both Airy’s identification of the

Portus Itius and that of Professor Ridgeway: but I may remark that when

Airy wrote he had forgotten that in Caesar’s time there was a natural

harbour at Pevensey;[3003] and if Caesar had landed in a harbour he

would not have left the fact unnoticed.

If we are to accept the premiss on which Airy himself lays so much

stress, namely, that in 55 B.C. the tidal currents in the Channel, at

any given period of the moon’s age, were the same as they are now,

Caesar did not land at Pevensey. Airy, as we have seen, assumes that

Caesar landed, in 55 B.C., on the third day before the full moon, and,

appealing to the authority of Sir F. W. Beechey, he affirms that, off

Hastings, the current turns westward five miles from the coast two

hours later than it does close inshore. ‘If,’ he concludes, ‘we suppose

Caesar to have first attempted the neighbourhood of St. Leonards, the

tide, which a few miles from shore had turned to the west at 11 h.,

was, at 3 h., running in full stream to the west.’[3004] But, in order

to prop up his theory, Airy is forced to place Caesar’s anchorage at

five nautical or nearly six statute miles from the shore. To prove

that such an assumption is absurd, it is only necessary to say that,

at a distance of five nautical miles, Caesar could not have seen the

armed men who, as he tells us,[3005] were swarming upon the cliffs,

without the assistance of a powerful telescope.[3006] Lewin[3007]

rightly concludes that Caesar must have anchored within a mile from

the shore, at the outside, and probably within half a mile. Now high

water at Dover on the 27th of August, 55 B.C., occurred at 7.42, and

therefore at Hastings at 7.23 a.m.[3008] But off Hastings, within a

mile from the shore, the current turns westward about the time of high

tide,[3009] runs westward for about six hours and a half, and then

runs eastward for about six hours. At 3 p.m., therefore, on the 27th

of August, the tide off Hastings would have been running eastward, and

would have continued to do so until about 7.50 p.m. And on the 28th of

August, which Airy wrongly assumes to have been the day of Caesar’s

landing, the tide off Hastings would have turned eastward about 2.53

p.m., and would have continued to run in that direction until about

8.53. Consequently, on the theory of the tides which Airy himself so

strenuously maintains, it would have been impossible for Caesar to sail

with the tide from Hastings or from St. Leonards to Pevensey.[3010]

Even on Airy’s assumption that Caesar anchored five nautical miles

from the shore, his theory cannot stand: he can only make a show of

propping it up by assuming that Caesar landed on the 28th of August.

On the 27th, the stream would have turned westward at about 9.30 a.m.,

and would have ceased running westward about 4 p.m. Therefore, even

supposing that Caesar started on his seven miles’ sail in the ninth

hour,[3011] he would have done so on the very last of the tidal stream,

when it was barely moving; and it would have turned against him before

he had half finished his voyage.

Very wisely, from his own point of view--for his silence has hitherto

passed unnoticed--Airy ignored Caesar’s account of the voyage of

his cavalry transports. Some of them, as we have seen, were ‘swept

down in great peril’ (_magno suo cum periculo deicerentur_[3012]),

evidently running before the gale, ‘to the lower and more westerly

part of the island’ (_ad inferiorem partem insulac quae est propius

solis occasum_[3013]): the others were carried back to the port from

which they had started. That port, according to Airy, was the mouth of

the Authie. The gale evidently blew from about the north-east; but,

in order to give Airy the fullest latitude, I will assume that it was

from the north-north-east, although in either case the ships which ran

before the wind, once they had got under the lee of Beachy Head, would

have been in smooth water! The course which the transports would have

had to steer for the Authie, if they had been sighted off Pevensey,

would have been SE. by E. 2° S., or within less than nine points of

the wind. But in the gale they could hardly have made less than four

points of lee-way.[3014] Therefore, in order to reach their supposed

destination, they would have been obliged to lie within less than five

points of the wind, which they could not have done.[3015] ‘No!’ said

the harbour-master of Dover to me, after he had studied the chart, ‘No!

they would have fetched Dieppe.’[3016] I have assumed that they could

work to windward: if they could not, it is self-evident that they could

not have returned to the mouth of the Authie.

But if any one is not convinced, let him hear Airy plead his own cause.

1. Airy argues that Volusenus would never have recommended Caesar

to land under the cliffs of Dover, or at any point under the cliffs

between Folkestone and Hythe. ‘No commander,’ he says, ‘would steer

ships to a mural cliff three hundred feet high, with the intention of

landing in order to invade the country; nor would any defenders station

themselves there to repel an invasion; nor could a “telum” be thrown

with any aim. But a daring officer might steer to a less perpendicular

cliff, ten to thirty feet high, with the intention of forcing a

landing.... Such are the cliffs between Hastings and Pevensey; and I

conclude that they answer exactly to Caesar’s description.’ Assuming

that the cliffs off which Caesar anchored, when he first approached the

British coast, were in the neighbourhood of St. Leonards, Airy affirms

that ‘the run of eight[3017] miles would bring him to the beach of

Pevensey, answering perfectly to his description’.[3018]

Now whether Caesar did or did not steer towards ‘a mural cliff three

hundred feet high’, he certainly anchored off cliffs which he calls

‘precipitous heights’ (_angusti montes_); and Airy makes too great a

demand upon our credulity when he requires us to believe that Caesar

described by the words _angusti montes_ a ‘cliff ten to thirty feet

high’. So much for the theory that Caesar anchored off the clifflets of

St. Leonards:[3019] the argument that he could not have anchored off

the cliffs of Dover shall be considered in its proper place. The reader

has of course already observed that Volusenus, being a sane man, would

never have recommended Caesar to ‘force a landing’ under any cliffs,

great or small.

2. Airy argues that the Britons would naturally have assembled at

Pevensey in order to oppose Caesar’s landing, because ‘Pevensey was

the weakest point of Britain’.[3020] No! replies Lewin, Pevensey

was not _then_ the weakest point; for it was ‘backed by the Andred

Forest’.[3021] Airy[3022] triumphantly observes that William the

Conqueror landed there; but Lewin[3023] rejoins that when William

landed the forest presented less difficulty to an invader than in

Caesar’s time, as the Romans and the Saxons must have made clearances.

Be this as it may, it is certain that William did not attempt to march

northward through the forest. He returned, immediately after his

victory, to Hastings: from Hastings he marched eastward to Romney,

and from Romney to Dover.[3024] He had his own reasons for landing at

Pevensey: but Caesar, for reasons equally good, chose the shortest

passage; and although, as I have shown,[3025] these words are not to

be taken in an absolutely literal sense, they alone exclude the notion

that Caesar landed in Sussex. Obviously it is in the last degree

improbable that Volusenus would have reconnoitred the coast so far

westward as Pevensey; nor could the Britons have expected that Caesar

would be so foolish as to double the length of his voyage in order to

land there.[3026]

3. Airy argued that, except on the hypothesis that Caesar landed

at Pevensey, it is impossible to account for the long duration of

his first voyage. His rate of sailing, said Airy, if, as Dr. Guest

maintained, he had started from Wissant and anchored off the Dover

cliffs, would not have exceeded two miles an hour. ‘When in Shetland,’

he adds, ‘I have sailed in one of the ordinary fishing-boats of the

country, hoisting a single lug-sail ... with a pleasant, easy breeze

(sometimes dying away), from Lerwick to the head of Balta Sound, in

Unst, in about eight hours. The distance, as measured on the Admiralty

Chart, exceeds forty nautical miles.’[3027]

This was one of Airy’s more plausible arguments; and it demands

consideration. To begin with, it must be pointed out that Caesar did

not, as Dr. Guest believed, sail from Wissant, but from Boulogne,

which is more than seven nautical miles further from Dover. Airy

assumed[3028] that Caesar’s first voyage lasted from midnight till

10 a.m. But it is impossible to say how long it lasted. Caesar does

not say that he started at midnight: he says that he started ‘about

the third watch’ (_tertia fere vigilia_); and the third watch lasted,

on the night of the 25th-26th of August, from midnight till 2.32

a.m., on the night of the 26th-27th till 2.33 a.m.[3029] Nor does

he say that he reached Britain at 10 a.m.; he says that he reached

it ‘about the fourth hour of the day’, which lasted on the 26th of

August from 8.33 to 9.42.[3030] As Mr. Peskett says, ‘the possible

duration of the voyage lies between the extreme limits of 9 h. 40′

and 6 hours.’[3031] Split the difference, and you will find that the

average rate of sailing would have been about three knots and a half

per hour. The answer to Airy’s argument is that Caesar’s narrative is

quite consistent with the view that his ships may have remained for

some time anchored off the Gallic coast in the expectation that the

cavalry transports would sail out of Ambleteuse harbour to join them;

and, further, that the wind may have shifted to an unfavourable quarter

before the voyage was at an end.[3032]

4. Airy[3033] maintains that a river corresponding with Caesar’s

description of the one on the banks of which he defeated the Britons

on the day after his second landing,[3034] is to be found in the

neighbourhood of Pevensey, and of Pevensey only. That river, he says,

was the Rother, and the scene of the victory was Robertsbridge. He

produces evidence to show that if Rye Sluice were broken, ‘the whole

valley at Robertsbridge would now become a great tidal morass.’ This,

he continues, ‘was its state in the age of Caesar, and it must have

been a very formidable defence against an army advancing from the

coast.’

Undoubtedly; so formidable that it would have been absolutely

impassable. How Caesar’s cavalry succeeded in forcing their way over

this ‘great tidal morass’ Airy omits to explain. If he had studied

Caesar’s description[3035] of the much less formidable morass over

which his ablest marshal, Labienus, tried in vain to construct a

causeway, and from which he was obliged to retreat, he would hardly

have made Caesar attempt to cross ‘a great tidal morass’ in the face of

an enemy.

Caesar, as we have seen, descried at daybreak, on his second voyage,

the coast of Britain ‘lying behind on the left’;[3036] and if these

words mean, as all commentators except Airy and Professor Ridgeway

maintain, that he had drifted to some point east or north-east of the

South Foreland, they alone dispose of Airy’s theory. Airy of course saw

this; and accordingly he put his own construction upon the passage. ‘I

cannot conceive,’ he says,[3037] ‘that the expression refers to any

direction but to that of the drift; it asserts that, in reference to

the direction of tidal current, the coast was on the left hand. It is

therefore indecisive as to place.’

Lewin, in his reply,[3038] overlooked one consideration, which by

itself overthrows Airy’s interpretation. If, as Airy would have us

believe, Caesar’s vessel had not drifted as far east as Dover, she

was, owing to the direction of the current, moving parallel with the

British coast.[3039] How, then, could Caesar, in the case supposed by

Airy, have said that he saw Britain ‘_lying behind_ on the left’ (_sub

sinistra relictam_)?

The theory that Caesar landed at Pevensey is irreconcilable with the

fact that the four chieftains who attacked his naval camp in 54 B.C.

belonged not to Sussex but to Kent.[3040] Airy endeavoured to answer

this objection by the remark that the men of Kent were more numerous

than those of Sussex, and would therefore have gone to the assistance

of their countrymen.[3041] But, replied Lewin,[3042] ‘as the men of

Kent were distinct from the Regni, or men of Sussex, the natural

inference to be drawn from the assault of the camp by the _men of

Kent_ surely is that the _camp was in Kent_.’ I may point out further

that, considering the state of internecine war in which the Britons

habitually lived, and which was only suspended for the time under the

pressure of a common danger,[3043] it is not credible that the men of

Kent would have consented to make a long march away from their own

territory in order to undertake an operation which would have properly

devolved upon another tribe, and unlikely that they would have been

sufficiently well organized to feed their army during a march of such

duration.

The distance between the mouth of the Somme, which Airy identifies

with the Portus Itius, and St. Leonards, where he maintains that

Caesar first reached Britain, is, as he himself says,[3044] ‘about

52 nautical miles,’ that is to say, rather more than 65 Roman miles:

the distance between the Portus Itius and Britain, according to

Caesar’s estimate,[3045] was about 30 Roman miles. To say nothing of

this glaring discrepancy, Caesar’s account of his return voyage from

Britain to Gaul in 54 B.C. presents a difficulty which taxed all Airy’s

ingenuity to explain away. Caesar[3046] tells us that he started in the

second watch in a dead calm (_summa tranquillitate_), and reached Gaul

at daybreak. Naturally the opponents of Airy’s theory insist that to

cross from Pevensey to the mouth of the Somme in this time would have

been impossible.

But Airy is never so confident as when he has to defend an untenable

position. He roundly asserts that his critics do not understand

Caesar’s language. _Summa tranquillitas_, he tells them, does not mean

‘a dead calm’: it means ‘a stiff north-west wind’. Professor Thompson,

he informs us, assured him that a favourable wind ‘is compatible

with a “tranquillum mare”’; and he refers, in support of this view,

to a passage in one of Cicero’s letters,[3047]--‘I am forced to

wait for fair weather owing to the open ships ... of the Rhodians’

(_Nos Rhodiorum aphractis ceterisque longis navibus tranquillitates

aucupaturi eramus_). He also appeals to two passages in Vergil:--

_placidi straverunt aequora venti,

Creber et adspirans rursus vocat Auster in altum,_[3048]

and

_postquam alta quierunt

Aequora, tendit iter velis portumque relinquit._[3049]

‘It appears to me,’ he observes, ‘that Virgil’s idea of circumstances

favourable to navigation always implied the co-existence of brisk wind

and smooth water.’ The idea that Caesar’s fleet was rowed across the

Channel he scouts as ridiculous. ‘If,’ he adds, ‘with smooth water

there had been a brisk breeze, the steerage would have been good

... the voyage would have been easy ... we have only to suppose a

stiff north-west wind, capable of carrying the ships 7 or 8 miles an

hour.’[3050]

Now as to the first of these passages, the context shows that Cicero

had been weatherbound by the violence of the trade winds; and he uses

the word _tranquillitates_ in the sense of ‘fine weather’ in contrast

with these.[3051] His vessels were undecked; and therefore he could not

venture to set sail in a rough sea. It can hardly be inferred from this

passage, which Airy does not understand, that _summa tranquillitas_

means ‘a stiff north-west wind’. The first passage quoted from Vergil

simply says that gentle winds (_placidi venti_--an expression by no

means identical with _summa tranquillitas_) stilled the sea, and that

then a southerly wind invited Aeneas to set sail: the second tells us

that Aeneas set sail after the cessation of a storm. If Cicero does

not imply that _summa tranquillitas_ means ‘a stiff north-west wind’,

neither does Vergil. If Airy had really known his authorities, he would

have called to mind the passage in which Cicero[3052] relates, in

language virtually identical with that of Caesar, that he was prevented

from sailing by ‘an astonishingly dead calm’ (_mirae tranquillitates_).

And if he had known his Caesar, he would have thought of the

passage[3053] which tells how the ships of the Veneti were becalmed in

their fight with Decimus Brutus,--‘suddenly there was a dead calm, and

they could not stir’ (_tanta subito malacia ac tranquillitas exstitit

ut se ex loco commovere non possent_). If _tanta tranquillitas_ means

‘such a dead calm’, as it assuredly does, it is not easy to see how

_summa tranquillitas_ can mean ‘a stiff north-west wind’. If these

passages do not fix the meaning of _summa tranquillitas_, we may

dispense with further research.[3054]

I confess that I do not know whether more to admire the audacity and

resource which Airy displayed in controversy, or the sublime lack of

humour which permitted him to translate _summa tranquillitas_ by ‘a

stiff north-west wind’.

So much for the late Astronomer Royal. If I do not ignore the arguments

of Professor Ridgeway, it is because I am unwilling to appear wanting

in due respect for his reputation. But I would ask him to explain one

little difficulty which he has left unnoticed,--namely, how Caesar’s

cavalry transports could have contrived to return, as, on his theory,

they must have done, from a point near Pevensey to Sangatte, that is to

say, to steer E. 9° N. in the teeth of a gale which unquestionably blew

from some point east of north? Let the professor consult any seafaring

man, and he will learn that such a feat would have been absolutely,

absurdly impossible.

1. Professor Ridgeway labours to show that the distance of Pevensey

from Wissant corresponds with the distance, as stated by Caesar,

of Britain from the Portus Itius. He assures us that, according to

certain MSS. (which, however, he does not specify), that distance was

not ‘about thirty’, but ‘about forty miles’ (_circiter milium passuum

XXXX....a continenti_[3055]).

It is surprising that so distinguished a scholar should have committed

himself to a statement which five minutes’ search in any critical

edition of the _Commentaries_ would have shown to be unfounded. The

_MSS._ to which he appeals have no existence; or, if they exist, they

have never come to light.[3056] But, as I have already shown, on other

grounds,[3057] Caesar _may_ have written _XXXX_; so let Professor

Ridgeway have the benefit of the doubt, though I need hardly say that

the distance of Pevensey, and even of Bexhill, from Wissant is much

more than forty Roman miles.

2. The professor then invokes the authority of Dion Cassius. ‘If,’

he argues, ‘Caesar, on coming into the land of the Morini, found, as

Dio says, that all the landing places opposite the continent were

held by Britons, by which he evidently means the landing places in

the narrow part of the Channel, would Caesar obstinately persist in

crossing at the narrowest spot, or like a wise general seek for a more

suitable, although more distant landing place?’ This view, he pleads,

is supported by the fact that Caesar describes the passage from the

Portus Itius not as the shortest, but simply as the most convenient

(_commodissimus_).[3058]

Mr. H. E. Malden makes the obvious reply that Caesar did not, in point

of fact, avoid the landing-places in question for the reason suggested

by Professor Ridgeway; for ‘he landed in the teeth of a British

army’.[3059] Moreover, as we have already seen, Caesar tells us that he

sailed from the coast of the Morini ‘because the shortest passage to

Britain was from their country’.

3. The professor contends that his theory is supported by Caesar’s

account of his voyage in 54 B.C. Mr. Malden[3060] told him that Caesar

could not have sailed from Wissant [or, as he ought to have said, from

Boulogne] to Pevensey with a south-west wind;[3061] and that, since

the tide must have carried him in 54 B.C. at least as far as the South

Foreland,[3062] it would have been impossible for his men to row to

Pevensey--a distance of fifty-five miles--between dawn and noon, that

is to say in less than nine hours. The professor replied to the former

objection that Caesar ‘evidently sailed, not direct for Pevensey, but

rather across Channel’.[3063] The reply was as true as it was futile;

but it was true only because Caesar was bound, not for Pevensey but for

East Kent. Mr. Malden’s second objection the professor endeavoured to

rebut by the following arguments:--First, that as Caesar’s men began

to row at 3 a.m.,[3064] continued rowing till noon, and had the tide

in their favour for the first six hours, they could, if necessary,

have rowed fifty-five miles in nine hours. Secondly, that fifty-five

miles is an excessive estimate; and that the actual distance was not

more than thirty-nine; for _accessum est ad Britanniam_[3065] [the

words by which Caesar describes the arrival of his fleet] ‘seems to

denote nothing more than what he expressed by the words _Britanniam

attigit_[3066] in the story of the former voyage. But,’ continues the

professor, ‘he did not land at all at the place where he _Britanniam

attigit_, but dropped down with the tide seven miles further. Moreover,

Caesar does not say that he made for the very spot where he had landed

before, but simply _remis contendit ut eam partem insulae caperet qua

optimum esse egressum superiore aestate cognoverat_[3067] [“rowed

hard to gain the part of the island where, as he had learned in the

preceding summer, it was best to land”]. The high cliffs formed his

landmark.’ The professor is presumably referring to the cliffs eight

miles east of Pevensey, which, as Airy points out, are ‘from ten to

thirty feet high’: these cliffs would evidently have made a most

conspicuous ‘landmark’. However, the professor contrives to reduce the

length of the voyage by eight miles at one end: he curtails it at the

other by simply denying, like Airy, that when Caesar ‘saw Britain lying

behind on the left’, he had drifted past the South Foreland. He insists

that Caesar ‘might use the word _relictam_ [‘left behind’] when,

instead of finding himself close to the shore of Britain, he discovered

that, between the course he had sailed and the way he had drifted, he

had moved away from Britain’.[3068] This remark only shows that the

professor did not know what was the direction of the flood tide. Unless

Caesar had got past the South Foreland by the time when he ‘saw Britain

lying behind on the left’, the tide had not carried him ‘away from

Britain’.

The professor’s argument comes to this. He says that Caesar’s men

rowed as hard as they could; that they could have rowed fifty-five

miles in nine hours, but that they only did row thirty-nine! He asks

us to believe that they rowed fifty-five miles in nine hours, though,

on his own showing, the tide was against them for one-third of that

time![3069] Finally, when he argues that because Caesar did not land in

55 B.C. at the point where he _Britanniam attigit_, therefore he did

not land in 54 B.C. at the point where _accessum est ad Britanniam_,

he forgets two things:--first, that Caesar distinctly says that in 55

B.C. he sailed on seven miles from the point where he first _Britanniam

attigit_, whereas all commentators except Professor Ridgeway have

drawn from Caesar’s narrative the inevitable inference that in 54 B.C.

he landed at the point where _accessum est ad Britanniam_; secondly,

that the Britons expected him to land in 54 B.C. at the point where

_accessum est ad Britanniam_, for ‘large forces had assembled there’

(_magnae manus eo convenissent_). Does the professor seriously mean

to argue that if Caesar had landed elsewhere, he would not have said

so?[3070]

Not a single argument of the least weight has been or can be adduced

to show that Caesar landed at Pevensey or anywhere on the coast of

Sussex.[3071] On the other hand, there is not a single objection which

has here been brought against that theory which is not alone sufficient

to overthrow it. The truth is that Airy, with all his scientific

knowledge and controversial skill, was not adequately equipped to

discuss the question: his classical scholarship left much to be

desired; and, having once committed himself to the preposterous theory

that the Portus Itius was in the estuary of the Somme, he was forced to

look for Caesar’s landing-place far to the west of that part of Britain

in which Caesar’s narrative inevitably places it. To that part of

Britain our inquiry must henceforth be confined. Whether Caesar landed

east or west of the cliffs of Dover, he landed in Kent.

VIII. THE THEORY THAT CAESAR LANDED AT LYMPNE OR HYTHE

The most dexterous advocate of the theory that Caesar landed on

Romney Marsh was Thomas Lewin; and it says a great deal for his

persuasiveness that not one of his critics appears to have detected

the inconsistencies with which his work abounds. Those which vitiate

his argument, in so far as it relates to the tides, I have mentioned

already.[3072] The rest all spring from one and the same source. When

Lewin wrote his book, he adopted a theory as to the configuration of

Romney Marsh which, after obtaining what he considered ‘more accurate

information’,[3073] he discarded. This information he embodied in an

appendix to his second edition; but at the same time he allowed the

statements based upon his former researches to stand. Thus on page 65,

note 4, he implies that ‘the heart of the marsh’ was inhabited; but

in his preface (pages v-vi) he affirms that ‘the eastern end of the

Marsh where Caesar arrived was as much _terra firma_ in his day as in

our own’, virtually admitting, as the context and the map which faces

page liii alike show, that the rest was inundated at every high tide.

On page 92 he says that ‘the sea, as is proved incontestably by the

fragments of ships and anchors which have been dug up, flowed to the

very base of the hill, and formed there the port of Limne. Stutfall

[castle], therefore, was formed for the protection of the shipping.’ On

pages lxviii and lxix the incontestable proof is not only contested but

flung to the winds: ‘the fragments of ships and anchors’ are silently

annihilated; Stutfall Castle, it now appears, ‘was for the protection,

not of the port, but of Saxonicum littus’; and the ‘Portus Limanis’

(_sic_) becomes a ‘narrow gut’, extending from a point near Shorncliffe

to West Hythe behind a bank of shingle broken by a narrow entrance

nearly opposite Hythe. In an article which Lewin contributed to the

fortieth volume of _Archaeologia_ he remarks that if the Portus Lemanis

had been at the foot of Lympne Hill, ‘we should expect to find some

vestiges, however faint, of the port itself’: but, he adds, ‘I have

never heard or read (though I have often inquired) that any remnant of

a pier or sunken vessel, or even any anchor or other part of a ship’s

tackle, was ever discovered in this part.’[3074] Are we to infer,

then, Mr. Lewin, that when you told us on page 92 of your book that

‘fragments of ships and anchors’ had been ‘dug up’ at the foot of the

hill, you were romancing? On turning back to page 42, we find that the

above-mentioned ‘narrow gut’ first came into existence in the time of

the Saxons; but on page lxix we learn with bewilderment that it ‘must

have continued such until the abandonment of Britain by the Romans or

nearly so’. In the article which he contributed to _Archaeologia_ Lewin

changed his mind again. In the map which illustrates this article the

‘narrow gut’ extends no further westward than Hythe. On page 44 of the

book we read that Caesar landed on ‘the western side’ of ‘the creek of

Limne’ or ‘port of Limne’, the very existence of which the author’s

later and ‘more accurate information’ led him to deny. On pages lxxii

and lxxiv Caesar’s landing-place is silently transferred from ‘the

western side’ of ‘the creek of Limne’ to Hythe. On page 44 two islands

mentioned (according to Lewin) by Valerius Maximus are identified with

‘two islands’ depicted on ‘old maps’ of ‘the bay of Limne’: on page

lxxiii we are asked to identify them with two ‘islands’ in the ‘narrow

gut’ above mentioned.

The reader now understands that, according to the theory of the ancient

configuration of Romney Marsh which Lewin adopted in his Appendix and

illustrated in the map facing page liii of his book, it would have

been impossible for Caesar to land opposite Lympne, because on that

theory the marsh between Lympne Hill and the shingle beach was flooded

by the sea at high tide. Nevertheless, I shall consider the arguments

by which Lewin defended his original view--that Caesar landed opposite

Lympne--because distinguished scholars still hold that there was a

harbour there in Roman times.

When we come to examine Lewin’s final view--that Caesar landed at

Hythe--we shall find some difficulty in doing justice to it; for

he carefully avoids committing himself to any clear explanation of

his meaning. If we look at his map[3075] of the ‘narrow gut’, which

he believed to have extended from West Hythe to a point opposite

Shorncliffe, we shall see that, on his theory, Caesar must have done

one of two things. Either he must have landed on the shingle west of

the mouth of the gut, or he must have landed on the shingle east of

that mouth; for Lewin clearly gives us to understand that the Roman

ships did not sail into the harbour.[3076] He maintains that on the

day on which the first landing occurred a fierce struggle took place

between the Romans and the Britons in ‘the field south of Hythe’.[3077]

In order to reach this field, the Romans would have had to walk along

the shingle either westward or eastward, and then along the northern

shore of the ‘narrow gut’. But Caesar distinctly states that as soon

as the Romans stood on dry land, that is to say, on Lewin’s own

showing, on the shingle beach, they put the Britons to flight.[3078]

What becomes, then, of the imaginary combat in ‘the field south of

Hythe’? Furthermore, Lewin, while he is constrained to admit that this

field is ‘below high-water mark’, assures us that it was ‘certainly

dry at low water’.[3079] But he himself strenuously maintains that

the Romans _began_ to land three hours after low tide.[3080] Perhaps

he was uneasily conscious that he had contradicted himself when he

suggested that the Britons ‘would unquestionably have possessed

the skill to embank the port and drain the land in the immediate

neighbourhood’.[3081]

The theory that Caesar landed at or near Hythe involves another

mystery, which Lewin does not attempt to clear up. Where was the camp

which, in 54 B.C., Caesar linked by ‘a single defensive work’ (_una

munitione_[3082]) with the ships which he found it necessary to haul

up on dry land, and how was the defensive work constructed? Lewin

tells us that the ships could not possibly have been drawn up opposite

Shorncliffe, because the shore there ‘is rocky and precipitous’.[3083]

Therefore, if the landing took place near Hythe, they must have been

drawn up on the beach west of Shorncliffe, and on the seaward side of

the ‘narrow gut’,--as he suggests, opposite Hythe. If so, of what was

the ‘defensive work’ composed? Surely not of shingle? The entrenchments

which a child constructs with his toy spade at Margate would have

been just as effective. But if not of shingle, what other material

was available on a shingle beach? And what was the direction of the

‘defensive work’ which connected the ships with the camp? Presumably

the camp was on dry land behind the ‘narrow gut’, and constructed not

of shingle but of earth. Now the entrenchment which protected the ships

and connected them with this camp could hardly have been carried across

the ‘narrow gut’, which was deeply submerged at every high tide! I can

only suppose, then, that the connecting work was really constructed,

by some occult process, of shingle; traced out along the shingle beach

either eastward towards Shorncliffe, or westward to West Hythe Oaks,

and then along the northern shore of the ‘narrow gut’ until it joined

the camp. Or if, as Lewin suggests, the camp with which the ships

were connected was distinct from the camp which Caesar marked out on

an ‘advantageous position’ (_loco idoneo_[3084]) immediately after

his second landing; and if, as he affirms,[3085] it ‘must have stood

upon the seashore’, and its site ‘must long since have disappeared’;

then it can only be concluded that camp and connecting work were both

constructed of shingle!

Again, it is incredible that a gale which drove some of Caesar’s

eighteen cavalry transports past Hythe or Lympne to a more westerly

part of the island should have carried the rest back to the port from

which they had started, which Lewin rightly identified with Ambleteuse.

If the ships had been approaching Hythe when the storm arose, they

would have been obliged, in order to return to Ambleteuse, to steer SE.

by E. 9° S.[3086] Now Lewin himself maintains that the gale blew from

the north-east.[3087] As a matter of fact, if it had blown from this

quarter at Lympne or Hythe, it would have been practically innocuous;

for off either of those places vessels would have been sheltered from

it by the hills, and the transports which were driven westward would

not have been, as they were, swept by the waves: if the gale had blown

from the north-east off Walmer, its direction off Hythe would have been

about east-north-east.[3088] Still, for the sake of argument, I will

accept Lewin’s view. According to it, the ships would have been forced

to sail within less than eight points of the wind. But in a heavy gale

a ship will make as much as six points and a half of lee-way.[3089]

Let us reduce this estimate to four, which is certainly a liberal

reduction.[3090] It follows that the hapless transports would have

been required, in order to reach their destination, to lie within less

than four points of the wind, a feat which, I need hardly say, would

have been utterly impossible.[3091] Furthermore, Lewin affirms, in an

unguarded moment, that the gale, when a few hours later it wrecked

Caesar’s ships as they rode at anchor, was still blowing from the

north-east: but he does not explain how a north-easterly gale could

have driven ashore, that is to say, driven in a northerly direction,

ships anchored off Lympne or Hythe!

Such are a few of the absurdities in which Lewin’s theory plunges him.

However, he shall be heard in his own defence.

The argument upon which Lewin lays the most stress has been already

refuted.[3092] He maintains that at the time when Caesar, on the day of

his first voyage, quitted his anchorage and sailed with the stream to

the spot where he was to land, the stream must have been running down

the Channel.[3093] Let us assume, in order to allow more than its due

weight to his argument, that Caesar must have weighed anchor as early

as 3.30 p.m.,[3094] though I shall afterwards prove that the assumption

is both unnecessary and false; and let us also suppose that the tide

did not actually turn eastward until after 5 p.m. Even then, unless

Caesar could have calculated the exact time which it had still to run

with more than the certainty of the experts who prepare the _Admiralty

Tide Tables_, he would have had to face the risk that, before he

could reach his landing-place, it might turn against him. Even if

Heller[3095] is not right in interpreting the words ‘getting wind and

tide simultaneously in his favour’ (_et ventum et aestum uno tempore

nactus secundum_) as meaning that Caesar weighed anchor just after the

stream had turned, there can be no doubt that this would have been the

wisest course to pursue.

1. Having disposed, to his own satisfaction, of the question of the

tides, Lewin remarks that ‘Hythe would be much nearer than Deal, and

was the natural port for vessels from Boulogne’.[3096]

Yes, nearer by a bare two miles, and a few yards nearer than Walmer!

But, as Lewin himself insists,[3097] Caesar, when he sailed from

Boulogne, did not intend to land either at Hythe or at Deal; and unless

he intended to sail direct to one of those places, Lewin’s argument

collapses. Moreover, since the greater part of the voyage was made upon

the easterly-going stream, it would have taken longer to sail to Hythe

than to the coast between Walmer and Deal. And when Lewin affirms that

Hythe ‘was the natural port for vessels from Boulogne’, he apparently

forgets that he has already told us that ‘Folkestone ... would be the

natural port for Boulogne’,[3098] that Caesar’s fleet never entered

Hythe harbour, and that ‘the mooring of the Roman vessels within it

would be certain destruction’.[3099]