2. Lewin attempts to show that the wind which carried Caesar from

Boulogne to his anchorage on his first voyage, and which would, if

it had continued, have been in his favour if he had intended to sail

on towards Deal, veered round before he quitted his anchorage.[3100]

His argument runs as follows:--‘Caesar says that he started from his

anchorage ... having _got_ the wind in his favour, and the Latin word

_nactus_ implies that the wind had undergone a change.... When he

embarked at Boulogne he despatched the cavalry to Ambleteuse ... with

orders to follow him with all haste; but ... they did not leave that

haven for Britain until the fourth day after,[3101] and no plausible

reason can be given for this except that, for the whole of this

interval, the wind was contrary; that is ... had shifted.’ In a later

passage[3102] he maintains that if the wind had not shifted during the

voyage, the length of the passage, and especially the tardy arrival

of the transports, would be inexplicable. Moreover, he says, the word

_nactus_ ‘implies a change either in the _wind_ or the tide: the tide

had not changed, and therefore the change alluded to must have been

in the wind’.[3103] While, however, he argues that the wind must have

shifted, he endeavours to secure his retreat by affirming that, if it

had not shifted, Caesar could nevertheless have sailed to Hythe as

easily as to Deal. ‘Supposing,’ he says,[3104] ‘the wind to have blown

from the south, it would have been favourable to a movement, from a

point opposite Dover, either to the east or west.’

I freely admit--indeed I have myself maintained--that the wind had

shifted during the voyage. It had shifted to a point unfavourable, or

comparatively unfavourable, to ships sailing from North-Eastern Gaul

to Britain. I also, like Lewin, maintain that it shifted again before

Caesar quitted his anchorage. The fact is obvious. But what then? How

can Lewin prove that before Caesar quitted his anchorage the wind did

not shift to a quarter which would have been favourable to a run from

a point off the cliffs of Dover towards Deal? Moreover, it is not

true that if the wind had ‘blown from the south, it would have been

favourable to a movement, from a point opposite Dover, either to the

east or west’. If the wind had blown exactly from the south, it would

certainly not have been called favourable to a movement from a point

opposite Dover to Hythe, that is to say, within less than seven points

of the wind; and if the wind had blown from any point west of south,

the word ‘favourable’ would have been still less appropriate.[3105]

3. Lewin maintains that the wisest course which Caesar could have

pursued when he sailed on from his anchorage in 55 B.C. would have

been to steer westward. ‘Let us first consider,’ he says,[3106] ‘_a

priori_, what a prudent commander might be expected to do under

similar circumstances.... To the right he would see the precipitous

chalk cliffs stretching away ... till they terminated at the South

Foreland.... The lowlands about Walmer and Deal would not be visible;

and it is at least doubtful whether Volusenus had included them in

his survey ... tracing the line of cliffs westward, he could not

fail to see that they terminated at Sandgate, and that a broad level

plain there succeeded.’ At Hythe, he adds, there was a landing-place

‘distinctly visible from his moorings’.[3107]

This argument rests upon the absolutely groundless assumption that

Volusenus had not reconnoitred the coast on the north of the South

Foreland;[3108] in other words, that Volusenus, whom Caesar specially

selected as a thoroughly competent man, had grossly neglected his duty

and disobeyed his instructions. Besides, even if the landing-place

at Hythe had been ‘distinctly visible’ from Caesar’s moorings,[3109]

nothing would have been gained; for Caesar acted, not upon what he

could see, but, as he tells us himself,[3110] upon what he had learned

from the report of Volusenus. Whether he could or could not see ‘from

his moorings’ the place where he was to land, he knew the direction

in which he intended to sail. Finally, when Lewin considers ‘_a

priori_’ that ‘a prudent commander might be expected under similar

circumstances’ to land at Hythe or Lympne, he only advertises his own

ignorance of a commander’s business. As I shall show presently,[3111]

no commander who was not hopelessly incompetent would have dreamed, in

the circumstances of ancient warfare, of attempting to land either at

Hythe or at Lympne.

4. Lewin contends in his text that at Lympne and in his appendix that

at Hythe there was a landing-place which exactly corresponded with

Caesar’s description; and he denies that any such landing-place exists

at Deal. He affirms[3112] that the shore on the western side of ‘the

creek of Lympne’ was ‘_apertum_ or open, for the heights to the north

were at least a mile distant. The sea-beach was also _molle_ or soft

... in a sailor’s sense, _i.e._ it consisted of shingle, than which

nothing can be more favourable to the security of vessels.... Sand,

on the contrary, is, in naval phraseology, of the hardest kind, as it

has no “give”, and a ship beating against it would soon be dashed to

pieces.’ He says that, according to Lucan,[3113] Plutarch,[3114] and

Dion Cassius,[3115] there was ‘marshy ground’ at the place where Caesar

landed, and he assures us that marshes were formed by the streams which

entered the port of Hythe.[3116] He remarks that, according to Valerius

Maximus,[3117] there were two small islands near the landing-place,

which were the scene of an exploit performed by one of Caesar’s

centurions: ‘on looking,’ he says, ‘at the old maps of this part of the

coast, I find ... that the bay of Limne contained ... two islands.’

Like other people who had learned to measure the trustworthiness of

Valerius Maximus, Lewin had himself been sceptical about the anecdote

of the centurion; but how could he resist the testimony of the ‘old

maps’? He admits that he was converted:--‘the circumstance, so

apocryphal before, becomes thus no inconsiderable argument for placing

the descent in this locality.’[3118] Afterwards he changes his mind,

and transfers the islands some distance to the east of Lympne. They

actually existed, he tells us, a few years before the publication of

his book, ‘either near to or in the ancient port of Hythe’; they also

are depicted in various old maps; and they were ‘carted away’ by the

late James Elliott, the engineer of Romney Marsh.[3119] Furthermore,

he assures us[3120] that the incident described by Valerius Maximus is

also noticed by Plutarch,[3121] who ‘lays the scene in sight of Caesar

himself, and therefore close to the camp; and in a marsh or swamp,

which, with the light afforded by the account of Valerius, must be

taken to mean a lagoon subject to the alternations of the high and low

tides’.

Now as to the exact meaning of the word _apertum_ in the passage to

which Lewin refers, the commentators are not agreed. While he insists

that the beach on which he believes Caesar to have landed was ‘open’,

because ‘the heights to the north were at least a mile distant’, Dr.

Guest[3122] denies that they were ‘open’, because ‘there is a range

of heights at no great distance’. According to Long,[3123] ‘“open”

means that from the beach he could see into the country.’ Now any

one who has read the _Commentaries_ attentively will see that all

these explanations are wrong. For in his narrative of the second

expedition[3124] Caesar tells us that he ‘felt little anxiety for the

ships, as he was leaving them at anchor on a nice open shore’[3125]

(_eo minus veritus navibus, quod in litore molli atque aperto deligatas

ad ancoras relinquebat_). If the explanations which I have quoted

were correct, the word _apertum_ in this passage would be irrelevant.

Whether the ‘heights’ were ‘at no great distance’, or ‘from the beach

Caesar could see into the country’, the security of the ships would not

have been affected in the slightest degree. The word _apertum_ does not

describe the country near the shore: it describes the shore itself;

and, as C. Schneider[3126] says, _apertum litus_ means a shore free

from such obstacles or dangers as rocks, boulders, and the like.[3127]

But, even assuming that Lewin was right in his interpretation of the

word _apertum_, this much is certain:--the existence of the heights to

which he refers is alone sufficient to prove that Caesar did not land

either at Lympne or at Hythe or at any point between those two places.

This is a matter on which I confidently appeal to any military expert

who has studied the records of ancient warfare. Caesar might no doubt

have _landed_ at Hythe without any extraordinary difficulty; but if

he had been so foolish as to land there, he would have found that his

difficulties were only beginning. Never, even when fighting against

an uncivilized enemy, did he attempt to force his way up a hill if

it was possible to avoid doing so.[3128] If he had landed either at

Lympne or at Hythe, he could not have turned the line of heights which

extends behind those two places: he could not have penetrated into the

interior of the country unless he had passed them; and he could not

have passed them except at a cost of life which the least experienced

of his officers would have been too prudent to incur. Furthermore,

however ‘open’ the country may have been on the western side of ‘the

[imaginary] creek of Lympne’, he could not have landed there if, as

Lewin admits,[3129] the country was under water at high tide.

The argument which Lewin bases upon the word _mollis_ has no value;

for he does not fully understand the meaning of the word. _Mollis_, in

the passage which we are considering, simply means that the shore was

one where the anchorage was good, and where the ships, if they were

driven aground, would suffer comparatively little:[3130] it probably

also implies that the shore was gently sloping.[3131] Moreover, even

if the word _mollis_ implied that the shore on which Caesar landed was

composed of shingle, Lewin would not be justified in concluding that

Caesar landed at Hythe or Lympne unless he could prove that no other

shingle beach in Kent satisfied the requirements of Caesar’s narrative.

The statements of Lucan, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch, and Dion Cassius,

upon which Lewin lays so much stress, are not really evidence at all;

and if he had been a classical scholar, he would never have quoted

them. Nor, indeed, was his scholarship sufficient to enable him to

understand what they meant. The passage quoted from Lucan occurs in a

rhetorical speech which he puts into the mouth of Pompey:--

_Rheni gelidis quod fugit ab undis_

_Oceanumque vocans incerti stagna profundi_

_Territa quaesitis ostendit terga Britannis._

_Stagna_ of course simply denotes the English Channel, about which

Lucan’s ideas were vague; and the point of the line is the suggestion

that Caesar, in order to magnify the difficulties of his expedition,

mendaciously described ‘the pools of a shifting sea’ as an ocean.[3132]

As to Valerius Maximus, the idea of going to his collection of

anecdotes for the details of Caesar’s military operations is really

funny;[3133] but if he is to be counted an authority, he does not

support Lewin’s theory, but overthrows it.[3134] Lewin[3135] insists

that ‘the _vada_ described by Valerius Maximus as caused by the flux

and reflux of the tide are evidently the _vada_ referred to by Caesar

(iv, 26)’. Now ‘the _vada_ referred to by Caesar’ were the shallow

places of the shore on which he landed; and ‘the _vada_ described by

Valerius Maximus’ were, according to Lewin’s final view, in Hythe

harbour. Yet Lewin emphatically denies that Caesar landed in Hythe

harbour! Furthermore, Lewin assures us that the ‘islands’ of which

Valerius Maximus speaks were composed of earth, and have been ‘carted

away’. But Valerius Maximus says nothing about islands: the only island

which he mentions is Britain. As to the marshes, Heller[3136] points

out that Lewin is wrong in concluding from the narratives of Plutarch

and Dion that the coast on which Caesar landed was marshy. Dion’s

word τενάγη is simply his translation of Caesar’s _vada_, and means

not ‘marshes’ but ‘shallows’.[3137] Plutarch, as the words εἰς τόπον

ἑλώδη καὶ μεστὸν ὑδάτων (‘into a marshy place full of water’), which

are explained by the following words ῥεύματα τελματώδη (‘marshy [or

muddy] streams’), clearly show, was not speaking of a combat on the

seashore, but of one which took place inland; and when Lewin identifies

Plutarch’s ῥεύματα τελματώδη with Dion’s τενάγη, he simply exposes his

own ignorance of Greek. Moreover, Plutarch is so deficient in accuracy

and precision that his description of an incident of this kind is

useless for the purpose of topographical identification.

There is, therefore, no evidence that there was any marshy ground at

or near Caesar’s landing-place; and if there was, the fact does not

prove that he landed at Hythe.[3138]

5. Lewin[3139] next proceeds to examine Caesar’s narrative of the

events which followed his first disembarkation,--the hauling up of

the galleys on dry land, the wreck caused by the storm which occurred

on the night of the full moon, and the subsequent attack by the

British charioteers. The whole account, he tells us, corresponds

with the topography of Lympne and Hythe, but of no other place. The

shingle field between Dymchurch Wall and Shorncliffe, being ‘sound

and dry, without any mixture of ooze’, deserves Caesar’s epithet,

_aridum_:[3140] the ‘steep place’ (_declivis ac praeceps locus_[3141]),

down which the British chariots charged, is ‘in this part of the marsh

on the north’; the spring tide, driven by ‘a strong south-east wind’,

would have poured over the shingle, and waterlogged Caesar’s galleys.

‘It is a singular confirmation,’ says Lewin, ‘of our hypothesis of the

debarcation at Romney Marsh that the range of high water is greater

here than at any other point of the southern coast. At Dungeness, for

example, the mean range is twenty-one feet three quarters, while at

Deal it is only sixteen feet.’ Finally, he anticipates the objection

that if Caesar had landed near Hythe, he would have moored his ships

within Hythe harbour, and thereby avoided the destruction which

overtook so many of them. He explains that ‘the narrow and winding gut

which constituted the port’ was ‘little capable of receiving a fleet’,

and that, ‘as it ... could only be entered and quitted at high water,

and as its banks were lined by a hostile population, the mooring of the

Roman vessels within it would be certain destruction,’ but ‘it would be

highly useful for keeping up his communication with the Continent’.

That Caesar’s ships could have been hauled up on the shingle between

Dymchurch Wall and Shorncliffe; that the said shingle might have been

described as ‘_aridum_’; that a ‘steep place’ existed ‘in this part of

the marsh on the north’;[3142] and that the tide, driven by ‘a strong

south-easterly wind’, might have waterlogged Caesar’s ships if they had

been drawn up on the beach at Hythe,--all these things may be admitted:

but they avail nothing to establish Lewin’s theory unless he can prove

that on the east coast of Kent there was no place which answered

equally well to Caesar’s narrative; and it is amusing to find that in

another passage[3143] he rightly insists that the wind which he here

calls ‘south-easterly’ was ‘from the north-east’. The comparison which

he makes between ‘the range of high water’ at Romney Marsh and at Deal

is irrelevant; for I doubt whether he would have seriously maintained

that a spring tide between Walmer and Deal, heightened by a storm,

would have been insufficient to cause the damage which Caesar described.

The objection which Lewin anticipates, and waves aside, is not thereby

disposed of. If the reader will examine Lewin’s map, he will see

that Hythe harbour would have been amply large enough to accommodate

Caesar’s fleet;[3144] and if it could only be entered at high water,

the Portus Itius, according to Lewin himself,[3145] was in the same

case. That Caesar would have landed close to a harbour which he

afterwards found ‘highly useful’, without mentioning its existence,

is, to say the least, unlikely. Moreover, Lewin omits to tell us in

what respect Caesar could have found a harbour ‘highly useful’ even

for ‘keeping up his communication with the Continent’, if the dispatch

vessels which kept up the communication never entered the harbour; nor

does he explain what would have been the use of their entering the

harbour when, on his own showing, they could not have remained there

without ‘certain destruction’, but after they had entered it, must have

forthwith gone out again, and have been hauled up on the beach outside

along with the others.

6. It remained for Lewin to point out the spot on the banks of a river

about twelve miles from the Roman camp, where the Britons disputed

Caesar’s advance on the day after his second landing in Britain. He

maintained that Wye on the Stour, between Ashford and Canterbury,

answered in every detail to Caesar’s account, and denied that any such

place could be found on the theory that Caesar landed near Deal.[3146]

Airy[3147] objects that the Stour at Wye is ‘little wider than a wide

ditch’, and that, as it flows ‘between sound meadows, where there is

not, and never has been, any marsh or broad stream’, it never could

have been wider. Lewin[3148] replies that he has himself seen the Stour

at Wye when it was so full of water that ‘the mill had constantly

at work four pairs of stones from 5.30 a.m. till 8 p.m., except for

a short time at noon’; and I may add that it is more than ten yards

wide.[3149] Caesar does not describe the stream at all: he merely

calls it a _flumen_; and he calls the Oze and the Ozerain, the two

streams which encompass Alesia[3150] (the modern Mont Auxois), and

which are narrower than the Stour at Wye, by the same name. Moreover,

as Lewin[3151] justly remarks, Caesar, in describing the combat which

took place on the banks of the stream in question, and the subsequent

attack upon the British stronghold,[3152] ‘does _not_ make the river

the important part of the defence.’ The Stour at Wye and the features

of the surrounding country correspond sufficiently well with Caesar’s

account; but this does not constitute a positive argument in favour

of Lewin’s theory unless it can be proved that, on the theory that

Caesar landed in East Kent, it is impossible to discover a stream which

satisfies the requirements of his narrative.

D’Anville, the famous French geographer, added little or nothing to the

case for Hythe. He maintained that the ‘higher ground’ to which the

Britons withdrew on descrying the Roman flotilla in 54 B.C. must have

been the line of heights which extends just behind Hythe.[3153] But the

passage in which Caesar describes the retirement of the Britons, so far

from implying that the ‘higher ground’ was close to the landing-place,

implies the very reverse; for Caesar, immediately after telling us that

the Britons had retired to higher ground, expressly states that the

position on which he found them posted was about twelve miles from his

camp near the sea.[3154]

Lewin has now had a fair hearing; and those who are interested in the

question will decide whether he has made out his case. Over and above

what has been said in refutation of his arguments there remain other

facts which make it absolutely certain that Caesar did not land either

at Hythe or at Lympne.

1. Caesar, as we have seen, tells us that when he sailed from

the Portus Itius for Britain in 54 B.C. the wind was from the

south-west.[3155] Now a south-west wind would not have been favourable

to a voyage from Boulogne to Hythe, much less to Lympne. The wind

would have been abeam even if it had been possible to keep the ships

heading in the direction of Hythe, that is to say, even if they had

made no lee-way: the ships, being shallow and flat-bottomed,[3156]

would have made considerable lee-way; and two or three hours after the

voyage began the current turned east-north-east, and continued to run

in that direction until daybreak[3157]. It is curious that so adroit a

controversialist as Lewin should have inadvertently quoted an opinion

which damaged his own case. He tells us[3158] that a Mr. John Dougall,

in an unpublished tract, remarked that Caesar would have called the

south-west wind favourable if he had sailed from Boulogne for the South

Foreland. But, on Lewin’s theory, Caesar sailed, not for the South

Foreland but for Hythe; and Lewin naïvely tells us that, in Dougall’s

opinion, Caesar would never have called the wind favourable if it had

been on the beam. Certainly he would not have done so when the tide was

setting in the wrong direction.

2. Another objection to the theory that Caesar landed at Hythe or

Lympne is that it involves the assumption that when he started on

his first voyage, he steered for the unsuitable port of Folkestone,

or else that, although he was in possession of Volusenus’s report,

he did not know where he intended to land, and steered at haphazard.

According to Lewin’s original idea,[3159] he first anchored off the

cliffs of Dover. This is the view which naturally commends itself to

every unbiassed reader of the _Commentaries_; but, as Lewin afterwards

saw, it is irreconcilable with the theory that Caesar sailed from his

anchorage either to Hythe or to Lympne; for Caesar tells us that he

sailed 7 Roman miles, and Hythe is almost 11, Lympne about 14, Roman

miles from the nearest point of the Dover cliffs.[3160] Lewin thus

found himself obliged to relinquish his original view, and to maintain

that Caesar anchored off Folkestone,[3161] or, as he suggests in

another passage, and implies in his map,[3162] off East Wear Bay. But

second thoughts are not always best. Lewin insists that Folkestone

‘would be the natural port for Boulogne’.[3163] Why? Surely not because

the steamboats of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Company

discharge their passengers there! ‘The natural port for Boulogne’ would

be the port to which, having regard to the prevailing winds and the

currents, it would be easiest to sail, and which would best accommodate

Caesar’s fleet. That port was Dover. Caesar’s narrative shows that he

required a capacious harbour;[3164] and the port of Folkestone was too

small.

3. Another consideration--one of several which, strange to say, have

hitherto been overlooked--is alone fatal to the theory that Caesar

landed either at Hythe or at Lympne. He tells us, in regard to his

first landing, that his troops were not able to pursue the enemy far

‘because the cavalry had not been able to keep their course and make

the island’.[3165] These words unmistakably imply that if he had had

his cavalry with him, he would have been able to make good use of

them; and in fact he says expressly that, in repelling the attack

which the Britons made upon his camp just before his departure from

Britain in 55 B.C., he actually did employ Commius’s small troop of

cavalry.[3166] The camp, so Lewin assures us when he is advocating the

cause of Lympne, was ‘in the marsh’.[3167] How, then, would Caesar

have been able to utilize his cavalry? Would he have sent them up

the steep slopes on which stand the ruins of Stutfall Castle? Even

on the incredible hypothesis that Romney Marsh had been embanked by

the Britons[3168] the cavalry would have been useless; for how could

they have acted in a country intersected by sluices?[3169] It is

possible, indeed, that if Caesar had landed at Hythe, his cavalry might

have acted in ‘the field to the south and east of Hythe’, in which

Lewin finally assumes that the combat took place on the day of the

landing,--if the Britons had patiently waited to receive their charge,

and if the field was not under water.[3170] But before the cavalry

could have come into action the Britons would have been on the hills

behind.

I do not deny that the cavalry could have managed to trot up Lympne

Hill or the hills behind Hythe, if Caesar had been so foolish as to

give the order.[3171] But the point is that the absence of the cavalry

prevented Caesar from pursuing the fugitives _far_; and that the hills

would have effectually concealed from him the nature of the country

that lay beyond them, its woods, defiles, and other obstacles. Does he

not tell us himself that when he had gained a victory on the day after

his second landing in Britain, ‘he forbade [his troops] to pursue the

fugitives far, partly _because he had no knowledge of the ground_’

(_eos fugientes longius Caesar prosequi vetuit, et quod loci naturam

ignorabat_,[3172] &c.)? Worse ground for the manœuvring of cavalry than

the wooded heights which extended behind Hythe and West Hythe it would

have been hard for Volusenus to find.

4. Heller[3173] has acutely seen that Caesar’s account of the

movements of one division of the ships which carried his cavalry is

irreconcilable with the theory that he landed at any point on the south

coast of Britain. Caesar[3174] tells us that the storm which arose

when these vessels were sighted from his camp drove some of them ‘to

the lower and more westerly part of the island’ (_aliae ad inferiorem

partem insulae, quae est propius solis occasum, ... deicerentur_).

‘This,’ says Heller, ‘can only mean a different side of the island

from that on which Caesar was: if he had meant to designate a point

on the same side, he would have said, _paulo infra ac propius solis

occasum_.[3175] If one compares the expression which he actually uses

in the thirteenth chapter of his Fifth Book--_unum latus est contra

Galliam. Huius lateris alter angulus, qui est ad Cantium, quo fere

omnes ex Gallia naves appelluntur, ad orientem solem, inferior ad

meridiem spectat_[3176]--it becomes clear that in the passage in which

the fate of the eighteen ships is described _inferior pars insulae_

means the southern side of the island. Consequently Caesar implies that

his camp was on the eastern angle.’

5. One of the episodes which Caesar describes in his narrative of

the first expedition is, in spite of the ingenuity with which Lewin

has tried to make it fit in with his theory, irreconcilable with the

view that he landed either at Hythe or Lympne. One day, when the 7th

legion had gone out to cut corn, Caesar learned from the troops on

guard in front of the camp that an extraordinary quantity of dust was

visible in the direction in which the legion had gone. He marched to

the rescue, and, after he had advanced some little distance (_paulo

longius_), he found that the legion was hard pressed by the enemy.

The place where the legionaries had been reaping was the only one in

which the corn had not yet been cut; and the enemy, anticipating that

they would come there, posted themselves in ambush in a wood close

by.[3177] Lewin[3178] argues that the camp must have been in Romney

Marsh, ‘probably on the seaside’; but he stultifies his own argument by

admitting, in his appendix, that the marsh was inundated at every high

tide.[3179] In his text he admits that neither the cornfield nor the

wood could have been in the marsh; and he could not at first conceive

how, if they had been anywhere else, the dust raised by the combatants

could have been seen from the ground in front of the camp. But, he

continues, ‘when I visited Hythe by land, and walked from it to the old

port of Limne, and mounted the hill, I discovered the explanation. On

reaching the top I stepped at once into a cornfield ... and on my right

was Park Wood.... What I had taken from the sea for a hill ... had no

descent on the north side ... and corn growing so near to the edge that

even the reapers, if labouring in that part of the field, might have

been seen from the camp. The whole narrative was now realized to the

mind’s eye.... The legion had marched up to the standing fields of corn

on the high ground, and the Britons, starting from their lurking-place

at the side, had intercepted their retreat, and surrounded them at just

such an interval from the edge that the combatants were out of sight

and hearing, but the dust flying in the air had attracted the attention

of the guard ... at a mile’s distance below.’

Now observe what becomes of Lewin’s explanation. First, ‘the old port

of Limne,’ to which he walked, became, before the publication of

his second edition, a figment of the imagination! Having obtained,

as he tells us, ‘more accurate information,’ he strenuously denied

its existence, and accordingly transferred Caesar’s landing-place to

Hythe.[3180] Yet in this same second edition the ‘explanation’ is

offered as confidently as ever! Secondly, he asks us to believe that

the only cornfield which the Romans had left unreaped was the one

nearest them! Thus the ‘explanation’ which Lewin discovered with such

pride collapses; and his theory, which cannot stand without it, falls

like a house of cards. What explanation he would have discovered on the

theory that Caesar landed at Hythe, he wisely omits to say.

IX. THE THEORY THAT CAESAR LANDED AT HURST

The latest supporters of the theory that Caesar landed on Romney Marsh

are Mr. H. E. Malden and, tentatively, Mr. Warde Fowler[3181] and

Professor Pelham.[3182] Mr. Malden relies upon the argument, drawn

from the study of the tides, which I have already refuted.[3183] But

on certain points of detail he differs from Lewin. He maintains that

Lewin’s description of Romney Marsh, as it existed in the time of

Caesar, is incorrect, and that ‘the coast-line then ran nearly east and

west from Sandgate towards Appledore’. In other words, he maintains

that the hills which bound Romney Marsh on the north were accessible

‘by ships sailing over what is now embanked land’. Accordingly he

believes that Caesar landed neither at Hythe nor at Lympne, but ‘on a

broad flat muddy shore’ near Hurst, that is to say, about three miles

west of Lympne. This, he assures us, ‘was a landing-place second to

none’; so presumably the mud was a recommendation. Mr. Malden notes

that there was ‘good camping-ground, wood and water on the slope

above’; but a few lines lower down he observes that ‘there would be

good camping-ground on the slope where Stutfall castle now stands’;

that is to say, three miles off on the east! He assures us, further,

that ‘the place agrees singularly with the account of the battle on the

shore’; that ‘the passage into the inner country would be easy by the

break in the hill above West Hythe’; and that ‘the hill is anywhere

accessible’. Finally, he remarks that ‘in A.D. 893 Hastings the pirate

came here with his fleet’.[3184]

Now Lewin, as I have already shown,[3185] gives three successive and

different descriptions of Romney Marsh as it existed in the time of

Caesar; and Mr. Malden does not say to which of the three he refers. It

is evident, however, that he is thinking of the first; and I am afraid

that he did not take the trouble to read the second edition of Lewin’s

book. In a previous article[3186] I have examined all Lewin’s theories.

I will here assume that Mr. Malden is right; that the coast-line ‘ran

nearly east and west from Sandgate towards Appledore’; and that the

northern fringe of Romney Marsh was accessible ‘by ships sailing over

what is now embanked land’. On this hypothesis and on any other it is

absolutely certain that Caesar could not have landed at the point which

Mr. Malden indicates. He does not know what ‘good camping-ground’,

in the circumstances of ancient warfare, was. If he knew the

_Commentaries_ as intimately as a man who professes to explain them

should do, he would see that neither at Hurst, nor ‘on the slope where

Stutfall castle now stands’, nor at any intermediate point did good

camping-ground exist; for everywhere along this line a camp would have

been dominated by higher ground above. Does Mr. Malden not remember the

words in which Caesar describes the camping-ground which Reginus and

Rebilus were compelled by adverse circumstances to occupy at Alesia?

They ‘were obliged’, he says, ‘to make the camp on a gentle slope,

which gave an assailant a slight advantage’ (_necessario paene iniquo

loco et leniter declivi castra fecerunt_[3187]). The slope between

Hurst and Stutfall Castle would have given an assailant not a slight

but a considerable advantage. Where, then, could Caesar have found

the ‘advantageous position’ (_loco idoneo_[3188]) which he selected

for his camp in 54 B.C.? ‘Hastings the pirate,’ as I have already

proved,[3189] did _not_ ‘come here with his fleet’; and what good

Caesar’s cavalry, the absence of which he deplored, could have done by

pounding up the hill, which was overgrown by woods,[3190] Mr. Malden

does not explain. The hill, as he says, is ‘everywhere accessible’,--to

a pedestrian: but, as I have already shown,[3191] ‘the passage into

the inner country,’ _in the face of armed resistance_, could only have

been effected with heavy loss; and it would be interesting to hear

Mr. Malden account for the fact that the Britons retired in 54 B.C.

to ‘higher ground’ twelve miles from the landing-place, when, just

above the landing-place which he calls ‘second to none’, there was

ground 312 feet above the level of the sea, and 300 feet above the

present elevated level of the marsh.[3192] I should also like to hear

him explain why Volusenus, a trained soldier who thoroughly understood

his business, should have advised Caesar to land at Hurst rather

than between Walmer and Deal; what motive could have induced Caesar

to attempt to sail from Wissant (which he identifies with the Portus

Itius) to Hurst with a south-west wind, that is to say, to attempt to

sail west-north-west, on an easterly-going stream, within six points

of the wind; how his cavalry transports contrived to sail back from a

point near Hurst to Sangatte, or even to Ambleteuse, against a gale

which drove their sister ships towards the west; or by what miracle

this gale dashed his ships ashore in a northerly direction!

X. THE THEORY THAT CAESAR LANDED BETWEEN HURST AND KENNARDINGTON

The late Francis Hobson Appach published in 1868 a book called _Caius

Julius Caesar’s British Expeditions_, the principal object of which was

to prove that Caesar’s troops disembarked in 55 B.C. between ‘the foot

of the spur from Aldington Knoll’ (which is about four miles west of

Lympne) on the right, and a point ‘about half way between Bonnington

and Bilsington’ on the left;[3193] and that in the following year the

left of the line extended as far westward as Kennardington. This theory

differs but slightly in locality from Mr. Malden’s, but is defended

by different arguments; and, moreover, from Bonnington westward the

slope of the hills which bound Romney Marsh on the north becomes much

gentler. Appach maintains that at least the northern portion, if not

the whole, of the marsh was, in Caesar’s time, submerged, and that

its northern fringe was accessible to ships sailing from the east.

His arguments have already been refuted in an earlier section of this

book;[3194] but for the purpose of the present inquiry I will assume

that he made out his case, and that, in Caesar’s time, ‘the Bay of

Apuldore,’ to which he constantly alludes, was, as he assures us, deep

enough to float ‘the heaviest of Caesar’s ships at the lowest spring

tides’.[3195]

Appach, of course, like Lewin and Airy, bases his theory upon the

hypothesis that the tidal stream which Caesar had in his favour when he

sailed from his anchorage to his landing-place must have set towards

the west. Although I have proved that this hypothesis is untenable, I

will assume, in order to do justice to Appach’s arguments, that Caesar

may have sailed with the westward stream.

1. Appach begins by arguing that Volusenus, when he was reconnoitring

the British coast, found on the west of Aldington Knoll ‘the very

ground of which he was in search’, namely, ‘a low level coast’, which

‘extended as far as Apuldore ... forming the head of a bay protected

from the waves in the Channel by the cliff at Fairlight ... and the

cliff at Folkestone’.[3196]

It may be freely admitted that this coast, if it was accessible by

sea, would have been a convenient landing-place, if Caesar had only

desired to land, and then to sail away again. But his object was to

invade Britain; and the landing-place which Appach believes Volusenus

to have selected would have led Caesar into the inhospitable forest

of Anderida,[3197] where no corn was to be procured. This objection,

indeed, is equally fatal to Mr. Malden’s theory; and neither he nor

Appach attempts to explain how there could have been ‘buildings far and

wide’ (_omnibus longe lateque aedificiis incensis_) on those lonely

slopes, on which, even now, woods are abundant, and buildings very few

and very far between.[3198]

2. Appach tells us that Caesar’s original intention was to disembark

between Sandgate and Hythe; and it must be borne in mind that,

according to him, Hythe harbour, as described by Lewin, did not then

exist. ‘This landing place,’ he says, ‘though open to the south and

east, was sheltered on the north and west. It was also sheltered from

the force of the sea and stream in the Channel, and must therefore have

been the principal British port on this part of the coast in the time

of Caesar.’[3199]

Perhaps (if it had existed),--‘on this part of the coast’. But then

Caesar[3200] says that ‘almost all ships from Gaul’ used to make for

what he calls the eastern ‘corner’ of Britain, ‘by Kent.’ He may have

been thinking of Dover, or of Richborough, perhaps of both; but I doubt

whether it is possible to force into his words the meaning that the

harbour where ‘almost all ships from Gaul’ discharged their freight was

between Sandgate and Hythe.

3. But let us assume that Caesar intended, for some inscrutable reason,

to land between Sandgate and Hythe. What, then, were the ‘precipitous

heights’ off which he anchored,--the heights from which it was possible

to throw a missile right on to the shore? Can Appach find them? Yes!

He tells us that they are there, and that if we look for them anywhere

else, we shall look in vain.[3201] He bids us note carefully the

passage in which Caesar describes them:--‘there, standing in full view

on all the heights, he saw an armed force of the enemy. The formation

of the ground was peculiar, the sea being so closely walled in by

abrupt heights that it was possible to throw a missile from the ground

above on to the shore’ (_in omnibus collibus expositas hostium copias

armatas conspexit. Cuius loci haec erat natura, atque ita montibus

angustis mare continebatur, uti ex locis superioribus in litus telum

adigi posset_[3202]). You are to observe, says Appach, that ‘Caesar

uses the word “all” ... thus pointedly implying, if not ... asserting

that there were more than two hills’. We are then told that, ‘it being

about half an hour after high water, the sea reached quite up to the

mouths of the three valleys between Hythe and Sandgate, so that the bay

of Hythe appeared to Caesar to be shut in by the hills exactly as he

describes it.’

Now these words alone are evidence that Appach did not know enough

Latin to qualify him for the task which he had undertaken. That

he should have misconstrued the words _montibus angustis mare

continebatur_ is not so surprising; but to a man who is familiar

with Caesar’s _usus loquendi_, the conclusion which Appach draws from

the words _omnibus collibus_--that Caesar must have seen at least

three _separate hills_--will appear somewhat forced.[3203] If he had

engaged a boat at Dover, and looked at the cliffs stretching away

eastward towards the South Foreland, he would have seen that they

answered exactly to Caesar’s description. The upper edge of the chalk

is not a straight line: it rises and falls in a succession of deep

curves, corresponding with the rolling downs above, which are, so to

speak, divided into a series of heights by well-defined depressions.

Here are the _omnes colles_, as plain as can be, not three of them

but six,[3204] between the Priory Valley and the South Foreland. And

Appach wants us to believe that the hills between Sandgate and Hythe

are ‘precipitous heights’ (_angusti montes_), from the summits of which

it would have been possible to throw a missile right on to the shore.

Precipitous heights! Go, reader, and look at them.[3205]

4. Appach candidly admits that Caesar, on his imaginary voyage from

Hythe to Bonnington, lost off Lympne the benefit of the westward

current, and ‘met the eddy in the bay of Apuldore running from west to

east along its northern shore’:[3206] but by this candour he gives away

his whole case; for who will believe that Caesar would have told us

that he ‘got the stream in his favour’ if the stream had turned against

him before he had completed half his journey?

5. Again, Appach observes that Caesar’s account of his first landing

implies that the Britons who opposed him used their chariots as well as

their cavalry; and he scoffs at the notion that the chariot-horses or

even the cavalry could have acted on shingle. Therefore, he concludes,

‘there could have been no shingle at the place where Caesar landed.

Bonnington fulfils this condition.’[3207]

Quite so; and the coast north of Sandown Castle also practically

fulfils, or once fulfilled, this condition.[3208] If Appach’s argument

shows that Caesar did not land on shingle, it does not show that he

landed at Bonnington. Moreover, granting that Caesar’s narrative

implies that chariots were used by the Britons in opposing the landing,

Appach fails to realize the situation. The horses were not required to

gallop into the sea; nor could they have galloped through the waves at

Bonnington any more than at Lympne, or Hythe, or Deal: but at any of

those places they could have seriously obstructed men who could hardly

keep their footing, and who were encumbered by their armour in the way

which Caesar[3209] so graphically describes. All that the horses had to

do was to convey their masters ‘a little way into the water’ (_paulum

in aquam_ [progressi]), so as to enable them to throw their missiles

with effect; and this they could easily have done if they had drawn

their light cars no faster than the ancient steeds which drag, or used

to drag, bathing-machines over the shingle at Eastbourne.

6. Finally, Appach cites the well-known passage in which Caesar

tells us that at daybreak on his second voyage he ‘descried Britain

lying behind on the port quarter’ (_sub sinistra Britanniam relictam

conspexit_). He argues that Caesar’s words would be meaningless ‘if

the configuration of the coast had been the same in his day as it is

at the present time, for Britain could not ... have been in any other

position. The expression, however, is peculiarly appropriate if the sea

then filled the Bay of Apuldore; for Caesar, sailing, as he thought,

from Boulogne to Kennardington, of course expected to see Britain on

his right.’[3210]

Yes, _we_ of course see that, as Caesar was drifting up channel,

‘Britain could not have been in any other position’ than on his

left. But Caesar was not writing for us: he was writing for his

countrymen, who did not know anything about the configuration of

Britain until they had read as far as the thirteenth chapter of his

Fifth Book.[3211] Moreover, if Appach had known his Polybius, he would

have remembered the passage in which readers who had passed their

lives in the Mediterranean basin were informed of the self-evident

fact that Hannibal, marching eastward through Southern Gaul, had the

Mediterranean on his right.[3212] Furthermore, if Caesar had steered

for Kennardington, he would have had to drift more than fifteen

nautical miles in order to reach a point opposite the South Foreland:

it would have been impossible to drift nearly so far between ‘about

midnight’ and daybreak;[3213] and unless he had drifted further, he

could not have seen Britain ‘lying behind’ on his left.[3214]

I need hardly add that Appach does not explain how those

cavalry transports got back, in spite of the north-easterly or

east-north-easterly gale, from off Bonnington to Ambleteuse.

Enough has been said to show that, even if ‘the Bay of Apuldore’, as

Appach describes it, existed in Caesar’s time, he never sailed its

waters. We now know where to look for his landing-place: he must have

first set foot in Britain on the eastern coast of Kent.

XI. THE THEORY THAT CAESAR LANDED BETWEEN WALMER AND DEAL

The oldest English writers whose works have come down to us believed

that Caesar had landed on the north of the South Foreland. This

was certainly the view of Nennius, or of an author whose work

Nennius edited;[3215] and Dr. Guest attached great weight to his

testimony.[3216] I think that, in doing so, he showed less than his

usual judgement; and perhaps he was not aware that Maistre Wace, who

lived in the twelfth century, had anticipated the modern theory that

Caesar landed on Romney Marsh.[3217] For some centuries, however, the

prevailing view, first definitely stated, if I am not mistaken, by

Leland,[3218] who lived in the reign of Henry the Eighth, was that the

disembarkation took place near Deal.[3219]

1. We know that Caesar, before he set sail from Gaul, intended to land,

if possible, in one of the harbours of Britain; for he instructed

Volusenus to ascertain what harbours were capable of accommodating a

numerous fleet, and, before he set sail, a deputation came to him from

numerous British tribes to promise submission.[3220] The choice, as we

have seen, lies between the harbours of Dover and Folkestone; and it is

not credible that Caesar should have deliberately preferred the small

harbour of Folkestone to the more spacious and more easily accessible

harbour of Dover.[3221] And if he steered for Dover harbour, the

‘precipitous heights’ off which he anchored in 55 B.C. must have been,

not the cliffs of East Wear Bay, but the cliffs between Dover and the

South Foreland.[3222]

Airy,[3223] indeed, denies that Caesar ever intended to land in a

harbour. ‘This,’ he says, ‘is not the manner of attempting debarkation

in a country possessed by an enemy.... Sir Arthur Wellesley made no

attempt at Lisbon, but put his troops on shore at the Mondego Beach.’

I wonder whether Airy knew the circumstances and the motives which

determined Wellesley’s action: at all events his argument will not

mislead any reader who has studied the history of the Peninsular

War. Why did Wellesley make ‘no attempt at Lisbon’? Simply because,

as Napier[3224] says, ‘the strength of the French, the bar of the

river, the disposition of the forts, the difficulty of landing in the

immediate neighbourhood, where a heavy surf broke in all the undefended

creeks and bays, convinced him such an enterprise was unadvisable if

not impracticable.... It was difficult to find a place to land. The

coast, from the Minho to the Tagus, save at a few points, is rugged

and dangerous; all the river harbours have bars and are difficult of

access even for boats.... Seventy miles northward of the Lisbon Rock,

the small peninsula of Peniché offered the only safe and accessible bay

adapted for a disembarkation; but the anchorage was within range of the

fort, which contained a hundred guns and a garrison of a thousand men.

The next best place was the Mondego river; there the little fort of

Figueras, now occupied by English marines, secured a free entrance, and

Sir Arthur adopted it.’ The reader will have noticed that Airy not only

ignores the circumstances which forbade Wellesley to attempt a landing

at Lisbon, but also ignores the existence of the Mondego river.[3225]

Caesar put his troops ashore on a beach; but he had intended to put

them on shore in the best available harbour, because, unlike Wellesley,

he had had reason to hope that his landing would not be opposed. If

he did not intend to land in a harbour, why did he instruct Volusenus

to report upon the Kentish harbours? And why did he steer towards

‘precipitous heights’, at the foot of which the dullest soldier in his

army knew that it would be madness to land, if he did not intend to

enter the harbour formed by the gap in those cliffs? Why did the enemy

occupy those heights unless they believed that this was his intention?

It might, indeed, be argued that after he received Volusenus’s report,

he decided that Dover harbour was unsuitable, and therefore abandoned

all idea of landing in a harbour. If so, he would not have steered

towards the Dover cliffs; but neither would he have steered towards

those of Folkestone or East Wear Bay. The only alternative would be to

assume that he anchored off the lower cliffs north of St. Margaret’s

Bay in order to wait for the overdue ships, having intended from the

outset of his voyage to sail on and land north of Walmer.[3226] But

when he says that ‘he thought the place [off which he anchored] most

unsuitable for landing’ (_hunc ad egrediendum nequaquam idoneum locum

arbitratus_),[3227] he unmistakably implies that he had contemplated

the possibility of landing there; and, as he could have decided

with his eyes shut that it would be absurd to land at the foot of

‘precipitous heights’, he must have concluded that it would be unwise

to attempt to land, in the face of an enemy, in the harbour which was

formed by the gap in the cliffs. Probably, before he knew that his

landing would be opposed, he intended to observe the harbour with his

own eyes and decide upon its merits himself.

Mr. H. E. Malden, however, remarks that, according to Dion Cassius,

‘Caesar made the land on the first occasion where he ought not, οὐ

μέντοι καὶ ᾗ ἔδει προσέσχεν.’ ‘Surely,’ Mr. Malden continues, ‘this

implies not that Caesar aimed at a certain point for a landing place

and then abandoned it upon a nearer view, but that something like what

befell him on the second voyage happened on the first also, and that he

drifted out of his course to a point which he did not intend to reach.

If so, this disposes of all idea of his aiming at Dover as the usual

port of landing.’[3228]

Yes,--‘if so’. According to Mr. Malden,[3229] Caesar landed near Hurst

in Romney Marsh. On this theory, he would have anchored off the coast

near Sandgate, which was very little out of his course if he intended

to land near Hurst, and not at all out of his course if, as Mr. Malden

wrongly supposes, he sailed from Wissant. It is universally admitted,

and it is certain that when Caesar was approaching Britain, and for

some hours previously, the tidal stream was running up the Channel.

Will Mr. Malden explain what that current could have been which would

have caused Caesar’s ships, while steering either from Wissant or

from Boulogne for Hurst, to ‘drift’ towards Sandgate _on the eastward

stream_?

2. The reader is already familiar with the subject of the tidal

streams, in so far as it relates to the present discussion.[3230] As

we have seen,[3231] Caesar may have landed in Britain on the 26th of

August, 55 B.C.; and on that day high water should have occurred at

Dover at 6.21 a.m. I say ‘should have occurred’, because observations

have shown that high tide sometimes occurs a few minutes earlier or

later than the time predicted in the Admiralty _Tide Tables_.[3232]

Therefore, _accepting the general rule laid down by Admiral Beechey

and Surveyor Calver_,[3233] the stream off the Dover cliffs would have

turned to the west some time between 10.21 and 11.9 a.m., and again to

the east at 5.24 p.m.

But Caesar, we are assured by Airy and Lewin, weighed anchor at 3

p.m.; and at 3 p.m. the stream would still have been running towards

the west. The argument has imposed upon weak minds: the reader will

see that it has not the slightest force. There is no evidence that

Caesar weighed anchor at 3 p.m. What he says is simply that he awaited

at anchor the arrival of the rest of the ships--the ships which had

failed to keep pace with the leading division of the fleet--until

the ninth hour. The ninth hour in the latitude of Dover lasted on

the 26th of August from 2.20 till 3.30 p.m.[3234] Therefore Caesar,

assuming that his statement was literally correct, may have waited

at anchor for the arrival of the laggard ships until 3.30 p.m. Now,

as the reader will remember, I have demonstrated, from the evidence

to which Airy appeals--the evidence supplied by Admiral Beechey and

Surveyor Calver--that on the day of Caesar’s landing the tidal stream

may have turned eastward earlier than 3.54 p.m.;[3235] and if it turned

twenty-five minutes earlier, it turned in the ninth hour.

Hitherto we have assumed that Caesar’s statements of the hour up

to which he awaited the arrival of his overdue ships was literally

correct. But now let me beg any one who still feels a doubt whether

his narrative agrees with the hypothesis that he sailed eastward from

his anchorage, to use his common sense and to remember that he has a

sense of humour. Airy, Lewin, Mr. Malden, and the rest argue in this

strain:--Caesar waited at anchor till 3 [or 3.30] p.m., and not a

minute later: the stream was then running westward; therefore Caesar

sailed towards the west.--_Q.E.D._ This is the sort of argument that

might have been expected, not from an Astronomer Royal, or from a

barrister like Lewin who knew the world, but from a clever schoolboy.

Yet not a single commentator has ever pointed out its absurdity. Had

Airy forgotten the discrepant statements that were made by officers

who had watches in their pockets as to the hour at which this or that

episode occurred in the campaign of Waterloo?[3236] Did Airy or Lewin

imagine that Caesar had a Dent’s chronometer on board his galley, and,

the moment after he weighed anchor, noted down in his diary the words,

_Hora nona ancorae sublatae sunt?_ It is possible that he may have had

a water-clock (_clepsydra_)[3237] on board, which would have enabled

him, if it had been duly corrected for the latitude of Dover, and if

the sea had been so smooth that the ship was motionless, to tell the

time approximately; but surely it is probable that he roughly estimated

the time from his observation of the altitude of the sun?[3238] And

is it not equally probable that he trusted not to a diary but to his

memory? His estimate may have been right: but also it may have been

wrong; and anyhow it is folly to stake the whole argument upon its

accuracy.

Nor, again, is it even certain that Caesar did weigh anchor at the

time which he called _horam nonam_. As he says that he waited for the

arrival of his overdue ships till the ninth hour, it may be presumed

that they did not arrive earlier. When they arrived, their captains

had, I suppose, to receive instructions, as the generals and military

tribunes had done already. As Heller[3239] and de Saulcy have argued,

we have no right to infer from the words _in ancoris exspectavit_

that when the period of waiting was over, Caesar ceased to remain at

anchor.[3240] And, even if he gave no instructions to the captains

of the laggard ships, but left them to their own devices, it remains

certain that to get the ships into order, to give the signal for

starting, and to weigh anchor, consumed an appreciable time.

But we need not insist upon this argument. We may rest satisfied

with the knowledge that the stream may have turned earlier than 3.54

p.m.[3241] We may be assured that Caesar had no means of knowing

exactly at what time he weighed anchor; and therefore, even if he

intended to convey that he weighed anchor in the ninth hour, we are

not compelled to assume that he did so before 3.30 p.m. We know that

_Caesar was too wise to start for a seven miles’ sail on the last of

the ebb tide, when the current was slowest, and when he would have

had no certainty that it might not turn against him before he had

completed his voyage_; and we are confirmed in this conviction by his

own words, which tell us that he started when he had got wind and tide

in his favour. Finally, _we have proved that it is not improbable but

impossible that he landed either at Pevensey or on any part of Romney

Marsh_.[3242] Thus the question of the direction in which the tide

was running when Caesar sailed from his anchorage, which in itself

would be doubtful, is settled by other considerations. There is but

one conclusion to which we can come, and that conclusion is absolutely

certain: when Caesar weighed anchor off the Kentish cliffs, he sailed

towards the north-east.[3243]

3. It will be remembered that Caesar, in describing the final stage of

his first voyage, says that he ‘moved on’ (_progressus_[3244]), seven

miles from his anchorage. Both Long[3245] and Heller[3246] regard the

word _progressus_ as a proof that Caesar must have landed on the coast

of East Kent. Had he anchored off East Wear Bay, and sailed thence to

Hythe or to Lympne, he would not, says Heller, have continued _in a

straight line_ the direction of his voyage from Gaul to Britain; but

he would have done so if he had anchored off the South Foreland and

sailed thence to Deal. I do not commit myself to absolute agreement

with this argument, as it stands, although every one who is familiar

with Caesar’s use of the word _progredi_[3247] will admit that it would

apply much better to a run from the Dover cliffs to Walmer, made in

continuation of a voyage from Boulogne towards the South Foreland, than

to a run from East Wear Bay or from a point off Folkestone to Hythe or

Lympne.

4. Dion Cassius says that Caesar, in sailing from his anchorage to

the place where he landed, rounded a promontory.[3248] I attach some

importance to these words for the following reasons. Although Dion is

no authority in regard to such matters as the details of a battle,

and although, from carelessness or love of meretricious ornament,

he constantly misunderstood or misused his authorities, it is not

conceivable that he should have made so definite and simple a statement

as this without authority, unless he had invented it. I am sure that

every one who is capable of weighing the credibility of an historical

writer will agree with me that this is not such a statement as Dion

would have invented, and that it is such a statement as the most

careless and rhetorical of writers, if he had found it in an authority,

would have followed correctly. I therefore believe that Dion took it

from some authority which is now lost, and that it is true. If so, the

promontory which Caesar rounded can only have been the South Foreland.

Lewin[3249] admits that the statement, ‘if taken literally, looks as

if he went round the South Foreland; but,’ he adds, ‘I am satisfied

that if he had done so, Caesar would have mentioned so remarkable a

promontory’. This observation only shows that Lewin was not familiar

with Caesar’s style. Caesar did not trouble himself about picturesque

details, however remarkable they might be, the mention of which was not

essential to the clearness of his narrative. ‘If,’ continues Lewin,

‘the descriptive words of so late a writer as Dion are to have any

weight, I should interpret them as meaning only that Caesar sailed

round the bend of the precipitous shore between Folkestone and Sandgate

... or else that Caesar arrived at first off Eastweir Bay ... and then

sailed round the cliff which shuts in the bay on the west.’ I doubt,

however, whether either ‘the bend’ or ‘the cliff’ could fairly have

been described as ‘a projecting headland’ (ἄκραν προέχουσαν); and Lewin

virtually admits that neither would have been worth mentioning. But if

any one gainsays this argument, we can well afford to dispense with it.

5. If Volusenus deserved the confidence which Caesar reposed in him,

there cannot be the faintest doubt in the mind of any unprejudiced man

who has studied military history or even Caesar’s _Commentaries_, and

has taken the trouble to observe the features of the Kentish coast, as

to the landing-place which he would have selected. He would not have

wasted his time by cruising down the coast of Sussex: the first sight

of the lofty hills which hem in East Wear Bay, of the cliffs which

extend from Folkestone to Sandgate, and of the heights which back the

coast from Shorncliffe to Lympne and beyond, would have warned him

not to advise the great captain whom he served to land beneath them;

but, as his galley glided past Kingsdown and neared Walmer, he saw,

stretching away towards the neighbourhood of Sandwich, the open coast,

offering easy access into the interior, of which he was in search. Here

and here only, if Dover Harbour were held by an enemy, it would be safe

to land. Here and here only it would be possible to follow up a victory

by an effective cavalry charge.

6. Assuming that Caesar landed in East Kent, his narrative of the

adventures of his cavalry transports and of the shipwrecks in 55 B.C.,

which, as we have seen,[3250] is inexplicable on any other theory,

presents no difficulty. The transports which returned to the port

whence they started would have been laid to on the port tack, and would

have been carried back to Ambleteuse by the same wind which drove

their sister ships westward down the Channel.[3251] This wind, which

could not have driven ashore, in the immediate neighbourhood of their

anchorage, vessels anchored off Lympne or Hythe, would inevitably have

driven ashore, once they had parted their anchors, vessels lying off

the coast between Walmer and Deal.[3252]

7. Finally, Caesar sailed on his second voyage to Britain with a

south-west wind; and a south-west wind would obviously have been much

more favourable to a voyage either from Boulogne or from Wissant to

Deal or to any point on the coast of East Kent than to a voyage from

Boulogne to Lympne or even Hythe.

It remains to consider objections.

1. I have already refuted Airy’s criticism of the view that Caesar

anchored off the cliffs of Dover; and we have seen that Airy is

compelled by his own argument to identify the cliffs which Caesar

describes as ‘precipitous heights’, and Cicero as ‘astonishing masses

of cliff’[3253] with cliffs ‘ten to thirty feet high’.[3254] He

maintains that our interpretation of the words _angustis montibus_

‘must be guided by consideration of the character of place under which

an officer would think of attempting to land’, and ‘must also depend

upon the possibility of aiming a javelin from the heights’. ‘Both

considerations,’ he insists, ‘exclude such lofty cliffs as those of

Dover and Folkestone.’[3255] One might have expected that a man so

clever as Airy would have perceived that Caesar never intended to land

under _angusti montes_ at all, whether they were 300 or, as Airy will

have it, 10 feet high. He intended to land in the gap between the

_angusti montes_, that is to say, in Dover Harbour.[3256] Airy, indeed,

contends that ‘neither Caesar nor Volusenus would think for a moment

of pushing his boats into a creek whose defenders could attack them on

both sides’;[3257] but he forgets that Caesar had reason to expect that

his landing would not be opposed.[3258] As a matter of fact, Caesar

says nothing about javelins; but if Airy had stood on the beach at the

foot of Dover cliffs and allowed an army standing above to pelt him

with missiles, he would have speedily realized that it was possible

to take aim from those ‘lofty cliffs’; and, if he had survived the

experiment, he would have been a wiser and a sadder man.

2. Lewin[3259] says that ‘if we assume that Caesar was wholly ignorant

of the British coast ... he could not have discovered the level at

Deal’.

But what is the use of making absurd assumptions? As we have already

seen, it is certain that before Caesar set foot in Britain he knew

everything about the coast of East Kent that Volusenus could tell

him.[3260]

3. It has been objected that the distance from Dover to Walmer

exceeds the seven miles which separated Caesar’s anchorage from his

landing-place. But no sensible man maintains that Caesar anchored

exactly opposite Dover Harbour. He anchored off the cliffs east of

Dover. He says that he sailed ‘_about_ seven miles’ (_circiter milia

passuum VII_[3261]) to his landing-place. The distance by sea from off

Dover to a point just north of Walmer Castle is 7½ English miles, or

a little less than 8⅛ Roman miles; from off the South Foreland to the

same point 4⅞ English miles, or a little more than 5¼ Roman miles.

Accordingly, if we assume that Caesar’s landing-place extended for

about one mile north of Walmer Castle, and that his anchorage extended

eastward for about one mile towards the South Foreland from a point

about one mile east of Dover, the requirements of the _Commentaries_

are satisfied absolutely; and even if the ship on the left of the line

anchored just east of the harbour, off the Castle cliff, Caesar’s rough

estimate, which he qualified by the word ‘about’ (_circiter_), is

hardly violated. Surely the difference between ‘about seven’ and 8⅙ is

not worth cavilling over.[3262]

4. Lewin[3263] maintains that the beach at Deal does not correspond

with Caesar’s account of his disembarkation. The Romans, he argues,

evidently landed on a gradually shelving shore; whereas ‘at Deal the

beach ... descends so steeply that with a three hours’ flood transports

can come up to the water’s edge’.[3264] Again, remarking that Caesar

describes the shore on which he landed as ‘open’ (_apertum_) and

‘level’ (_planum_), he says that ‘between Walmer and Deal ... the

ground is uneven, and cannot be called flat’. Lastly, he recalls the

witnesses whose evidence he had cited in support of his own theory.

‘Caesar, Dion Cassius, Plutarch, and Valerius Maximus, all ... refer

to the _marshes_ at the place of landing ... who has ever heard of a

marsh at Deal.’[3265] And again, ‘Valerius Maximus speaks of _two small

islands_ at the landing-place.... It was never suggested that islands

did exist or could have existed at Deal.’[3266]

Now, to begin with, Lewin assumes that the beach between Walmer and

Deal has undergone no change, and was as steep 2,000 years ago as it is

to-day. In a previous article[3267] I have shown that this assumption

is untenable. Secondly, Lewin misunderstands Caesar’s narrative. As

some of the Britons threw their missiles from the shore,[3268] it is

evident that the deep water[3269] in which the Roman ships grounded was

within the range of a sling or of an arrow, that is to say, quite close

to the shore. Thirdly, no shore is or could conceivably be ‘level’: the

shore between Walmer and Deal is, as anybody may satisfy himself by

the evidence of his own eyes, free from obstructions[3270] (_apertum_)

and, speaking generally, evenly shelving (_planum_)[3271]. Caesar

applied these epithets to the shore on which he ran his ships aground,

not to ‘the ground’ behind it. As to the arguments which Lewin bases

upon the statements of Plutarch, Dion Cassius, and Valerius Maximus,

I have already shown[3272] that they are worthless; but if the story

told by Valerius Maximus were worth anything, it would not support, but

destroy Lewin’s theory. For, as we have seen, Valerius Maximus[3273]

speaks not of ‘two small islands’ but of one large island (_Britannica

insula_), and a rock (_scopulus_); and there are no rocks off Hythe or

Lympne.[3274] Moreover, although the fact is of no consequence, there

_are_ rocks, called the ‘Malms’, which are visible at low water, during

spring tides, opposite Deal;[3275] and in the time of Caesar there were

marshes behind the sand-hills north of Deal.

5. General Creuly,[3276] referring to Caesar’s description of the storm

by which some of his cavalry transports, after they were descried

from his camp in 55 B.C., were driven further down the coast,[3277]

maintains that the only point to which they could have been driven was

Dungeness. It follows, he says, that the camp could not have been at

Deal; for its distance from Dungeness is far too great.

The answer to this curious argument is, first, that it is plainly

impossible to indicate the exact point to which the ships were driven;

secondly, that it was certainly not Dungeness, for Dungeness did

not exist in Caesar’s time;[3278] thirdly, that there is nothing

in Caesar’s narrative to show how far the point to which the ships

were driven was from his camp; and, fourthly, that if the camp was

at or near Deal, there is nothing in his narrative to show that the

ships could not have run before the gale as far as the longitude of

Dungeness, or even a good deal further. From Deal to Dungeness is only

about 28 nautical miles; and if the ships approached the British coast

in the morning,[3279] they would have had the greater part of the day

in which to make the run.

6. General Creuly[3280] calls attention to the passage, which I have

already more than once quoted, in which Caesar tells us that at

daybreak, on his second voyage, he ‘saw Britain lying behind on the

port-quarter’. If, says the general, Caesar had steered for Deal, he

would have had the coast of Britain on the port side throughout the

voyage, and there would have been no point in the words _sub sinistra_.

He insists that these words are simply the correlative of _longius_:

Caesar saw Britain on the left because the flood had carried him _too

far_.

It will be remembered that Appach used this passage to prove that

Caesar landed in the (assumed) Bay of Appledore.[3281] Creuly uses it

to prove that Caesar landed near Hythe. I have shown the futility of

Appach’s argument; and to answer Appach is to answer Creuly. I may

remark, however, that Caesar does not merely say that he saw Britain

‘on the left’ (_sub sinistra_): he says that he saw it ‘_lying behind_

on the left’ (_sub sinistra relictam_). The coast could not have been

described as ‘lying behind on the left’ until after Caesar had passed

the South Foreland;[3282] and, although he was steering not for Hythe,

but for some point on the coast of East Kent, the flood tide did carry

him ‘too far’.

7. Many commentators have argued that Caesar’s account of the last

stage of his second voyage is inconsistent with the theory that he

landed near Deal. It will be remembered that, after telling us that

‘he saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter’, he goes on to say

that he then followed the turn of the tide, and that all his ships

reached the landing-place by rowing towards midday. The tide which he

followed was of course the westward stream: strictly speaking, its

direction, if he had drifted to some point east of the Goodwin Sands,

was south-west[3283] (magnetic), or between south-west by south and

south-south-west (true). It is very doubtful, Lewin thinks, whether,

with a current running at the rate of 3¾ miles an hour, the fleet

could, by the mere use of oars, have reached Deal at all; and it is

certain that, in order to do so, it would have been necessary to steer

‘across, if not actually against the current’. Caesar ‘could not’,

Lewin concludes, ‘be said to follow the tide when he was steering

athwart it. Besides, as it must necessarily have been almost low water

when the tide turned, had he held on for Deal he would infallibly have

struck on the Goodwin Sands.’[3284] Airy, on the other hand, asserts

that Caesar ‘must have been cast upon the Goodwin Sands’ during the

drift.[3285]

Now the reader will have already perceived that if Lewin’s argument

tells against the view that Caesar landed near Deal, it is fatal to

the view which Lewin himself defends. For Lewin’s theory compels him

to assume that Caesar had drifted no further than a point off the

South Foreland:[3286] in order to reach Hythe he would have had to

row less than thirteen nautical miles, with the stream throughout;

and it is therefore not easy to understand why his rowers should have

been called upon to make any extraordinary efforts. This point he

ignores. Again, he admits, or rather insists, that Caesar must have

drifted as far as the South Foreland; but it is easy to demonstrate

that if Caesar had been steering for Hythe, he could not have drifted

so far. For, as Lewin himself says, the length of the drift must, in

that case, have been not less than twelve nautical miles.[3287] Now

the drift only lasted from about midnight till daybreak; and, assuming

that it lasted four hours--a liberal estimate--the stream actually

travelled, at the most, nine miles:[3288] of course the ships would not

have travelled so far if they had merely drifted,[3289] but the faint

breeze, without which they would not have had steerage-way,[3290] may

have made up the deficit. But, in order to give Lewin every chance, let

us accept the most favourable of three estimates with which he himself

supplies us. He says[3291] that ‘the greatest velocity of the tide is,

according to the Tidal Tables, 3·3 knots an hour.... The drift would,

of course, be less than the velocity.... From midnight till daybreak at

4 a.m., would, therefore, give a drift of twelve miles’. But Caesar’s

voyage took place on or about the 7th of July;[3292] and daybreak was

about 3.15 a.m. This consideration alone compels us to reduce Lewin’s

estimate to ten miles and a half; and, moreover, he forgets that the

tide never runs for four consecutive hours, much less for the last four

hours, at its greatest velocity.[3293] Thus the argument upon which

he relies to prove that Caesar must have landed at Hythe turns and

pulverizes his already shattered theory.

On the hypothesis that Caesar landed anywhere between Walmer and

Sandwich, the statement that he ‘followed the turn of the stream’

presents no difficulty unless he meant that from the time when the

tide turned until the time when he reached Britain his men were

rowing hard exactly in the direction of the stream. This is what

Lewin assumes. But Caesar says no such thing. What he says is that,

having followed the turn of the tide, he rowed hard in order to gain

the desired landing-place. So long as the tide served, hard rowing

was obviously unnecessary,--if the Goodwin Sands existed. In that

case the true explanation is a modification of that offered by C.

Schneider,[3294] who says, ‘As long as it was possible to follow the

turn of the tide, rowing was unnecessary. But after they had reached

a point where they could do so no longer without being carried past

their destination, they took to rowing.’ Of course they would not have

trusted to the current alone at any time; but, supposing that the

Goodwin Sands then existed or that an island occupied their site, they

travelled south-westward with the current until they had turned the

obstacle, and then rowed hard in a north-westerly direction, across the

current,[3295] till they reached the landing place.[3296]

The question of the Goodwin Sands has been discussed in an earlier part

of this book.[3297] Either they did not exist in the time of Caesar,

the substratum on which they rest being covered by the sea; or they did

exist, but had not accumulated to their present height, or perhaps to

their present extent; or they were virtually identical with the present

sands, though their limits, which are not constant, may not have been

the same as they are now; or, finally, as Sir Charles Lyell suggested,

their place may have been occupied by an island. The question cannot be

positively settled; but, for reasons which I have already given, I am

rather inclined to believe that either Sir Charles Lyell’s suggestion

was right, or the sands had accumulated sufficiently to be visible,

or at all events dangerous, at certain points at low water. I shall,

however, presently take account of the possibility that neither of

these alternatives is true.

Much depends upon the answer which is to be given to the question,

To what point had Caesar drifted when he saw the coast of Britain?

Heller argues that this point must have been about nine miles due

east of Ramsgate; but, as I have shown in the previous article, his

reasoning is unsound.[3298] If Caesar had drifted to the point which

Heller indicates, his course to Deal, where, according to Heller, he

disembarked, would have been nearly south-west, that is to say, nearly

identical with the direction of the Gull Stream, which is described in

the Admiralty Tide Tables as SW. ½ W. (magnetic), or, approximately,

SW. by S. true.[3299] But, on this hypothesis, it would be inexplicable

that his soldiers were obliged to row hard. Heller, indeed, conjectures

that Caesar steered for the nearest point of the coast, that is to

say, nearly due west, intending to keep close inshore until he found

the landing-place; and he remarks that this would explain why his men

were obliged to use their oars instead of committing themselves to

the stream alone.[3300] But Caesar must have known the whereabouts of

his landing-place; and Heller’s explanation seems to be far-fetched.

Besides, as I shall presently show, Caesar, on his second expedition,

did not land between Walmer and Deal, but in the neighbourhood of

Sandwich.

For reasons which I have given in the article on the Portus Itius[3301]

I think we must conclude with Napoleon the Third,[3302] that Caesar

could hardly have drifted much further than a point on the latitude of

Deal and east of the Goodwin Sands. When the tide turned soon after

daybreak--about 4.30 a.m., if, as is probable, the day was the 7th of

July[3303]--he would have dropped down with the ebb as I have already

explained. If, after he had passed the sands or the island, he had

waited till about 9.30 a.m., the stream would have turned, and have

begun to flow NE. ½ N.[3304] magnetic, or, approximately, NNE. true:

if he had not waited, he would have had to row hard, as I have shown

above,[3305] athwart a stream which was flowing at a rate varying from

three to two knots, until it turned about 9.30.

The objection that, during the drift, Caesar ‘must have been cast upon

the Goodwin Sands’ is as groundless as the objection, which has just

been met, that if he had attempted to row to Deal [or to the coast

between Sandown Castle and Sandwich] ‘he would infallibly have struck

upon the Goodwin Sands’.[3306] Captain Iron, the harbour-master of

Dover, traced out upon the chart in my presence the course which the

Roman flotilla would naturally have steered from Boulogne, and showed

that, after the south-west wind dropped, it would have drifted east

of the Sands. If, as is probable, the flat-bottomed vessels had made

so much lee-way that, even before the wind dropped, they had got a

little out of their course, they would have drifted still further

eastward. It may also be objected that if Caesar, after he had followed

the tide south-westward, had turned the sands or the island which

may have occupied their place, he would have mentioned the fact. The

objection would be quite natural if it came from a writer who had

merely ‘got up’ so much of Caesar’s narrative as he thought would be

necessary to enable him to study the question; but every one who is

really familiar with the _Commentaries_ knows that Caesar often omitted

to mention matters, especially geographical, which a modern historian

would feel bound to record. There remains the possibility--perhaps

the probability--that neither the Goodwin Sands nor the hypothetical

island then existed. In this case Caesar would have had to row across

the current: still he might fairly have said that he followed the turn

of the tide. He was bound for Britain, and could not begin to row

until the tide began to set towards Britain, though in a different

direction from his: what other expression could he have used than

_aestus commutationem secutus_? Lewin doubted whether he could have

reached Britain by rowing at all; but Lewin did not understand what he

was writing about, and ought to have consulted a treatise on practical

navigation.[3307] On the other hand, it might possibly be objected

that he would not have taken till noon to reach his destination: that

depends upon the exact direction of the current, which often varies

from the direction indicated in the _Admiralty Tide Tables_,[3308]

and upon the rate at which the vessels could have been rowed in still

water. What he says is that _all_ his ships reached Britain by about

noon; and doubtless there were stragglers. Of course it may be argued

that there were not, and that all the ships were actually rowed for

seven hours. But if any one thinks that the possible objection which I

have anticipated is valid he will find himself confronted by another

which is absolutely insuperable. For he must needs accept Lewin’s

alternative theory, to which the objection would apply with redoubled

force,--that Caesar took seven hours to row from a point off the South

Foreland (though he could not have drifted so far) to Hythe; in other

words, that _by rowing hard Caesar could only manage to travel two

knots an hour with the stream_; and that _he took twice as long to

row less than thirteen knots with the stream as he had taken to drift

twelve knots without rowing_!

8. Airy,[3309] remarking that it is evident from the _Commentaries_

that ‘there were forests and cornfields near’ the Roman camp,

maintains, first, that if Caesar had landed near Deal ‘he would have

had for seven miles all round his camp bare chalk-downs, on which in

those days there probably was neither a tree nor a ploughed field’;

secondly, that a night march, such as that which Caesar made after he

landed in 54 B.C., can only be made upon good roads; that ‘the roads

in a woodland and clay-ground country are almost invariable’; that

accordingly the roads of East Kent ‘are in the very same tracks as in

the days of Julius Caesar’; and that Caesar’s night march, the length

of which was 12 Roman miles, would have brought him to the marshes of

the Stour, whereas, if the Britons had been posted on that river, he

would have crossed it ‘at the sound ground of Canterbury or above it,

and would have attacked their flank’; and thirdly, that if Caesar’s

march to the point where he crossed the Thames had begun near Deal,

‘his course would have been all the way parallel to the Thames, and the

expression “ad Tamesin”[3310] could scarcely have been used.’

The first of these objections is summarily disposed of by Long,[3311]

who points out that at Worth, between Deal and Sandwich, there is ‘some

of the best wheat land in England’; and by Dr. Guest,[3312] who remarks

that ‘the uplands round Deal are every autumn white with corn’;[3313]

and that, as many of the great forests which once existed in England

have disappeared, the absence of woods in the neighbourhood of Deal is

no proof that there were none there in Caesar’s time. But, as a matter

of fact, there are no less than five woods at distances varying from

about a mile to three miles and a quarter from Upper Deal;[3314] and

Caesar only speaks of one wood as having existed in the neighbourhood

of his camp, and implies that it was a considerable distance off.[3315]

The second objection is valid against the theory that Caesar landed

between Walmer and Deal _on his second expedition_, unless he

encountered the Britons on the Little Stour; but I shall presently

show that on that occasion he landed near Sandwich, and that his march

of ‘about twelve miles’ did bring him either to ‘the sound ground of

Canterbury or above it’, or to Fordwich or Sturry below Canterbury, but

of course not to ‘the marshes of the Stour’. The third objection, from

the point of view of Airy, according to whom Caesar landed at Pevensey,

may to some minds appear plausible; but the view that Caesar landed

at Pevensey is out of the question. But the same objection has been

urged by the advocates of Hythe; and they hardly deserve an answer.

Supposing Caesar’s march had been nearly parallel with the Thames, what

then? If he had landed at or near Hythe, he must have first encountered

the Britons at Wye on the Stour; and from Wye to Brentford[3316] his

march would have been hardly less parallel (if the expression may

be pardoned) to the Thames than from the neighbourhood of Sandwich.

In writing the words _ad Tamesim_ he simply intended to indicate

approximately the distance from his naval camp, either to the point

where he crossed the Thames or to the nearest frontier of the territory

of Cassivellaunus; and the direction of his march is nothing to the

purpose. Whether that direction was nearly parallel to the Thames or at

right angles to it, the distance was about 80 Roman miles.

9. It will be remembered that at the close of Caesar’s second campaign

his camp was attacked by the four chieftains of Kent.[3317] General

Creuly argues that if the camp had been at Deal, Caesar, when he was

marching to the place where he crossed the Thames, must have traversed

the country of the four chieftains without having first subdued them.

If, on the other hand, says the general, he had started from Hythe, he

would have marched not through the heart of their territory, but close

to their frontier; and for this very reason they would not have thought

it necessary to submit.[3318]

Heller[3319] has taken the trouble to answer this nebulous argument.

He points out that Caesar, having defeated the chieftains in the

engagements which immediately followed his arrival, evidently did not

think them sufficiently dangerous to wait until he had secured their

complete submission. Indeed, if their territory comprised the whole

of Kent, or even that part of it which lies east of Maidstone, it is

evident that Caesar, marching northward from Hythe to the Stour, and

then turning westward or north-westward, would have traversed the heart

of their country. Moreover, as Heller might have added, it would have

been just as hazardous for Caesar to leave the chiefs unsubdued if he

had marched from Hythe as if he had marched from the neighbourhood

of Deal or of Sandwich. Furthermore, he had no time to spare; and

unless he had completely laid waste their country, and treated their

people with the ruthless severity with which he afterwards treated the

Eburones[3320]--and to do this would have required the greater part of

the time which he had to spend in Britain--it would have been utterly

impossible for him to subdue them so thoroughly as to prevent them from

attacking his camp in his absence. Think of the Boers!

10. Lastly, it has been objected[3321] that Caesar could not have

landed near Deal, or indeed at any point on the coast of East

Kent, because, if he had marched against Cassivellaunus from that

neighbourhood, he must have passed through tracts abounding in

beech-woods, whereas he says expressly that there were no beech-trees

in Britain.[3322] But Dr. Guest[3323] disposed of this objection by

pointing out that ‘at whatever point on the south coast Caesar landed

... he must have crossed the North Downs on his way to the Thames,

and so have passed through “tracts abounding in beech-woods”’. Mr.

Mackinder,[3324] indeed, asserts, without giving any authority, that

the beech was introduced into this country by the Romans; but it

has been found in submerged forests and in deposits of the Bronze

Age.[3325] If by the word _fagum_ Caesar meant the beech, his statement

was incorrect.[3326]

XII. THE THEORY THAT CAESAR LANDED AT RICHBOROUGH OR SANDWICH

The commentators who believe that Caesar landed in the neighbourhood

of Sandwich are not agreed among themselves. Napoleon III, who holds

that he landed between Walmer and Deal in 55, and at or near Sandwich

in 54 B.C., argues that the disaster which befell his ships on the

night of the full moon in August, 55 B.C., must have taught him the

danger to which they would be exposed on the beach near Deal, and

that accordingly he must have selected a better landing-place ‘some

kilometres further north’.[3327] Others, like the late George Dowker,

maintain that he landed near Sandwich on both occasions.

Dowker assumes that Caesar’s own ship, if not the rest of his fleet,

anchored in 55 B.C. off the South Foreland; and he goes on to say that

‘from the South Foreland ... seven miles would bring him near the mouth

of Sandwich Haven’. He decides for Sandwich instead of Deal because, in

his opinion, the _Commentaries_ show that Caesar landed ‘at or near a

point whence he could get his long vessels on the flank of an enemy’,

and at Deal ‘no such bay existed’, whereas at Sandwich the very bay

which he wanted was formed by the mouth of the Stour.[3328]

That Caesar did ‘get his long vessels on the flank of an enemy’[3329]

is unquestionable: but he does not say that he placed them in a bay

or in the mouth of the Stour or any other river; nor is it easy

to understand why a bay or the mouth of a river should have been

necessary for his purpose. The object of placing the ‘long vessels’

on the enemy’s right flank was that the artillerymen, slingers, and

archers who manned them might drive away the enemy who were trying to

stop the disembarkation; and some of the enemy were standing on the

shore, while the rest were wading, or mounted on horseback, or perhaps

standing in their cars in the sea close to the water’s edge.[3330]

Why should not the ‘long vessels’ have been in the sea too? What was

to be gained by sending them into the mouth of a river? When Dowker

said that a run of 7 miles would have brought Caesar from the South

Foreland nearly to ‘the mouth of Sandwich Haven’, his eagerness to

prove his point prevented him from making an accurate measurement.

From the South Foreland to the place which was once the mouth of

Sandwich Haven, as measured within half a mile from the shore on

Sheet 290 of the One Inch Ordnance Map, is just over 11 statute, or

12 Roman miles. Nor does Battely contribute much to the argument when

he pleads that _VIII milia passuum_ ‘does not occur invariably in all

the editions’, and that Caesar may have made a mistake. We are not

concerned with ‘the editions’, but with the _MSS._; and _VIII milia

passuum_ does not occur in any of them, but _VII_ (or _septem_) _milia

passuum_ in all.[3331] It would be strange if Caesar had not made a

slight mistake; but it would be stranger still if he had mistaken

twelve miles for seven. Battely[3332] argues that he must have landed

at Richborough, (_a_) because he says that Cantium, where the Gauls

generally landed, has an easterly aspect, whereas Dover looks south;

(_b_) because Dion’s description of the landing-place, ‘which, as to

the nature of the shore, directly contradicts Caesar’s narrative,’ is

applicable to Richborough, where there ‘was a marshy and muddy shore,

on which Caesar’s soldiers ... could not keep their footing’;[3333]

and (_c_) because ‘all the time the Romans were masters of our island,

Rutupiae ... was the only port where they disembarked’. Now Caesar,

who never talks nonsense, does not say that the whole of Cantium,

or even that part of it in which the Gauls used to land, faces the

east. He merely says that of the side of Britain which faces Gaul

‘one corner, by Kent--the part which almost all ships from Gaul make

for--has an easterly ... aspect’ (_huius lateris alter angulus,

qui est ad Cantium, quo fere omnes ex Gallia naves adpelluntur, ad

orientem solem ... spectat_[3334]). Besides, nobody would argue that

Caesar landed at Dover; and the coast between Walmer and Deal has an

easterly aspect no less than Richborough. Secondly, when Battely says

that Dion’s description of the landing-place ‘directly contradicts’

Caesar’s narrative, and then elects to believe the inaccurate and

rhetorical Greek, who wrote two hundred years after the event, rather

than the eye-witness, he shows that he is incapable of serious

criticism. Besides, it is not true that Dion’s description of the

landing-place[3335] contradicts Caesar’s narrative either directly or

indirectly; and neither of them says that the shore was either ‘marshy’

or ‘muddy’.[3336] Thirdly, Rutupiae was not ‘the only port’ where the

Romans disembarked after they had become masters of the island. It is

certain that Dover Harbour was in use during the Roman occupation of

Britain, for it is mentioned in the _Itinerary_ of Antonine;[3337]

inscribed tiles found at Dover prove that it was one of the stations

of the _Classis Britannica_,[3338]--the Roman ‘Channel Fleet’; and

the mere fact that two disembarkations after the time of Caesar are

recorded to have taken place at Rutupiae[3339] does not prove the

contrary.

The conclusion is that Caesar, on his first voyage, did not land

either in the neighbourhood of Sandwich or at Richborough, and that he

did land between Walmer and Deal. The disembarkation must of course

have taken place along a front of considerable extent; and the most

southerly point at which it would have been easily practicable is quite

close to Walmer Castle.

In the following year, however, the fleet must have made the land

somewhere between the site of Deal Castle and the latitude of

Sandwich. For the Romans, as we have seen, on the morning after their

disembarkation, fought a cavalry action on the banks of a river, at

a spot about twelve miles from the camp which Caesar had constructed

near the place of landing: the river, as we shall afterwards see,[3340]

was the Stour; and if the length of the march was estimated with

tolerable accuracy, the camp must have been in the neighbourhood of

Sandwich.[3341] Besides, Caesar tells us that ‘he felt little anxiety

for the ships, as he was leaving them at anchor on a nice open

shore’ (_eo minus veritus navibus, quod in litore molli atque aperto

deligatas ad ancoras relinquebat_[3342]). The meaning of the epithet,

_mollis_, has been already explained;[3343] and, moreover, although

no commentator has noticed the fact, it does not need much acumen to

see that Caesar was here excusing himself for having left his ships at

anchor, in spite of the severe lesson which the storm of the previous

year had given him, by the plea that he had selected a more favourable

anchorage.[3344]

* * * * *

I began this inquiry early in 1900 with a mind absolutely unbiassed,

resolved to do one of two things,--either to solve the problem, or, if

that could not be done, to show, once for all, that it was insoluble.

The reader knows that I have not neglected any means of ascertaining

the truth; and I have provided him with the means of controlling every

statement which I have made. I have set down fully and fairly the

arguments of those from whom I differ; and I have kept back nothing, I

have called attention to everything, that might appear to tell against

the conclusion to which the evidence inevitably led. I need not say

anything by way of recapitulation, for no man who has read this article

attentively can be lacking either in patience or in intelligence;

and I am sure that the reader is by this time convinced of these

things:--that it has been demonstrated that Caesar did not land at

Pevensey, or anywhere in Sussex; that it has been demonstrated that he

did not land at Hythe, or anywhere in Romney Marsh; and that it has

been demonstrated that he did land both in 55 and in 54 B.C. in East

Kent,--in the former year between Walmer Castle and Deal Castle, in the

latter north of Deal Castle. That some will still for a time dispute

these conclusions is likely enough; but not those whose judgements

count. For them the problem is solved.

NOTE.--The following is a transcript of the report of Messrs. Doak,

Hudson, and Sprigge, sent to me from the Nautical Almanac Office,

and alluded to on page 610, _supra_:--

‘The calculations have proved somewhat more lengthy and complicated

than was at first anticipated, since it was found on examination

that no approximate process would give results of a satisfactory

degree of accuracy. In consequence the following work has been

done:--

1. Twelve complete places of the Moon were determined from Hansen’s

“Tables de la Lune”, embodying all the inequalities. Longitude,

Latitude, and Parallax were thus obtained.

2. The Sun’s Longitude, the Obliquity of the Ecliptic and the

Sidereal Time were then computed from Newcomb’s Tables for seven

successive Greenwich Mean Noons. A slight shortening was possible

in the case of the Longitude, but the resulting error cannot, in

the opinion of Professor Newcomb, exceed ±30 seconds of arc, and is

probably about ±12 seconds.

3. The Moon’s position was then converted from Longitude and

Latitude to Right Ascension and Declination.

4. The Greenwich Mean Time of Moon’s Transit was computed for

twelve transits.

5. The times of High Water at Dover were obtained by applying the

proper quantities from the Admiralty Tidal Curve for Dover to the

times of Moon’s Transit.

6. From the Longitudes of Moon and Sun the time of Full Moon was

determined.

7. The whole of the calculations were then examined and duplicated

where desirable.

With the one exception of the Sun’s Longitude the calculations

have been rigorous, and, so far as the computing is concerned,

are of the same degree of accuracy as those published annually in

the Nautical Almanac. A very slight divergence from the truth is,

however, possible owing to the fact that the tables of the Moon and

Sun are used for an epoch nineteen-and-a-half centuries ago; but it

is very unlikely that this is large enough to affect the times of

high water or of full moon.

4th October, 1902.’

THE CREDIBILITY OF CAESAR’S NARRATIVE OF HIS INVASIONS OF BRITAIN

I have already published in _Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul_ an essay

upon the credibility of Caesar’s _Commentaries_; but, as it only

deals incidentally with the invasions of Britain, I intend in this

place to examine certain charges which have been made against that

section of Caesar’s narrative. It has been objected, perhaps justly,

to the essay by competent critics in this country (though not on the

Continent[3345]) that it devotes an undue amount of space to the

refutation of inferior writers; but at all events those who have read

it will believe that the charges which I leave unnoticed in the present

article may safely be disregarded.

I agree with Dr. F. Vogel that, apart from internal evidence,

virtually the only authority by which we can test the _Commentaries_

is the correspondence of Cicero; and the opinion which I have

already expressed of Dion Cassius[3346] is supported by the German

scholar.[3347]

1. Dr. Vogel points to a passage in one of Cicero’s letters to

Atticus,[3348] which, he says, has not yet received due attention

or been correctly explained:--_Britannici belli exitus exspectatur;

constat enim aditus insulae esse #muratos#[3349] mirificis

molibus; etiam illud iam cognitum est, neque argenti scripulum esse

ullum in illa insula neque ullam spem praedae nisi ex mancipiis_, &c.

The following translation will be generally accepted as accurate:--‘The

result of the British war is a source of anxiety. For it is notorious

that the approaches to the island are ramparted by astonishing

masses of cliff; and, besides, it is now known that there isn’t a

pennyworth of silver in the island, nor any hope of loot except from

slaves.’ But Dr. Vogel insists that the words _Britannici belli exitus

exspectatur_ ‘can only mean “the end of the British war is expected”,

that is to say, it is expected that the war, being too hazardous and

too unremunerative, will be entirely abandoned’.[3350] The letter in

question was written, as Dr. Vogel remarks, before the 3rd of July,

A.U.C. 700, that is to say, before the 8th of June of the Julian

calendar.[3351] He goes on to say that for some time afterwards it

must have continued an open question whether the expedition was not

to be given up; for in a letter written after the 15th of July,[3352]

Cicero says to his brother, ‘I wish that you could come at the time you

arranged’ (_cuperem te ad id tempus venire quod dixeras_). But, says

Dr. Vogel, Caesar says not a word to show that the proposed expedition

was almost abandoned. Not a word directly: but Dr. Vogel believes that

he can detect a significant hint in the _Commentaries_. Caesar relates

that, before he sailed for Britain, he was obliged to march into the

country of the Treveri, who were said to be preparing for rebellion.

Soon after the legions entered the country, Indutiomarus, the leader

of the malcontents, finding that resistance would, for the time being,

be hopeless, sent envoys to Caesar to assure him of his loyalty and

to make excuses for not having come in person to pay his respects.

On which Caesar remarks, ‘Caesar was aware of his motive for saying

this, and of the circumstances that deterred him from prosecuting the

design which he had formed: still, in order to avoid having to waste

the summer in the country of the Treveri after having made all his

preparations for a campaign in Britain, he told Indutiomarus to present

himself with two hundred hostages’ (_Caesar, etsi intellegebat qua de

causa ea dicerentur quaeque eum res ab instituto consilio deterreret,

tamen, ne aestatem in Treveris consumere cogeretur omnibus ad

Britannicum bellum rebus comparatis, Indutiomarum ad se cum ducentis

obsidibus venire iussit_[3353]). Now, says Dr. Vogel, although Caesar

is silent as to his real motive, we may divine from the words ‘in order

to avoid having to waste the summer in the country of the Treveri after

having made all his preparations for a campaign in Britain’ that he

hesitated for some time to carry out his resolve of making a second

British expedition.[3354]

This charge rests upon a mistranslation.[3355] The words _Britannici

belli exitus exspectatur_ will certainly bear the interpretation which

I have put upon them: why, then, suggest another interpretation,

which, even if it could be got out of the Latin, would necessitate

the assumption that Caesar did not know his own mind, and that, after

he had kept his army busy for six months building six hundred ships,

he told his staff that, all things considered, it would be better not

to make use of them, and presently changed his mind again, and did

make use of them? Again, in his quotation from Cicero’s letter to

Quintus, Dr. Vogel leaves out the important part. The passage runs as

follows:--_Qua re suavitatis equidem nostrae fruendae causa cuperem

te ad id tempus venire quod dixeras, sed illud malo tamen, quod putas

magis #e re tua; magis# ... illa etiam magni aestimo_, ἀμφιλαφίαν

_illam tuam et explicationem debitorum tuorum_. Read Professor

Tyrrell’s translation:--‘Wherefore I should indeed wish that you could

come at the time you arranged, for the sake of our pleasure in each

other’s society; but yet I desire more that you should do what you

think your interests demand [and stay in the camp of Caesar]; still

more do I value other considerations, your being in easy circumstances,

and free from embarrassments.’ Professor Tyrrell goes on to point out

that ‘the words printed in italics [#e re tua; magis#], or some

such words, must, as Wesenburg suggested, have fallen out’,[3356] &c.

As for Caesar’s words, _ne aestatem in Treveris consumere cogeretur

omnibus ad Britannicum bellum rebus comparatis_, I confess that my

powers of divination are not equal to those of Dr. Vogel. I am unable

to infer from these words that Caesar hesitated for a moment to carry

out his matured resolve.

Dr. Vogel then calls our attention to the well-known letter in which

Cicero complained that he had had no news either from Quintus or from

Caesar for more than fifty days, by which he meant that the last

letters which he had received were _dated_ more than fifty days before

the time at which he was himself writing.[3357] Caesar’s last letter

had been written on the 1st of September, and Quintus’s apparently

a few days earlier.[3358] On the 25th of September they both wrote

again.[3359] Dr. Vogel admits that from the 1st to the 25th Caesar

and Quintus were engaged in operations against Cassivellaunus. But,

he says, this does not satisfactorily explain the long break in the

arrival of letters. In order to understand it, one must take into

account a circumstance which Caesar himself relates,[3360] but the

importance of which he minimizes, namely, that while he was campaigning

on the north of the Thames, the four kings of Kent made an attack

on his naval camp. It is true, says Dr. Vogel, that the attack was

repulsed; but what did the Roman success amount to? All that Caesar

can say for his troops is that they returned from their sortie unhurt.

How long, owing to this outbreak in Kent, the communication between

his army and his fleet was interrupted he tries to conceal by the

meaningless expression, ‘while the operations above mentioned were

going on in this district’ (_Dum haec in his locis geruntur_[3361]).

As he goes on to say that Cassivellaunus, owing to the failure of the

attack on the naval camp, sent envoys, one may read between the lines

of his narrative that it was the action of the four kings which induced

him to accept the embassy, even if he did not actually invite it.[3362]

To ‘read between the lines’ is always easy: the only difficulty is to

avoid reading what is not there. The reason for ‘the complete break

in the arrival of letters’ to which Dr. Vogel refers is intelligible

to any reader who is not determined to convict Caesar of _suppressio

veri_: the reason is either that, as I have elsewhere shown, Caesar

was engaged, first in marching back from the coast into the interior,

after a temporary visit to his naval camp, then in negotiations with

Cassivellaunus, and, finally, in leading his army back to the sea;

or, if he remained in his naval camp from the 1st to the 25th of

September,[3363] that he saw no reason for writing to Cicero, or did

not think it worth while to send a ship to Gaul for the sole purpose of

conveying a letter. What Dr. Vogel calls ‘the meaningless expression’,

_Dum haec in his locis geruntur_, is one of a class of expressions,

all containing the words _dum haec geruntur_, which Caesar uses

thirteen times:[3364] like our ‘meanwhile’, it is doubtless wanting in

chronological precision, but it is not meaningless. Dr. Vogel asserts

that ‘the complete break in the arrival of letters’ was due to ‘the

outbreak in Kent’ on the part of the four kings. Yet he admits that the

attack which the four kings made on the naval camp was repulsed; and

Caesar adds that the garrison killed many of the enemy, and captured

their leader, Lugotorix. In other words, their success was complete.

All that they had to do was to beat off an attack, and this they

effectually did. Even assuming that ‘the complete break in the arrival

of letters’ was due to the action of the four kings, what then? It was

not Caesar’s business to chronicle postal irregularities, but simply to

describe his campaign.

To the very end of the narrative Dr. Vogel continues to read between

the lines. ‘Thoroughly characteristic,’ he tells us, ‘is the way

in which Caesar describes the results of the expedition. It is

true that his account[3365] substantially tallies with what Cicero

writes to Atticus,--“On the 24th of October I received letters from

my brother Quintus and from Caesar, dated from the nearest coasts

of Britain on the 25th of September. They had settled affairs in

Britain, received hostages, and imposed tribute, though they had got

no booty.” (_A Quinto fratre et a Caesare accepti a. d. IX Kal. Nov.

litteras, datas a littoribus Britanniae proximis a. d. VI Kal. Octobr.

Confecta Britannia, obsidibus acceptis, nulla praeda, imperata tamen

pecunia_,[3366] &c.). But what about Cassivellaunus? How did Caesar

balance accounts with him?’ Dr. Vogel reminds us that Caesar’s words

have led Mommsen to believe that Cassivellaunus promised to pay tribute

and to give hostages. But, says Dr. Vogel, Caesar nowhere says this:

he only leads the reader to imagine it. What he says is this:--‘On

receiving news of the action [namely, the repulse of the four kings],

Cassivellaunus, who was greatly alarmed by the defection of the

tribes, following the numerous disasters which he had sustained and

the ravaging of his country, availed himself of the mediation of the

Atrebatian, Commius, and sent envoys to Caesar, to propose surrender.

Caesar had resolved to winter on the Continent because disturbances

had broken out suddenly in Gaul: not much of the summer remained; and

the enemy, as he knew, could easily spin out the time. Accordingly

he ordered hostages to be given, and fixed the tribute which Britain

was to pay annually to the Roman People, at the same time expressly

forbidding Cassivellaunus to molest Mandubracius or the Trinovantes.’

(_Cassivellaunus, hoc proelio nuntiato, tot detrimentis acceptis,

vastatis finibus, maxime etiam permotus defectione civitatum, legatos

per Atrebatem Commium de deditione ad Caesarem mittit. Caesar, cum

constituisset hiemare in continenti propter repentinos Galliae motus

neque multum aestatis superesset atque id facile extrahi posse

intellegeret, obsides imperat et quid in annos singulos vectigalis

populo Romano Britannia penderet constituit; interdicit atque imperat

Cassivellauno ne Mandubracio neu Trinovantibus noceat._[3367])

Now, observes Dr. Vogel, in the first sentence _Cassivellaunus_ is

grammatically the subject, and in the last the object; but the reader

involuntarily supposes him to be the object in the intermediate

sentence as well. In other words, the reader takes for granted that

Cassivellaunus was ordered to give hostages, though Caesar does not

say so. Moreover, the first sentence, taken by itself, leads one to

suspect Caesar’s good faith. For how came Caesar’s understrapper,

Commius, to be with Cassivellaunus? Is it not clear that Caesar had

sent Commius to Cassivellaunus as his envoy? In other words, that,

whereas Caesar represents Cassivellaunus as having been driven by a

series of reverses to offer submission, Caesar had in reality himself

made overtures to Cassivellaunus?[3368]

If I were Caesar’s advocate I should merely reply that as Cicero

states, on the testimony of his brother, hostages were given. But, as

Caesar was undoubtedly not incapable of misrepresentation, Dr. Vogel’s

suspicion is possibly not groundless. Caesar may have sent Commius to

Cassivellaunus with an offer of terms; and if so, his narrative is

so far misleading. On the other hand, Cassivellaunus may first have

signified his willingness to submit; and Caesar may then have employed

Commius as his agent.

Dr. Vogel’s general conclusion is that, although Caesar’s narrative

is not expressly contradicted by Cicero’s letters, yet it was, from

first to last, written for effect. Always literally true, it is

often substantially false. His most effective weapon is the apparent

clearness and candour of his style, which puts the reader off his

guard, and prevents him from noticing how very ambiguous many of

the statements are. He conceals essential facts and exaggerates the

importance of trivial successes; and he prevents the unwary reader

from noticing the slowness of his progress in Britain by inserting in

the twelfth and the two following chapters of his Fifth Book a general

description of the country and its inhabitants, from which point of

view this otherwise very inartistic interpolation must be regarded as a

masterpiece of ingenuity.

My general conclusion is that the charges which Dr. Vogel has brought

against Caesar’s narrative for the most part break down, but that in

the one instance which I have noted he may have detected a flaw.

2. Thomas Lewin, who was a writer of considerable ability, remarked, in

regard to Caesar’s narrative of the events that immediately preceded

his departure from Britain in 55 B.C., that ‘it is easy to see,

notwithstanding the veil attempted to be thrown over the transaction,

that he wanted only a plausible pretext for transporting himself and

his army back to Gaul’.[3369]

Caesar’s account runs as follows:--‘On the same day the enemy sent

envoys, who came to Caesar to sue for peace. Caesar ordered them to

furnish twice as many hostages as before and take them across to the

Continent; for the equinox was near, and, as his ships were unsound,

he did not think it wise to risk a voyage in stormy weather. Taking

advantage of favourable weather, he set sail,’ &c. (_Eodem die legati

ab hostibus missi ad Caesarem de pace venerunt. His Caesar numerum

obsidum quem ante imperaverat duplicavit eosque in continentem

adduci iussit, quod propinqua die aequinoctii infirmis navibus hiemi

navigationem subiciendam non existimabat. Ipse idoneam tempestatem

nactus ... naves solvit_,[3370] &c.). Where is ‘the veil attempted to

be thrown over the transaction’? Dion’s account,[3371] so far as it

goes, confirms that of Caesar. ‘From Dion,’ remarks Lewin,[3372] ‘we

learn that negotiations were opened by the intervention of some Morini

who were friends of the Britons.’ Evidently he had not read Dion with

due attention: the negotiations of which Dion speaks[3373] were opened

immediately after Caesar had, in spite of British resistance, effected

his landing; and Lewin forgets to add that the Britons induced the

Morini to intervene. The truth of Caesar’s narrative is confirmed by

the humorous frankness with which he avows that the Britons did not all

obey his orders. After describing his return to Gaul, he says, ‘Two

British tribes and no more sent hostages: the rest neglected to do so’

(_Eo duae omnino civitates ex Britannia obsides miserunt, reliquae

neglexerunt_[3374]).

But I am not concerned to maintain that Caesar’s object was to tell

the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.[3375] The most

serious omission in his account of his British campaigns has passed

almost unnoticed. In the section of this book which deals with the

chronology of his operations I have demonstrated that either he passed

over in silence a hurried temporary visit to his naval camp which he

made just before the 1st of September (the 5th of August of the Julian

calendar), 54 B.C., or, if he remained in the camp from that day until

his final departure from Britain, his account of his negotiations

with Cassivellaunus and of the return march of his army to the coast

is misleading.[3376] Moreover, as I have pointed out in the seventh

chapter,[3377] there is reason to suspect that he and his officers may

have known more than he would admit about the connexion between the

tides and the moon’s age. But he told the truth, so far as he could

ascertain it, when he had no solid motive for falsification; and when

he wrote the _Commentaries on the Gallic War_, he could generally

afford to be true.

THE DISEMBARKATION OF THE ROMANS IN 55 B. C.

‘The men ... weighed down with their heavy cumbrous armour, had to

leap down from the ships and keep their foothold in the waves,’ &c.

(_militibus autem ... magno et gravi onere armorum oppressis simul et

de navibus desiliendum et in fluctibus consistendum_, &c.[3378]) This

passage has occasioned needless perplexity to commentators who forgot

that the ships’ bows may have projected considerably, and also that

when they were run aground they would necessarily have been buried for

a considerable depth.[3379] Thus it would have been possible to jump

into four feet six inches or five feet of water from the bow of a ship

whose draught was a good deal more.

THE SITE OF CAESAR’S CAMP IN 55, AND OF HIS NAVAL CAMP IN 54 B. C.

I have proved in an earlier article that Caesar landed in 55 B.C.

between Walmer Castle and Deal Castle, and in the following year

between Deal Castle and Sandwich.[3380] Camden,[3381] who assumed that

Caesar landed at the same place on both his expeditions, remarked that

‘for a considerable length under this shore [in the neighbourhood of

Deal] are a number of heaps like banks which some suppose to have

been blown up by the wind; but’, he added, ‘I rather take them for

the fortifications or defences for ships which Caesar was ten days

and nights throwing up.’ If Camden was referring to the sand-dunes

between Sandown and Sandwich, it is of course unnecessary to discuss

his conjecture. Hasted[3382] thought that the camp of 55 B.C. might be

represented by ‘remains of entrenchments still visible’, (1) ‘close

to the shore between _Deal_ and _Walmer Castle_’, or (2) ‘within the

country round _Walmer Church_’, or (3) ‘upon a rise ... between _Deal_

and _Upper Deal_’. But these are mere guesses; and Professor Flinders

Petrie, in his ‘Notes on Kentish Earthworks’,[3383] says nothing which

can support either Hasted or Camden, except that ‘there is said to be

a fosse around Walmer Church’. I can only add that nobody will learn

anything by going to look for it. Dowker,[3384] who deluded himself

into the belief that Caesar had landed near Sandwich in 55 as well

as in 54 B.C., held that he had encamped in the first year between

Sandwich and Worth, in the second on Richborough Hill. But Dowker

himself maintained that Richborough Hill was isolated at spring tides;

and would Caesar have omitted to mention that he had sailed into the

Rutupian estuary? I am inclined to believe that he encamped in 54 B.C.

on the gently rising ground near Worth.

Last year (1902) I spent two days in examining the coast between

Kingsdown and Sandown.[3385] The conclusion to which I came was that

in 55 B.C. Caesar must have encamped either on the plateau between

Walmer Castle and Kingsdown, or, much more probably, on the rising

ground north-west of the plateau which is now covered by part of the

town of Walmer. On returning to London, I opened the second volume of

Napoleon’s _Histoire de Jules César_, and found on pages 160 and 161

that Colonel Stoffel had adopted the latter alternative.

THE WAR-CHARIOTS OF THE BRITONS

‘Chariots,’ says Caesar,[3386] ‘are used in action in the following

way. First of all the charioteers drive all over the field, the

warriors hurling missiles; and generally they throw the enemy’s ranks

into confusion by the mere terror inspired by their horses and the

clatter of the wheels. As soon as they have penetrated between the

troops of cavalry the warriors jump off the chariots and fight on foot.

The drivers meanwhile gradually withdraw from the action, and range the

cars in such a position that if the warriors are hard pressed by the

enemy’s numbers, they may easily get back to them. Thus they exhibit

in action the mobility of cavalry combined with the steadiness of

infantry; and they become so expert from constant habit and practice

that they will drive their horses at full gallop, keeping them well

in hand, down a steep incline, check and turn them in an instant, run

along the pole, stand on the yoke, and step backwards again to the

car with the greatest nimbleness’ (_Genus hoc est ex essedis pugnae.

Primo per omnes partes perequitant et tela coiciunt atque ipso terrore

equorum et strepitu rotarum ordines plerumque perturbant, et cum se

inter equitum turmas insinuaverunt, ex essedis desiliunt et pedibus

proeliantur. Aurigae interim paulatim ex proelio excedunt atque ita

currus conlocant ut, si illi a multitudine hostium premantur, expeditum

ad suos receptum habeant. Ita mobilitatem equitum, stabilitatem peditum

in proeliis praestant, ac tantum usu cotidiano et exercitatione

efficiunt uti in declivi ac praecipiti loco incitatos equos sustinere

et brevi moderari ac flectere et per temonem percurrere et in iugo

insistere et se inde in currus citissime recipere consuerint_).

M. G. Lafaye[3387] gathers from this description that the object of

the warrior in running along the pole was to jump down in order to

throw his javelin and to avoid being impeded in his movements by the

proximity of the driver. M. Lafaye assures us that certain coins

represent warriors moving on to the poles of their chariots in order to

hurl their javelins: but they do not represent them as about to jump

down;[3388] and Caesar says that the warrior, after he had run along

the pole, stepped back again on to the car.

Caesar[3389] tells us that, after he had crossed the Thames in 54

B.C., Cassivellaunus dismissed the whole of his forces except 4,000

_essedarii_. Most commentators have inferred, I think rightly, from

this statement that Cassivellaunus had 4,000 chariots; but it seems

possible that by 4,000 _essedarii_ Caesar may have meant 2,000 warriors

and 2,000 drivers.[3390] Napoleon the Third,[3391] on the other hand,

assumes that there were ‘six _essedarii_ par char’. It is unnecessary

to make any assumptions; for, according to Diodorus Siculus,[3392] who

derived his information from Posidonius, every Gallic chariot carried

a driver and one warrior. Furthermore, a coin of the Hostilian family,

which was struck between 49 and 46 B.C.,[3393] depicts a chariot drawn

by two horses, and driven by a charioteer, who is accompanied by one

warrior, armed with an oblong buckler.

Professor E. B. Tylor,[3394] referring to Pomponius Mela,[3395]

Lucan,[3396] and Silius Italicus,[3397] argues that the Britons used

chariots armed with scythes: Tacitus,[3398] who derived his information

from Agricola, says that the British army which encountered the

latter in the Grampians included _covinnarii_, who, according to

Pomponius Mela, were warriors who fought in scythed chariots;[3399]

and Jornandes[3400] says that the chariots of the Britons were armed

with scythes: but if the Britons whom Caesar encountered had used such

chariots, he would certainly have mentioned the fact;[3401] and no

scythes are to be seen on the Roman coins which depict war-chariots.

Moreover, of the numerous interments of warriors with chariots that

have been discovered in the department of the Marne not one showed any

traces of scythes;[3402] nor have any such traces ever been found in

Great Britain.[3403]

I have remarked in my narrative of Caesar’s second invasion[3404]

that very few chariot-burials have been found in this country. It is

noteworthy that of the whole number--not more than a dozen--all but

two were in Yorkshire, and not one in Scotland; and also that whereas

in many of the Gallic interments the chariot was placed in the grave

entire, only the wheels and other detached parts were buried in

Britain. The most famous of these discoveries was made nearly a century

ago in a barrow on Arras Farm, close to the road between Beverley and

York. Here in a large round grave in the chalk was found the skeleton

of a man, inclining from which, one on each side, were two wheels, each

two feet eleven inches in diameter.[3405] ‘Under and adjoining to each

wheel,’ writes Thurnam,[3406] ‘were the remains of the skeletons of two

small horses, neither of them exceeding thirteen hands.’[3407]

In the paragraph in which Caesar describes the tactics of the

charioteers he says that ‘as soon as they have penetrated between

the troops of cavalry, the warriors jump off the chariots and fight

on foot’ (_cum se inter equitum turmas insinuaverunt, ex essedis

desiliunt et pedibus proeliantur_). The editors generally assume that

_equitum turmas_ means ‘the _hostile_ troops of cavalry’; but von

Göler,[3408] with whom Napoleon III[3409] agrees, rejects this view.

He argues that in Caesar’s first campaign in Britain, in his account

of which the passage in question occurs, the Britons were not opposed

by any cavalry, for Caesar had none with him; and that the paragraph

is not to be regarded simply as a general description of the tactics

of the charioteers, but also as an explanation of the tactics which

they had pursued in the combat described in the preceding paragraph.

Moreover, he insists that if the warriors had jumped off their chariots

when they had penetrated between troops of hostile cavalry, and had

then allowed the drivers to turn round and move back, it would have

been impossible for them to get on to the chariots again in case of

need: hostile cavalry which allowed them to do this would have been

worthless. ‘According to my interpretation,’ von Göler concludes, ‘we

are to understand by _et cum se inter equitum turmas insinuaverunt_

that the warriors had penetrated within the intervals of _their own_

cavalry ... the moment of jumping down, always hazardous, was protected

by their own cavalry, just as nowadays cavalry protect the limbering up

and unlimbering of the horse-artillery associated with them.’ See also

pp. 136-7, and Taf. vii, fig 7, of von Göler’s book, and pp. 688-91,

_infra_.

THE OPERATIONS OF THE BRITONS DURING THE LAST FEW DAYS OF CAESAR’S

FIRST EXPEDITION

After describing how he rescued the 7th legion, which had been sent out

on a foraging expedition and surprised by a British force, Caesar tells

us that he led this legion and the force with which he had marched to

its assistance back to camp. ‘Meanwhile,’ he continues, ‘our people

were all busy, and the Britons who were still in their districts moved

off’ (_dum haec geruntur, nostris omnibus occupatis, qui erant in agris

reliqui discesserunt_[3410]). The words ‘the Britons who were still in

their districts’ (_qui erant in agris reliqui_) evidently refer back

to two passages in the thirtieth and thirty-second chapters of the

Fourth Book of the _Commentaries_. In the former we read that after

the storm which wrecked several of Caesar’s ships the British chiefs

who had disbanded their levies and come into the Roman camp ‘renewed

their oaths of mutual fidelity, and began to move away one by one from

the camp and _to fetch their tribesmen secretly from the districts_’

(_itaque rursus coniuratione facta, paulatim ex castris discedere et

suos clam ex agris deducere coeperunt_). In the thirty-second chapter

Caesar says that, just before the 7th legion was attacked, ‘some of

the natives _still remained in the districts_’ (_pars hominum in

agris remaneret_). Evidently, then, the meaning of the passage which

I quoted at the beginning of this note is that during and after the

attack on the 7th legion, and while the Roman soldiers were employed

in various duties, those Britons who had not yet left their respective

districts in order to rally round their leaders did so. However, the

meaning which is obvious to the ordinary mind does not satisfy von

Göler,[3411] who insists that the _MS._ reading, _nostris omnibus

occupatis, qui erant in agris reliqui discesserunt_, yields no

satisfactory sense, and offers in place of it one of his conjectural

emendations:--(nostris omnibus occupatis,) _#quae erant in agris

relicta#_ (discesserunt). After a few moments of bewilderment

the reader suddenly apprehends von Göler’s meaning. He fancied that

_occupatis_ meant ‘having been taken possession of’, and was ignorant

that _nostris omnibus_ in Caesarian Latin could not mean ‘all our

belongings’; so he persuaded himself that Caesar intended to convey

that the Britons, ‘having appropriated all our property, which had been

left in the fields, made off’! ‘The Romans,’ he explains, ‘had not only

not been able to convey into camp the corn which they had cut, but, on

account of the surprise, they must even have abandoned their tools for

cutting and gathering the corn.’

Comment is needless.

WHERE DID CAESAR ENCOUNTER THE BRITONS ON THE MORNING AFTER HIS SECOND

LANDING IN BRITAIN?

‘Caesar disembarked the army, and chose a suitable spot for a camp.

Having ascertained from prisoners where the enemy’s forces were

posted, he marched against them about the third watch.... After a

night march of about twelve miles he descried the enemy’s force.

Advancing with their cavalry and chariots from higher ground towards

a river,[3412] they attempted to check our men, and forced on an

action. Beaten off by the cavalry, they fell back into the woods and

occupied a well-fortified post of great natural strength, which they

had apparently prepared for defence some time before with a view to war

with their neighbours; for all the entrances were blocked by felled

trees laid close together’ (_Caesar exposito exercitu et loco castris

idoneo capto, ubi ex captivis cognovit quo in loco hostium copiae

consedissent ... de tertia vigilia ad hostes contendit ... ipse noctu

progressus milia passuum circiter XII hostium copias conspicatus est.

Illi equitatu atque essedis ad flumen progressi ex loco superiore

nostros prohibere et proelium committere coeperunt. Repulsi ab equitatu

se in silvas abdiderunt locum nacti egregie et natura et opere munitum,

quem domestici belli, ut videbatur, causa iam ante praeparaverant: nam

crebris arboribus succisis omnes introitus erant praeclusi_[3413]).

Such is the description which Caesar gives of his first encounter with

the Britons in 54 B.C. The question of the site is closely connected

with the question of the place where he landed. I have proved that

this place was between Walmer and Sandwich.[3414] It is clear,

therefore, that Caesar could not have encountered the Britons either at

Robertsbridge on the Rother, where Airy believed that he had discovered

the battle-field,[3415] or at Wye on the Great Stour, the site adopted

by Lewin.[3416] It is certain, however, that the battle was fought

either on the Great Stour or on the Little Stour.

1. Napoleon the Third[3417] asserts that the river mentioned by Caesar

was ‘unquestionably the Little Stour’; and he maintains that the left

bank in the neighbourhood of Barham and Kingston corresponds with the

description of the combat. The rising ground on this bank is not,

he remarks, too uneven to have prevented war-chariots and cavalry

from acting, and, as the text of the _Commentaries_ requires, the

Britons would have occupied a commanding position (_locus superior_)

on the gentle slopes which terminate at the water’s edge. We may

safely conclude, he adds, from Caesar’s narrative that the combat was

unimportant, and that his cavalry crossed the river without difficulty.

Lewin[3418] dismisses this view with the remark that the Little

Stour is ‘too insignificant to have been designated by Caesar as a

river’; but the Emperor, who had anticipated this objection, replied

that Caesar used the same word (_flumen_) to denote the Oze and

the Ozerain,--the two rivulets which encompass Mont Auxois in the

Côte-d’Or, where Vercingetorix made his final stand.[3419] No one,

however, who has seen the Little Stour at Kingston, the Oze, and the

Ozerain, will admit that the Kentish ‘nailbourne’ deserves to be

treated as respectfully as the two Burgundian streams.

On the 1st of May, 1902, I walked along the Little Stour from Barham

to Bekesbourne. There was not so much as a teaspoonful of water in the

channel; and a policeman whom I met near Kingston told me that it had

been dry for the last five years. On the other hand, an old labourer,

who had lived in the valley for sixty-four years, remarked that he

could remember a time when the rivulet often overflowed its banks: on

the 18th of April of this year (1904) I myself saw it running past

Barham with a strong stream; and a porter at Barham station said,

‘Yes, and it isn’t half as strong as it was a month ago.’ Moreover,

Bryan Faussett,[3420] writing between 1767 and 1773, said that the

Little Stour about a mile below Kingston was ‘seldom or never dry’; and

Philippott,[3421] speaking of Bekesbourne, affirms that in the reign

of Edward the Third ‘there was a small navigation out of the river of

Stoure up to this place’.

There need be no difficulty, then, in believing that the Little Stour,

in Caesar’s day, was a running stream, which he might perhaps have

called a _flumen_, though it must not be forgotten that both in 55

B.C. and in the following year, the summer, at all events in Gaul, was

exceptionally dry.[3422] Nevertheless, it is certain that the Britons

did not encounter Caesar on the Little Stour. Consider the meaning of

his words:--_illi equitatu atque essedis ad flumen progressi ex loco

superiore nostros prohibere et proelium committere coeperunt_.[3423]

At one time I thought that this passage meant, ‘Advancing towards

a river with their cavalry and chariots, they attempted from their

commanding position (_ex loco superiore_) to check our men,’ &c.: but a

passage in the twenty-third chapter of the Second Book of the _Gallic

War_--_alia in parte diversae duae legiones, XI et VIII, profligatis

Viromanduis, quibuscum erant congressae, ex loco superiore in ipsis

fluminis ripis proeliabantur_--in which the words _ex loco superiore_

unquestionably belong to _profligatis_, leads me to believe that the

former of the alternative translations which I have given--‘Advancing

with their cavalry and chariots from higher ground towards a river,

they attempted to check our men,’ &c.--is to be preferred. At all

events the _locus superior_ was not without tactical significance,

and was either the left bank of the stream or high ground in close

proximity to the left bank. Now between Barham and the northern end of

Charlton Park, which is below Kingston, the depth of the channel of

the Little Stour does not exceed 18 inches; and even at Bekesbourne it

is only about two feet. Therefore, unless the depth of the channel was

considerably greater in 54 B.C. than it is now, and unless the water

flowed considerably below the level of the banks, the words _locus

superior_ could not have been applied to the bank itself anywhere

between Barham and Bekesbourne.[3424] Moreover, although there are

well-defined heights on the left bank between Barham and Bridge, the

lowest slopes, except opposite Kingston and for a very short space on

either side of it, are at a considerable distance from the channel.

Assuming that Caesar crossed the Little Stour at or near Kingston, the

Britons could have opposed him more effectually when he was ascending

Barham Downs than by attempting to defend the passage of the rivulet.

And, since he would in any case be obliged to cross the Stour itself,

is it not obvious that they would have waited for him behind the river

which might fairly be called an obstacle rather than on the banks of

the streamlet which an active lad could have jumped over?

2. If Napoleon’s view is inadmissible, it is difficult to characterize

that adopted by the Reverend Francis Vine.[3425] He assures us that

Caesar ‘descried the British forces ... lining the crest of the hill

(described in the ‘Commentaries’ as “superior locus”) from Garrington

(near Littlebourne) on his right hand, to probably the part of Barham

Downs opposite Bridge and Bishopsbourne on his left. This was the

best position which the Britons could possibly have chosen for the

purpose of arresting the progress of an army marching upon Caer Caint

(Canterbury)’. In other words, Mr. Vine holds that the Britons awaited

Caesar’s approach not on the further but on the nearer side of the

river! ‘That the Britons were traditionally reported to have opposed

Caesar’s progress _before he reached_ the river, rather than after

passing it, may,’ he says, ‘be inferred from the following passage from

Pomponius Sabinus, out of Seneca: “And in the night marching twelve

miles up into the country, Caesar finds out the Britons, who _retreated

as far as the river_, but gave him battle there.”’ So we are to prefer

the authority of Seneca to that of the general who fought the battle!

Besides, Mr. Vine fails to see that the passage which he quotes (and

which is not to be found in Seneca) need only mean that the Britons,

when Caesar descried them, had retreated from the seashore to the banks

of the river. Why Pomponius Sabinus, an Italian scholar who was born

1,470 years after Caesar died, should be summoned as a witness it is

not easy to understand. The only inference which can be deduced from

Caesar’s narrative--the only inference which has ever been deduced from

it by any scholar--is that the Britons, when Caesar descried them, were

on the further side of the river, and that they advanced to its left

bank in order to dispute his passage.

Mr. Vine’s view[3426] of the route which Caesar followed appears to be

partly based upon ‘traces of encampments which still remain’. But who

made them? Certainly not these Britons, who, only a few hours before

Caesar began his night march, had retreated from the coast into the

interior in order to oppose his progress, and whose stronghold was not

on the right but on the left bank of the river. Certainly not Caesar,

who, in marching from the coast to encounter the Britons, made no camp

at all. The tumuli which have been opened on Kingston Down were, as

Roach Smith says, ‘neither more nor less than those of Saxons.’[3427]

Mr. Vine[3428] asserts that ‘there were probably two large oblong

castra [constructed by Caesar], the one extending along Barham Downs

opposite Charlton, the other at the western extremity of the Downs

extending over part of Bridge Hill, Bourne Park, and perhaps the

grounds of Higham’. But without excavation it would be impossible to

prove that any ‘castra’ had been erected on Barham Downs by Caesar;

and without going to this trouble any man who can understand the

_Commentaries_ may conclude that he certainly did not construct two.

3. Lyon, the author of the _History of the Town and Port of

Dover_,[3429] maintains that the combat took place near Littlebourne,

about two miles lower down than Bekesbourne; but this place is on

the road from Sandwich to Canterbury, and barely nine miles from

the former. If Caesar marched along the line of this road, he must

have encountered the Britons on the Great Stour near Canterbury.

Assuming that he marched from the neighbourhood of Deal, Lyon’s view

might perhaps be defended if there were any reason to believe that

on the left bank of the Little Stour near Littlebourne there was a

stronghold;[3430] but in a former article[3431] I have given cogent

reasons for believing that in 54 B.C. Caesar encamped some miles north

of Deal.

It may, then, be regarded as morally certain that the river on which

the Britons encountered Caesar was the Great Stour. It has, indeed,

been objected that the least distance of the Great Stour from Deal is

not twelve, but fifteen miles; but while this argument may be valid

against the theory that Caesar landed in 54 B.C. at Deal, the position

that he defeated the Britons on the Great Stour remains unshaken.

4. The Reverend R. C. Jenkins[3432] holds that the scene of the

encounter was Chilham, about six miles above Canterbury, on the Ashford

road. ‘The only obstacle,’ he pleads, ‘is the increased distance, which

is sixteen, instead of twelve miles ... a difference which the loss

of a single stroke might account for [the scribe being supposed to

have written XII instead of XVI], if, indeed, it is not sufficiently

explained by the possible miscalculation of the time of the march ...

everything else falls into perfect harmony with the narrative--the high

wooded ground at the back, the steep banks, the wide and rapid stream,’

&c. And again, ‘Let us remember that the journey was during the night,

when the ground would be rapidly passed over, and the actual distance

would be less apparent ... the space traversed is only described as

“milia passuum _circiter_ duodecim”, and even then the position of the

enemy was merely discerned afar off ... here we have ancient mounds

and earthworks, which give silent testimony to the fact that Chilham

was a military position of the highest importance even during the

British period.’[3433]

These arguments have no weight. When numbers attested by the consensus

of the _MSS._ are not manifestly wrong, we have no right to distort

them into agreement with our own preferences. The distance, in a

straight line, from the nearest point on which Caesar could have

encamped, if he had landed near Sandwich,[3434] to Chilham, is about

20 Roman miles; from the place where he would have encamped if he had

landed near Deal,[3435] approximately 16; and the actual distance

which he would have had to march is of course considerably longer. Why

he should have marched more rapidly by night than by day it would be

difficult to explain;[3436] and the remark that ‘the position of the

enemy was merely discerned afar off’ is a pure invention. If ‘we have

ancient mounds and earthworks’ at Chilham, they prove nothing about

Caesar;[3437] and we have them also at other places near the course of

the river. Besides, why should Caesar have made a forced march in order

to cross the Stour at Chilham when, by making an ordinary march of 12

miles, he could have crossed it near Canterbury?[3438]

Our search for the site is now confined within narrow limits. Below

Fordwich, the Stour, in Caesar’s time, would certainly have been

impassable in the face of an enemy; for it flowed through a broad

morass.[3439] Between Canterbury and the bridge above Sturry the river

is virtually flush with its banks. It appears to me, then, that Caesar

must have crossed it either between Fordwich and Sturry, or in the

neighbourhood of Thanington, just above Canterbury, or possibly at

Canterbury itself. Above Canterbury it flows through nearly level

meadows: its width is about 15 or 16 yards: the banks are about 2 feet

high; and the depth of the water at present is apparently about 2

feet. The bottom at the bridge above Thanington is sandy and gravelly.

Opposite this point and at a distance of, say, 600 yards, the ground

begins to rise into wooded heights. Opposite Thanington, and east of

it, the heights are considerably nearer the river; but they gradually

sink as they approach Canterbury.

At Sturry the lower slopes of the low hills which extend along the

northern side of the valley approach very close to the river, say

to within 100 yards; but opposite Fordwich they are much further

away. Just below the mill at Sturry the Stour is from 15 to 20 yards

wide: the banks are 3 or 4 feet above the water: the average depth

is apparently from about 18 inches to 2 feet; and the bottom is sand

mixed with stones. At Fordwich the depth of the water, as seen from the

bridge, is about 5 feet: the banks are 4 or 5 feet above the water; and

the bottom from this point downwards is mud.

5. The eminent geographer, Major Rennell,[3440] believed that Caesar

crossed at the place where ‘the western road intersects the course

of the Stour’; but he gave no reasons for preferring this site to

Fordwich, Sturry, or Thanington.

6. Von Göler[3441] and Guest[3442] maintain that the battle was fought

at or near Sturry; and Heller[3443] appears to agree with them. So

does Roach Smith,[3444] who, at Guest’s request, made ‘a survey of

the vicinity of Grove Ferry’, which survey, I presume, extended as

far up the river as Sturry. ‘There,’ he says, ‘I found the river with

the high bank ... the woods and _oppidum_,’[3445] &c. Napoleon[3446]

argues that the banks at Sturry are so steep that the Roman cavalry

could not have forced a passage without great difficulty, whereas it

would appear from Caesar’s account that they crossed easily; and also

that Sturry is 15, not 12 miles from Deal. The latter objection may be

disposed of at once. Napoleon himself maintains that Caesar’s anchorage

in 54 B.C. was ‘some kilometres’ north of the spot where he had landed

in the preceding year;[3447] and this spot he rightly fixes between

Walmer and Deal. Therefore the place from which Caesar descried the

Britons just before they advanced to the bank of the stream was not

12 miles from Deal, but, as I have shown in a previous article,[3448]

from a point in the neighbourhood of Sandwich. Certainly it would have

been more difficult to force the passage of the Stour at Sturry than of

the Little Stour near Kingston; but, as we have seen, the latter would

practically have presented no obstacle at all. Airy,[3449] who holds

that if the Britons had been posted on the Stour at all, ‘Caesar would

have crossed at the sound ground of Canterbury or above it,’ observes

that ‘the place had been selected by the Britons as a defensive post at

least two days previously, and may therefore be presumed to have had

the qualifications necessary for a defensive post, namely that it could

not be turned, and that enemies could attack it in front only at a

disadvantage’; and, remarking that ‘there can scarcely be a doubt that

Canterbury existed then as an important town’, he adds that ‘of this

there is no mention in Caesar’. But why should Caesar have mentioned

Canterbury? It was not a strategical point: there was nothing to be

gained by attacking it except perhaps a little plunder; and anything

worth plundering would certainly have been removed into the stronghold

which he did attack. ‘The place [on the banks of the river] had been

selected [or, at all events, occupied] as a defensive post’ not two

days but one day previously; and, generally speaking, to select a

defensive post on a river which cannot be turned is impossible.[3450]

The stronghold to which the Britons retreated was probably, as Mr.

George Payne holds,[3451] and as I have shown in my narrative,[3452]

the British _oppidum_ in Bigberry (or Bigbury) woods, about a mile and

a half west of Canterbury, of which traces still exist; and it seems

most likely that the passage of the river took place at some point

between Canterbury and Thanington.

CAESAR’S EARLIER OPERATIONS IN 54 B. C. (_B. G._, V, 9-11)