first encounter with the Britons in 54 B.C. has been interpreted in
several different ways; and yet his narrative is so clear that one
would have thought it impossible to misunderstand it. After describing
the first encounter, he proceeds, ‘Caesar, however, forbade them [the
legionaries] to pursue the fugitives far, partly because he had no
knowledge of the ground, partly because the day was far spent and he
wished to have time for entrenching his camp. On the following morning
he sent a light division of infantry and cavalry, in three columns,
to pursue the fugitives. They had advanced a considerable distance,
the rear-guard being still in sight, when some troopers from Quintus
Atrius came to Caesar with the news that there had been a great storm
on the preceding night, and that almost all the ships had been damaged
and gone ashore.... On receiving this information, Caesar recalled
the legions and cavalry, ordering them to defend themselves as they
marched, and went back himself to the ships.... Although it involved
great trouble and labour, he decided that the best plan would be
to have all the ships hauled up and connected with the camp by one
entrenchment. About ten days were spent in these operations, the
troops not suspending work even in the night.’ (_Sed eos fugientes
longius Caesar prosequi vetuit, et quod loci naturam ignorabat, et
quod magna parte diei consumpta munitioni castrorum tempus relinqui
volebat. Postridie eius diei mane tripertito milites equitesque in
expeditionem misit, ut eos qui fugerant persequerentur. His aliquantum
itineris progressis, cum iam extremi essent in prospectu, equites a
Q. Atrio ad Caesarem venerunt, qui nuntiarent superiore nocte maxima
coorta tempestate prope omnes naves adflictas atque in litus eiectas
esse.... His rebus cognitis Caesar legiones equitatumque revocari atque
in itinere resistere iubet, ipse ad naves revertitur ... Ipse, etsi
res erat multae operae ac laboris, tamen commodissimum esse statuit
omnes naves subduci et cum castris una munitione coniungi. In his rebus
circiter dies X consumit ne nocturnis quidem temporibus ad laborem
militum intermissis._[3453])
The camp for the construction of which Caesar wished to allow time was
of course quite distinct from the one for which, on the previous day,
he had selected a site near his landing-place,[3454] and was to be in
the neighbourhood of the place where he had beaten the enemy, that is
to say, twelve Roman miles or more from the sea.[3455] Next morning he
dispatched three flying columns in pursuit of the fugitives; and his
rear-guard was just visible when the messengers arrived with the news
of the shipwreck. He sent a galloper to recall the pursuing columns;
and, as their retreat would naturally encourage the fugitives to rally
and return to the attack, they were to offer the best resistance they
could as they marched back to the coast.
C. Schneider[3456] misunderstands the passage as far as
misunderstanding is possible. He holds that _cum iam extremi essent
in prospectu_ means ‘when the rear _of the enemy_ was just in sight’.
But Caesar was not with any of the three pursuing columns, for he
tells us that he sent them in pursuit: therefore, if Schneider were
right, we should be forced to believe that he learned afterwards
that the enemy’s rear had been just in sight. But why resort to this
fanciful explanation, seeing that Caesar could by no possibility have
ascertained that the rear of the fugitives was just visible to his
troops at the very moment when he himself, separated from the troops,
received the news of the shipwreck; and, further, that _extremi_ must
grammatically refer to _his_, that is to say, the pursuing columns? It
has been objected that if _extremi_ meant the Roman rear-guard, _iam_
would not have its proper meaning, ‘already’ (ἤδη). But _iam_ of course
often means ‘by this time’, or ‘at length’ (nearly _tandem_). In the
passage in question its sense may, I think, be illustrated by a clause
in _B. G._, vii, 83, § 7,--_cum iam meridies adpropinquare videretur_
(‘at length when it was evidently near noon’). Caesar meant to say that
his pursuing columns had advanced so far that by the time when the
news of the shipwreck reached him the rear-guard only was in sight.
Again, Schneider takes the words _in itinere resistere iubet_ to mean
that Caesar ordered his troops ‘to stop in their march and halt where
they were’. But, as Long[3457] points out, ‘if this is so, he returned
to his ships himself (“ipse”), leaving his men in the country doing
nothing for ten days. But he tells us that his soldiers were employed
in making his “munitio”, and therefore they must have come back to the
camp.’
So far Long is quite right; but he too makes a great mistake. He
actually believes[3458] that the words _munitioni castrorum tempus
relinqui volebat_ (‘he wished to leave time for entrenching his camp’)
refer to the camp near the seashore, for which he had selected a site
immediately after the disembarkation. In other words, he believes that
Caesar compelled his troops, who had already made a night-march of
twelve miles, beaten the enemy on the banks of the Stour, stormed the
stronghold to which the beaten enemy had retreated, and then pursued
the fugitives for some distance, to march back all the way to the
camp by the seashore, entrench it, and next morning march back again
twelve miles or more into the interior, and then start in pursuit of
the fugitives! The legionaries were hardy fellows; but if they did all
this, they must have been as breathless as the reader will be when
he has got to the end of the preceding sentence. And what had the
fugitives been about? If Long is right, they must have got such a start
that to pursue them would have been a wild-goose chase indeed. Needless
to say, what Caesar meant was simply this:--when the Britons had been
dislodged from their stronghold, he would not allow his troops to
pursue them far because he wished to leave time for the construction of
the temporary camp in which he intended to pass the night.
Von Göler[3459] needlessly quarrels with the text of the
_Commentaries_, and makes matters worse by an absurd emendation. ‘The
reading _legiones equitatumque revocari atque in itinere resistere
iubet_ (_B. G._, v, 11, § 1),’ he says, ‘is obviously corrupt.
_Atque_ requires that the following clause should involve a climax’
(_Steigerung_). But so it does:--Caesar ‘orders the legions and
cavalry to be recalled, and [not only to come back but also] to defend
themselves upon the march’. In this literal translation a climax is as
evident as in the emendation, to be quoted presently, which von Göler
offers; and any one who is not familiar with the _Commentaries_ will
find in Meusel’s _Lexicon Caesarianum_ abundant evidence that _atque_
in the passage which von Göler brands as corrupt is in accord with
Caesar’s _usus loquendi_.
‘As finally,’ continues von Göler, ‘one may conclude with certainty
from the later substance of the narrative that all the legions returned
to the shore, but the necessary express mention of the march thither is
nowhere to be found in the _Commentaries_, I believe that the passage
originally ran as follows:--_legiones equitatumque revocari atque
in itinere persistere iubet ad naves, ipse revertitur_.’ If we may
‘conclude with certainty’ that ‘the legions returned’, why should the
‘express mention’ of their return be necessary? Heller[3460] has taken
the trouble to show that the text is above suspicion.
CAESAR’S SECOND COMBAT WITH THE BRITONS IN 54 B. C.
There is a passage in Caesar’s account of his second combat with
the Britons in 54 B.C. which has greatly exercised the minds of the
commentators; and editors have put upon it an interpretation which
soldiers will not accept. The passage runs as follows:--‘Throughout
this peculiar combat, which was fought in full view of every one and
actually in front of the camp, it was clear that our infantry, owing
to the weight of their armour, were ill fitted to engage an enemy of
this kind; for they could not pursue him when he retreated, and they
dared not abandon their regular formation: it was clear too that the
cavalry fought at great risk, because the enemy generally fell back
on purpose, and, after drawing our men a little distance away from
the legions, leaped down from their chariots and fought on foot with
the odds in their favour. [On the other hand, the mode in which their
cavalry fought exposed the Romans, alike in retreat and in pursuit,
to an exactly similar danger.[3461]]’ (_Toto hoc in qenere pugnae cum
sub oculis omnium ac pro castris dimicaretur, intellectum est nostros
propter gravitatem armorum, quod neque insequi cedentes possent neque
ab signis discedere auderent, minus aptos esse ad huius generis hostem,
equites autem magno cum periculo proelio dimicare, propterea quod
illi etiam consulto plerumque cederent et, cum paulum ab legionibus
nostros removissent, ex essedis desilirent et pedibus dispari proelio
contenderent._ [_Equestris autem proelii ratio et cedentibus et
insequentibus par atque idem periculum inferebat_[3462]])_._ It is the
last sentence which has caused all the trouble.
1. ‘After describing the difficulties of the infantry,’ says
Long,[3463] ‘Caesar explains the danger to which the cavalry was
exposed, when they pursued the “essedarii”, for the Britanni quitted
their “esseda” and fought on foot among the Roman “equites”.... This
was an unequal kind of fighting (“dispar proelium”) for the Roman
“equites”. Caesar adds, that on the other hand (“autem”) the British
mode of fighting from the “esseda” (“equestris proelii ratio”) was
equally dangerous to his cavalry and legions in the pursuit and the
retreat. This is Schneider’s explanation, and I believe that it is
right. The Britanni had no cavalry: they had only “essedarii”, to
whom Caesar (iv, 33) applies the term “perequitant”. It follows that
“equites hostium essedariique” (c. 15) are no more than the “essedarii”
(iv, 24) [in other words that Caesar, who was not a prolix writer, used
four words when one would have sufficed.] In iv, 34, however, Caesar
says, “peditatus equitatusque.”’ Yes, he does; and the reader will
please note the significance of this admission.
The assumption upon which Long’s explanation rests, namely, that ‘the
Britanni had no cavalry’, is unsupported by any evidence, and is wholly
inadmissible. Caesar says that in his first campaign in Britain a party
of Roman foragers were surrounded by _equitatu atque essedis_.[3464] If
these words do not mean ‘cavalry _and_ chariots’, what do they mean?
Warriors on horseback are depicted on ancient British coins;[3465] and
the Britons certainly had cavalry as well as chariots in A.D. 61[3466]
and in the time of Agricola.[3467] Besides, as von Göler points
out,[3468] the charioteers could not have fought with effect unless
they had been supported by cavalry. And when Long says that, according
to Caesar, ‘the British mode of fighting from the “esseda” ... was
equally dangerous to his cavalry and legions in the pursuit and the
retreat,’ his explanation refutes itself. Caesar himself says that the
legions could not pursue the charioteers; and, on the other hand, it is
evident that they were not pursued by the charioteers.
2. According to von Göler,[3469] ‘by _cedentibus et insequentibus_
the chariot-fighters only can be meant’ (_Unter den_ ‘cedentibus et
insequentibus’ _können nur die Wagenstreiter verstanden werden_); and,
placing a comma after _par_, he translates the passage thus:--‘The mode
of fighting of the [British] cavalry corresponded with that of their
charioteers, whether they retreated or pursued, and brought the Roman
cavalry into precisely the same danger’ (_Der Gefechtsmechanismus der_
[_britischen_] _Reiterei war aber der Fechtweise ihrer Wagenstreiter,
ob sie wichen oder verfolgten, entsprechend_ [par] _und brachte die
römische Reiterei gerade in jenes nachtheilige Verhältniss_[3470]). But
no Latin scholar would admit that a comma could be placed after _par_,
which would of course make it necessary to supply the word _erat_.
3. According to Dittenberger-Kraner,[3471] the words _equestris autem
proelii ratio_, if they are genuine, can only mean, in opposition to
_ex essedis ... contenderent_, the mode of fighting of the charioteers,
which, while it was dangerous to the Romans when they pursued, was no
less dangerous to them when they retreated. I confess that I cannot
understand this comment.
4. Doberenz-Dinter[3472] also insist upon the opposition between
_equestris autem proelii ratio_ and _ex essedis ... contenderent_, and
maintain that the former refers to ‘a regular cavalry combat (on the
part of the Romans)’,--_ein regelrechtes Reitertreffen (von Seiten der
Römer)_. Now in the passage which ends with the words _ex essedis ...
contenderent_ Caesar describes a combat between the Roman cavalry and
the British charioteers, who were supported by cavalry. Therefore the
editors (if I have succeeded in grasping their meaning) suppose that
the ‘regular cavalry combat’ to which they allude was fought between
the Roman cavalry and the British cavalry alone. This must, I think,
be what they intend to convey; for, according to Mr. Peskett,[3473]
who may have followed them, ‘Caesar means that when the British and
Roman cavalry were engaged, the danger was equalized [_equestris autem
proelii ratio et cedentibus et insequentibus par atque idem periculum
inferebat_], whereas when they used chariots the Britons were at an
advantage.’ But if Caesar simply meant that the British cavalry and the
Roman in the (hypothetical) ‘regular cavalry combat’ were each exposed
to the same danger, what is the point of the words _et cedentibus et
insequentibus_? Surely retreating cavalry are in greater danger than
the cavalry which has forced them to retreat and is pursuing them! I do
not see how Mr. Peskett’s explanation can be got out of the Latin. And
who will believe that the Britons would have used their cavalry alone
when, by associating them with chariots, they ‘were at an advantage’?
5. It might possibly be suggested that the words _equestris ...
inferebat_ refer to a cavalry combat between the Romans and the
Britons, distinct from the combat between Roman cavalry and the
British charioteers, in which the British cavalry, like that of the
Germans,[3474] were associated with light infantry. But there is no
evidence that the Britons had cavalry of this kind; and, as we have
seen, it is certain that their cavalry acted in support of their
charioteers.
6. Köchly and Rüstow[3475] offer the following explanation:--‘As the
enemy were also supported by their cavalry, our men [the Romans] were
exposed to the same danger, whether they advanced or retreated’ (_Da
aber der Feind auch die Unterstützung seiner Reiterei hatte, so war
für die unsrige die Gefahr immer dieselbe, mochte sie vorgehen oder
zurückgehen_).
7. Napoleon the Third[3476] explains the matter thus:--‘Un désavantage
plus grand encore existait pour les cavaliers. Les Bretons, par une
fuite simulée, les attiraient loin des légions, et alors, sautant à bas
de leurs chars, engageaient à pied une lutte inégale; car, toujours
soutenus par leur cavalerie, ils étaient aussi dangereux dans l’attaque
que dans la défense.’ These words, which appear to be virtually
identical in sense with those of Köchly and Rüstow, undoubtedly give
an accurate account of what took place. Apparently Köchly, Rüstow, and
Napoleon do not take _par atque idem periculum_ as meaning ‘an exactly
similar danger’ (to that which Caesar described in the preceding
sentence, _Toto hoc ... contenderent_), but as meaning that the danger
which beset the Romans was the same whether they pursued or retreated.
Now the Roman infantry, as Caesar says, did not pursue; obviously
therefore _et cedentibus et insequentibus_ can only refer to the Roman
cavalry. I suppose then that what Köchly, Rüstow, and Napoleon meant
was this:--if the Roman cavalry pursued the Britons, they were attacked
by the charioteers, who jumped off their cars and fought as infantry:
as soon as they retreated they were pursued by the British cavalry,
and if they turned to bay the charioteers had time to mount their cars
again, come up, and engage them anew. If this was what Caesar meant by
_equestris ... inferebat_, his language was not lucid.
The words _equestris proelii ratio_, if they were really written by
Caesar, must refer either to a combat between the Roman and the British
cavalry or to a combat between the Roman cavalry and the combined
British charioteers and cavalry. There is, as we have seen, no reason
to suppose that a purely cavalry combat took place; and if it did, the
idea that the Roman cavalry was as much in danger when it pursued as
when it retreated is absurd. If we accept the other alternative, the
meaning of the passage must be either (as Köchly, Rüstow, and Napoleon
explain) ‘_On the other hand_, the mode in which the British _cavalry_
fought (in co-operation with the charioteers) exposed the Romans,
alike in retreat and in pursuit, to exactly the same danger’; or ‘_In
fact_ the nature of the combat of horse [that is to say, the combat
between the Roman cavalry and the combined British charioteers and
cavalry] exposed the Romans’, &c. In the former case _autem_ would be
an adversative, in the latter merely a connecting particle. The passage
is not in the _editio princeps_ of the _Commentaries_, and is bracketed
in Meusel’s edition; and perhaps it is an interpolation.
THE COMBAT BETWEEN TREBONIUS AND THE BRITONS
‘At midday Caesar having sent three legions and all his cavalry on a
foraging expedition under one of his generals, Gaius Trebonius, they
[the enemy] suddenly swooped down from all points on the foragers, not
hesitating to attack the ordered ranks of the legions’ (_Sed meridie
cum Caesar pabulandi causa tres legiones atque omnem equitatum cum
C. Trebonio legato misisset, repente ex omnibus partibus_ [hostes]
_ad pabulatores advolaverunt, sic uti ab signis legionibusque non
absisterent_[3477]). To a plain man these words are perfectly
intelligible; and no military commentator, so far as I know, has ever
found any difficulty in them: but Kraner[3478] must needs rewrite
the last clause. This is what he makes of it:--_sicubi ab signis
legionibusque absisterent_. So, according to Kraner, the enemy attacked
the foragers at every point where they were separated from the legions.
The unpractical fellow fails to perceive that, as the foragers could
not forage while they were in their ranks, there was no point where
they were not separated from the legions. The legions, or rather a
due proportion of the cohorts which composed them, were there to
protect the foragers; and of course what Caesar means is that the
enemy, flushed with their easy success in driving off the foragers and
compelling them to rejoin their respective cohorts, had the temerity to
attack the cohorts themselves.
WHERE DID CAESAR CROSS THE THAMES?
The only indications which Caesar gives as to the place where he
crossed the Thames are these. At an early stage of his narrative he
tells us that ‘the chief command and the general direction of the
campaign had been entrusted by common consent to Cassivellaunus,
whose territories are separated from those of the maritime tribes
by a river called the Thames, about eighty miles [or seventy-three
English miles] from the sea’ (_summa imperii bellique administrandi
communi consilio permissa Cassivellauno, cuius fines a maritimis
civitatibus flumen dividit, quod appellatur Tamesis, a mari circiter
milia passuum LXXX_[3479]). In a later chapter he describes his
passage of the river. ‘Having ascertained the enemy’s plans, Caesar
led his army to the Thames, into the territories of Cassivellaunus.
The river can only be forded at one spot, and there with difficulty.
On reaching this place, he observed that the enemy were drawn up in
great force near the opposite bank of the river. The bank was fenced
by sharp stakes planted along its edge; and similar stakes were fixed
under water, and concealed by the river. Having learned these facts
from prisoners and deserters, Caesar sent his cavalry on in front, and
ordered the legions to follow them speedily; but the men advanced with
such swiftness and dash, though they only had their heads above water,
that the enemy, unable to withstand the combined onset of infantry
and cavalry, quitted the bank and fled.’ (_Caesar, cognito consilio
eorum, ad flumen Tamesim in fines Cassivellauni exercitum duxit; quod
flumen uno omnino loco pedibus, atque hoc aegre, transiri potest. Eo
cum venisset, animadvertit ad alteram fluminis ripam magnas esse copias
hostium instructas. Ripa autem erat acutis sudibus praefixisque munita,
eiusdemque generis sub aqua defixae sudes flumine tegebantur. Eis rebus
cognitis a captivis perfugisque, Caesar praemisso equitatu confestim
legiones subsequi iussit. Sed ea celeritate atque eo impetu milites
ierunt, cum capite solo ex aqua extarent, ut hostes impetum legionum
atque equitum sustinere non possent ripasque dimitterent ac se fugae
mandarent_).[3480]
When Caesar says that the Thames was only fordable at one spot, he
evidently means that there was only one ford available for his purpose,
that is to say, only one by which he could cross the river into the
territories of Cassivellaunus. When he says that these territories
were separated from those of the maritime tribes by the Thames, about
80 miles from the sea, he means, I suppose, that it was 80 miles from
the place where he landed to the eastern frontier of Cassivellaunus;
but, according to some commentators, he reckoned the distance from
the place where he landed to the point at which he crossed the river.
Heller[3481] insists that his statement of the distance was based upon
hearsay: I am inclined to believe that it was a rough estimate based
upon the number of the marches which he made.
1. The view which has gained most adherents is that Caesar crossed the
Thames at ‘Coway Stakes’, about a furlong west of Walton Bridge. It has
been said that this view is based upon a ‘tradition which has certainly
prevailed for many ages’;[3482] but I can find no evidence that the
tradition existed before the publication of Camden’s _Britannia_;
and I believe that it was created by him. Camden[3483] referred, in
support of his conjecture, to a well-known passage in Bede;[3484]
but Bede did not mention Coway Stakes at all. He merely said that,
at the point of the river where the enemy had planted their stakes,
the stakes were still to be seen, and that they were as thick as a
man’s thigh and cased with lead. S. Gale[3485] affirms, in support
of Camden’s view, that there is ‘a large Roman encampment ... about
a mile and a half distant from the ford’. This camp, which is on St.
George’s Hill, is really about two miles and three-quarters[3486] from
the place where the ford is assumed to have been. It is not Roman, but
British; but even if it were Roman, the fact would throw no light upon
the question which we are discussing unless the camp could be proved
to have been constructed by Caesar. Daines Barrington, an antiquary of
the eighteenth century, made an attempt, which, at first sight, would
appear completely successful, to demolish Camden’s theory.[3487] A
fisherman of Shepperton, he tells us, rowed him across the river in the
line along which the stakes had been planted. He illustrated his story
by a sketch-plan, which shows that the stakes were at right angles with
the river-banks; and, he argues, ‘such stakes could not possibly have
obstructed the passage of an army.’ In reply it has been asserted that
‘the line of the ford was not transversely straight across the stream,
but formed a curve nearly in a semi-circle, so that ... the stakes
must have twice intercepted the passage’;[3488] but who will believe
that Caesar would have attempted the passage of the river, which, as
he tells us, was barely practicable, by a ford so intricate as this? A
more effective answer might be based upon the fact, attested by Lord
Wolseley,[3489] that fords ‘almost always run diagonally across the
river’: if the ford by which Caesar crossed was no exception, stakes
planted in the direction indicated by Barrington would obviously have
obstructed the passage. Dr. Guest has made another and most ingenious
attempt to remove the difficulty.[3490] He believes that the stakes
which impeded Caesar’s advance had not been planted for the purpose
of stopping him, but had existed for many years. ‘I think,’ he says,
‘the stakes formed part of what may be called a fortified ford, and
were distributed so as to stop all transit ... save along a narrow
passage, which would bring the passenger directly under the command
of the watch, stationed on the northern bank to ... receive the toll.
The shallow at Coway was probably of considerable extent, and through
its whole length must have extended the line of stakes which Caesar
observed on the northern bank. But there must also have been two other
lines of stakes across the river to ... define the passage.’[3491]
The stakes to which Barrington referred were, in Guest’s opinion,
the remains of these. ‘The remaining portion,’ he continues, ‘of
the shallow was, no doubt, covered with the short stakes that were
“concealed by the river” ... that such was really the disposition of
the stakes may, I think, be gathered, not only from the reports of the
fishermen, but also from Caesar’s narrative. When he saw the Britons
ranged along the northern bank with the stakes in front of them, he
ordered the cavalry to pass the river, and the legions to follow them.
How could either cavalry or infantry cross the river if the stakes
were ranged as our antiquaries assume them to have been? ... Besides,
what were the Britons doing while the Roman soldiers were removing the
stakes? ... Caesar says not a word about taking the Britons in flank,
nor about removing the stakes.’[3492]
It may, perhaps, be thought that Guest has succeeded in showing that
the particular objection which Barrington raised against Camden’s
theory is not necessarily insuperable. If, however, the stakes to which
Barrington referred were the remains of those which had served, on
Guest’s theory, to ‘define the passage’, the ford in question was an
exception to the rule that fords ‘almost always run diagonally across
the river’. Again, Guest argues that because ‘Caesar says not a word
about ... removing the stakes’, therefore the Romans did not remove
them. But it is needless to insist that they must have removed them,
unless at the particular part of the ‘shallow’ by which they crossed
there were none to remove. Guest, therefore, is obliged to make the
incredible assumption that the Britons, having left intact the stakes
which ‘defined the passage’, and having thus pointed out to the Romans
the best way of crossing the river, were so obliging as to plant no
stakes to bar this passage either in the bed of the river or on the
bank, while they planted them everywhere else.
Guest undertakes to prove not only that Coway Stakes may, but that
it must have been the spot at which Caesar crossed the Thames. ‘From
the Coway Stakes,’ he says, ‘the ground rises gradually for about
three miles, and then dips almost precipitously into the valley of
the Wey. On the top of the hill [St. George’s Hill] is an ancient
British stronghold which commands the whole valley, and as the valley
certainly belonged to the Atrebates, I infer that ... this people
constructed the fortress. Aubrey tells us that “a trench” went from
this fortress to Walton, and gave that village its name. A dyke still
runs from the ramparts towards Walton. I have traced it for more than
one-third of the distance, and I have no doubt that it once reached the
village ... _The ditch is towards the river_. For what purpose could
this dyke have been made? The only object for which I can conceive
it was made, was to bar progress along the trackway which led from
the Coway Stakes eastward to the maritime states. If such were its
object, we have another strong proof that the great means of access
to the country of Cassivellaunus was at the spot where Camden placed
it.’[3493] Nor is this all. ‘From Hurleyford,’ says Guest, ‘to the sea,
a distance of nearly 100 miles, taking into account the windings of
the river, there is but one place on the banks of the Thames bearing
a name which indicates a ford over it.[3494] This solitary place is
Halliford, at the Coway Stakes. Caesar says there was but one ford on
the Thames--meaning, of course, the lower Thames, with which alone he
was acquainted, and we now have but one place on its banks, the name of
which points to the existence of a ford. Our topography is in perfect
agreement with his statement; and, to my mind, this coincidence is
almost decisive of the question.’[3495] We shall see.
2. Colonel Stoffel, by whose advice Napoleon was mainly guided in
his attempts to solve the topographical problems presented by the
_Commentaries_, was informed by the Thames boatmen whom he consulted
that between Shepperton and London there were eight or nine fords,
the most favourable of which was at Sunbury; and here accordingly the
Emperor concluded that Caesar had crossed the river. Still he (or the
colonel) was sagacious enough to doubt. ‘La seule chose,’ he wrote,
‘qui nous paraisse evidente, c’est que l’armee romaine n’a point passe
en aval de Teddington.’[3496]
But even this conclusion rested upon a rotten foundation. The Emperor,
as Guest[3497] observes, ‘reasons from the present to the past without
taking any note of the changes that have occurred during 2,000 years.
In the time of Caesar the river ran ... to the sea uninterruptedly.
_Now_, from Teddington westward it is a canal, crossed every two or
three miles by weirs and locks ... as the lock [at Teddington] did not
exist in the time of Caesar, any inference drawn from the fact that
the tide now ends there, is beside the question.’ And, to quote Guest
again, ‘the shallow at Sunbury is a mere consequence of Sunbury weir.
Remove the weir, and Caesar’s ford at Sunbury would be swept away in a
twelvemonth by the natural scour of the river.’ Guest[3498] thought it
probable that ‘when the river was in its natural state, spring-tides
ran up the river eight or nine miles further [than they do now]--in
other words, to Coway: and that the deposit which they now leave at
Teddington then contributed to form the shallow over which Caesar
passed.’ Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell, on the other hand, has given reasons
for believing that ‘the estuary did not reach so far west as at the
present day’.[3499]
3. Von Goler[3500] peremptorily decides that the ford was ‘undoubtedly
at Kingston’. An English engineer, he tells us, informed him that the
depth of the water there was only from 3½ to 4½ feet; and he remarks
further that Kingston is just 80 Roman miles from the sea. If the
engineer whom he consulted could have informed him that the depth of
the water at Kingston was the same in 54 B.C. as at the time when he
sounded it, his information would have been more valuable. Assuming
that the tide in Caesar’s time, as now, did not flow beyond Teddington,
W. H. Black may have been justified in saying that Kingston ‘presents
geographically the most favourable place for crossing the Thames’ to
an invader coming from the neighbourhood of Deal.[3501] But we must
not assume that Caesar crossed the Thames at the place which was
‘geographically the most favourable’: he could not pick and choose; he
had to cross where there was a ford, and there was only one.
It has been shown that the Thames has, at various times and at
certain states of the tide, been fordable at Westminster,[3502] at
Chelsea,[3503] at Old Brentford,[3504] and at Petersham;[3505] and the
claims of these places have been advocated by zealous antiquaries: but,
with one exception, which I shall notice presently, I do not recommend
students of the _Commentaries_ to read what they have written. As Guest
points out, ‘the name of Brentford had no reference to a ford over the
Thames; it certainly designated the ford over the Brent by which the
Roman road from London to Staines crossed the latter river.’[3506]
Moreover, the fact that the Thames has occasionally been crossed on
foot at various points near London proves nothing: these cases, as
Guest truly says, were exceptional, and were recorded because they
were exceptional; ‘Caesar,’ he concludes, ‘knew the river in its
natural state, and had ... adequate means of acquiring knowledge ... he
tells us distinctly that the Thames was passable on foot only in one
place.’[3507]
The claims of Brentford have, however, recently been advocated by Mr.
Montagu Sharpe in a pamphlet which contains some real evidence. From
information supplied by Messrs. W. S. Bunting and W. Benell of the
Thames Conservancy, and by Conservancy Inspector G. J. Rough, he shows
that a line of stakes, of which some still remain ‘for about 400 yards
below Isleworth Ferry,’ extended thirty years ago for about a mile up
the river from ‘Old England’, opposite the mouth of the Brent; and that
‘no other ancient stakes have been discovered in the lower river during
dredging operations’.[3508]
Except Coway Stakes and Brentford, there is no spot in the Thames
valley for the identification of which with the scene of Caesar’s
exploit a shred of real argument has been advanced. Guest’s arguments
are of very unequal value; but the one which he founds upon the name
‘Halliford’ is worth considering, though it would be going too far to
say that it is ‘almost decisive of the question’. The claim which Mr.
Sharpe makes for his own discovery rests upon somewhat better grounds.
[See Addenda, p. 742.]
CAESAR’S PASSAGE OF THE THAMES
The excessively laconic chapter in which Caesar describes how he
crossed the Thames in the face of a British force seems at first sight
hard to explain. He tells us that ‘the river can only be forded at
one spot, and there with difficulty’. ‘On reaching this place,’ he
continues, ‘he observed that the enemy were drawn up in great force
near the opposite bank of the river. The bank was fenced by sharp
stakes planted along its edge; and similar stakes were fixed under
water and concealed by the river. Having learned these facts from
prisoners and deserters, Caesar sent his cavalry on in front, and
ordered the legions to follow them speedily; but the men advanced
with such swiftness and dash, though they only had their heads above
water, that the enemy, unable to withstand the combined onset of
infantry and cavalry, quitted the bank and fled’ (_quod flumen uno
omnino loco pedibus, atque hoc aegre, transiri potest. Eo cum venisset,
animadvertit ad alteram fluminis ripam magnas esse copias hostium
instructas. Ripa autem erat acutis sudibus praefixisque munita,
eiusdemque generis sub aqua defixae sudes flumine tegebantur. His rebus
cognitis a captivis perfugisque Caesar praemisso equitatu confestim
legiones subsequi iussit. Sed ea celeritate atque eo impetu milites
ierunt, cum capite solo ex aqua extarent, ut hostes impetum legionum
atque equitum sustinere non possent ripasque dimitterent ac se fugae
mandarent_).[3509]
Von Göler[3510] explains the passage as follows:--‘he first sent his
cavalry against the enemy, making them swim across the adjacent part
of the river, which, though deeper, was not barricaded, and by their
attack so effectually protected the passage of the infantry, which
was begun immediately afterwards, that they gained time to remove
the stakes’; and in a note[3511] he says, ‘Only in this way can the
expression _praemisso equitatu confestim legiones subsequi iussit_ be
understood, for the cavalry could by no possibility swim across or
disregard the stakes or the palisade.’ This explanation, as far as it
goes, is substantially identical with that of Turpin de Crissé,[3512]
who supposes, further, that while part of the Roman infantry cut down
the stakes in the river, they were supported by their comrades in the
rear, who discharged missiles against the enemy, and, he might have
added, by the auxiliary troops,--slingers and archers. Napoleon the
Third[3513] hardly differs from his predecessors in suggesting that
the cavalry were sent ‘_à une certaine distance en amont ou en aval_’.
Mr. A. G. Peskett[3514] objects to Napoleon’s explanation on the ground
that it involves a mistranslation of the word _praemittit_, which, he
insists, ‘must mean that Caesar sent the cavalry across the river,
ordering the infantry to follow them.’ Mr. Peskett evidently means
that the infantry crossed directly in the rear of the cavalry. But, as
any soldier would tell Mr. Peskett, the operation which he supposes
would have been absolutely impossible; and, moreover, his rigidly
literal interpretation of the word _praemisso_, which is not shared
by that competent Caesarian scholar, C. Schneider, is irreconcilable
with the word _sed_, which opens the next sentence. This word, as
Schneider[3515] remarks, is intended to show that the infantry, in
their ardour, outvied the cavalry, and crossed the river before them.
The use of the word _praemisso_ may surely be defended if the cavalry
were sent into the water before the infantry. Similarly it will be
evident to any one who carefully reads the last two sentences in the
twenty-fifth chapter of Caesar’s Fourth Book[3516] that the word
_subsecuti_ cannot there mean ‘following directly in rear’. For in that
case ‘the nearest ships’ (_proximis navibus_), the troops in which
jumped into the sea and followed (_subsecuti_) their comrades, would
have been drawn up in a second line _behind_ the other ships. If so,
being in deeper water, they evidently could not have been run aground;
and the soldiers who descended from them would have been drowned.
THE SITE OF CASSIVELLAUNUS’S STRONGHOLD
The indications which Caesar gives as to the geographical position
of the stronghold of Cassivellaunus are of the vaguest kind. After
describing his passage from the southern to the northern bank of the
Thames, which brought him into the territory of Cassivellaunus, he
gives the following account of his operations:--
‘Cassivellaunus, abandoning, as we have remarked above,[3517] all
thoughts of regular combat, disbanded all his forces, except some four
thousand charioteers, watched our line of march, and, moving a little
away from the track, concealed himself in impenetrable wooded spots,
and removed the cattle and inhabitants from the open country into the
woods in those districts through which he had learned that we intended
to march. Whenever our cavalry made a bold dash into the country to
plunder and devastate, he sent his charioteers out of the woods (for
he was familiar with every track and path), engaged our cavalry to
their great peril, and by the terror which he thus inspired prevented
them from moving far afield. Caesar had now no choice but to forbid
them to move out of touch with the column of infantry, and, by ravaging
the country and burning villages, to injure the enemy as far as the
legionaries’ powers of endurance would allow.
‘Meanwhile the Trinovantes--about the strongest tribe in that part of
the country--sent envoys to Caesar, promising to surrender and obey his
commands. Mandubracius, a young chief of this tribe, whose father had
been their king and had been put to death by Cassivellaunus, but who
had saved his own life by flight, had gone to the Continent to join
Caesar, and thrown himself upon his protection. The Trinovantes begged
Caesar to protect Mandubracius from harm at the hands of Cassivellaunus
and to send him to rule over his own people with full powers. Caesar
sent Mandubracius, but ordered them to furnish forty hostages and grain
for his army. They promptly obeyed his commands, sending hostages to
the number required and also the grain.
‘As the Trinovantes had been granted protection and immunity from
all injury on the part of the soldiers, the Cenimagni, Segontiaci,
Ancalites, Bibroci, and Cassi sent embassies to Caesar and surrendered.
He learned from the envoys that the stronghold of Cassivellaunus,
which was protected by woods and marshes, was not far off, and that
a considerable number of men and of cattle had assembled in it. The
Britons apply the name of stronghold to any woodland spot, difficult
of access and fortified with a rampart and trench, to which they are
in the habit of resorting in order to escape a hostile raid. Caesar
marched to the spot indicated with his legions, and found that the
place was of great natural strength and well fortified: nevertheless he
proceeded to assault it on two sides. The enemy stood their ground a
short time, but could not sustain the onset of our infantry, and fled
precipitately from another part of the stronghold.’ (_Cassivellaunus,
ut supra demonstravimus, omni deposita spe contentionis, dimissis
amplioribus copiis, milibus circiter IIII essedariorum relictis,
itinera nostra servabat paulumque ex via excedebat locisque impeditis
ac silvestribus sese occultabat, atque iis regionibus quibus nos iter
facturos cognoverat pecora atque homines ex agris in silvas compellebat
et, cum equitatus noster liberius praedandi vastandique causa se in
agros eiecerat, omnibus viis notis semitisque essedarios ex silvis
emittebat et magno cum periculo nostrorum equitum cum iis confligebat
atque hoc metu latius vagari prohibebat. Relinquebatur ut neque longius
ab agmine legionum discedi Caesar pateretur, et tantum agris vastandis
incendiisque faciendis hostibus noceretur quantum labore atque itinere
legionarii milites efficere poterant._
_Interim Trinovantes, prope firmissima earum regionum civitas, ex qua
Mandubracius adulescens Caesaris fidem secutus ad eum in continentem_
[Galliam] _venerat, cuius pater in ea civitate regnum obtinuerat
interfectusque erat a Cassivellauno, ipse fuga mortem vitaverat,
legatos ad Caesarem mittunt pollicenturque sese ei dedituros atque
imperata facturos: petunt ut Mandubracium ab iniuria Cassivellauni
defendat atque in civitatem mittat qui praesit imperiumque obtineat.
Iis Caesar imperat obsides XL frumentumque exercitui, Mandubraciumque
ad eos mittit. Illi imperata celeriter fecerunt, obsides ad numerum
frumentumque miserunt._
_Trinovantibus defensis atque ab omni militum iniuria prohibitis,
Centimagni, Segtontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci, Cassi legationibus missis
sese Caesari dedunt. Ab iis cognoscit non longe ex eo loco oppidum
Cassivellaumi abesse silvis paludibusque munitum, quo satis magnus
hominum pecorisque numerus convenerit. Oppidum autem Britanni vocant,
cum silvas impeditas vallo atque fossa munierunt, quo incursionis
hostium vitandae causa convenire consuerunt. Eo proficiscitur cum
legionibus; locum reperit egregi natura atque opere munitum; tamen
hunc duabus ex partibus oppugnare contedit. Hostes paulisper morati
militum nostrorum impetum non tulerunt seseque alia ex parte oppidi
eiecerunt._[3518])
1. Many commentators have identified the stronghold with Verulam, or
Verulamium, which was situated immediately west of St. Albans.[3519]
The arguments which can be adduced in support of this view are that
marshes might have been formed by the river Ver; that Verulamium,
under Tasciovanus, who began to reign not later than 30 B.C., was the
chief town of Catuvellauni; and that the territory of the Catuvellauni
belonged to Cassivellaunus.
2. Others point to Cassiobury in Hertfordshire.[3520] Cassiobury, they
argue, evidently preserves the name of the Cassi,[3521] who were as
evidently subject to Cassivellaunus.
3. Von Göler[3522] remarks that, ‘judging from the configuration and
nature of the terrain,’ the _oppidium_ ‘may be the hill lying on the
south-western side of Wendover’. May be, or may be not; for Caesar’s
vague description of ‘the configuration and nature of the terrain’
would apply to other sites as well.
4. The most interesting theory is that of T. Lewin,[3523] who
maintains that the _oppidium_ was no other that London, that is to
say, the settlement which many writers believe to have existed long
before the Roman conquest, in the neighbourhood of Ludgate Hill. As
Cassivellaunus, he argues, had conquered the Trinovantes,[3524] ‘whose
western border was the Lea,’ we may assume that his dominions extended
westward from that river, and comprised Middlesex and Hertford. As
Caesar says that he prohibited his soldiers from plundering the
Trinovantes, it is clear that, after crossing the Thames, he marched
into Essex. There he learned that the _oppidum_ of Cassivellaunus was
not far off; and ‘this situation answers to London’. Moreover British
London, which was situated on the rising ground between Ludgate and
Dowgate, and protected on the south by the marshes of the Thames, on
the west by the marshes of the river Flete, and on the east by the
marshes of the river Wallbrook, was just such a stronghold as Caesar
described.
Who would not accept such an attractive theory if he could only give
rein to his imagination? But unhappily the very existence, in 54 B.C.,
of British London is matter of inference and conjecture, however
reasonable.[3525] And is it reasonable to assume that if the stronghold
which Caesar captured had been situated on the banks of the Thames he
would have neglected to mention the fact?
5. W. H. Black[3526] argues that the _oppidum_ was most probably
somewhere in ‘the woody lands about Pinner, Harrow, and Cashiobury
Park.’
6. The Reverend H. Jenkins[3527] maintains that it was in Essex; for,
he argues, in order to fulfil the compact which he had made with the
Trinovantes, Caesar’s ‘chief object, after he had crossed the Thames,
must have been to lead his army into Essex’. Certainly Caesar’s army,
or a part of it, must have entered the country of the Trinovantes;
for, as we have seen, he would not allow his soldiers to plunder that
people. Jenkins’s theory is demolished by Caesar’s statement that the
stronghold belonged to Cassivellaunus, which shows that it was not in
the territory of the Trinovantes. And since, immediately after the
sentence in which he tells us that he prohibited his soldiers from
plundering the Trinovantes, he goes on to say that the stronghold of
Cassivellaunus was not far off, it is fair to conclude that it was near
the common frontier of the Trinovantes and of Cassivellaunus.[3528] Of
the places which fulfil this condition more can be said for Verulam
than for any other; but its identity with the _oppidum_ in question has
not been proved.
DID _LONDINIUM_ EXIST IN CAESAR’S TIME?
The earliest mention of London occurs in the _Annals_[3529] of
Tacitus, who, describing the events of the year 61, speaks of it as a
busy centre of commerce. It has been argued[3530] that a settlement
existed there before the Roman conquest of Britain, because the name
_Londinium_ is Celtic. Lewin[3531] maintains further that if London had
been founded by the Romans, it would have been a strong military post,
whereas in 61, eighteen years after the invasion of Britain by Aulus
Plautius, it was attacked by the Iceni and Trinovantes because it was
defenceless and wealthy.[3532] ‘It must,’ he insists, ‘have attained to
this height of prosperity, not under the Romans, who did not patronise
it, but by the silent progress of trade, a work that could not ... have
been accomplished in ... 19 years.’ ‘We know,’ he continues, referring
to Dion Cassius,[3533] ‘that Camulodunum was a flourishing British city
before the ... time of Plautius, and, if so, London, which enjoyed far
greater advantages, must also have been a British city.’ Lewin holds
that this city stood upon the hill between the river Flete and the
Wallbrook. On the west was _Lud_gate, the name of which is Celtic: on
the east Dowgate,--‘a corruption of the Celtic Dwrgate or water-gate.’
The river Flete, or Fleet, entered the Thames just below the site of
Blackfriars Bridge; while at Dowgate, about 1,000 yards to the east,
was the mouth of the Wallbrook.[3534]
Mr. W. J. Loftie[3535] finds the site of British London on the western
side of the Wallbrook. In his _History of London_,[3536] however, he
affirmed that the British settlement stood ‘on the eastern hill [that
is to say, on the gently rising ground east of the Wallbrook], if
anywhere’. Canon Isaac Taylor[3537] asserts that the British hill-fort
was ‘formed by Tower Hill, Cornhill, and Ludgate Hill, and effectually
protected by the Thames ... the Fleet ... the great fen of Moorfields
and Finsbury’, &c. Seeing that it has been proved that ‘the great fen’
did not exist in Roman times,[3538] and that the very existence of the
British hill-fort can as yet only be inferred, it is plainly useless to
attempt to determine its site.
Dr. Guest[3539] holds that ‘the notion ... that a British town
preceded the Roman camp [of Aulus Plautius] has no foundation ...
and is inconsistent with all we know of the early geography of this
part of Britain.’ ‘Such town,’ he adds, ‘could not have belonged to
the Trinobantes, for it lay beyond their natural limits, nor to the
settled district of the Catuvellauni, for then Caesar’s statement
that the Thames divided their country from the maritime states “about
eighty miles from the sea” would be grossly inaccurate.’ I cannot
see the force of these arguments. ‘The notion that a British town
preceded the Roman camp’ _has_ a foundation,--the solid foundation of
etymology. _London_ is indisputably a Celtic name;[3540] and if London
had been founded by the Romans, why should it have had a _purely_
Celtic name[3541] at all, and why should its Celtic name have outlasted
_Augusta_,--the name which the Romans gave to their London? Assuming
that Caesar’s statement is to be interpreted in the sense which Dr.
Guest attaches to it, the distance by road of British London from
Sandwich, in the neighbourhood of which Caesar landed,[3542] is 67
English miles, or nearly 73 Roman miles. Is the difference between 73
and ‘about 80’ so great as to justify the use of the words ‘grossly
inaccurate’?
More recently John Richard Green has endeavoured to disprove the
existence of British London.[3543] ‘Much,’ he says, ‘has been made
of its name, but “Llyn-dyn” ... is as likely to be the designation
of a spot as of a town on it. An almost conclusive proof, however,
that no such town existed west of the [river] Fleet may be drawn from
the line of the old British road from Kent (the predecessor of the
Watling Street), which, instead of crossing the river as in Roman and
later times at the point marked by London Bridge, passed, according to
Higden, to a point opposite Westminster ... (Loftie, “Roman London”,
Archaeological Journal, volume xxxiv, page 165) ... the rise of such a
town [Roman London] is the best explanation of the later change in the
line of this road.’
‘According to Higden!’ According to the monk of the fourteenth century
who wrote the _Polychronicon_! And Higden does not so much as mention
‘the old British road from Kent’,--a road the very existence of which
can only be conjectured. What he says is that ‘Watlingstrete’ crossed
the Thames west of Westminster;[3544] and Mr. Loftie, to whom Green
appeals, affirms that he is ‘driven to the conclusion that there was a
British town’.[3545] Accepting the statement of Higden, he argues that
the ‘Watlingstrete’ which is said to have crossed the Thames west of
Westminster was a pre-Roman road and followed the line of Park Lane and
Edgware Road. I will only add that, having failed to discover any paper
worth reading about the direction of Watling Street in that part of its
course which passed through or by Roman London, I consulted Professor
Haverfield. ‘I know nothing satisfactory,’ he replied, ‘about the line
of Watling Street, and nothing to suggest that it existed before A.D.
43.’
The very large number of palaeolithic implements which have been
found in London and its environs prove that in the earliest times
it was a centre of population;[3546] but it would hardly be safe to
infer from the discoveries of bronze and iron tools and weapons and
of British coins[3547] that the Romans found a town on the site. If
there was such a town, it certainly had little political importance;
for while numerous British coins issued from the mints of Verulamium
and Camulodunum, not one has been discovered which bears the name of
Londinium.[3548] Nevertheless it may reasonably be affirmed that London
existed before the Roman conquest: first, because the same advantages
that attracted the traders of Rome would also have commended themselves
to those of Britain; and secondly, I repeat, because it is improbable
that a Celtic name would have been given to a town which the Romans had
built upon a virgin site.[3549]
THE JULIAN CALENDAR AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF CAESAR’S INVASIONS OF BRITAIN
I. The chronology of Caesar’s first invasion of Britain is simple
enough, so far as it can be ascertained, and requires no knowledge
of the intricacies of the Roman calendar. I have shown in an earlier
article that the disembarkation took place on the 26th or 27th of
August, 55 B.C.[3550] After describing the storm which occurred on the
night of August 30-31, and the consequent loss of many of his ships,
Caesar goes on to say that the Britons endeavoured to protract the war
by cutting off his supplies, and that he had corn brought in daily from
the open country into his camp, and ordered the materials necessary
for the repair of those ships which were only partially damaged to
be fetched from the Continent. While the ships were being repaired
an attack was made upon the 7th legion, which was engaged in cutting
corn. This attack evidently took place several days after the 31st of
August; for the field in which the legion was reaping was the only one
accessible from the camp in which the corn had not been cut. The day on
which the legion was attacked was followed by several days of stormy
weather, during which all military operations were suspended. At the
end of this time the Britons attacked the camp unsuccessfully, and on
the same day sued for peace, which Caesar granted on condition of their
giving hostages. Instead of waiting for the arrival of the hostages
he ordered the British chiefs to send them over to the Continent,
‘because the equinox was at hand, and he did not think it wise to
expose his unseaworthy ships to a voyage in stormy weather.’[3551] The
equinox occurred on the 26th of September.[3552] Our data, then, are
as follows:--the attack on the 7th legion occurred several days after
the 31st of August; and Caesar returned to Gaul several days after the
attack on the 7th legion, but before--probably several days before--the
26th of September.[3553] Let us say that he returned about the middle
of the month. Napoleon, to whom indefiniteness was an abomination,
fixed the 12th of September as the date.[3554]
II. If we were to believe certain writers of high reputation, we
should be deterred from attempting to fix any dates for the second of
Caesar’s expeditions; for our principal sources of information are
dates mentioned by Cicero in his letters; and, as everybody knows,
the Roman calendar, before Caesar’s reform, was often in disagreement
with the Julian calendar. The writers of the article CALENDARIUM in
Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_[3555] affirm
that ‘it is very difficult or rather quite impossible to determine
the actual dates which correspond to the nominal dates of any events
before the Julian reform of the calendar’. But for the period comprised
between the beginning of the year 696 (58 B.C.), just after Caesar
became Governor of Gaul, and his reform of the calendar, which took
effect in 709 (45 B.C.), this view is quite incorrect. Every date in
Cicero’s correspondence which relates to the subject of this essay
can be reduced, if not with absolute precision, at all events with a
possible error of not more than one day, to its corresponding date in
the Julian calendar. First of all, however, we must find out the nature
of the reform which Caesar initiated, and understand the chronological
disturbances which made reform necessary.
Every scholar knows that, after the period of the Decemvirate, the
Roman year consisted of 355 days only, and that every other year an
additional month, consisting alternately of 22 and 23 days, was, or
rather ought to have been, intercalated after the 23rd of February.
January, April, June, August, September, November, and December each
contained 29 days; February 28; and March, May, July, and October
31. If I may remind the general reader of what he learned at school,
the first day of every month was called the Kalends; the fifth day
of January, February, April, June, August, September, November, and
December was called the Nones; and the thirteenth day of each of those
months was called the Ides. But in March, May, July, and October the
Nones were on the seventh, and the Ides on the fifteenth day. In
mentioning dates the Romans described any given day as occurring so
many days before the Kalends, Nones, or Ides, as the case might be;
and in so doing they adopted the inclusive method of reckoning. Thus
the last day of December was called ‘the day before the Kalends of
January’, _pridie Kalendas Ianuarias_, or shortly _prid. Kal. Ian_.
But the 27th of December was called, not the third, but the fourth day
before the Kalends of January, _ante diem quartum Kalendas Ianuarias_,
or shortly _a. d. IV Kal. Ian_.
To return to the month which was or ought to have been intercalated
every other year. As the ordinary year contained 355 days, and the
solar year was believed to contain 365¼ days, it is obvious that to
intercalate a month of 22 and 23 days alternately every other year
was to make an excessive correction, the excess amounting to 4 days
in every period of 4 years. Macrobius[3556] tells us that in order to
remedy this error, 24 days were omitted from every twenty-fourth year.
For various reasons, however, this regulation, if indeed it ever really
took effect,[3557] was not always properly carried out; and accordingly
in the year of the city 563, or 191 B.C., a reform was introduced,
the college of pontiffs being authorized to intercalate or to omit
intercalations at their discretion.[3558] But this innovation, as we
learn from Cicero, Censorinus, and other writers, only made matters
worse. Speaking of the pontiffs, Censorinus complains that ‘most of
them, either from hatred or from favour, to cut short or to extend the
tenure of office, or that a farmer of the public revenue might gain or
lose more by the length of the year, by intercalating more or less at
their pleasure, deliberately made worse what had been entrusted to them
to set right’.[3559]
III. In 708 (46 B.C.), which is generally called ‘the year of
confusion’, Caesar intercalated a certain number of days, in order to
bring the calendar into harmony with the solar year before inaugurating
the reformed calendar in 709. It is expressly stated by Asconius, whose
testimony is unanimously accepted, that there was an intercalary month
in 702;[3560] and it is admitted by all chronologists that there was no
other intercalary month in the seven years between 700 and 708.[3561]
There is no doubt that the Kalends of January, 709, corresponded either
with the 1st or the 2nd of January, 45 B.C. It is clear, therefore,
that when we have ascertained how many days were intercalated in
708, we shall be able, by reckoning backwards, to ascertain the
correspondence of any given date in the summer of 700, the year of
Caesar’s second expedition, with the Julian calendar,--with a possible
error of one day only. This error will be removed if we can ascertain
whether the Kalends of January, 709, corresponded with the 1st or the
2nd of January, 45 B.C.
All German scholars who have written upon Roman chronology are agreed
that ‘the year of confusion’ contained 445 days, in other words,
that 90 days, amounting to four ordinary intercalary months, were
intercalated; and they hold that these 90 days were actually composed
of three months, namely the _Mercedonius_, which, in the ordinary
course, should in that year have been intercalated immediately after
the 23rd of February, and two extraordinary months, amounting to
67 days, which were intercalated between the last day of November
and the 1st of December. This view is supported in every detail by
Censorinus,[3562] who wrote about 240 A.D. The principal dissentients
are De La Nauze, Napoleon the Third and his collaborator, the famous
astronomer, Le Verrier, who held that 67 days only were intercalated in
708, and Colonel Stoffel, who, in his _Histoire de Jules César--Guerre
civile_, published in 1887, reaffirmed the same view, but who does not
appear to have informed himself of what any of the Germans, except
Ideler, had written on the subject. Moreover, the theory of Napoleon,
Le Verrier, and Colonel Stoffel is frequently referred to by scholars
in terms which imply that they regard the question as still open. The
reason which Le Verrier[3563] gives is that in 700 Caesar re-embarked
his troops for the return voyage from Britain to Gaul ‘because the
equinox was at hand’ (_quod aequinoctium suberat_[3564]); that the
equinox actually took place on the 26th of September of the Julian
calendar; and that Caesar informed Cicero on the sixth day before the
Kalends of October (which corresponded, on Le Verrier’s theory, with
the 21st of September) that he was on the point of bringing back the
army.[3565] He remarks that, on the theory of Ideler (who, like all
other German scholars, held that 90 days were intercalated in 708), the
sixth day before the Kalends of October, 700, would have corresponded
with the 30th of August, 54 B.C.;[3566] and he argues that this theory
must be wrong because Caesar would not have troubled himself about the
approach of the equinox 27 days before it occurred. He also remarks
that, although the view that 90 days were intercalated in 708 is
supported by Suetonius[3567] and Censorinus,[3568] Dion Cassius[3569]
affirmed that 67 days were intercalated, and that Dion expressly
added that other writers had asserted that a greater number had been
intercalated, but that his own statement was true; and he insists that
Dion derived his information from authentic sources.[3570]
It will be shown presently that if Le Verrier was right in his
interpretation of Dion’s words, Dion made a mistake. G. F. Unger[3571]
holds that he misunderstood the authority from whom he borrowed his
statement, and ‘who, like Suetonius, unquestionably regarded the
month intercalated in February as an _ordinary_ intercalary month’.
Von Göler,[3572] on the other hand, holds that Dion was quite right;
that he was referring, not to the ordinary intercalary month, but only
to the two extraordinary months intercalated between November and
December, which amounted to 67 days; and therefore that his statement
tallies with that of Censorinus. Be this, however, as it may, it is
absolutely certain that more than 67 days were intercalated in 708.
For on the 16th of May, 705, Cicero wrote from Cumae, ‘At present the
equinox is delaying us, which has been very stormy’ (_Nunc quidem
aequinoctium nos moratur, quod valde perturbatum erat_[3573]). Now, on
Le Verrier’s theory, the 16th of May, 705, corresponded with the 16th
of April, 49 B.C. of the Julian calendar; but the equinox occurred on
the 24th of March. In order to dispose of this difficulty, Le Verrier
is obliged to have recourse to flagrant special pleading: ‘l’équinoxe,’
he says, ‘était passé depuis 21 jours,[3574] et les troubles
atmosphériques pouvaient durer encore. Était-ce d’ailleurs autre chose
qu’un prétexte pour Cicéron’?[3575] A very thin pretext, one would
say,--a pretext which a man of Cicero’s intelligence was hardly likely
to resort to.[3576]
But this is not the only proof of the unsoundness of Le Verrier’s
theory. The argument which he bases upon Caesar’s words, _quod
aequinoctium suberat_, shows that he completely misunderstands both
Caesar’s narrative and the letter of Cicero to which he appeals. Cicero
writes, ‘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[3577] of September ... they were on the point of bringing back
the army’ (_a Quinto fratre et a Caesare accept a. d. IX Kal. Nov.
litteras, datas a litoribus Britanniae proximis a. d. VI Kal. Octobr.
... exercitum_ [_e_] _Britannia reportabant_[3578]). The letters to
which Cicero refers were written, according to Napoleon and Le Verrier,
on the 21st of September of the Julian calendar; and, they triumphantly
remark, this tallies with Caesar’s statement, that he hurried on his
departure from Britain ‘because the equinox was at hand’.[3579] But
there is one fact which they overlook. Caesar had a large number of
hostages and prisoners, and some of his ships had been lost. He was
therefore obliged to transport the hostages, prisoners, and troops to
Gaul in two successive trips. Only a few of the ships which made the
first trip ever returned to Britain, almost all the rest having been
driven back to Gaul by adverse winds. Caesar tells us that he waited
for these ships ‘a considerable time (_aliquamdiu_) in vain’. Then,
and not till then, he made the second trip, being obliged to crowd
the soldiers into the few ships that he had, and not daring to wait
any longer, ‘because the equinox was at hand.’[3580] The letters to
which Cicero refers were evidently written before the first trip; for
neither Caesar nor Quintus had written to Cicero for a long time;[3581]
and they would naturally have dispatched their letters by one of the
ships which made the first voyage. It is clear, therefore, that the
letters in question were written, not on the 21st of September of the
reformed calendar, but ‘a considerable time’ before that day. In fine,
if Le Verrier and Napoleon were right, the letters would have been
written not from Britain but from Gaul, and Cicero would have written
not _reportabant_ (‘they were on the point of bringing back’) but
_reportaverant_ (‘they had brought back’[3582]).
Another fact, which Napoleon, Le Verrier, and Colonel Stoffel appear
to have overlooked, alone proves that not 67 days only but 90 days
were intercalated in that year. The word _nundinae_ is familiar to
many readers of Cicero’s letters. To quote the authors of the article
NUNDINAE in Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_,[3583]
‘the Romans had a system of eight-day weeks, which, like our seven-day
weeks, ran on from one month to another and from one year to another
without breaking.’ Every eighth day was a market-day, and was called
_nundinae_. Thus, if the 1st of January was a market-day, the next
was the 9th, the next the 17th, and so on. We learn from Dion
Cassius[3584] that the Kalends of January, 702, was a market-day; the
same writer says that, in order to prevent the Kalends of January,
714, from falling on a market-day--a coincidence which was regarded as
ill-omened--a day was intercalated extraordinarily in 713;[3585] and it
follows that, if there had been no intercalation in 713, the number of
days that elapsed from the Kalends of January, 702, to the last day of
December, 713, would have been a multiple of 8. Now, on the theory of
Napoleon the Third, Le Verrier, and Colonel Stoffel this number would
have been 4,401; on the theory that the year 708 contained 445 days,
4,424. The latter number is divisible by 8; the former is not.
There has never been any question but that the number of days
intercalated in 708 was either 67 or 90; and the former number has been
proved to be wrong.
IV. In order to obtain an absolutely firm foundation for the chronology
of Caesar’s second expedition, one more question remains to be
answered. In this country it is generally taken for granted that the
Kalends of January, 709, the year in which Caesar’s reform of the
calendar came into operation, corresponded with the 1st of January, 45
B.C. Various German scholars have, however, attempted to prove that
the Kalends of January, 709, fell on the 2nd of January of the Julian
calendar.
Let us first see what there is to be learned from the ancient writers.
Pliny[3586] says that when the error in the execution of Caesar’s
reform was discovered, it was corrected by the omission of intercalary
days during twelve successive years.
Solinus[3587] tells us that Caesar’s reform was vitiated by the
pontiffs; for, whereas it had been enjoined that a day should be
intercalated on the completion of the fourth year, they made the
intercalation at the beginning of the fourth year, not at the end.
Thus, Solinus continues, twelve days were intercalated in thirty-six
years, whereas only nine ought to have been intercalated.
Suetonius[3588] says that the calendar, as reformed by Caesar, was
thrown into confusion by ‘negligence’, and rectified by Augustus; also
that Caesar made the calendar year consist of 365 days, so as to bring
it into harmony with the solar year, and, abolishing the intercalary
month, ordered that one day should be intercalated every fourth
year.[3589]
According to Censorinus,[3590] Caesar directed that, in order to
compensate for the quarter of a day by which the solar exceeded the
calendar year, one day should be intercalated at the end of every
quadriennial cycle, after the Terminalia [that is to say, after the
23rd of February].
According to Macrobius,[3591] Caesar directed that one day should be
intercalated every fourth year. Macrobius then makes substantially the
same charge against the pontiffs as Solinus, and goes on to say that,
after the error for which they were responsible had continued for
thirty-six years, Augustus corrected it by ordering that twelve years
should pass without any intercalation.
Now it is absolutely certain that of the first five years during which
the reformed calendar was in force, namely 709, 710, 711, 712, and
713, not one only but two contained an intercalary day.[3592] For, as
we have already seen,[3593] Dion Cassius[3594] states that the Kalends
of January, 702, was a market-day, and also that, in order to prevent
the Kalends of January, 714, from falling on a market-day, a day was
intercalated extraordinarily (παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα[3595]) in 713;[3596]
and, as I had occasion to remark before, it follows that, if there had
been no intercalation in 713, the number of days that elapsed from the
Kalends of January, 702, to the last day of December, 713, would have
been a multiple of 8. This would have been the case if one of the four
years 709, 710, 711, and 712 had contained an intercalary day, but not
otherwise.[3597] Which was it?
The year 711 may be set aside at once: nobody has ever argued that it
was a Leap Year; and no reason can be given to show that it was.
1. Wilhelm Soltau,[3598] the author of a valuable work on Roman
chronology, maintains that 709 was the first Leap Year of the
reformed calendar. He argues that Matzat’s theory, according to
which an intercalation occurred in 710, must be wrong, because it is
inconceivable that Caesar, who was then alive, should have allowed an
intercalation to take place in the second year of his calendar, in
defiance of his own edict, that the intercalation should be made every
fourth year (_quarto quoque anno intercalandum esse_). The theory that
the first intercalation was in 712 is, Soltau continues, based only
upon the statements, derived from the same source, of Solinus and
Macrobius. If, says Soltau, they are right, the Leap Years, before
Augustus rectified the error which had been made in carrying out
Caesar’s intentions, would have been 712, 715, 718, 721, 724, 727,
730, 733, 736, 739, 742, and 745. But Dion’s statement, that 713 was
an intercalary year, proves that this cannot have been the case. The
series must, therefore, have been 709, 713, 716, 719 ... 743. Soltau
holds that the twelve years during which intercalation was, by the
order of Augustus, suspended, lasted from 745 to 756; that Augustus
disapproved of Caesar’s (assumed) anticipatory method of reckoning,
that is to say, of his having intercalated a day in the first year
of his calendar instead of after the conclusion of the fourth; that
accordingly the next intercalation, which would naturally have taken
place in 757, was omitted; and that the first intercalation after the
reform of Augustus occurred in 761. Thus, like other writers[3599] who
differ from him on points of detail, Soltau identifies the Kalends of
January, 709, with the 2nd of January, 45 B.C.
It will presently be shown that the statements of Macrobius and Solinus
do not _necessarily_ lead to the conclusion which Soltau condemns.
Meanwhile I may remark that Soltau’s theory is irreconcilable with
the very passage in Dion Cassius to which he refers.[3600] Dion says
that a day was intercalated _extraordinarily_ (παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα)
in 713, in order to prevent New Year’s Day in 714 from falling on a
market-day,[3601] and that subsequently an intercalary day was struck
out.[3602] It is therefore obvious that the intercalation of 713 took
place earlier than had been contemplated; and consequently that the
previous intercalation must have occurred later than 709; for if, as
Soltau maintains, the previous intercalation had taken place in 709,
the intercalation of 713 took place at the proper time. If, on the
other hand, Dion’s words, παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα, mean ‘contrary to the
regulations erroneously attributed to Caesar by the pontiffs’, that is
to say, contrary to the triennial cycle which they themselves followed,
the intercalation, on Soltau’s theory, took place a year too late; for,
if the first intercalation had occurred in 709, the object which Dion
mentions could have been attained by intercalating in 712.
2. Let us now examine the theory of Matzat,[3603] namely, that the
first intercalation took place in 710. This writer believes that
Caesar’s reason for intercalating in 710 was to prevent the Kalends
of January in the following year from falling on a market-day.[3604]
He holds that Dion’s words, παρα τα καθεστηκοτα mean ‘contrary to the
actual regulations of Caesar’; and accordingly he believes that those
regulations were at the time understood. He maintains, however, that,
after 713, the pontiffs intercalated every three years,--namely in
716, 719, 722 ... 743; but he insists that they did this simply for
the same reason which had prompted the intercalation in 713, namely to
prevent the Kalends of January in each following year from falling on
a market-day. The statement of Dion, that, in order to compensate for
the day extraordinarily intercalated in 713, another intercalary day
was omitted, he takes to mean that the next intercalation, which, on
his theory, ought to have occurred in 714, was left out. Finally, he
believes that the three superfluous days which had accumulated during
the twelve triennial cycles were compensated for by the omission of all
intercalations in the years 745-756; and that the first intercalation
under the reform of Augustus occurred in 757. On this theory the
Kalends of January, 709, corresponded with the 1st of January, 45 B. C.
I have already mentioned the objection which Soltau has brought against
Matzat’s theory;[3605] but that objection is inconclusive. It is not
true that if Caesar had allowed an intercalation to take place in
710, he would have done so ‘in defiance of his own edict, that the
intercalation should be made every fourth year (_quarto quoque anno
intercalaretur_)’. If, according to his scheme, the next intercalation
was to take place in 714, the next in 718, and so on, the intercalation
would still be made every fourth year. Provided it took place every
four years, what difference would it make whether it took place
first in 709, 710, 711, 712, or 713? Holzapfel[3606] blames Matzat
for disregarding the testimony of Solinus and Macrobius. But Matzat
does not disregard their testimony: he simply refuses to admit that
they make any definite statement as to the year in which the _first_
intercalation of the Julian calendar occurred. The only statement
which would appear to support Holzapfel’s criticism is contained in
the words of Solinus, that, ‘whereas it had been enjoined that they
[the pontiffs] should intercalate one day in the fourth year, and
this ordinance ought to have been carried out on the completion of
the fourth year ... they intercalated at the beginning of the fourth
year, not at the end’ (_nam cum praeceptum esset, anno quarto ut
intercalarent unum diem, et oporteret confecto quarto anno id observari
... illi incipiente quarto intercalarunt, non desinente_). If by ‘the
beginning of the fourth year’ Solinus meant the fourth year of the
Julian calendar, that is to say, 712, and if he had original authority
for his statement, then Holzapfel is right. But observe the looseness
with which Solinus expresses himself. Immediately after saying that
the intercalation ought to have taken place ‘_in_ the fourth year’,
he says that it ought to have taken place ‘on the completion of the
fourth year’. To state the facts correctly required extraordinary
precision and nicety of expression; and this requirement he failed
to satisfy. His meaning may have been that, in whatever year of the
Julian calendar the first intercalation took place, the next ought, by
Caesar’s ordinance, to have taken place four years later, and so on.
If it be objected that I have suggested an arbitrary interpretation
of his meaning, I reply that this interpretation is dictated by the
passage in which Dion Cassius states that the intercalation of 713 was
‘contrary to the regulations’ (παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα). Holzapfel[3607]
says that these words, _taken by themselves_, may mean one of two
things. They may mean that the intercalation of 713 was contrary to the
actual regulations of Caesar; or they may mean that it was contrary
to the regulations adopted by the pontiffs in misunderstanding or in
contravention of Caesar’s regulations. The question, says Holzapfel,
can only be settled by other evidence; and the only other evidence
is that of Solinus and Macrobius, which shows that the pontiffs
misunderstood Caesar’s regulations. As a matter of fact, their
evidence does not show this, unless misunderstanding is connoted by
the words _vitium_ and _error_. Matzat[3608] contends that such a
misunderstanding would have been impossible, for Caesar must have made
his intentions clear. Holzapfel replies that Caesar would no doubt
have done so if he had foreseen his own imminent death; but, as he
certainly intended, in his capacity as Pontifex Maximus, to superintend
the execution of his own arrangements, and thus establish the rule
of intercalation which he contemplated, the regulation _ut quarto
quoque anno intercalaretur_ might seem sufficient. But Dion Cassius,
if his testimony may be accepted, settles the question. Immediately
after saying that a day was extraordinarily intercalated in 713, he
adds that ‘of course an intercalary day was in turn omitted, _in
order that the calendar might be brought into harmony with Caesar’s
intentions_’ (καὶ δῆλον ὅτι [ἡμέρα ἐμβόλιμος] ἀνθυφῃρέθη αὖθις, ὅπως
ὁ χρόνος κατὰ τὰ τῷ Καίσαρι τῷ προτέρῳ δόξαντα συμβῇ). Now these
words, as Matzat[3609] unanswerably argues, prove that by παρὰ τὰ
καθεστηκότα Dion meant ‘contrary to the regulations’ actually made by
Caesar.[3610] Holzapfel,[3611] however, tries to explain away Dion’s
remark by the argument that the authority whom he followed may have
been a contemporary who shared the misconception of the pontiffs; and
this I cannot gainsay. Moreover, although I have argued that the words
of Solinus _may_ be interpreted in a sense different from that which
Holzapfel ascribes to them, I admit that the conclusion which they
suggest is that Caesar intended to make his first intercalation in 713,
and that the pontiffs made it in 712.
Secondly, it is expressly stated by Macrobius[3612] that the Kalends
of January in the year of the _Lepidianus tumultus_ fell on a
market-day; and if, as Holzapfel maintains, this statement refers to
the Lepidus who, as one of the Triumvirs, revived Sulla’s policy of
proscription in 711, it proves that no intercalation occurred either
in 710 or in 709.[3613] Matzat, however, maintains that the words
_Lepidianus tumultus_ designate the outburst of Lepidus in 676 (78
B. C.).[3614] Unger,[3615] who agrees with Holzapfel, maintains that
the official recognition of the superstitious dread with which the
Roman populace contemplated the coincidence of the Kalends of January
with a market-day, was due to the acts of Lepidus in 711. But, replies
Matzat,[3616] for this ‘official recognition’ the approbation of the
Pontifex Maximus was necessary. Now in 713, as in 711, the Pontifex
Maximus was Lepidus himself; and, according to Macrobius, it was the
_Lepidianus tumultus_ which strengthened the popular belief that
whenever the Kalends of January fell upon a market-day, the whole year
would be darkened by ill-omened events. If, then, says Matzat, we are
to believe Unger, Lepidus described the deeds which he had himself done
in 711, and by which the joint supremacy of himself and the other two
Triumvirs had been established, as a _tumultus_,--the most horrible
events of a year full of horrors! This argument is clever, but I think
that it is hardly fair. Lepidus was not obliged to describe anything.
Assuming that the Kalends of January, 711, had fallen on a market-day,
it is surely intelligible that he should have recognized the wisdom of
allaying superstitious fears, even though they had been roused by his
own acts, when he could do so by the simple expedient of intercalating
a day in 713. I agree with Unger that there does not appear to
have been anything very alarming in the affair of 677, even though
Lucan[3617] describes it as _truces Lepidi motus_; and, judging the
question without bias on its own merits, I can only conclude that the
_tumultus Lepidianus_ was most probably the outbreak of 711. If so, the
first intercalary year of the Julian calendar cannot have been either
709 or 710, but must have been 712.
Thirdly, Holzapfel[3618] points out that, if Matzat is right, the
intercalary cycle introduced by Augustus did not correspond with that
of Caesar. For after the reform of Augustus the intercalary years were
odd years, 761, 765, 769, and so on; while Caesar’s first intercalary
year is supposed by Matzat to have been 710. Or, if we reckon the
quadriennial cycles contemplated by Caesar from the year 709, the
intercalations, according to his regulation, would, on Matzat’s theory,
occur in the second, those made by Augustus in the first year of each
successive cycle.
All this is perfectly true: but what does it matter? The one really
important point, namely, that the intercalation should take place every
four years, was duly secured by Augustus. Whether it took place in the
first, the second, the third, or the fourth year of the cycle, mattered
not a jot. Holzapfel’s objection is purely academic.
Fourthly, says Holzapfel, if, as Matzat maintains, Caesar’s only reason
for intercalating in 710 was to prevent the Kalends of January in the
following year from falling on a market-day, it is difficult to believe
that Caesar should not have foreseen that for the same reason it would
be necessary to intercalate in 713, 716, and so on, that is to say,
every three years; in other words, that it would be impossible to carry
out the arrangement which he had himself made.[3619]
This is certainly a reasonable objection, and Matzat has not, so far
as I know, attempted to remove it: but it is perhaps conceivable that a
man so busy as Caesar should have failed to look far ahead.
Holzapfel[3620] argues, further, that Matzat’s theory, according to
which the calendar, as reformed by Augustus, was inaugurated on the
1st of January, 757 (A.D. 4), rests upon the assumption that the first
day of the intercalary cycle coincided with the first day of the civil
year, whereas it was really the day after the _Terminalia_, that is to
say, the sixth day before the Kalends of March. This, he maintains, is
proved (_a_) by the place which Caesar gave to his intercalary day;
(_b_) by the fact that the two months intercalated between November
and December of 708 were called respectively _mensis intercalaris
prior_ and _mensis intercalaris posterior_, and also by the fact that,
according to Dion Cassius, the number of days intercalated in that
year was only 67, whereas the number of days intercalated in _the
civil year_ 708 was 90; (_c_) by the fact that, according to Macrobius
and Solinus, Caesar ordained that the intercalary day [which followed
the 23rd of February] should be inserted at the end of the fourth and
before the fifth year of the Julian calendar.[3621]
Matzat[3622] summarily replies to these arguments. Referring to
Macrobius,[3623] he observes (_a_) that the place which Caesar gave to
the intercalary day was identical with the place which the intercalary
day, whenever it occurred, had occupied before his reform; and (_b_)
that the two intercalary months known as _mensis intercalaris prior_
and _mensis intercalaris posterior_ were added to the year 708 in order
that the calendar year 709 might begin on the Kalends of January, and
thus coincide with the consular year. If it be asked why they were
called _prior_ and _posterior_ although another intercalary month
had preceded them, the answer is easy: the other month ought in any
case to have been intercalated in that year, whereas the _prior_
and _posterior_ were extraordinarily intercalated. The passages in
Macrobius and Solinus on which Holzapfel relies have been already
explained; and it has been shown that they do not necessarily bear the
meaning which he ascribes to them. One fact alone appears to me to
dispose of his contention, that the Julian calendar did not come into
operation until the sixth day before the Kalends of March, 709: if it
did not, why did January in that year contain 31 days, whereas in every
previous year it had contained only 29?
Holzapfel also invokes the support of Böckh,[3624] who remarked that
it would have been unnatural for a reformer to correct the error
caused by the difference of a quarter of a day between the civil and
the solar year until the error required correction. The conclusion
appears to Holzapfel inevitable that Caesar intended to make his
first intercalation as soon as, and not before, the error should
have amounted to one day, that is to say, in 713. Matzat,[3625] on
the contrary, maintains that logically the proper place for the
intercalary day would have been immediately after the second year of
the quadriennial cycle. But he does not believe that Caesar cared for
such academic considerations. He undoubtedly fixed the place of the
intercalary day in the year not on astronomical grounds, but according
to usage. Why, then, asks Matzat, should it be considered improbable
that he fixed the place of the intercalary year in the quadriennial
cycle on the same principle?
3. Holzapfel[3626] holds, as we have just seen, that the Caesarian
cycle began on the day after the _Terminalia_ of 709, that is to say,
on the sixth day before the Kalends of March; that Caesar intended that
the first intercalation should take place in 713; that the pontiffs,
misunderstanding his directions, made the first intercalation at
the beginning of the fourth year, that is to say, in 712; that, as
Dion says, a day was extraordinarily intercalated in 713; that, to
compensate for this extraordinary intercalation, a day was omitted
in 714, which accordingly comprised 364 days only; that the pontiffs
thenceforth intercalated every three years, namely in 715, 718, 721
... 745; that, to compensate for the three superfluous days which had
been intercalated in consequence of the misunderstanding of Caesar’s
regulations, the intercalations which ought to have occurred in 749,
753, and 757, were omitted; and that the first intercalation after the
reform of Augustus took place in 761.
This theory, as the reader will have already seen, cannot stand unless
the evidence of Dion Cassius is to be rejected. Indeed it cannot
stand even then. Holzapfel is not justified in assuming that in order
to compensate for the extraordinary intercalation of 713, a day was
omitted in 714; for, on his own theory, 714 was an ordinary year.
Matzat[3627] points out that, in the passage in which Dion[3628]
describes the omission of a day to compensate for the extraordinary
intercalation--καὶ δῆλον ὅτι ἀνθυφῃρέθη αὖθις, ὅπως ὁ χρόνος κατὰ τὰ
τῷ Καίσαρι τῷ προτέρῳ δόξαντα συμβῇ--the words ἡμέρα ἐμβόλιμος (an
intercalary day) must necessarily be supplied, as the subject of the
verb ἀνθυφῃρέθη, from the preceding sentence. Holzapfel retorts that
his view does not involve the assumption of a change of subject. ‘One
can very well translate,’ he says, ‘“an intercalary day was inserted,
and self-evidently in turn omitted”’ (Man kann sehr wohl übersetzen:
‘es wurde ein Schalttag eingelegt und selbstverständlich wiederum in
Abzug gebracht’[3629]). This is not a satisfactory answer; for, on
Holzapfel’s own showing, the omitted day was _not_ an intercalary day.
There is no evidence that a day was ever withdrawn from an ordinary
year in the Roman calendar; and, as Matzat[3630] points out, the
best proof that such a proceeding would have been regarded as out of
the question is supplied by the procedure of Augustus. Instead of
correcting the error of the pontiffs by withdrawing three days from one
ordinary year, he omitted three intercalary days in three intercalary
years, thus taking twelve years to accomplish a reform which, according
to modern notions, might have been accomplished in one. If Dion’s
words are interpreted in their natural sense, they evidently mean
that the next intercalary day which would have occurred, according
to Caesar’s regulations, was omitted. Thenceforth, accordingly, if
the first intercalation occurred in 710, the intercalary years were
716, 719, 722 ... 743. Or if, as Holzapfel insists, Dion’s words,
παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα, mean ‘contrary to the regulations as erroneously
interpreted by the pontiffs’, and if, as he also insists, the year in
which they first intercalated was 712, then the next year in which
they would naturally have intercalated was 715: the extraordinary
intercalation of 713 must have been compensated for by the omission
of an intercalary day in 715; and the following series of intercalary
years must have been 718, 721, 724 ... 745.
Again, Holzapfel’s theory compels him to disregard silently the
testimony of Solinus, on whose authority he lays such stress.
Solinus[3631] says that twelve days were intercalated in the first
thirty-six years of the Julian calendar: according to Holzapfel,
thirteen were intercalated.
Lastly, if we accept Holzapfel’s view, that the first day of the
Julian calendar was the sixth day before the Kalends of March, 709, we
find that a day _was_ intercalated immediately after the end of the
fourth year of the cycle, namely, after the _Terminalia_ of 713. But
Holzapfel assures us that, according to Macrobius and Solinus, this was
not the case.
But I am not arguing against Holzapfel’s theory as regards the first
intercalary year of the Julian calendar; and what appears to tell most
strongly in favour of it, besides the probability that the _Lepidianus
tumultus_ occurred in 711,[3632] is the statement of Macrobius,[3633]
that Augustus enacted that the intercalation should take place ‘every
fifth year’ (_quinto quoque anno_), that is to say, according to
our reckoning, every four years. These words seem to imply that the
pontiffs had actually misunderstood Caesar’s regulation. On Matzat’s
theory, however, the pontiffs who intercalated παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα
in 713 deliberately set that regulation aside in order to avoid the
dreaded coincidence of the Kalends of January with a market-day. But,
says Matzat, every three years this troublesome necessity recurred; and
thus ultimately, as he suggests, the erroneous view might prevail that
Caesar had himself intended to intercalate every three years ([anno]
_quarto non peracto sed incipiente_[3634]). But what right have we to
assume that after 713 the pontiffs took any account of the nundinal
superstition? At all events, if Holzapfel is right in maintaining that
the first intercalary year of the reformed calendar was 712, there can
be no doubt that the subsequent intercalary years were 713, 718 ...
745; and it is therefore impossible for him to reconcile his view,
that the first intercalation under the reform of Augustus occurred in
761, with the statement that Augustus allowed twelve years to pass
without any intercalation. Augustus’s first intercalation undoubtedly
took place in 757; for in that year, if Caesar’s regulation had been
observed, the twelfth intercalation would have occurred.
Opinions may differ as to whether Matzat’s theory or the modification
of Holzapfel’s which I have just suggested is the more probable. As,
according to the latter, the series of intercalary years must have been
712, 713, 718, 721, 724, 727, 730, 733, 736, 739, 742, 745, it implies
that after 713 the pontiffs thought it safe to disregard the nundinal
superstition. So far my suggestion may be objectionable. On the other
hand, it fits in with all the statements of the ancient writers, except
that one remark of Dion Cassius which, as Holzapfel suggests, he may
have made on erroneous information;[3635] and particularly it fits in,
as no other series which has been suggested does, with the statements
that twelve days were intercalated in the first thirty-six years of the
Julian calendar,[3636] and that Augustus allowed the next twelve years
to pass without any intercalation. However, the difference between
Matzat’s theory and mine (which is purely tentative) is unimportant;
for they agree in the main point,--that the Kalends of January, 709,
corresponded with the 1st of January, 45 B.C.
V. We have now gained the knowledge which will enable us to
investigate the chronology of Caesar’s second invasion of Britain.
We have ascertained that the Kalends of January, 709, fell on the
1st of January, 45 B.C.; that 90 days were intercalated in 708,
which accordingly consisted of 445 days; that a month of 23 days was
intercalated in 702, which accordingly comprised 378 days; and that
701, 703, 704, 705, 706, and 707 were ordinary years, each comprising
355 days. It follows that the last day of 700, the year in which
Caesar made his second expedition to Britain, corresponded with the
30th of November, 54 B.C., and that the sixth day before the Kalends
of October, the day on which he wrote to tell Cicero that he was on
the point of bringing back his army from Britain to Gaul, corresponded
with the 29th of August. From these data it will be easy to ascertain
the correspondence of any date in the year 700 which we find in our
authorities with the Julian calendar.
After quitting Cisalpine Gaul, Caesar returned to his army, which had
wintered in the country of the Belgae. He made a tour of inspection,
visiting the various camps, which were of course in the immediate
neighbourhood of the yards where the legionaries had been building
the ships for his intended expedition, that is to say, at the Portus
Itius (Boulogne), and probably on the estuaries of the Canche, the
Authie, the Somme, and the Seine.[3637] After ordering all the ships
to assemble at the Portus Itius, he started with four legions in
light marching order and 800 cavalry for the country of the Treveri,
which, roughly speaking, comprised the greater part of the province
of Luxembourg, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and the southern part
of Rhenish Prussia.[3638] Two chiefs of this people, named Cingetorix
and Indutiomarus, were struggling for supremacy. Cingetorix at once
presented himself before Caesar, and promised fidelity. Indutiomarus
collected levies, and prepared to fight. Many of the leading men,
however, came into Caesar’s camp and made terms for themselves.
Indutiomarus found that he had miscalculated his strength, and hastened
to excuse himself. Caesar, who had no time to spare, contented himself
with taking hostages for his good behaviour and returned to the Portus
Itius. About 25 days after his arrival, having meantime been detained
by contrary winds, he sailed for Britain.[3639]
The exact date of Caesar’s departure from Cisalpine Gaul is uncertain.
On the 2nd of June, that is to say, the 9th of May of the Julian
calendar, Cicero received at Rome a letter from his brother, written
at Placentia;[3640] and on the following day he received another
letter from his brother, written at Blandeno, a town near Placentia,
the exact site of which is not known,[3641] and also a letter from
Caesar, written apparently at the same place.[3642] Napoleon,
erroneously maintaining that the second and the third of these letters
were received by Cicero on the 5th, instead of the 3rd, of June, and
assuming (‘pour trouver le temps voulu’, as he naïvely remarks) that,
in consequence of accidental delays, they took 13 days to reach Rome,
concludes that Caesar quitted Blandeno on the 23rd of May, which he
identifies with the 22nd[3643] of the same month, but which really
corresponded with the 29th of April of the Julian calendar. T. Bergk,
on the contrary, maintains that if there had been any delay in the
transmission of the letters, Cicero would have mentioned it in his
reply; and he supposes that Caesar and Quintus Cicero started on their
journey for Transalpine Gaul on the 2nd of June, that is to say, on
the 9th of May of the Julian calendar.[3644] All that can be safely
said is that, if the letter-carrier travelled at the usual rate, namely
between 40 and 50 Roman miles a day,[3645] the two letters were written
about the 30th of April or the 1st of May of the Julian calendar; and
therefore we have no right to assume that Caesar quitted Blandeno
before the former day.
It is possible, as we shall presently see, to fix the date of Caesar’s
arrival at the Portus Itius and of his voyage to Britain within a
day or two; but it is plainly impossible to make any satisfactory
calculation of the dates of his movements from the time when he left
Blandeno to the time when he left the country of the Treveri and
marched for the Portus Itius; and the minute computations of Napoleon
and others are simply elaborate trifling.[3646] For, although Caesar’s
_average_ rate of travelling may be estimated approximately, we do not
know how far he penetrated into the extensive country of the Treveri;
and it is waste of time to guess how long he stayed there. This much
only can be said with certainty:--he did not let the grass grow
under his feet.[3647] For he left Blandeno about the 30th of April:
he arrived, as we shall presently see,[3648] finally at the Portus
Itius about the 11th of June; and in those 43 days he travelled from
Blandeno across the Alps and across Gaul to the English Channel; moved
along the coast to various points between Boulogne and the mouth of
the Seine; and marched from Boulogne to the neighbourhood of Sedan, or
further--at least 180 miles--and back again.
On the 27th of July, that is to say, on the 2nd of July of the Julian
calendar, Cicero wrote to Atticus, ‘Judging from my brother Quintus’s
letters, I imagine that by this time he is in Britain’ (_ex Q. fratris
litteris suspicor iam eum esse in Britannia_[3649]). It would be
very rash, however, to infer from this that Caesar landed in Britain
before, or even as early as, the 2nd of July; for, as we have seen, his
embarkation was delayed by the long continuance of adverse winds. The
first letter which announced the arrival of the expeditionary force
in Britain was referred to by Cicero in a letter to Quintus, in which
he says, ‘How I rejoiced at your letter from Britain! I was nervous
about the sea and the coast of that island’ (_O iucundas mihi tuas de
Britannia literas! Timebam Oceanum, timebam litus insulae_[3650]).
This letter is undated; but it must have been written some time after
the one which Cicero wrote to Atticus on the 27th of July; for in the
letter to Atticus we find the words, ‘I have undertaken to defend
Messius.... After that I have to prepare myself for Drusus, and then
for Scaurus’ (_Messius defendebatur a nobis ... Deinde me expedio
ad Drusum, inde ad Scaurum_[3651]); while in the letter to Quintus
Cicero wrote, ‘The day I write this Drusus has been acquitted.... The
_comitia_ have been put off to September. Scaurus’s trial will take
place immediately’ (_Quo die haec scripsi, Drusus erat ... absolutus
... Comitia in mensem Septembrem reiecta sunt. Scauri indicium statim
exercebitur_[3652]). Asconius[3653] tells us that the last day of
Scaurus’s trial was the 2nd of September; and Cicero’s remark that ‘the
_comitia_ have been put off to September’ makes it evident that he
wrote in August; while from his saying that ‘Scaurus’s trial will take
place immediately’ we should naturally infer that when he wrote the 2nd
of September was not far off. Letters from Britain generally reached
Rome in about 27 days;[3654] and accordingly we may conclude that the
letter in which Quintus Cicero announced his arrival in Britain was
written about the end of July; that is to say, about the 6th of July
of the Julian calendar.[3655] Now Caesar says that the tide [in the
Straits of Dover] turned westward soon after daybreak on the morning of
his arrival in Britain;[3656] and this statement proves that he landed
either _about_ the time of full moon or _about_ the time of new moon.
There was a full moon on the 21st of July, 54 B.C.; and the previous
new moon occurred on the 7th of July. Napoleon[3657] insists that the
landing must have taken place on the day of full moon, arguing that
without moonlight Caesar could not have undertaken the march which he
made on the night following his arrival. But, as we have already seen,
Napoleon argues on the erroneous assumption that Caesar intercalated
only 67 days in the year 708, and accordingly he fixes all the dates
of the unreformed calendar which occur in Cicero’s letters of 700
twenty-three days too late. His argument that Caesar could not have
made a night march except by the light of the moon is worthless. It
must be remembered that, in the first half of July, there is no real
night over any part of the British Isles; and no one familiar with the
records of night marches would deny that Caesar could have marched on a
clear night at that time of the year. Long[3658] says that ‘of course
he had also the moon on the night on which he sailed from the Gallic
coast’. There is no ‘of course’ in the matter. Caesar sailed from Gaul
to Britain in 55 B.C. after midnight, on the 26th or 27th of August,
that is to say either five or four days before the full moon;[3659] and
the moon set soon after midnight both of August 25-26 and of August
26-27. Moreover, according to Napoleon himself, Caesar sailed from
Britain to Gaul in 55 B.C. on the 12th of September,[3660] that is to
say, on a moonless night: as new moon occurred on the 14th, and he
did not sail until after midnight, he could not have had the benefit
of moonlight unless he had deferred his voyage until the date of the
equinox; and I am assured by Captain Iron, the harbour-master of Dover,
that on a fine night, especially in July, there would not have been
the least difficulty in sailing without a moon. As a matter of fact,
William the Conqueror sailed to England on a dark night. ‘The moon,’
says Mr Freeman,[3661] ‘was hidden and the heavens were clouded over.
The Duke therefore ordered every ship to bear a light.... The ships
were to keep as near together as might be, and to follow closely after
the beacon-light of his own ship.’ If, then, we decide that Caesar
landed in Britain on the day of new moon, the 7th of July, 54 B.C., we
shall not be more than one day wrong; but to fix the date with absolute
precision is impossible.[3662]
As Caesar landed about the 7th of July, it follows that he had reached
the Portus Itius, where he was delayed about 25 days, about the 11th of
June.
On the day after he landed Caesar encountered a British force 12 miles
from his camp on the coast. On the following day, while his troops
were pursuing the fugitives, he was recalled to the coast by the
news that a large number of his ships had been damaged by a storm.
He then proceeded to construct a naval camp, and, as soon as it was
finished, returned to the point from which he had started.[3663] As the
construction of the camp occupied ‘about ten days’ (_circiter dies
X_), we shall not be far wrong if we say that it was finished 12 days
after the landing, that is to say, about the 19th of July of the Julian
calendar.
We now come to a date the significance of which has hardly been
appreciated. At the close of one of his letters to Quintus, Cicero
writes, ‘Caesar wrote me a letter from Britain on the 1st of
September... in which, to prevent my wondering at not getting one
from you, he tells me that you were not with him when he reached
the coast’ (_Ex Britannia Caesar ad me K. Septembr. dedit litteras
... quibus, ne admirer, quod a te nullas acceperim, scribit se sine
te fuisse, cum ad mare accesserit_[3664]). This passage proves that
Caesar had returned from the interior of Britain to the coast on or
before the 1st of September, that is to say, the 5th of August of
the Julian calendar. But we have already seen that he did not quit
the coast after the construction of his naval camp until about the
19th of July, and that on the 29th of August he was still in Britain,
‘on the point of bringing back the army,’ and did not sail for Gaul
till several days later.[3665] We have to decide, then, between
two alternatives. Either Caesar had finished the campaign against
Cassivellaunus by the 5th of August of the Julian calendar, and
thereafter remained on the coast until the 29th of August, when he
was able to announce that he was ‘on the point of bringing back the
army’; or he made a hurried temporary visit to the coast, the object
of which remains unexplained. The latter view is not supported by the
_Commentaries_. Caesar’s narrative certainly leaves the impression
that, immediately after the completion of his naval camp, he resumed
the military operations which had been interrupted by the shipwreck,
and did not again return to the coast until the time came for him
to prepare for his voyage to Gaul. He tells us that Cassivellaunus,
after the failure of the attack which had been made by his orders
upon the naval camp, and in consequence of the reverses which he had
suffered, sued for peace; that he ordered Cassivellaunus to furnish
hostages;[3666] and that, ‘on receiving the hostages, he led back
the army to the sea, where he found the ships repaired’ (_Obsidibus
acceptis exercitum reducit ad mare, naves invenit refectas_[3667]).
‘When they were launched,’ he continues, ‘he determined to take the
army back in two trips’ (_his deductis ... duobus commeatibus exercitum
reportare instituit_[3668]). Certainly there is not a word in this to
support the view, which is advocated by Vogel, that the visit to the
coast which Caesar made on the 1st of September (the 5th of August of
the Julian calendar) was purely temporary, and took place _before_
he began to march towards the country of Cassivellaunus; and the
motive which Vogel[3669] suggests for the visit--that Caesar wished
to inspect the camp once more and to give the necessary instructions
before marching against Cassivellaunus--is hardly adequate, unless we
grant Vogel’s assumption, that when Caesar returned to the sea the
campaign had advanced no further than the stage which he describes in
the 17th chapter of his Fifth Book, where three legions under Trebonius
inflicted a decisive defeat on the enemy; in other words, that Caesar
returned from a point within a day’s march of the sea. But this
affair, according to the _Commentaries_, took place on the very day
after Caesar quitted his naval camp in order to resume the campaign;
whereas he returned to the sea, on Vogel’s own showing, about 17 days
after he quitted the camp. If, on the other hand, we adopt Napoleon’s
view[3670]--that Caesar, after he returned to the sea on the 1st of
September, remained there until he sailed for Gaul--how are we to
account for the 24 days which elapsed before he wrote to tell Cicero
that he was on the point of bringing back the army? What was he doing
all that time? Napoleon,[3671] indeed, maintains that, on the day on
which he wrote this last letter, he actually sailed for Gaul, and Bergk
that he had already arrived in Gaul; but it has already been shown that
both these assumptions are untenable. Moreover, in order to account for
Caesar’s having arrived at the sea so early, Napoleon and Bergk are
forced to strain the words of the _Commentaries_ (_exercitum reducit ad
mare_),--to assume that Caesar hurried on in advance of his army, and
that it did not reach the coast until several days later.[3672]
Although the problem cannot be definitively solved, I have no doubt
but that Vogel’s solution is wrong. Not only does it give the lie to
Caesar’s narrative, but it requires us to believe that Caesar had
failed for about 17 days to make any headway against the Britons, and
had been held in check by them within a dozen miles of the sea. Yet
Caesar states that, in consequence of the defeat which Cassivellaunus
suffered at the hands of Trebonius on the day after he left the
newly-constructed naval camp, the British infantry levies dispersed;
and in the same breath he goes on to say that he forthwith marched
for the country of Cassivellaunus.[3673] If, as Vogel implies, this
statement had been false, surely Quintus Cicero would have informed his
brother, in one of the five letters which he wrote before the 1st of
September, of the real state of affairs! On the other hand, I find it
difficult to believe that Caesar used the words _exercitum reducit ad
mare_ loosely, and that he remained on the coast from the 1st to the
25th of September, without once writing to Cicero between those two
dates,[3674] and then remained several days longer before embarking.
This view, indeed, would compel us to assume that he left Trebonius
or one of his other generals to carry on the negotiations with
Cassivellaunus which are described in the 22nd chapter of his Fifth
Book.
Napoleon, it is true, believes that Caesar did not leave his army and
hurry on in advance of it to his naval camp until the negotiations were
completed and he had received his hostages from Cassivellaunus.[3675]
But on this assumption what motive could he have had, first, for
hurrying on in advance of his army, and, secondly, for delaying its
re-embarkation until after the lapse of several weeks? I am inclined,
therefore, to believe that he made a hurried temporary visit to his
naval camp, escorted probably by a small column, and then, having
accomplished his purpose, returned to the main army in order to conduct
or to complete the negotiations with Cassivellaunus. The motive of
his visit may have been connected with the attack which the Kentish
chieftains made upon the naval camp.[3676]
The date of Caesar’s return to Gaul can only be given approximately.
We have seen that on the 25th of September (the 29th of August of the
Julian calendar) he wrote to Cicero, saying that he was on the point
of bringing back the army.[3677] Vogel[3678], remarking that, after he
reached the coast, his ships had to be launched and loaded, and that he
did not sail with the second detachment of troops until he had waited
a long time in vain for the return of the ships which had carried
the first, concludes that he did not return to Gaul until about 20
days after he wrote to Cicero, that is to say, not until the 15th of
October. This date corresponds with the 17th of September of the Julian
calendar; and Vogel maintains that it agrees with Caesar’s statement
of the reason which led him to hurry on his return, namely, that the
equinox was at hand. But it is impossible to estimate, from Caesar’s
statement, how many days he waited for the return of his ships. Let us
examine the attempts which have been made to gain a clue from Cicero’s
correspondence.
Vogel[3679] points out that Cicero,[3680] in a letter written just
after the 23rd of November--the 26th of October of the Julian
calendar--referred to two letters which he had received from Quintus,
and also to a third, which Quintus had handed to Labienus for
transmission the day before he dispatched the earlier of the other two,
but which had not yet arrived. Now Labienus had remained in Gaul during
the invasion of Britain.[3681] It is clear, therefore, that these three
letters were not written until after Quintus had returned to Gaul. On
the other hand, they would seem to have been the first letters which
Quintus wrote to his brother after his return. For Cicero, in the
letter in which he referred to them, said, ‘where your Nervii dwell and
how far off, I have no idea’ (_Ubi enim isti sint Nervii et quam longe
absint, nescio_[3682]). The Nervii were the tribe in whose country
Quintus, with his legion, was to pass the winter.[3683] Evidently
Quintus, when he wrote the two letters which Cicero received, had not
yet reached the country of the Nervii; for otherwise he could not, on
the previous day, have been with Labienus, who was to winter in the
country of another tribe. Probably, as Vogel concludes, he wrote from
Samarobriva, or Amiens, where Caesar had his head quarters and where
the arrangements for the distribution of the legions were made.[3684]
Again, in the letter which has been already quoted, Cicero wrote to
Quintus, ‘Pray be careful to let me know to whom I am to give the
letter which I shall then send you,--to Caesar’s letter-carriers, for
him to forward it direct to you, or to those of Labienus?’ (_Tu velim
cures ut sciam quibus nos dare oporteat eas quas ad te deinde litteras
mittemus, Caesarisne tabellariis, ut is ad te protinus mittat, an
Labieni_[3685]). Vogel remarks that ‘this question is only intelligible
on the hypothesis that Quintus was only just beginning to take up his
quarters in Gaul’ at the time when he wrote the two letters which
Cicero had just received. Now a letter would have required about 25
days for transmission from Samarobriva to Rome;[3686] and accordingly
the letters to which Cicero referred, assuming that he replied to them
promptly, would have been written about the end of October. Vogel,
who thinks that they must have been written within a fortnight after
Quintus and Caesar returned to Gaul, infers that they cannot have
returned earlier than the 15th of October, the 17th of September of
the Julian calendar. His reasoning is ingenious; but unfortunately we
do not know exactly how soon after the receipt of his brother’s second
letter Cicero wrote, or how many days intervened between the arrival of
the first and of the second.
On the whole, it appears to me that all we can say for certain
regarding the date of Caesar’s return is this. It cannot be fixed
earlier than several days after the 29th of August of the Julian
calendar,--the date of the letter in which he informed Cicero that he
was on the point of bringing back the army. Bearing in mind that it
occurred when ‘the equinox was at hand’, we may place it about the
middle of September.
TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES
On April 25, 1902, I observed more carefully than I had ever done
before the coast between Sandgate and West Hythe. To speak of the hills
between Sandgate and Hythe as _angusti montes_ is sheer nonsense.
Caesar would never have attempted to force a passage inland at any
point between Lympne and Sandgate;[3687] nor would the Britons have
abandoned these _loca superiora_, which lay ready to hand. There are,
indeed, depressions in the line of hills--(1) just west of Sandgate
railway station, (2) nearly opposite the Seabrook (now Imperial)
Hotel, and (3) west of Hythe, just west of the point where the road
diverges from the military canal; but if Caesar had attempted to force
these gaps, he would have found himself entangled in the hills behind.
27.4.02.
* * * * *
Quite recently I explored the easternmost and the westernmost of the
three valleys which partially break the continuity of the hills behind
Hythe. Neither would have been [reasonably] practicable for an invading
army [in the conditions of ancient warfare]. The road leading through
the former, which branches off from the road [running from Sandgate]
to Hythe, is level for the first 120 yards, and then ascends rapidly
for a short distance. Then it is tolerably level until about 100 yards
before one gets to the cross-road which turns off to the left, when it
ascends rapidly for a long way. A column moving along it would have
been exposed to attack from the hills on either side, and particularly
on the west. 3.9.03.
* * * * *
On the return voyage from Boulogne [September 5, 1903] I most carefully
scrutinized the whole coast-line between Sandgate and the Foreland, as
I had often done before on land. Caesar’s description of the _angusti
montes_ is applicable only to Shakespeare’s Cliff and the cliffs which
extend from the Castle Hill to the neighbourhood of Kingsdown. It is
not applicable even to the imposing heights which bound East Wear Bay,
because, although they might fairly be called _angusti montes_, the
missiles of which Caesar speaks could only have been thrown on to the
beach from the precipitous but low chalk cliffs which form the lowest
part of these heights; whereas he plainly means that the missiles would
[or rather, could] have been thrown by the enemy who were standing _in
omnibus collibus_; and if he anchored off East Wear Bay, the _colles_
were a quarter of a mile or more from the sea. The low chalk cliffs
of East Wear Bay would never have been called _montes_, although
they are the lowest part of a range of _montes_. The notion that the
cliffs between East Wear Bay and Folkestone Harbour, or the cliffs on
which the ‘Leas’ stand, as seen from a vessel half a mile from the
shore, would have been called _angusti montes_ or _montes_ at all is
simply ludicrous. No! It is absolutely certain that Caesar’s _angusti
montes_ were the cliffs of Dover,--the cliffs between [and including]
the Castle Hill and the Foreland. And as for Airy’s theory, how could
cliffs ‘ten to thirty feet high’ have been called _angusti montes_
by an observer standing on the deck of a ship five nautical miles
away?[3688]
[Cicero’s description (_Att._, iv, 16, § 7) of the cliffs which ‘walled
in the approaches to the island’--_mirificis molibus_--is applicable
only to the heights behind East Wear Bay and the cliffs of Dover.]
* * * * *
The following notes were jotted down on September 15, 1902, on the deck
of a steamer running from Dover to Deal:--
Six _colles_ at present visible off Dover Harbour, i.e. on east of old
[pre-Roman and Roman] harbour: one on left, not counting Shakespeare’s
Cliff.
Eight from off the Foreland. Nothing could be more appropriate than
the expressions _in omnibus collibus expositas_ [hostium copias] and
_montes angusti_. In the various ‘dips’ the _hostium copiae_ would have
been very conspicuous.
* * * * *
Behind the low rampart between Kingsdown and Walmer Castle the ground
rises. Caesar might have encamped [in his first expedition] on this
rising ground or on the rising ground which extends behind the castle
towards the church.
Just after passing Deal Castle one turns to the left down Gilford Road,
and, after walking about 300 yards, passes under a railway bridge, and
then, very gradually ascending for a few paces, walks along a path,
which crosses fields. It seemed to me just possible that C. might have
encamped on these fields, but very--to the last degree--unlikely.
The only suitable camping-grounds that I can see anywhere are those
mentioned above. 16.9.02.
* * * * *
Walked over the cliffs from St. Margaret’s to Walmer.... After walking
for a short distance along the edge of this [natural] rampart [south
of Walmer Castle], I struck inland along a fence, and came to a path
which traverses a rolling chalk plateau, and runs exactly in a straight
line with the tower of St. Mary’s Church, Walmer. There is splendid
camping-ground on this plateau. The camp would have commanded the
approaches from every point of the compass; and the descent from the
plateau on the west or landward side is steep. Beyond the valley which
bounds the plateau on this side the ground rises again fairly rapidly.
The plateau extends northward to a point just south of Walmer Castle,
which it commands. If Caesar encamped on the plateau, the camp could
be discovered by excavation: but if he encamped on the gently rising
ground north-west of the plateau, the camp could not be discovered; for
this ground is covered by buildings. (I assume of course that he did
not encamp on the high ground west of the plateau or on the ground on
which the windmill stands; for both sites are too far from the sea.)
17.9.02.
ADDENDA
PAGE 122. ‘There was certainly a Copper Age ... Ireland.’ Professor
Gowland (_Journ. Anthr. Inst._, xxxvi, 1906, pp. 26-7) deprecates the
use of the expression ‘Copper Age’, remarking that ‘the so-called
Copper Age possesses no characteristics which are not common to the
Neolithic Age, except the imitations and limited use of stone forms in
metal’, &c. The question seems to be purely verbal.
PAGE 140. ‘It is worthy of remark ... not pure.’ The proportion of
lead in Scottish bronze implements appears to have been remarkable;
but Professor Gowland (_Journ. Anthr. Inst._, xxxvi, 1906, p. 30)
observes that lead is ‘found in small quantities in nearly all bronze
implements’. See, however, J. Evans, _Anc. Bronze Implements_, p. 417.
PAGE 148. ‘All the open ones ... sand.’ Professor Gowland (_Journ.
Anthr. Inst._, xxxvi, 1906, p. 36) affirms that ‘moulds of sand or
loam were undoubtedly of later times [in the Bronze Age], as there are
considerable mechanical difficulties in preparing them’.
PAGE 194, note 3. To the list of counties in which drinking-cups have
been found must now be added Kincardineshire (_Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._,
xl, 1906, pp. 304-6).
PAGE 205, note 4. To the list of papers on cup- and ring-markings may
be added _Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._, xl, 1906, pp. 318-27.
PAGE 208. ‘Stone circles ... Kincardineshire.’ A circle in
Stirlingshire is described in _Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._, xl, 1906, pp.
301-4.
PAGE 211, note 2. To the list of papers on Scottish stone circles may
be added _Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot._, xl, 1906, pp. 164-206, 245-54.
PAGE 221. ‘They told him ... ankle-bones.’ This statement rests upon
the reading ἀστραγάλων in Diodorus Siculus, v, 22, § 2. Professor
Ridgeway (_Folk-Lore_, i, 1890, p. 83, n. 1) suggests that the true
reading may be ἀστραβῶν (saddles).
PAGE 237. ‘Coral ... later period.’ M. S. Reinach (_Rev. arch._, 4^e
sér., vi, 1906, pp. 309-10) argues that the development of enamelling
in Gaul was due to the growing dearness of coral, the price of
which rose because large quantities were bought for exportation to
India after the conquests of Alexander the Great. This view leaves
unexplained the continued use of coral in Britain long after it had
fallen into disuse in Gaul.
PAGE 259, note 3. In a recent article on vitrified forts (_Proc. Soc.
Ant. Scot._, xl, 1906, pp. 136-50) Lieut.-Col. A. B. McHardy suggests
that some of them may have been built in the time of the Vikings, and
argues that the vitrifaction was probably never intentional, because
(1) ‘in various forts ... the loose stones below the vitrification
(_sic_) are supported by ordinary masonry, which apparently might have
been carried up the whole way had the builders so desired,’ and (2)
the greatest amount of vitrifaction is generally found ‘where a strong
parapet is least needed’. He also thinks that the forts were used for
signalling, and that the vitrifaction was produced by smouldering
beacon fires.
PAGE 288, note 1. Canon Greenwell, in a paper to which I have already
referred (p. 676, n. 6), states that in the ‘Danes’ Graves’ ‘by far
the larger number [of bodies] were laid on the left side, and ...
about one-third had the head pointing to north-east. It does not
seem, however,’ he adds, ‘that the dead were laid with the face turned
towards the sun.’ He also observes that ‘the presence of charcoal in
close proximity to an unburnt body, so universal a feature in the
graves of the Bronze Age [on the Yorkshire Wolds] was not noticed
except in a few cases, at the Danes’ Graves, and in these it may only
have been there accidentally’.
PAGE 379, note 3. I omitted to mention Professor Karl Pearson’s method
of estimating stature. Dr. Beddoe, who has criticized it in _Journ.
Roy. Inst. Cornwall_, xv, 1902, pp. 163-71, thinks that it ‘probably
underestimates the stature of tall men’, and observes that in one case,
where the actual height of living men had been ascertained, Professor
Pearson’s calculations erred considerably more than his own or M.
Manouvrier’s.
PAGE 408, note 4. See also _Biometrika_, iii, 1904, pp. 243-4.
PAGE 490, note 5. Further evidence of tin mining in the Scilly Islands
will be found in _Memoirs Geol. Survey,--The Geology of the Isles of
Scilly_, 1906, pp. 10, 11.
PAGES 504-5. ‘Is he not aware ... distinguished.’ C. Müller, in his
edition of Ptolemy’s _Geography_ (p. 106), argues that Pliny’s Vectis
cannot be the Vectis which was the Isle of Wight, because he mentions
it among the islands between England and Ireland. But if this argument
is sound and Pliny did not blunder, it remains true that there is no
evidence in Pliny or any other writer for identifying Ictis with Vectis.
PAGE 527, note 9. Mr. Spurrell has proved that a slight subsidence has
taken place in the London district since the Roman occupation. See also
p. 566, _supra_.
PAGES 581-3. ‘There is one passage ... anchorage.’ The argument in
this paragraph depends upon the assumption that the ships which were
‘carried back’ (_referrentur_) in 55 B.C. to the port from which they
had started were laid to, and that they could not lie within less than
four points and a half of the wind, or, if, with Falconer and James
Smith, we allow six points for leeway, within less than two and a
half. It may not perhaps be impertinent to explain that when a ship is
laid to her head is brought as close to the wind as possible without
losing way, under little sail. In these circumstances the helm is often
lashed, and the ship then has a tendency to yaw, that is, to fall off
the wind and come up again alternately. An experienced seaman with
whom I have recently discussed the matter believes, however, that it
might have been practicable for the captains of the ships in question
to adopt the plan of ‘head reaching’, that is, working to windward
under comparatively low sail but still enough to enable the steersmen
to keep the ships under control, to luff up to dangerous seas, and to
make considerable headway. As he remarked, the difference between lying
to, when the helm is not lashed, and ‘head reaching’ is simply one of
degree: in ‘head reaching’ the vessel carries a little more sail; and,
judging from illustrations of ancient ships, he thinks that Caesar’s
would have been able, when ‘head reaching’, to lie within two points
of the wind. Allowing five points for leeway, he holds that they could
have made good a course within seven points; and he insists that an
ancient ship with its sails properly trimmed could have gone as near
the wind as a modern lugger!
This, I need hardly say, is rank heresy, and I do not believe that any
one who is conversant with the literature of ancient navigation will
accept it. Besides, we do not know whether Gallic ships were rigged
exactly like those of the Mediterranean. James Smith (_The Voyage and
Shipwreck of St. Paul_, 1880, pp. 75, 127, 215) may or may not have
been right in maintaining that an ancient ship could not make good a
course in moderate weather within less than about seven points of the
wind; but numerous passages prove that ancient ships, if they could
work to windward, could not do so without difficulty. If my heretical
friend is right, why were Caesar’s cavalry transports windbound in the
_ulterior portus_, less than eight miles from the port which their
captains wished to make, and why were they obliged by contrary winds
to put back, even in moderate weather, after they first started from
the _ulterior portus_? M. Jules Vars, indeed (_L’art nautique dans
l’antiquité_, 1887, pp. 181 ff.), apparently doubts whether ancient
ships could work to windward at all; but a passage which James Smith
quotes from one of Cicero’s letters (_Fam._, xiv, 5, § 1)--_cum sane
adversis ventis usi essemus tardeque et incommode navigassemus_--and
another in Livy, which I am obliged to quote at second hand--_hinc
atque hinc ad ventos obliqua transferre vela_--suggest, if they do
not prove, that they could. I hope to discuss the question soon in
another place. Meanwhile it is enough to say that if Caesar’s cavalry
transports could not work to windward, they could neither ‘head-reach’
nor lie to; and those which were carried back to their port of
departure must have fetched it by sailing with the wind nearly abeam.
But those which were ‘driven down in great peril to the lower and
more westerly part of the island’ (_ad inferiorem partem insulae quae
est propius solis occasum magno suo cum periculo deicerentur_) were
evidently scudding; and while the word _referrentur_ (‘were carried
back’), which is strongly contrasted with _deicerentur_, suggests
that the others were laid to, Caesar’s words show that they were
comparatively in little danger, though, if they had not been brought
close to the wind, they would evidently have run as great a risk as
the others. A distinguished admiral suggests to me that they did sail
with the wind nearly abeam, and disposes of the question of danger by
assuming that Caesar exaggerated its force. But, with due deference, I
would ask whether, since it was strong enough to drive ashore and wreck
ships which were riding at anchor, and since the ships that ran before
it were ‘in great peril’, ships sailing with it nearly abeam would
not have been in peril equally great. It is universally admitted that
ancient ships could sail with the wind abeam: it seems hardly credible
that the discovery should not have followed that Gallic ships, which
were not shallow, _could_ also make headway within less than eight
points of the wind; and I therefore believe that, however rare, from
one cause or another, tacking may have been, ships were occasionally
laid to in bad weather.
Anyhow, my argument remains unshaken. If the ships which were carried
back to the _ulterior portus_ neither lay to nor ‘head-reached’, it is
self-evident that they could not have fetched Sangatte, and therefore
that the _ulterior portus_ was Ambleteuse: if they sailed with the
wind abeam, they could not have fetched any port east of Wissant: if
they were laid to, they could not have fetched Sangatte; nor could
they have done so even if they ‘head-reached’ unless they possessed
a capacity for working to windward with which few modern ships and
no ancient ship can be credited. Indeed they could not have done so
even then; for it would evidently have been impossible for them to
beat across the Channel in a single tide: the flood (see p. 583) would
hardly have helped them; and the ebb, prolonged and strengthened by the
north-easterly gale, would have carried them far out of their course.
The foregoing remarks apply of course to other passages in which I have
mentioned the cavalry transports. By no means could they have returned
either from near Hythe or Lympne to Ambleteuse or from near Pevensey to
the mouth of the Authie.
PAGE 680. ‘Therefore, unless ... Bekesbourne.’ Mr. George Barrow of
the Geological Survey, whom I have consulted, thinks that there is no
reason to suppose that the relative level of water and banks in the
Little Stour above Littlebourne was appreciably different in 54 B.C.
from what it is now.
PAGE 698. ‘The claim ... better grounds.’ Mr. F. H. Baring (_Eng.
Hist. Rev._, October, 1907, pp. 726-8) argues that Caesar crossed
the Thames by ‘an undoubted ford just above tidewater at Hampton’,
which was mentioned by Lord Lumley in 1685. He argues that, owing to
the tides, Brentford would only have been available for ‘five or six
hours out of twelve’; that ‘this important fact would surely have been
mentioned’; and that the stakes which have been found at Brentford are
fifteen inches round and therefore too large. I am not sure that he
is referring to the stakes described by Mr. Montagu Sharpe, whom he
does not mention; but surely the stakes would not have answered their
purpose worse for being strong. I do not believe that Caesar would have
mentioned the presence of tides at Brentford if they had not affected
his passage; but, as we have seen (p. 696), Mr. Spurrell has argued
that the tides did not reach Brentford. If there was a ford at Hampton
before the days of locks and weirs, there was another, if the evidence
of the name _Halliford_ is trustworthy, at or near Coway Stakes. Are
we entitled to assume that either existed in the time of Caesar? The
reader will have understood that I do not pin my faith to Mr. Sharpe’s
theory: I only think that it is less feebly supported than any other.
PAGE 712, note 2. W. Sternkopf (_Hermes_, xl, 1905, p. 37) rejects
Boot’s emendation, _proximis_, and conjectures that Cicero wrote
_proxime_, meaning that the letter in question was the most recent of
several which had arrived together.
INDEX
[Only such references to authors are included as seemed likely to be
useful.]
Abbeville, 4.
Abercromby, J., 6, 168 n. 1, 182 n. 2, 185 n. 2, 192 n. 1.
Aberdeenshire, 81, 151, 194 n. 3, 361 note;
stone circles of, 208-10;
brachycephalic skeletons found in, 426;
ethnological observations in, 442.
Abnoba, 272.
Abydos, 123 n. 1.
Acton, 40 n. 2.
Addedomaros, 363 n. 6.
Adriatic, 243.
Adzes, 75.
Aedui, 331-3.
Aegean Sea, 9.
Africa, 5, 9, 30, 66-7, 82, 123, 197, 205, 211, 251 n. 1, 263 n. 2.
_Africus_, 555.
Agricola, 226.
Agricultural implements, 76, 89.
_See_ Ploughs.
Agriculture, in Neolithic Age, 89-91;
in Bronze Age, 151-2;
in Early Iron Age, 252-4.
Ain, 296, 410-1.
Airy, Sir G., 558-63, 616-8, 645-8, 652, 655, 659.
Aisne, 110 n. 1.
Akerman, R. Y., 5.
Alderbury, 27.
Aldington Knoll, 639-40.
Allen, J. Romilly, 6, 149 n. 5, 232 n. 2.
‘Alpine’ race, 127-8, 437, 455.
Alprech, 306, 570, 572-3.
Altars, 274, 280;
of Paris, 276, 279 note;
of Sarrebourg, 281.
Amber, 131;
cup, 159 n. 1;
ornaments, 162-3, 167-70, 183, 469;
trade, 218, 357;
amber coast visited by Pytheas, 220, 223-4.
Ambidexterity (alleged), 82 n. 5.
Ambleteuse,
cavalry transports sailed from, in 55 B.C., 313, 318-9, 587-8, 593,
616, 639;
not identical with Portus Itius, 552, 563-4.
Ambresbury Banks, 137 n. 4.
America, 4, 31, 51, 78, 93-4, 125, 205.
Amesbury, 189.
Amiens, 4.
Ammianus Marcellinus, 273.
Amminus, 370 note.
Amulets, 92-3, 116, 205, 260.
Ancalites, 346, 700.
Ancestor-worship, 116, 283-4.
Ancyra, 363-4, 368.
Andate, 297.
Anderson, J., 7, 135 note.
Andred (Anderida), 501, 507, 614.
Anglesey, 107, 139, 160, 194 n. 3;
hut-circles in, 154;
Druids, 292.
Animals, worship of, 55, 284;
domestication, 55-7;
interment, 114, 203, 288;
sacrifice, 202-3, 288.
Animism, 50-1.
Antedrigus, 370.
Anthropology, 8, 234;
methods of, 376-9, 457 n. 4.
‘Anthropomorphic ape,’ 48;
designs in Late Celtic art, 236.
Anthropomorphism, 286.
Anvils, 79.
Appach, F. H., 314 n. 2, 639-44.
Appledore, 533-4, 538-43, 545-6, 549-50, 552, 604, 638, 640, 643.
_See_ Rother.
Apollo, 275, 280.
Aquae Calidae, 232 n. 3.
Aquitaine, 40.
Aquitani, 304.
Arbois de Jubainville, H. d’, 228, 281, 291 n. 2, 292 note, 407-8,
410-2, 415 note, 416 n. 6, 421-3, 446-7.
Arbor Low, 476 n. 3.
_Archaeologia_, 3.
Archaeology, caution needed in, 7;
as an aid to ethnological inquiry, 375-6.
Archers, 313, 316, 331, 346, 698.
Arctic animals, 20-1, 40;
plants, 15, 19.
Arctic Circle, 225-6.
Argentocoxos, 423, 450.
Argyllshire, 102, 107-8, 185 n. 5, 194 n. 3, 205, 208.
Ariovistus, 300-1.
Armorica, 501, 507.
Arran, 115 n. 8, 208;
cairns, 108;
skulls, 394.
Arras, interments, 234 n. 1;
torque, 241 n. 1;
skeleton, 436 note;
chariot-burial, 676.
Arreton Down, 145, 182 n. 5.
Arrow-heads, 3, 80-2;
bronze, 132 note.
Artabri, 484-5, 487-8, 492.
Artillery, in Caesar’s army, 313, 347.
Artists, palaeolithic, 35, 47, 83.
Aruntas, 53, 199, 463.
Aryans, 153, 272, 275.
Asia, 4, 125, 205;
Asia Minor, 31.
Astronomy, 10;
astronomical theory of Stonehenge, 216-7, 472-6, 480-1;
of other stone circles, 481-2.
Atecotti, 448.
Atkinson, J. W., 5.
Atrebates, 232, 235, 347, 366, 451-2, 454, 695;
of Gaul, 300, 309, 364-6.
Atrius, 336, 338, 686.
Atticus, 329, 333, 350.
_Augusta_, 255, 704.
Augustus, 306, 357, 361, 363, 366-7, 369.
Aulus Plautius, 362 n. 7, 371.