[3083] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. 87.
[3084] _B. G._, v, 9, § 1.
[3085] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. cxxiii. If the reader
will consult Lewin’s map in _Archaeologia_, xl, 1866, p. 369, or my
reproduction of it, he will see that even if Lewin’s final view of the
topography of Hythe harbour could be accepted (see pp. 547-8, _supra_),
the absurdities involved in his theory of Caesar’s disembarkation would
still remain.
[3086] I mean of course that this would have been their true course.
[3087] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 59-60.
[3088] Information supplied by Commander Boxer, R.N., Harbour-Master at
Folkestone.
[3089] See Falconer’s _Marine Dictionary_, 1815, p. 220.
[3090] The harbour-master of Dover, who fully endorses my argument,
thinks that four points would be a fair estimate.
[3091] See p. 613, _supra_.
[3092] See pp. 606-11, _supra_.
[3093] _Archaeologia_, xxxix, 1863, pp. 309-311.
[3094] See p. 611, _supra_.
[3095] _Philologus_, xxii, 1865, p. 307.
[3096] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. lxxxix.
[3097] _Ib._, p. 31
[3098] _Ib._, p. xlviii.
[3099] See p. 632, _infra_.
[3100] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 39-40.
[3101] This statement, as Caesar’s narrative (_B. G._, iv, 26, §
5) shows, is incorrect; and Lewin himself corrects it when he says
(p. xlvii) that on the day of Caesar’s first voyage ‘the eighteen
transports ... set sail, according to orders, but had been forced to
put back by stress of weather’.
[3102] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. xlvi-xlvii.
[3103] In regard to Caesar’s use of the word _nanciscor_, see H.
Meusel, _Lex. Caes._, ii, 688-9. Long (_Decline of the Roman Republic_,
iv, 434), commenting on the inference which Lewin draws from the word
_nactus_, says that ‘this is not a certain conclusion’, and quotes
_B. G._, v, 9, § 4 (_repulsi ab equitatu se in silvas abdiderunt,
locum nacti egregie et natura et opere munitum, quem domestici belli,
ut videbatur, causa iam ante praeparaverant_). I doubt whether this
passage is relevant.
[3104] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 39-40.
[3105] Lewin afterwards saw that if Caesar landed at Hythe, he could
not have anchored off Dover, and accordingly transferred his anchorage
to a point off Folkestone. See p. 635, _infra_.
[3106] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 33-4.
[3107] _Ib._, p. xc.
[3108] I am glad to find that Heller (_Zeitschrift für allgemeine
Erdkunde_, xviii, 1865, p. 111) has anticipated my argument.
[3109] Obviously it would have been invisible if Caesar had anchored
off Dover. See n. 1, _supra_.
[3110] _B. G._, iv, 23, § 5.
[3111] p. 629, _infra_.
[3112] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. 44.
[3113] _Pharsalia_, ii, 571-2.
[3114] _Caesar_, 16.
[3115] _Hist. Rom._, xxxix, 51, § 2.
[3116] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. cxxi.
[3117] iii, 2, § 23.
[3118] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 43-4.
[3119] _Ib._, Preface (p. vi), p. lxxiii; _Archaeologia_, xxxix, 1863,
p. 313.
[3120] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 64-5.
[3121] _Caesar_, 16.
[3122] _Archaeol. Journal_, xxi, 1864, p. 239.
[3123] _Decline of the Roman Republic_, iv, 166.
[3124] _B. G._, v, 9, § 1.
[3125] For the meaning of _molli_ see p. 630, _infra_.
[3126] _Comm. de bellis C. I. Caesaris_, ii, 45-6.
[3127] On the meaning of _apertus_, as used by Caesar, cf. H. Meusel,
_Lex. Caes._, i, 283-4. In _B. G._, i, 41, § 4, _loca aperta_ means
a country free from woods and other features which would have made
marching difficult: in _B. G._, ii, 18, § 2, and vii, 18, § 3, _collis
apertus_ means a hill free from woods.
[3128] See _B. G._, ii, 10, § 4; 23, § 2; 27, § 5; v, 32, § 2; 49, § 6;
51, § 1; vi, 8, §§ 1, 3; vii, 45, § 9; 49, § 1; 52, § 2; 53, § 1; 83,
§ 2; 85, § 4; and numerous passages in the _Civil War_ (cf. H. Meusel,
_Lex. Caes._, ii, 170-2, s.v. _iniquitas_, _iniquus_).
[3129] See pp. 546, 622, _supra_.
[3130] See p. 655, n. 3, _infra_.
[3131] Schneider maintains (_Comm. de bellis C. I. Caesaris_, ii,
45-6) that ‘molle idem esse quod leniter acclive, imprimis apto
exemplo demonstravit Heldius, 7, 46, _ad molliendum clivum_ non aliter
dictum docens’. I do not think that Schneider is right in arguing
that _mollis_ should be _translated_ by ‘gently sloping’, though that
meaning is doubtless implied. My friend, Professor Postgate, who agrees
with me, has kindly referred me to a passage in Ovid (_Ep. ex Ponto_,
i, 2, 61-2)--
_Cum subit Augusti quae sit clementia, credo
Mollia naufragiis litora posse dari--_
which seems to justify my explanation. Professor Postgate has also
written me a most interesting letter, in which he remarks that while
_aperto_ describes the approach to the shore, which was not blocked
by rocks, _molli_ connotes both a gentle slope and a soft surface: he
refers to a passage in Pomponius Mela (i, 19, § 102), where the Black
Sea is described as _non molli neque harenoso circumdatus litore_.
[3132] See _Pharsalia_, ed. C. E. Haskins, 1887, p. 67, note to line
571, and cf. Ovid, _Fasti_, iv, 278. The word _incerti_ apparently
refers to the tides.
[3133] See C. Kempf’s edition of Valerius Maximus, 1854, pp. 26-33, and
_Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, xviii, 1865, p. 96.
[3134] The statements of Plutarch, Dion Cassius, and Valerius Maximus,
to which Lewin refers, are as follows:--‘Ἐν δὲ Βρεττανίᾳ τῶν πολεμίων
εἰς τόπον ἑλώδη καὶ μεστὸν ὑδάτων ἐμπεσοῦσι τοῖς πρώτοις ταξιάρχοις
ἐπιθεμένων στρατιώτης, Καίσαρος αὐτοῦ τὴν μάχην ἐφορῶντος, ὠσάμενος
εἰς μέσους καὶ πολλὰ καὶ περίοπτα τόλμης ἀποδειξάμενος ἔργα, τοὺς
μὲν ταξιάρχους ἔσωσε, τῶν βαρβάρων φυγόντων, αὐτὸς δὲ χαλεπῶς ἐπὶ
πᾶσι διαβαίνων ἔρριψεν ἑαυτὸν εἰς ῥεύματα τελματώδη καὶ μόλις ἄνευ
τοῦ θυρεοῦ, τὰ μὲν νηχόμενος, τὰ δὲ βαδίζων, διεπέρασε. Plutarch,
_Caesar_, 16. κἀνταῦθα [_i.e._ at the landing-place in 55 B.C.] τοὺς
προσμίξαντάς οἱ ἐς τὰ τενάγη ἀποβαίνοντι νικήσας ἔφθη τῆς γῆς κρατήσας,
&c. Dion Cassius, xxxix, 51, § 2. Bello quo C. Caesar ... Britannicae
insulae caelestis iniecit manus, cum quattuor commilitonibus rate
transvectus in scopulum vicinae insulae, quam hostium ingentes copiae
obtinebant, postquam aestus regressu suo spatium, quo scopulus et
insula dividebantur, in vadum transitu facile redegit, ingenti
multitudine barbarorum affluente, ceteris rate ad litus regressis solus
immobilem stationis gradum retinens, undique ruentibus telis et ab omni
parte acri studio ad te invadendum nitentibus, quinque militum diurno
proelio suffectura pila, una dextera hostium corporibus adegisti. Ad
ultimum destricto gladio audacissimum quemque modo umbonis impulsu,
modo mucronis ictu depellens hinc Romanis, illinc Britannicis oculis
incredibili, nisi cernereris, spectaculo fuisti. Postquam deinde
ira ac pudor cuncta conari fessos coegit, tragula femur traiectus
saxique pondere ora contusus, galea iam ictibus discussa et scuto
crebris foraminibus absumpto, profundo te credidisti ac duabus loricis
onustus inter undas, quas hostili cruore infeceras, enatasti, visoque
imperatore armis non amissis, sed bene impensis, cum laudem merereris
veniam petiisti quod sine scuto rediisses &c. _Factorum et dictorum
memorabilium_, iii, 2, § 23.
[3135] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. 65, n. 1.
[3136] _Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, xviii, 1865, pp. 96-7.
[3137] Cf. Herodotus, viii, 129, § 1,--Ἀρταβάζῳ δὲ ἐπειδὴ πολιορκέοντι
ἐγεγόνεσαν τρεῖς μῆνες, γίνεται ἄμπωτις τῆς θαλάσσης μεγάλη ... ἰδόντες
δὲ οἱ βάρβαροι τέναγος γενόμενοι &c. (‘while Artabazos was besieging
the town, there came to be a great ebb of the sea backwards ... and
the barbarians, seeing that shallow water had been produced’, &c. [G.
C. Macaulay, _The Hist. of Herodotus_, ii, 1890, p. 285]). See also
Strabo, iii, 5, § 11,--ὁ ναύκληρος ἑκὼν εἰς τέναγος ἐξέβαλε τὴν ναῦν.
[3138] See p. 654, _infra_.
[3139] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 60, lxx-lxxi, lxxiii,
lxxv, xc, cxxi.
[3140] _B. G._, iv, 24, § 3.
[3141] _Ib._, 33, § 3.
[3142] It should be noted by the way that Caesar’s remark about
‘steep places’ (_B. G._, iv, 33, § 3) is purely general, and does not
necessarily refer to any combat which took place between his troops and
the Britons.
[3143] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 59-60.
[3144] According to the map facing p. liii of Lewin’s book, Hythe haven
was about 3 miles long, and in many places more than a quarter of a
mile broad.
[3145] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. 27.
[3146] _Ib._, pp. 87-8, 90.
[3147] _Essays on the Invasion of Britain_, &c., p. 36.
[3148] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xxix.
[3149] _Ordnance Survey_ (25 inches to one mile), Sheet LV, 11;
personal observation.
[3150] _B. G_., vii, 69, § 1.
[3151] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xxx.
[3152] _B. G._, v, 9, §§ 2-6.
[3153] _Mém. de litt. tirés des registres de l’Acad. Roy. des Inscr. et
Belles-Lettres_, xxviii, 1761, p. 408.
[3154] _B. G._, v, 9, §§ 1-2.
[3155] _Ib._, v, 8, § 2.
[3156] _Ib._, v, 1, § 2.
[3157] See p. 576, n. 1, _supra_.
[3158] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xcviii. Cf.
_Philologus_, xxii. 1865, pp. 305-6.
[3159] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 33, 39-40, xlviii.
[3160] _Ordnance Survey_ (one inch), Sheets 289, 306.
[3161] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xlviii.
[3162] _Ib._, p. 52.
[3163] _Ib._, p. xlviii.
[3164] _B. G._, iv, 20, § 4; 21, § 1.
[3165] _Ib._, 26, § 5.
[3166] _Ib._, 35, § 1.
[3167] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. 62.
[3168] See pp. 549-52, _supra_.
[3169] Lewin himself remarks (_The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp.
lxiv-lxv) that when the marsh was enclosed, it ‘was at the same time
intersected by sluices’.
[3170] See p. 623, _supra_.
[3171] Lympne Hill rises 288 feet in 1823, and between Hythe and
Seabrook the hill rises 282·2 feet in 1723. See _Ordnance Survey of
England_ (6 inches to 1 mile), Sheet LXXIV, SW. and SE. The angles are
9° 5′ 25″ and 9° 25′ 7″ respectively.
[3172] _B. G._, v, 9, § 8. Cf. ii, 11, §§ 2-3.
[3173] _Philologus_, xxii, 1865, pp. 305-6.
[3174] _B. G._, iv, 28, § 2.
[3175] ‘A little lower down and more towards the west.’
[3176] ... ‘one side is opposite Gaul. One corner of this side, by
Kent--the point which almost all ships from Gaul make for--has an
easterly, and the lower one a southerly outlook.’
[3177] _B. G._, iv, 32.
[3178] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 56, 62-4.
[3179] See pp. 546, 622, _supra_.
[3180] See pp. 622-3, _supra_.
[3181] _Julius Caesar_, 1892, p. 196.
[3182] _Outlines of Roman History_, 3rd ed., 1900, p. 257, n. 2.
[3183] See pp. 605-11, _supra_.
[3184] _Journal of Philology_, xvii, 1888, pp. 167-78.
[3185] See pp. 622-4, _supra_.
[3186] See pp. 535-7, 545-9, _supra_.
[3187] _B. G._, vii, 83, § 2. Cf. 85, § 4,--_exiguum_ [v.l. _iniquum_]
_loci ad declivitatem fastigium magnum habet momentum_ (‘a slight
downward inclination of the ground has a great effect’).
[3188] _Ib._, v, 9, § 1.
[3189] See p. 539, n. 7, _supra_.
[3190] See p. 640, n. 4, _infra_.
[3191] See p. 629, _supra_.
[3192] _Six-inch Ordnance Survey_,--Kent, Sheet LXXIII, SE.
[3193] _C. J. Caesars Brit. Expeditions_, pp. 72-3, § 6.
[3194] See pp. 543-5, 551-2, _supra_.
[3195] _C. J. Caesar’s Brit. Expeditions_, p. 138, § 1
[3196] _Ib._, p. 49, §§ 4-5.
[3197] See W. Topley, _Geology of the Weald_, pp. 402-3, and R.
Furley, _Hist. of the Weald of Kent_, i, 12, and map facing p. 26. The
strip of country extending two or three miles northward from Hurst to
Kennardington is still thickly covered by woods: no less than eleven
are named on the One-Inch Ordnance Map (Sheet 305).
[3198] Furley (_ib._, p. 13, n. *) has noted this objection. Lewin
would perhaps have argued that the buildings were in Romney Marsh, as
he finally concluded that the marsh had perhaps been enclosed by the
Britons in pre-Roman times; but the absurdity of this theory has been
already demonstrated. See pp. 549-52, _supra_.
[3199] _C. J. Caesar’s Brit. Expeditions_, pp. 48, 65, § 14. Appach
(_op. cit._, pp. 56, § 5, 71, §§ 3-4) assumed that Caesar in 55
B.C. steered for Hythe, intending to land there if the Britons were
friendly, and otherwise to sail either to Deal or Bonnington; that he
was ‘of course completely ignorant of the turn of the stream in the
Channel’; that while he was at anchor he gave orders for a landing at
Deal; but that when the stream turned westward he changed his mind
and issued new orders for a landing at Bonnington! Appach failed to
see that since Caesar, when he was at anchor, saw how the stream was
running, Volusenus could have done the same. To say that Caesar was
‘completely ignorant’ is to assume that Volusenus was a fool. Besides,
did not Caesar’s Gallic seamen know the Channel by heart?
[3200] _B. G._, v, 13, § 1.
[3201] _C. J. Caesar’s Brit. Expeditions_, pp. 69-70, § 1.
[3202] _B. G._, iv, 23, § 3.
[3203] In _B. G._, vii, 36, § 2, Caesar describes the various elevated
points of the mountain mass of Gergovia by the words _omnibus eius iugi
collibus_, though they could not be called separate hills; and Long
(_Decline of the Roman Republic_, iv, 438, note), referring to _B. G._,
iii, 18, § 8, remarks that ‘“fossae” often signifies every part of a
“fossa” which surrounds a camp’.
[3204] Viewed from the sea about half a mile off the Foreland, there
are eight. See p. 736, _infra_.
[3205] The steepest rises 282·2 feet in 1723, forming an angle of 9°
25′ 7″ (p. 636, n. 1, _supra_).
[3206] _C. J. Caesar’s Brit. Expeditions_, pp. 77-8, § 6.
[3207] _Ib._, pp. 75, note a, 78-9, § 7.
[3208] See G. Dowker in _Archaeol. Journal_, xxxiii, 1876, p. 58, and
his _Coast Erosion_, p. 3.
[3209] _B. G._, iv, 24, § 2.
[3210] _C. J. Caesar’s Brit. Expeditions_, p. 102, § 5.
[3211] I am glad to find that Heller (_Philologus_, xxii, 1865, pp.
309-10) has anticipated my argument. If, he remarks, the Romans
had already known where Caesar’s landing-place was, the expression
_sub sinistra_, coupled with _Britanniam relictam_, might have been
superfluous; but it was precisely from these words that they first
learned whereabouts to look for it.
[3212] Ἀννίβας δὲ παραδόξως, τοὺς μὲν χρήμασι πείσας τῶν Κελτῶν, τοὺς
δὲ βιασάμενος, ἧκε μετὰ τῶν δυνάμεων, δεξιὸν ἔχων τὸ Σαρδόνιον πέλαγος,
ἐπὶ τῶν τοῦ Ῥοδανοῦ διάβασιν. Polybius, iii, 41, § 7. Even the best
modern historians, in trying to bring a scene vividly before the
imagination, sometimes mention geographical facts which are known to
everybody.
[3213] See p. 656, _infra_.
[3214] See p. 616, _supra_.
[3215] See Th. Mommsen, _Chronica minora_, iii, 1898, p. 114, and _La
Grande Encyclopédie_, xxiv, 927.
[3216] Iulius Caesar ... venit ad Brittanniam cum sexaginta ciulis,
et tenuit in ostium Tamesis, in quo naufragium perpessae sunt naves
illius dum ipse pugnabat apud Dolobellum, qui erat proconsul regi
Brittannico &c. (_Chronica minora_, ed. Th. Mommsen, iii, 1898, p.
162). Besides _apud_ there is another reading, _contra_; and one _MS._
has _Dorobellum_ instead of _Dolobellum_. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his
fabulous account of Caesar’s first invasion (_Hist. Brittonum_, iv,
3), says that ‘Cassibellaunus’ came _ad Dorobellum oppidum_. It is
not surprising that an uneducated writer like S. Pritchard (_Hist. of
Deal_, pp. 1, 10, 39) should assure his readers that Caesar called his
landing-place _Dola_; but when a scholar like Dr. Guest (_Archaeol.
Journal_, xxi, 1864, p. 242) gravely points to ‘the use of the
phrase “apud dolo”’ in the Vatican _MS._ of Nennius, and argues that
_dolo_ means Deal, I am amazed. The reading _dolo_ is not so much as
mentioned in Mommsen’s _apparatus criticus_; but let us provisionally
accept it, and then consider how Dr. Guest would have construed the
passage:--_Iulius Caesar ... pugnabat apud Dolo, qui erat proconsul
regi Brittannico_ &c. _Dolo_, says Dr. Guest, means Deal; _Dolo_, says
Nennius, was _proconsul_, or commander-in-chief, under the British
king. Whatever Nennius may have written, it is clear that he believed
Caesar to have landed somewhere on the north of the South Foreland,
and probably on the coast of East Kent; for, as Battely pointed out
(_Antiquitates Rutupinae_, 1711, p. 46), the mouth of the Thames, in
which Nennius places the landing, had a wider signification in the
Middle Ages than it has now; and William of Malmesbury (_De gestis
Pontificum Anglorum_, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, 1870, lib. ii, § 73 [p.
140]) actually made it extend as far as Dover.
[3217] _Le Roman de Brut_, ed. Le Roux de Lincy, 1836, vv. 4651-3.
[3218] _Itin._, vii, 1744, p. 127 (116-7). See also Camden’s
_Britannia_, ed. R. Gough, i, 218.
[3219] According to Geoffrey of Monmouth (_Hist. Brittonum_, iv, 3,
9) and Matthew Paris (_Chronica Majora_, ed. H. R. Luard, pp. 72-4),
who seems to have copied Geoffrey’s amusing fable, Caesar landed _in
ostium Tamensis fluminis_ on the occasion of his first expedition,
and, when he invaded Britain for the third time (!), in the harbour of
Richborough (_in Rutupi portu_).
[3220] _B. G._, iv, 20, § 4; 21, §§ 1-2, 5-8.
[3221] See p. 635, _supra_, and F. H. Appach, _C. J. Caesar’s Brit.
Expeditions_, p. 47, §§ 4, 6. Appach observes that at Dover ‘there was
a very fine harbour’, but that it was ‘probably dangerous to enter in
bad weather’. But the fact remains that it was continually entered; and
when Caesar sailed to Britain the weather was good.
[3222] It is possible that the reason why Caesar approached Britain a
little eastward of Dover harbour was that he intended to run into the
harbour on the ebb, or westerly-going stream. Long (_Decline of the
Roman Republic_, iv, 438), like Appach, fatuously remarks that Caesar
‘was ignorant of the turn of the stream in the Channel’. See p. 641, n.
1, _supra_.
[3223] _Essays on the Invasion of Britain_, p. 29.
[3224] _Hist. of the War in the Peninsula_, i, 1851, pp. 120-1.
[3225] See E. B. Hamley, _Operations of War_, 1878, p. 221, and C.
Oman, _Hist. of the Peninsular War_, i, 1902, pp. 228-9.
[3226] This appears to have been Kiepert’s view (see his large wall-map
of Gaul). But even if Caesar had anchored off Kingsdown, he would have
first reached Britain (_attigit Britanniam_) off the South Foreland.
[3227] _B. G._, iv, 23, § 4.
[3228] _Journal of Philology_, xvii, 1888, p. 174.
[3229] See pp. 638-9, _supra_.
[3230] See pp. 605-11, _supra_. Heller (_Zeitschrift für allgemeine
Erdkunde_, xviii, 1865, pp. 116-25), after an elaborate argument,
which, if his premisses are correct, is unanswerable, arrives at the
conclusion that, assuming high water to have occurred at Dover on the
27th of August, 55 B.C., at 7.31 a.m., the stream off Dover turned
between 4.26 and 5.21 p.m.; and that, as the turn must have been
accelerated by the favourable wind which Caesar mentions (_B. G._, iv,
23, § 6), ‘one may say, without fear of error, that the stream turned
at 4.26 p.m.’: but it is unnecessary to examine his argument, because
he was not acquainted with the results of the observations which, as we
have seen, were made in 1862 by Surveyor Calver.
Neither have I taken any notice of the argument by which the late
Professor Cardwell (_Archaeol. Cant._, iii, 1860, pp. 14-7) endeavoured
to prove that if high tide had occurred at Dover on the day of Caesar’s
landing at 7.31 a.m., he must at 3 p.m. ‘have gone up Channel on the
first of the flood and proceeded to the eastward’; for the evidence
upon which the professor relied has been shown by Airy (_Archaeologia_,
xxxix, 1863, pp. 304-6) to have been misleading.
[3231] See pp. 600-3, _supra_.
[3232] _Archaeologia_, xxxix, 1863, p. 290.
[3233] See p. 608, _supra_.
[3234] Napoleon III, _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 553. In the latitude
of Paris the ninth hour lasted on the 26th of August till 3.27 p.m.
[3235] See pp. 610-1, _supra_.
[3236] See H. Houssaye, _Waterloo_, 38th ed., 1902, pp. 195, n. 4, 275,
n. 2, 277, n. 2, 313, n. 1, 366, n. 1, 413, n. 1. These discrepancies
arose, I presume, from lapses of memory.
[3237] Cf. _B. G._, v, 13, § 4.
[3238] Cf. Varro, _De lingua Latina_, vi, 89.
[3239] _Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, xviii, 1865, p. 127.
Heller’s argument may be summarized as follows:--Caesar does not say
that he weighed anchor in the ninth hour; had he done so, he would
not have used the words ‘weighing anchor’ (_sublatis ancoris_) in the
later passage in which he describes how he quitted his anchorage: he
only says that he waited at anchor till the ninth hour for the overdue
ships. Meanwhile, as he tells us, he issued his orders to the officers
of the vessels which had already arrived; and, as orders had also to be
given to the captains who were late in arriving, and they were obliged,
after receiving their orders, to get back to their ships, delay was
inevitable. That the turn of the stream did not take place until after
the ninth hour is to be inferred from Caesar’s having used the words
(His dimissis et ventum et aestum) _uno tempore_ (nactus secundum),
which refer only to _et ventum et aestum_ (_Philologus_, xxii, 1865, p.
308).
Dr. Guest (_Origines Celticae_, ii, 347, note) puts the matter well.
‘_In anchoris exspectare dum_ can only,’ he observes, ‘mean, to wait
at anchor for the happening of the event. If we add the words _ad
horam nonam_, surely we make the ninth hour the limit, not of lying
at anchor, but of waiting for the event.... Caesar probably steered
for Dover with the view of landing his men as the vessels came in,
but finding his landing opposed, he awaited the arrival of his other
vessels _in anchoris_, _i.e._ in the roadstead. The emphasis [laid on
_in anchoris_] marks the change of plan occasioned by the unexpected
opposition he met with.’
[3240] Lewin, indeed, objects (_The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862,
p. xci) that ‘had another interval of two hours occurred [after the
ninth hour] Caesar could not fail to have mentioned it’. But, in the
first place, as the reader will have seen, it is unnecessary to assume
that the interval lasted as long as two hours, or even one; and, in the
second place, there was no reason why Caesar should mention it, except
for the benefit of stupid readers, whom he invariably left to their own
devices. Some interval there must have been unless the captains of the
laggard ships were left without the instructions which had been given
to the rest.
[3241] See pp. 610-1, _supra_.
[3242] If, then, he really did weigh anchor in the ninth hour, and if
in the ninth hour the stream was running down the Channel on the 26th
of August, he must have landed on the 25th; and it has been shown (p.
600-3, _supra_) that he may have done so.
[3243] George Long, who was a very able man, was nevertheless capable,
if hard pressed in controversy, of writing sheer nonsense. Having only
the most superficial knowledge of the tides, he submissively accepted
the assertion that, at the time when Caesar weighed anchor off the
Kentish cliffs, the stream was running westward; yet he insisted
that Caesar landed at Deal! Let him speak for himself. ‘When Caesar
says that the tide (_aestus_) was favourable, he means that he had
water sufficient to keep near the shore. There is only one meaning of
_aestus_ in Caesar.... Caesar says that he went with wind and tide
favourable. If “tide” means stream, his statement is not true. If he
means by “tide” what I have said--and there is not the least doubt of
that--I should like some sufficient reason to be given why he could
not go to Deal, though the stream was against him’ (_The Reader_,
Sept. 5, 1863, pp. 254-5). This singular argument was demolished with
somewhat needless vigour by Dr. Guest (_Origines Celticae_, ii, 1883,
pp. 364-5). If in the often quoted passage, _longius delatus aestu orta
luce sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit_, the word _aestus_
does not mean ‘the tidal _stream_’, it means nothing. That it does mean
what I have said Long virtually admits when, in his edition of the
_Commentaries_ (p. 225), commenting on this very passage, he observes
that Caesar ‘was carried out of his course by the flood tide’.
[3244] _B. G._, iv, 23, § 6.
[3245] _Decline of the Roman Republic_, iv, 434.
[3246] _Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, xviii, 1865, p. 129. See
also _Archaeol. Journal_, xxi, 1864, p. 238.
[3247] See H. Meusel, _Lex. Caes._, ii, 1245-7.
[3248] _Hist. Rom._, xxxix, 51, § 2.--ἄκραν οὖν τινα προέχουσαν
περιπλεύσας, &c.
[3249] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. 52.
[3250] See pp. 558, 582-3, 613, 618-9, 624-5, 639, 643, _supra_.
[3251] This statement has been approved by Commander Boxer, R.N.,
Harbour-Master of Folkestone, to whom I submitted it. See Addenda, p.
740.
[3252] In March, 1898, a north-easterly gale sent the waves rushing
over the sea-wall at Deal and across the road. W. H. Wheeler, _The
Sea-Coast_, 1902, p. 301. Cf. C. Seymour; _New Topographical ... Survey
of Kent_, 1776, p. 410.
[3253] See p. 329, _supra_.
[3254] See p. 614, _supra_.
[3255] _Essays on the Invasion of Britain_, &c., p. 29.
[3256] See pp. 644-7, _supra_.
[3257] _Archaeologia_, xxxiv, 1852, pp. 240-1.
[3258] See pp. 309, 645, _supra_.
[3259] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xc.
[3260] _B. G._, iv, 23, § 5. On p. lxxv Lewin himself maintains that
Caesar, before he sailed from Gaul, ‘was well enough informed of the
smaller havens on the British coast,’ &c.
[3261] _B. G._, iv, 23, § 6.
[3262] See _One-Inch Ordnance Survey_, Sheet 290.
[3263] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xciii; _Archaeologia_,
xxxix, 1863, pp. 312-3.
[3264] _Ib._, p. 313.
[3265] _Ib._; _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. 50. Dr. Guest,
on the other hand, maintains (_Archaeol. Journal_, xxi, 1864, p. 239)
that ‘the marshy lands off Deal’ correspond exactly with Caesar’s
description. Caesar does not describe any marshy lands.
[3266] _Archaeologia_, xxxix, 1863. p. 313.
[3267] See pp. 523-5, _supra_.
[3268] _B. G._, iv, 24, § 3.
[3269] _Ib._, § 2.
[3270] See p. 629, _supra_.
[3271] ‘PLANUS proprie est aequus ... in quo nihil eminet,’ &c.
(Forcellini, _Totius latinitatis lexicon_, iv, 1868, p. 695). That the
shore where Caesar landed was only relatively _planum_ is proved by the
existence of the ‘shallow places’ (_vada_), the situation of which was
known to the Britons but not to the Romans (_B. G._, iv, 26, § 2).
[3272] See pp. 630-1, _supra_.
[3273] iii, 2, § 23.
[3274] T. Lewin, _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. li, 87.
[3275] G. B. Gattie, _Memorials of the Goodwin Sands_, 1890, p. 297,
note.
[3276] _Rev. arch._, nouv. sér., viii, 1863, p. 302.
[3277] _B. G._, iv, 28.
[3278] See p. 536, n. 1, _supra_.
[3279] See pp. 600-1, _supra_.
[3280] _Rev. arch._, nouv. sér., viii, 1863, pp. 302-3.
[3281] See p. 643, _supra_.
[3282] See p. 616, _supra_.
[3283] _Admiralty Tide Tables_, p. 119.
[3284] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 82, xcii. Lewin
also remarks that ‘had he been making for Deal, he would in drifting
up channel have been advancing in the right direction’. This remark
is only worth noticing as an instance of Lewin’s ignorance. Any one
who has the most rudimentary knowledge of the tidal streams will see
that once Caesar had drifted past the Foreland, the stream would have
carried him further and further away from Deal.
[3285] _Archaeologia_, xxxiii, 1851, p. 242.
[3286] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xcii.
[3287] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xcii.
[3288] _Tidal Streams, English and Irish Channels._
[3289] Not more than about three-quarters of the whole drift, according
to the harbour-master of Dover.
[3290] See p. 576, n. 1, _supra_.
[3291] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xcii.
[3292] See pp. 728-30, _infra_.
[3293] _Admiralty Tide Tables_, p. 119; _Tidal Streams_, &c. Lewin
tells us, in another passage (_The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp.
82-3) that, according to the captain of one of the steamers running
between Folkestone and Boulogne, ‘the maximum drift for a single tide,
_i.e._ for the six hours that the stream runs in the same direction, is
eighteen miles, and the minimum nine miles.’ ‘The fleet,’ he adds, ‘was
heavily freighted, and therefore, sinking deep into the water, would
receive the full shock of the tide ... the expedition was on the very
day of the full moon [which he wrongly assigns to the 18th instead of
the 21st of July], when, of course, it was a spring tide. The drift,
therefore, would be the maximum or near it. Now, if we draw a straight
line from Boulogne to Limne, and then a line of sixteen miles, or
thereabouts, at right angles to it up the channel, it will take us to a
point off the South Foreland.’
It will be observed that Lewin here assumes that Caesar was steering
not for Hythe but for Lympne, and accordingly he is forced to make the
length of the drift sixteen instead of twelve miles! Facts, from his
point of view, were rather elastic than stubborn things. The expedition
did not take place ‘on the very day of the full moon’, but about the
time of new moon (see p. 729, _infra_). This mistake, indeed, is
immaterial; but the estimate of eighteen miles is, as we have seen,
greatly exaggerated; and, moreover, Lewin forgets that Caesar’s ships
did not drift for the whole of one tide, but only from ‘about midnight’
till ‘daybreak’.
In a footnote to p. 82 he says that, according to ‘an experienced
pilot’, a loaded vessel ‘would drift about 12 or 14 miles in the six
hours, when the tide is at its greatest velocity’. Yes,--‘in the six
hours’; but not in four hours. And even 12 miles is an excessive
estimate. ‘As a rough general rule,’ says Admiral Sir Frederick Bedford
(_The Sailor’s Pocket-Book_, 8th ed., 1898, pp. 232-3), ‘in the fair
way of both the Irish and English Channels a vessel will be carried
nine miles by the stream in a whole tide at Springs.’
[3294] _Comm. de C. I. Caesaris bellis_, vol. ii, p. 41; _C. I.
Caesaris b. G., libri VII_, ed. A. Doberenz and B. Dinter, vol. ii, p.
40.
[3295] The direction of the ebb stream between the Goodwins and the
shore varies between SW. and SW. ½ W. magnetic, or, approximately,
between SW. by S. ½ S. and SSW. true; and its rate at springs varies
from 1½ to 3 knots. _Admiralty Tide Tables_, p. 113.
[3296] The late George Dowker (_Archaeol. Journal_, xxxiii, 1876, pp.
67-8, 70) maintained that Caesar drifted ‘at the back of the Goodwin
beyond the North Foreland’, and that he ‘returned on the other side of
the Goodwin’, and anchored off Stonar. On this theory it is impossible
to account for the efforts which the rowers were obliged to make; and,
as I have shown (pp. 575-6, _supra_), it is impossible that Caesar
should have drifted beyond the North Foreland.
[3297] See pp. 525-8, _supra_.
[3298] See pp. 574-7, _supra_.
[3299] _Admiralty Tide Tables_, p. 119.
[3300] _Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, xviii, 1865, p. 124;
_Philologus_, xxii, 1865, pp. 309-10.
[3301] See p. 576, n. 1, _supra_.
[3302] _Ib._
[3303] I have not thought it necessary to have a calculation made of
the hour of high tide at Dover on the 7th of July. Whether the stream
turned a little earlier or later than 4.30 a.m. is unimportant. Every
one admits that it turned not very long after daybreak.
[3304] _Admiralty Tide Tables_, p. 119.
[3305] See p. 657, _supra_.
[3306] General von Göler apparently thought that Caesar had gone
through the channel, between the North and the South Goodwins, which is
known as ‘the Swash’ (see his map,--_Gall. Krieg_, 1880, Taf. 1). It is
extremely doubtful whether this channel existed in 54 B.C.
[3307] See S. T. S. Lecky, _Wrinkles in Practical Navigation_, 1884, p.
414.
[3308] See the caution in the Atlas entitled _Tidal Streams_.
[3309] _Archaeologia_, xxxiv, 1852, pp. 243-4, 246.
[3310] _B. G._, v, 18, § 1.
[3311] _The Reader_, Sept. 5, 1863, p. 255.
[3312] _Archaeol. Journal_, xxi, 1864, p. 241.
[3313] In 1905 in the parish of Walmer alone three fields were planted
with wheat, one of which, as I was informed by Mr. J. W. Minter of the
Railway Hotel, covered eighteen acres. Moreover, as Mr. H. E. Malden
observes (_Journal of Philology_, xvii, 1888, pp. 170-1), ‘marks of
ancient cultivation on the sides of downs, where no farmer would
think of ploughing now, are common enough everywhere.’ See also A.
Pitt-Rivers, _Excavations in Cranborne Chase_, ii, 235, and p. 90,
_supra_.
[3314] _Ordnance Survey of England_, 6 inches to 1 mile, Sheet LVIII.
[3315] _B. G._, iv, 32, §§ 3-4.
[3316] See pp. 697-8, _infra_.
[3317] _B. G._, v, 22, §§ 1-2.
[3318] _Rev. arch._, nouv. sér., viii, 1863, p. 303.
[3319] _Philologus_, xxii, 1865, pp. 309-10.
[3320] _B. G._, vi, 34, 43.
[3321] _Athenæum_, Feb. 27, 1869, p. 317.
[3322] _B. G._, v, 12, § 5.
[3323] _Origines Celticae_, ii, 370-2.
[3324] _Britain and the British Seas_, 1902, p. 315.
[3325] J. Prestwich, _Geology_, ii, 1888, p. 502; Clement Reid, _The
Origin of the Brit. Flora_, 1899, pp. 69, 146. Cf. J. Evans, _Anc.
Bronze Implements_, p. 339, and _Reliquary_, N. S., vii, 1901, p. 92.
[3326] The late Professor Rolleston (_Sc. Papers_, ii, 1884, p. 780)
argued that by _praeter_ Caesar meant ‘besides’. It is true that he
used the word several times in this sense (H. Meusel, _Lex. Caes._, ii,
1186-7): but when he did so the meaning was always unmistakable; and,
as Mr. Colbeck remarks, in his school edition (p. 49), ‘to say “there
is timber of all sorts _besides_ the beech and the fir” is hardly a
natural expression, unless these two trees were the commonest form of
timber [or were non-existent in Gaul], which they were not.’
[3327] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 186, n. 2. Napoleon’s map (pl. 16)
contradicts his text.
[3328] _Archaeol. Journal_, xxxiii, 1876, pp. 65-6, 71.
[3329] _B. G._, iv, 25, § 1.
[3330] _B. G._, iv, 24, § 3; 26, § 2.
[3331] Mr. H. E. Malden (_Journal of Philology_, xvii, 1888, p. 167)
says that ‘the distance is given at seven or eight Roman miles in
different MSS. of the _Commentaries_’. Why did he not specify the
_MSS._ which have _VIII_ or _octo_? No such _MS._ is mentioned in any
critical edition.
[3332] _Antiquitates Rutupinae_, 1711, pp. 23-4, 44-6, 49-50.
[3333] Similarly, John Harris (_Hist. of Kent_, 1719, p. 274) says
that ‘Caesar himself saith of his Men that they could not _firmiter
insistere_, which implies the Ground was not Hard, Solid, and Good’.
But Caesar only says that his men could not _firmiter insistere_
while they were struggling in the water with the enemy; and in these
circumstances a man could not _firmiter insistere_ in a swimming bath,
the floor of which is ‘hard, solid, and good’.
[3334] _B. G._, v, 13, § 1. If, as I believe, _quo_ means _ad quem_,
referring to _angulus_ and not to _Cantium_, if, that is to say, Caesar
intended to convey that almost all ships from Gaul steered for the
‘corner’, Battely is demanding from Caesar a nicety and precision of
geographical statement which it would be idle to expect from an ancient
writer. Dover is quite close to the _angulus_, even if we must rigidly
limit the latter to the coast between the South and the North Foreland.
[3335] _Hist. Rom._, xxxix, 51, §2.--ἄκραν οὖν τινα προέχουσαν
περιπλεύσας παρεκομίσθη· κἀνταῦθα τοῖς προσμίξαντάς οἱ ἐς τὰ τενάγη
ἀποβαίνοντι νικήσας ἔφθη τῆς γῆς κρατήσας, &c. Τενάγη, as we have seen
(p. 631, _supra_) is simply Dion’s translation of Caesar’s _vada_.
[3336] See pp. 628-31, _supra_.
[3337] Ed. Wesseling, p. 473.
[3338] V. J. Vaillant, _Classis Britannica_, pp. 41-2 and illustration
facing p. 48.
[3339] See A. Holder, _Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz_, ii, 1257-8.
[3340] See pp. 678-82, _infra_.
[3341] It may be argued that if Caesar had landed near Sandwich he
would have landed in Richborough harbour. This objection, such as it
is, would apply equally to Hythe and Pevensey; but it might have been
dangerous to land in a harbour with a narrow entrance in the presence
of an enemy; and Caesar may have had other reasons (see Lord Wolseley’s
_Soldier’s Pocket-Book_, 1886, p. 240). Moreover, the shore of the
harbour must have been very marshy.
[3342] _B. G._, v, 9, § 1.
[3343] p. 630, _supra_.
[3344] ‘The anchorage in the Small Downs is much more secure than
in the Downs, being more sheltered, with better holding ground, and
shoaler water,’ &c. _The Channel Pilot_, 9th ed., 1900, part i, p. 344.
I am informed by Mr. Jordan, one of the Deal boatmen, that ships driven
ashore between Sandown Castle and Sandwich would suffer far less damage
than off Walmer or Deal; and they would probably have suffered somewhat
less even when the Deal shingle was much less steep.
[3345] Prof. B. Niese devotes the greater part of his valuable review
(_Hist. Zeitschrift_, xciii, 97-101) to a criticism of this section of
my book.
[3346] _Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul_, 1899, pp. 179-80.
[3347] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c. cliii, 1896, pp. 269-71.
Cf. _Rev. celt._, xxii, 1901, p. 87.
[3348] iv, 16, § 7.
[3349] The MS. reading is _miratos_, which is obviously absurd. The
emendation generally accepted is _munitos_. Professor Tyrrell in an
admirable note (_The Correspondence of Cicero_, ii, 1896, p. 134)
remarks that it is incredible ‘that any copyist found the obvious
_munitos_, and wrote the inexplicable _miratos_. But if he found
the ἅπαξ εἰρημένον _muratos_, he would be nearly certain to write
_miratos_, a common word very near it in form, and that without at all
troubling himself as to the sense of the passage; just as a compositor
will set up “serious effusion” if one writes “serous effusion”’. And,
anticipating the objection that _muratos_ is a post-classical word,
he says, ‘We must remember that we have in these letters a unique
department of literature. A man might easily write in a letter that the
approach to Britain was “absolutely _ramparted_ with masses of cliff”,
though he would not use that word in a formal composition.’ See also
pp. vii-x of the preface to Professor Tyrrell’s second volume.
[3350] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 277.
Dr. Vogel actually takes _molibus_ to mean not ‘masses of cliff’ but
‘defensive works’!
[3351] See § 5 of the letter in question--_Drusus reus est factus
a Lucretio. Iudicibus reiciendis a. d. V. Non. Quinct._ See also
_Hermes_, xl, 1905, pp. 17-9.
[3352] _Q. fr._, ii, 14, §§ 3-4.
[3353] _B. G._, v, 4, § 1.
[3354] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, pp. 278-80.
[3355] See _Jahresberichte d. philol. Vereins_, pp. 240-1 (in
_Zeitschrift f. d. Gymnasialwesen_, 1897).
[3356] _The Correspondence of Cicero_, ii, 1886, p. 126.
[3357] _Q. fr._, iii, 3, § 1.--Sed me illa cura sollicitat angitque
vehementer, quod dierum iam amplius L intervallo nihil a te, nihil
a Caesare, nihil ex istis locis non modo litterarum, sed ne rumoris
quidem adfluxit.
[3358] _Ib._, iii, 1, §§ 17, 25.
[3359] _Att._, iv, 18, § 5.
[3360] _B. G._, v, 22, § 1.
[3361] _Ib._
[3362] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 282.
[3363] See pp. 731-3, _infra_.
[3364] Cf. H. Meusel, _Lex. Caes._, i, 967.
[3365] _B. G._, v, 22, §§ 3-5.
[3366] _Att._, iv, 18, § 5. Cicero does not mention that a large number
of prisoners had also been taken; but Dr. Vogel admits this to have
been the fact. Cf. _Q. fr._, iii, 9, § 4, and _B. G._, v, 23, § 2.
[3367] _Ib._, v, 22, §§ 3-5.
[3368] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 288.
[3369] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. 66.
[3370] _B. G._, iv, 36, §§ 1-3.
[3371] _Hist. Rom._, xxxix, 52, §§ 2-3.
[3372] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. 66.
[3373] _Hist. Rom._, xxxix, 51, § 3.
[3374] _B. G._, iv, 38, § 4. A. J. Dunkin, an antiquary whom Sir Leslie
Stephen thought worthy of a place in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_, devoted a large portion of the second volume of his
_History of the County of Kent_ to an impeachment of Caesar’s veracity;
but his charges are based upon sheer inability to construe easy Latin,
general lack of scholarship, or, in some cases, pure invention. Cf.
_The Gentleman’s Magazine Library_, ed. G. L. Gomme,--Romano-British
Remains, part ii, 1887, pp. 520-2.
[3375] See O. E. Schmidt, _Der Briefwechsel des M. Tullius Cicero_,
1893, pp. 377-92, and Rice Holmes, _Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul_, 1899,
p. 243.
[3376] See pp. 731-3, _infra_.
[3377] p. 319.
[3378] _B. G._, iv, 24, § 2.
[3379] From a foot and a half to two feet, so Commander Boxer, R.N.,
the harbour-master of Folkestone, tells me.
[3380] See pp. 595-665, _supra_.
[3381] _Britannia_, ed. R. Gough, i, 219. Cf. E. Hasted, _Hist. of
Kent_, iv, 1799, p. 163, note _d_.
[3382] _Ib._, p. 162 and note _c_.
[3383] _Archaeol. Cant._, xiii, 1880, pp. 8-16.
[3384] _Archaeol. Journal_, xxxiii, 1876, pp. 66, 68.
[3385] See pp. 736-7, _infra_.
[3386] _B. G._, iv, 33.
[3387] Daremberg and Saglio, _Dict. des ant. grecques et rom._, ii,
815-7.
[3388] See E. Babelon, _Descr. des monn. de la république rom._, i,
1885, pp. 243, 435-6, 462-4, 552.
[3389] _B. G._, v, 19, § 1.
[3390] In the one passage (_ib._, iv, 33, § 2) in which he calls the
drivers _aurigae_ he is obliged to do so in order to distinguish them
from the warriors.
[3391] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 192.
[3392] v, 29, § 1. Cf. 1 Kings, xxii, 34.
[3393] E. Babelon, _Descr ... des monnaies de la république rom._, i,
549, 552.
[3394] _Journ. Anthr. Inst._, x, 1881, p. 128.
[3395] _Chorographia_, iii, 6, § 52--[Britanni] dimicant non equitatu
modo aut pedite, verum et bigis et curribus Gallice armatis: covinnos
vocant, quorum falcatis axibus utuntur.
[3396] _Pharsalia_, i, 426--et docilis rector _rostrati_ Belga covinni.
_Rostrati_ is a conjecture, the MSS. having _monstrati_.
[3397] _Punica_, xvii, 416-7.--Caerulus haud aliter, cum dimicat incola
Thyles | Agmina falcigero circumvenit arta covinno.
[3398] _Agricola_, 35-6.
[3399] See W. Smith, _Dict. of Greek and Rom. Ant._, 3rd ed., i, 560.
[3400] _Monumenta Germaniae Hist.--Iordanis Getica_, ed. Th. Mommsen,
1882, ii, 15--bellum inter se ... saepius gerunt, non tantum equitatu
vel pedite, verum etiam bigis curribusque falcatis, &c.
[3401] M. Théodore Reinach (_Rev. celt._, x, 1899, pp. 123-30) points
out that the testimony of Frontinus (_C. Caesar Gallorum falcatas
quadrigas eadem ratione palis defixis excepit inhibuitque_ [_Strat._,
ii, 3, § 18]), if it is genuine, is negatived by Caesar’s silence, and
that it is probably an interpolation; that it may be inferred from a
passage in Martial (_O iucunda, covinne, solitudo_, | _Carruca magis
essedoque gratum_ | _Facundi mihi munus Aeliani_, &c. [xii, 24]) that a
_covinnus_ was simply ‘un cabriolet attelant à deux’; that Arrian (_Ars
tactica_, 19) expressly distinguished British war-chariots from scythed
chariots; and that neither Polybius, nor Livy, nor Diodorus Siculus,
nor Dion Cassius ever describe the war-chariots of the Celts as
scythed, although they often mention them. M. d’Arbois de Jubainville
(_La civilisation des Celtes_, pp. 339-41) quaintly argues that the
silence of Caesar can be explained by the assumption that scythed
chariots, being as dangerous to friends as to foes, were only used
exceptionally.
[3402] A. Nicaise, _L’époque gaul. dans le dép^t de la Marne_, 1884,
pp. 23-4. Cf. _Rev. celt._, x, 1889, pp. 233-6, and _L’Anthr._, xiii,
1902, p. 66.
[3403] Pitt-Rivers (_Excavations in Cranborne Chase_, iii, 109) is
‘almost tempted to suggest’ that a scythe blade, which he found at
Woodyates, ‘may be one of the war scythes which were attached to the
[British] chariots, as mentioned by Strabo.’ But Strabo (xvii, 3, § 7)
does not say that the Britons had scythed chariots, but the Pharusii
and Nigretes of Mauritania.
[3404] p. 342.
[3405] The diameters of the British chariot-wheels that have been found
vary between 2 ft. 11 in., and 2 ft. 4 ½ in.
[3406] J. B. Davis and J. Thurnam, _Crania Britannica_, ii, pl. 6 and
7, pp. 2-3, 6; J. Evans, _Anc. Bronze Implements_, pp. 134-5.
[3407] This discovery proves that Arrian (_Ars tactica_, 19) and
Dion Cassius (lxxvi, 12, § 3) were right in saying that British
chariot-horses were small. Cf. p. 152, _supra_. For further details of
the discoveries of British chariot-wheels, axles, &c. (by which various
quaint conjectures in von Göler’s _Gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 156, n. 3,
are stultified), see _Archaeologia_, xxi, 1827, pp. 41-2; W. Greenwell,
_Brit. Barrows_, pp. 454-7; and a valuable article by Canon Greenwell,
a proof of which he has kindly sent to me, and which, I presume, will
be published in vol. lx of _Archaeologia_.
[3408] _Gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 137, n. 1.
[3409] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 153, n. 7.
[3410] _B. G._, iv, 34, § 3.
[3411] _Gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 138, n. 4.
[3412] See p. 680, _infra_.
[3413] _B. G._, v, 9, §§ 1-5.
[3414] See pp. 595-665, _supra_.
[3415] _Essays on the Invasion of Britain_, pp. 35-6.
[3416] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, pp. 87-8, 90.
[3417] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 186, note 4.
[3418] _The Invasion of Britain_, &c., 1862, p. xciv.
[3419] _B. G._, vii, 69, § 2.
[3420] _Inventorium Sepulchrale_, ed. C. Roach Smith, 1856, p. 35.
Faussett goes on to say (p. 36) that, ‘as a proof of this Aylesbourne
[the Little Stour at Kingston] having been much deeper and broader
than it ever now is, I myself saw the shells of muscles (_sic_) turned
plentifully out of the ground in digging a hole for a post, at the
distance of at least ten rods from the present channel, and at the
perpendicular height of at least three feet above its usual level.’ But
this argument is irrelevant. No geologist would deny that the Little
Stour, when it was cutting out its channel, was ‘broader than it ever
now is’. But when? Perhaps at the inconceivably remote epoch when the
Thames was depositing gravel at a height of 100 feet above its present
level.
[3421] _Villare Cantianum_, 1776, p. 62.
[3422] _B. G._, iv, 38, §2; v, 24, §1.
[3423] _Ib._, 9, §3.
[3424] See Addenda, p. 742.
[3425] _Caesar in Kent_, 2nd ed., 1887, pp. 165-8. I should not notice
this work if it had not been quoted even by antiquaries of repute, and
included by Mr. Gross in his generally valuable bibliography.
[3426] _Caesar in Kent_, p. 163.
[3427] Bryan Faussett, _Inventorium Sepulchrale_, p. 39, n. 2. See also
pp. 36, n. 1, 37, 144-59. ‘That these tumuli,’ says Roach Smith (_ib._,
p. 37), ‘were not cast up in consequence of any battle fought on the
spot, is evident from ... their containing the remains not only of men
... but also of women and children.’
Hasted (_Hist. of Kent_, iii, 1790, p. 752, note _a_) says that ‘all
the learned agree that _Barham down_ was his [Caesar’s] main camp,
to which from his landing in _the Downs_ by _Mongeham_, _Sutton_,
_Eythorne_, _Barston_, and _Snowdown_, there is a continual course
of military works’, &c. (see also vol. iv, 1799, p. 163). But in the
time of the ‘learned’ contemporaries and predecessors of Hasted, it
was not yet understood that the question whether this or that mound
was a ‘military work’, and the further question whether it had been
constructed by Romans, should be settled not by imagination, but by
pick and shovel.
Professor Flinders Petrie (_Archaeol. Cant._, xiii, 1880, p. 12)
remarks that ‘the works on Barham Down, half a mile NE. of Kingston,
appear to be ancient’; but, being a competent archaeologist, he does
not suggest that they were made by Caesar.
[3428] _Caesar in Kent_, p. 186. When Mr. Vine (_ib._, p. 185) gravely
appeals to ‘the direct statement recorded on the chart found in Dover
Castle, that “Caesar, having landed at Deal, afterwards conquered the
Britons on Barham Down”’, one can only wonder why he does not also cite
a ‘direct statement’ more ancient even than Camden’s ‘chart’,--the
statement of Nennius, that Caesar’s second invasion took place three
years after the first.
[3429] Vol. ii, 1814, p. 9.
[3430] Mr. George Payne (_Collectanea Cantiana_, p. 172) speaks of
‘a great _oppidum_ in Pine Wood, Littlebourne’; but no trace of an
entrenchment in this wood is to be found in the 6-Inch Ordnance Map
(Sheet 47).
[3431] See pp. 664-5, _supra_.
[3432] _Proc. Soc. Ant._, 2nd ser., iii, 1864-7, p. 506.
[3433] _Archaeol. Cant._, vii, 1868, pp. li-lii.
[3434] See p. 674, _supra_.
[3435] _Ib._
[3436] ‘Night marches,’ says Lord Wolseley (_The Soldier’s Pocket
Book_, 1886, p. 325), ‘require at least half as much time again as the
same distance would require by daylight.’
[3437] No military earthworks exist at Chilham. See _Archaeol. Cant._,
xiii, 1880, pp. 11-2.
[3438] It is hardly necessary, I suppose, to mention the argument which
various writers, from Camden to Lewin, have based upon the name of
the tumulus near Chilham, called ‘Julliberrie’s Grave’. ‘I am almost
persuaded,’ wrote Camden, ‘that Laberius Durus ... was buried here’
(_Britannia_, ed. R. Gough, i, 215). Laberius Durus, as the reader will
remember, was the name of the tribune who was killed in the action
fought on the day on which Caesar, after he had constructed his naval
camp, returned to the neighbourhood of the place where he had defeated
the Britons on the day after his second landing (_B. G._, v, 15, § 5).
‘Julliberrie’s Grave’ is a neolithic long barrow (_Archaeologia_, xlii,
1869, p. 176, note b), and was erected more than a millennium before
Laberius Durus was born.
[3439] _Archaeol. Journal_, xxxiii, 1876, p. 69. Canon Isaac Taylor
(_Words and Places_, 3rd ed., 1873, p. 237) says that ‘the name of
FORDWICK, the “bay on the arm of the sea”, proves that in the time of
the Danes the estuary must have extended nearly as far as Canterbury’.
Canon Taylor’s etymologies are not to be taken upon trust; but,
granting his conclusion, it does not follow that the estuary was not
fordable at Fordwich, just as the estuary of the Somme was forded near
its mouth by the English army before the battle of Crecy.
[3440] _Archaeologia_, xxi, 1827, p. 505.
[3441] _Gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 148.
[3442] _Archaeol. Journal_, xxi, 1864, p. 240. Mr. Malden (_Journal
of Philology_, xvii, 1890, p. 168) speaks of Caesar’s narrative as
‘excluding the mile broad estuary of the greater Stour at Grove Ferry
where Dr. Guest placed the battle’. Dr. Guest did no such thing. George
Long (_C. J. Caesaris comm. de b. G._, 1880, p. 226), in a note on
Caesar’s account of the battle, says of Grove Ferry that ‘the locality
fits the description’; and Dr. Guest, commenting on Long’s note, says
(_Origines Celticae_, ii, 1883, pp. 366-7), ‘I know of no reason for
his fixing it at this place, which appears to me to have hardly one of
the necessary requisites.’
[3443] _Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, xviii, 1865, pp. 129-30.
[3444] _Retrospections_, ii, 15.
[3445] No _oppidum_ is marked anywhere near Sturry, either on the
One-Inch Ordnance Map (Sheets 273 and 289) or on the map which
illustrates Mr. George Payne’s ‘Archaeological Survey of Kent’
(_Archaeologia_, li, 1888, facing p. 446).
[3446] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 186, n. 4.
[3447] _Ib._, n. 2.
[3448] See pp. 664-5, _supra_.
[3449] _Archaeologia_, xxxiv, 1852, pp. 243-4. See p. 660, _supra_.
[3450] Read Clausewitz, _On War_ (translated by Col. J. J. Graham, iii,
1873, p. 9); Sir E. B. Hamley, _Operations of War_, 1878, pp. 233-76;
Lord Wolseley, _The Soldier’s Pocket-Book_, 1886, pp. 393-7; and Gen.
Clery, _Minor Tactics_, 12th ed., 1893, pp. 230-5.
[3451] _Journ. Brit. Archaeol. Association_, xliv, 1888, pp. 290-1. See
also _Archaeol. Cant._, ix, 1874, pp. 13-5, and _Archaeol. Journal_,
lix, 1902, pp. 213-7.
[3452] See p. 337, _supra_.
[3453] _B. G._, v, 9, § 8; 10; 11, §§ 1, 5-7.
[3454] _Ib._, 9, § 1.
[3455] _Ib._, 9, §§ 2-7.
[3456] _Comm. de bellis C. I. Caesaris_, ii, pp. 48-9.
[3457] _C. J. Caesaris comm. de b. G._, 1880, p. 228.
[3458] _Ib._, p. 227.
[3459] _Gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 150, n. 2.
[3460] _Philologus_, xxxi, 1872, pp. 536-7.
[3461] Or ‘exposed the Romans to the same danger, whether they
retreated or pursued’. See pp. 690-1, _infra_.
[3462] _B. G._, v, 16, §§ 1-3.
[3463] _C. J. Caesaris comm. de b. G._, 1880, pp. 234-5.
[3464] _B. G._, iv, 32, § 5.
[3465] J. Evans, _Coins of the Anc. Britons_, pp. 234, 239, 271-2;
_ib._, Suppl., pp. 520, 535-6.
[3466] Dion Cassius, lxii, 12, § 3.
[3467] Tacitus, _Agricola_, 36.
[3468] See p. 677, _supra_.
[3469] _Gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 154, note.
[3470] _Ib._, p. 153.
[3471] _C. I. Caesaris comm. de b. G._, 1890, p. 205.
[3472] _C. I. Caesaris b. G. libri VII_, II. Heft, 1890, p. 48.
[3473] _Gai Iuli Caesaris de b. G. comm._, iv, v, 1887, p. 90.
[3474] _B. G._, i, 48, §§ 4-7.
[3475] Quoted by von Göler (_Gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 154). He does not
give the reference, and I have failed to discover it.
[3476] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 188.
[3477] _B. G._, v, 17, § 2.
[3478] _C. I. Caesaris comm. de b. G._, 1890, p. 205.
[3479] _B. G._, v, 11, § 8.
[3480] _Ib._, v, 18.
[3481] _Philologus_, xxii, 1865, p. 310. ‘Es wird öfter behauptet, dass
er selbst durch seinen marsch vom landungsplatz bis zur Themse die
breite des landes gemessen habe; zu einer solchen voraussetzung geben
seine worte keine veranlassung [naturally! he would not have taken the
trouble to indicate the grounds upon which he based his estimate]: er
berichtet hier, wie an andern orten, nur was er von andern erfahren
hat.’ Heller seems to forget that this conclusion also is not
authorized by Caesar’s words. If Caesar had formed his estimate from
hearsay, he, or his interpreter, would have had to reduce the terms in
which the estimate of his native informant was expressed to Roman miles.
[3482] O. Manning and W. Bray, _Hist. and Ant. of ... Surrey_, ii,
1809, p. 759.
[3483] _Britannia_, ed. R. Gough, 1789, i, 168.
[3484] _Hist. eccl._, lib. i, cap. ii (ed. C. Plummer, 1896).--In huius
ulteriore ripa Cassobellauno duce inmensa hostium multitudo consederat,
ripamque fluminis ac pene totum sub aqua uadum acutissimis sudibus
praestruxerat; quarum uestigia sudium ibidem usque hodie uisuntur, et
uidetur inspectantibus, quod singulae earum ad modum humani femoris
grossae, et circumfusae plumbo in-mobiliter erant in profundum fluminis
infixae, &c.
[3485] _Archaeologia_, i, 1770, p. 188.
[3486] _One Inch Ordnance Survey_, Sheet 269.
[3487] _Archaeologia_, ii, 1773, pp. 143-53.
[3488] E. W. Brayley, _Topographical Hist. of Surrey_, ii, 1841, p.
344, n. 29.
[3489] _The Soldier’s Pocket-Book_, 1886, p. 312.
[3490] _Origines Celticae_, ii, 384-5, 388, 391-2.
[3491] _Origines Celticae_, ii, 384.
[3492] _Ib._, pp. 384-5.
[3493] _Origines Celticae_, ii, 391-2.
[3494] Hurleyford is about 2½ miles west of Great Marlow.
[3495] _Origines Celticae_, ii, 388.
[3496] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 191, n. 2.
[3497] _Origines Celticae_, ii, 386-7.
[3498] _Ib._, p. 387.
[3499] _Archaeol. Journal_, xlii, 1885, pp. 269-302; xlvi, 1889, pp.
75-6; xlvii, 1890, pp. 43-7, 170; _Proc. Geologists’ Association_, xi,
1891, p. 224.
[3500] _Caesars gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 155, n. 2.
[3501] _Archaeologia_, xl, 1866, pp. 51-2.
[3502] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, xxvi, 1846, pp. 256-7.
[3503] W. Maitland, _Hist. of London_, i, 1756, p. 8; _Journ. Brit.
Archaeol. Association_, N. S., iii, 1897, p. 102.
[3504] _Ib._, xvi, 1860, p. 135; Camden’s _Britannia_, ed. Edmund
Gibson, i, 1772, p. 329.
[3505] Manning’s _Surrey_, ii, 760.
[3506] _Origines Celticae_, ii, 388.
[3507] _Ib._, pp. 404-5.
[3508] _Bregant-forda and the Hanweal_, 1904, pp. 1, 22-7. Mr. Sharpe
reasonably suggests that Bede referred not to the Coway but to the
Brentford stakes.
[3509] _B. G._, v, 18.
[3510] _Gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 155.
[3511] _Ib._, n. 2.
[3512] _Comm. de César_, i, 1785, p. 334.
[3513] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 191-2.
[3514] _Gai Iuli Caesaris de b. G. comm._, iv, v, 1887, p. 92.
[3515] _Comm. de bellis C. I. Caesaris_, ii, 1849, p. 80.
[3516] Tum nostri cohortati inter se, ne tantum dedecus admitteretur,
universi ex navi desiluerunt. Hos item ex proximis navibus cum
conspexissent, subsecuti hostibus adpropinquaverunt.
[3517] See _B. G._, v, 17, § 5.
[3518] _B. G._, v, 19-21.
[3519] See _Archaeol. Journal_, xxii, 1865, pp. 299-301.
[3520] _Archeaologia_, i, 1770, p. 189.
[3521] _B. G._, v, 21, § 1. The habitat of the Cassi is unknown; and
it is very doubtful whether Cassiobury preserves their name. Sir John
Evans (_Archaeologia_, liii, 1892, p. 247) remarks that ‘at the time of
the invasion of Julius Caesar this [Hertfordshire] ... appears to have
been occupied by the Cassi, who not improbably were the same tribe as
... the Catyeuchlani’, or Catuvellauni. With all due deference to so
high an authority. I take leave to say, first, that is no evidence that
the Cassi occupied Hertfordshire; secondly, that there is no evidence
for identifying them with the Catuvellauni; and lastly, that the Cassi,
who surrendered before the capture of Cassivellaunus’s stronghold,
cannot have been identical with the people who were under the immediate
control of Cassivellaunus.
[3522] _Gall. Krieg_, 1880, p. 157, n. 2.
[3523] _Archaeologia_, xl, 1866. pp. 65-6.
[3524] There is no evidence that Cassivellaunus had _conquered_
the Trinovantes, though he had killed their king, the father of
Mandubracius.
[3525] See pp. 703-5, _infra_.
[3526] _Archaeologia_, xl, 1866, pp. 51-2.
[3527] _Journ. Brit. Archaeol. Association_, xvi, 1860, pp. 136-7, 142.
[3528] At Redbourn in Hertfordshire is ‘an oval encampment probably
pre-Roman’ (_Archaeologia_, liii, 1892, p. 259); and near Therfield in
the same county there is a British camp ‘on right of road from Baldock’
(_ib._, p. 261; J. E. Cussans, _Hist. of Herts_ [Hundred of Osney], i,
116). It is perhaps just possible that if these camps were excavated,
some light might be thrown upon the question.
[3529] xiv, 33, § 1.--Suetonius ... Londinium perrexit, cognomento
quidem coloniae non insigne, sed copia negotiatorum et commeatuum
maxime celebre.
[3530] _E.g._ by W. H. Black in _Archaeologia_, xl, 1866, pp. 50-2.
[3531] _Ib._, pp. 59-66.
[3532] Tacitus, _Ann._, xiv, 33. ‘The chief commercial town,’ says
Professor Haverfield (_Vict. Hist. of ... Northampton_, i, 164), ‘was
from the earliest times, Londinium.’
[3533] _Hist. Rom._, lx, 21, §§ 3-4. Lewin would have found more
conclusive proof of the pre-eminence of Camulodunum in Sir John Evans’s
_Coins of the Ancient Britons_.
[3534] See W. J. Loftie’s _Hist. of London_, i, 1883, map facing p.
1; and _Historic Towns,--London_, 1887, map facing p. 16. See also
_Archaeol. Journal_, lx, 1903, pp. 137-204, and particularly 155-6.
[3535] _Historic Towns,--London_, p. 2.
[3536] Vol. i, p. 16.
[3537] _Words and Places_, p. 185.
[3538] _Archaeol. Journal_, lx, 1903, p. 174.
[3539] _Origines Celticae_, ii, 405-6.
[3540] _London_ is commonly derived from two Celtic words--_llyn_,
_din_--meaning ‘the lake fort’ (see _Geogr. Journal_, xiii, 1899, p.
299). One objection to this etymology is that Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell
(_Archaeol. Journal_, xlii, 1885, pp. 300-2) has proved that the lake,
which was described so picturesquely by J. R. Green (_The Making of
England_, i, 1897, p. 113) did not exist. Moreover, Dr. Henry Bradley
(_Morning Post_, Jan. 8, 1907, p. 4, col. 3) tells us that ‘the only
explanation which is philologically possible is that it [Londinium]
denoted a plot of ground belonging to a person named Londinos, which
means “fierce”’.
[3541] I say ‘a _purely_ Celtic name’ in contradistinction to such
hybrid names as Augusto-_dunum_ (Autun), &c.
[3542] See pp. 664-5, _supra_.
[3543] _The Making of England_, i, 1897, p. 117, n. 1.
[3544] _Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden_, ed. Churchill Babington, vol.
ii, 1869, pp. 44-6.--Secunda via principalis dicitur Watlingstrete....
Incipit enim a Dovoria, transiens per medium Cantiae ultra Thamisiam
juxta Londoniam ad occidentem Westmonasterii, &c.
[3545] _Archaeol. Journal_, xxxiv, 1877, p. 166.
[3546] Sir J. Evans, _Anc. Stone Implements_, 1897, p. 586; Worthington
G. Smith, _Man, the Primeval Savage_, pp. 190, 214.
[3547] J. Evans, _Anc. Bronze Implements_, pp. 95, 158, 174-5, 245,
248-9, 272, 278-81, 303, 312, 321, 327-8, 330, 339, 351, 356, 400-1,
411, 424, 450, 467; _Coins of the Anc. Britons_, pp. 70, 83, 122,
125, 232; _ib._, Suppl., p. 559; _Guide to the Ant. of the Early Iron
Age_ (Brit. Museum), p. 98. Mr. F. W. Reader (_Archaeol. Journal_,
lx, 1903, p. 213) argues that ‘it is difficult to conceive that if
any considerable British town preceded [the Roman] _Londinium_, all
traces of it in the shape of pottery fragments, &c., should ... have
been so entirely obliterated’, &c. But the same argument would apply to
Calleva, Camulodunum, and other towns which were certainly British.
[3548] See p. 359, _supra_.
[3549] Cf. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvii, 8, § 7,--Lundinum, vetus
oppidum quod Augustam posteritas appellavit; _ib._, xxviii, 3, §
7,--Augusta, quam veteres appellavere Lundinum.
[3550] See pp. 600-3, _supra_.
[3551] _B. G._, iv, 29-36.
[3552] Le Verrier _apud_ Napoleon III, _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 522.
See the next footnote.
[3553] T. Bergk (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13
Supplementband, 1884, p. 618, n. 2) remarks that Caesar himself
regarded the 24th, not the 26th, of September as the date of the
equinox. His authority is, I suppose, Vegetius, iv, 39, who says that
the autumnal equinox occurred _VIII Kal. Oct._: but, according to
Pliny (_Nat. Hist._, xviii, 25 [59], §§ 220-1), it fell on the 28th
of September, and according to Varro (_Rerum rust._, i, 28, §§ 1-2),
on the 27th. Columella (_De re rust._, ix, 14) places it _about_ the
24th of September (_circa VIII calend. Octobris_); and the 24th was,
according to Mommsen (_Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, p. 301),
the date adopted in the Julian calendar. But that date was fixed by the
calculations of Sosigenes: what right, then, has Bergk to assume that
Caesar regarded it as the date of the equinox in 54 B.C., nine years
before his reform of the calendar took effect?
[3554] Napoleon’s reasoning is based upon assumptions, one of which
is certainly incorrect, while all are doubtful. We know that Caesar
started on his return voyage soon after midnight _(B. G._, iv, 36, §
3). ‘If,’ says Napoleon (_Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 180, note), ‘we
assume that he had a favourable wind, as he had on his return from the
second expedition, and that his voyage lasted nine hours, Caesar would
have reached Boulogne about nine o’clock in the morning. As the fleet
could only enter the harbour on a rising tide, all that we need do in
order to ascertain approximately the date of his return, is to find
out on what day of September, 699, there was high tide at that hour at
Boulogne. Now in that harbour there is always a high tide about nine
o’clock in the morning two or three days before full moon and before
new moon. Therefore, as the full moon of September, 699, took place on
the 14th of the month, Caesar must have returned to Gaul about the 11th
or 12th of September.’
There is no fault to be found with the conclusion (except that it is
uncertain), but much with the argument. To begin with, as there had
been a full moon on the 31st of August, it is obvious that not the full
moon but the new moon of September took place on the 14th of the month.
This error, indeed, is immaterial; but Napoleon has no right to assume
that Caesar reached Boulogne about nine o’clock in the morning, for
the circumstances of his return voyage in the second expedition were
totally different from those of the preceding year. In 54 B.C. there
was a dead calm (_summa tranquillitate_, _B. G._, v, 23, § 6), and the
ships were rowed: in 55 they sailed. Moreover, it is untrue that the
fleet could only enter the harbour of Boulogne at high tide (see p.
586, _supra_).
[3555] Vol. i (3rd ed.), p. 343. See also J. P. Postgate, _M. Annaei
Lucani de bello civili liber VII_, 1900, p. xiv, n. 3; A. G. Peskett,
_C. I. Caesaris comm. de bello civili liber tertius_, 1900, p. 68; and
H. Meusel, _C. I. Caesaris comm. de b.c._, pp. xiv, 367 ff.
[3556] _Sat._, i, 13, §§ 12-3.--sed octavo quoque anno intercalares
octo affluebant dies ex singulis, quibus vertentis anni numerum apud
Romanos super Graecum abundasse iam diximus. Hoc quoque errore iam
cognito haec species emendationis inducta est. Tertio quoque octennio
ita intercalandos dispensabant dies, ut non nonaginta sed sexaginta sex
intercalarent, compensatis viginti et quattuor diebus pro illis qui per
totidem annos supra Graecorum numerum creverant.
[3557] See Th. Mommsen, _Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, pp.
45-6, and _Rev. hist._, xlii, 1890, p. 401.
[3558] Censorinus, _De die natali_, xx, 4, § 6.--Quod delictum
ut corrigeretur, pontificibus datum negotium eorumque arbitrio
intercalandi ratio permissa.
[3559] _Ib._, § 7.--Sed horum [pontificum] plerique ob odium vel
gratiam, quo quis magistratu citius abiret diutiusve fungeretur aut
publici redemtor ex anni magnitudine in lucro damnove esset, plus
minusve ex libidine intercalando rem sibi ad corrigendum mandatam
ultro quod depravarunt &c. See also Plutarch, _Caesar_, 59; Ammianus
Marcellinus. xxvi, 1, § 12; and Macrobius, _Sat._, i, 14, § 1.
[3560] Asconius, _in Milonianam_, p. 35 (_M. Tullii Ciceronis opera_,
ed. J. C. Orelli and J. G. Baiter, vol. v, pars ii, 1833).
[3561] It may be well to give the proof. Cicero (_Att._, v, 13, §
1) tells us that the period from the 18th of January, 702, the day
on which Clodius was murdered, to the 22nd of July, 703, reckoning
inclusively, comprised 560 days; and the reader may satisfy himself
that this statement is untrue if there was an intercalary month in
703, and true if there was not. From these data and from the further
statement made by Cicero in his speech _Pro Milone_, 98, that the day
on which he delivered the speech, namely the 8th of April, 702, was the
101st day since the murder of Clodius, it follows that the intercalary
month in 702 amounted to 23 days. It is stated by Curio in a letter
to Cicero (_Fam._, viii, 6, § 5) and by Dion Cassius (xl, 62, §§ 1-2)
that there was no intercalary month in 704. It can be proved from the
chronological statements which have come down to us regarding the
movements of Caesar and Pompey in 705 that there was no intercalary
month in that year. Plutarch (_Caesar_, 35, § 1) tells us that Caesar
made himself master of Italy in 60 days. Shortly before the 17th of
January, 705, the day on which Pompey fled from Rome, Caesar crossed
the Rubicon (_Att._, ix, 10, § 4; Caesar, _B. C._, i, 14, § 3); and it
has been proved (Stoffel, _Guerre civile_, i, 202-3; O. E. Schmidt,
_Der Briefwechsel des M. Tullius Cicero_, 1893, p. 104, n. 2) that the
exact date was either January 10 or January 11. On the 18th of March he
took Brundisium (_Att._, ix, 15, § 6),--65 days, reckoning inclusively,
after his passage of the Rubicon, if there was no intercalary month,
but 87 or 88 if there was one. Again, he took Corfinium on the 21st of
February, quitted it the same day (_ib._, viii, 14, § 1), and marched
direct to Brundisium, where he arrived on the 9th of March (_ib._, ix,
13, § 13A). The distance between the two places, measured along the
route which Colonel Stoffel believes Caesar to have followed, is 465
kilometres, or about 289 miles. O. E. Schmidt (_Der Briefwechsel des M.
T. Cicero_, pp. 385-9) decides for another route; but the difference of
opinion between him and Colonel Stoffel does not affect my argument. If
there was an intercalary month in 705, Caesar occupied 39 or 40 days on
the march, which, considering the notorious rapidity of his movements,
is incredible: if there was not, he occupied 17 days (see Stoffel,
_Guerre civile_, i, 196-7). That there was no intercalary month either
in 706 or in 707 is evident from a statement in one of Cicero’s letters
to Atticus (x, 17, § 3), written on the 16th of May, 705,--‘At present
the equinox is delaying us, which has been very stormy’ (_Nunc quidem
aequinoctium nos moratur, quod valde perturbatum erat_). The equinox
actually occurred on the 24th of March. If there was no intercalary
month either in 706 or in 707, the 16th of May, 705, fell on the 24th
or the 25th of March, 49 B.C. of the Julian calendar. If there was
an intercalary month in either of those years, it fell on the 2nd
or the 3rd of March. [Le Verrier, who also holds that there was no
intercalation in 706 or 707, says that May 16, 705, fell on April 16,
49 B.C.; but Le Verrier assumed, wrongly, as we shall see, that ‘the
year of confusion’ contained only 422, not 445 days.]
[3562] _De die natali_, xx, 4, §§ 8-10.--[adeo aberratum est] ut C.
Caesar ... duos menses intercalarios dierum LXVII in mensem Novembrem
et Decembrem interponeret, cum iam mense Februario dies III et XX
intercalasset, faceretque eum annum dierum CCCCXLV, &c.
[3563] Napoleon III, _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 521-3; or Stoffel,
_Hist. de Jules César,--Guerre civile_, ii, 387-9.
[3564] _B. G._, v, 23, § 5.
[3565] Cicero, _Att._, iv, 18, § 5.
[3566] On the theory of Ideler the sixth day before the Kalends of
October, 700, corresponded with the 29th of August, 54 B.C. See his
_Handbuch der ... Chron._, ii, 1826, pp. 115-7, &c.
[3567] _Divus Iulius_, 40.
[3568] _De die natali_, xx, 4, § 8. According to Macrobius (_Sat._, i,
14, § 3), the year 708 contained 443 days; according to Solinus (i, 45)
344. These figures are obviously incorrect.
[3569] xliii, 26, §§ 1-2.--Τὰς ἡμέρας τῶν ἐτῶν οὐ πάντῃ ὁμολογούσας
σφίσι ... κατεστήσατο ἐς τὸν νῦν τρόπον ἑπτὰ καὶ ἑξήκοντα ἡμέρας
ἐμβαλών, ὅσαιπερ ἐς τὴν ἀπαρτιλογίαν παρέφερον. ἤδη μὲν γάρ τινες καὶ
πλείους ἔφασαν ἐμβληθῆναι, τὸ δ’ ἀληθὲς οὕτως ἔχει.
[3570] Colonel Stoffel (_Guerre civile_, ii, 299-304), while agreeing
with Le Verrier’s conclusion, argues that the statement of Suetonius is
in perfect accord with that of Dion; for, he remarks, Suetonius tells
us that three months were intercalated in 708, namely, the ordinary
month which should have been intercalated in that year, and two others
between November and December; and, says Colonel Stoffel, three
intercalary, months of 22, 23, and 22 days respectively would have
amounted to 67 days.
[3571] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cxxix, 1884, p. 588.
[3572] _Cäsars gall. Krieg und Theile seines Bürgerkriegs_, ii, 1880,
p. 199. See also A. W. Zumpt (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_,
vii. Supplementband, 1873-5, p. 556), who, in my opinion, proves
his point. Mommsen (_Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, p. 277)
maintains that the mere fact that the two extraordinary intercalary
months were called _prior_ and _posterior_ respectively, not _secundus_
and _tertius_, proves that the intercalary month inserted before March,
708, was not regarded as belonging to the calendar year 708 at all, but
only to the consular year; in other words, that the calendar year began
on the 1st of January in 709 for the first time. This view is severely,
and I think justly, criticized by Bergk (_Jahrbücher für classische
Philologie_, 13 Supplementband, 1884, pp. 631-5).
[3573] _Att._, x, 17, § 3.
[3574] Le Verrier should of course have written ‘23 jours’.
[3575] Col. Stoffel, _Guerre civile_, ii, 389.
[3576] Le Verrier overlooks or ignores the fact that in his very next
letter (x, 18, § 1), also written at Cumae, Cicero described the
weather as ‘an absolutely dead calm’ (_mirificae tranquillitates_).
[3577] Mr. Shuckburgh (_The Letters of Cicero_, i, 1899, p. 327) says
by mistake, ‘the 26th of September,’ forgetting that in the unreformed
Roman calendar there were not 30, but only 29 days in September.
[3578] _Att._, iv, 18, § 5. The MS. reading is (a litoribus Britanniae)
_proximo_, which is nonsense. Dr. Vogel, however, attempts to translate
the untranslatable. ‘What other meaning,’ he asks (_Neue Jahrbücher für
Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 283), ‘can the somewhat extraordinary
expression _datas a litoribus Britanniae proximo_ have than that the
letter was written in the neighbourhood of the coast of Britain, and
therefore not quite at the sea?’ The words will not bear this or any
other meaning; and it is obvious that Caesar would have gained nothing
by writing when he was ‘not quite at the sea’; unless, indeed, in
order to save a few hours’ delay in the transmission of an unimportant
private letter, he had sent on a messenger to the coast with orders to
embark on a special galley! For _proximo_ Boot substituted _proximis_,
a conjecture which is generally accepted. Whatever Cicero may have
written, it is certain that the letters which he received from his
brother and from Caesar were written in Britain; but T. Bergk, to whom
the conclusions which commend themselves to plain men are generally
distasteful, insists (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13
Supplementband, 1884, p. 616) that _litoribus Britanniae proximo_ means
‘the coasts nearest _to_ Britain, that is to say, Boulogne’; and he
defends this interpretation by the argument that Caesar had a rooted
dislike of mentioning unknown names. But, as Bergk himself maintains,
Boulogne was the Portus Itius; and, as Caesar twice mentioned the
Portus Itius in his _Commentaries_ (_B. G._, v, 2, § 3; 5, § 1), it is
difficult to see why he should have shrunk from doing so in a letter.
Bergk’s theory leads him to the absurd conclusion that Caesar quitted
Britain for Gaul on the day before he wrote this letter, that is to
say, on the 29th (or 30th) of August of the Julian calendar. Absurd,
because, as I show in the text (p. 713), Cicero would in that case
have written, not (exercitum _e_ Britannia) _reportabant_, but
_reportaverant_; and because Caesar, who had not quitted Britain in the
preceding year until, at the earliest, September 11, would not have
felt obliged to sail four weeks before the equinox ‘because the equinox
was at hand’, and would certainly have thought it perfectly safe to
wait several days longer for the return of the ships which carried the
first detachment of his army back to Gaul, and which he could ill spare.
[3579] _B. G._, v, 23, § 5.
[3580] Cicero, _Att._, iv, 18, § 5; _B. G._, v, 23.
[3581] Cicero, _Q. fr._, iii, 3, § 1.
[3582] Cf. Unger (_Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cxxix, 1884,
p. 586), and Zumpt (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, vii
Supplementband, 1873-5, p. 564).
Bergk (_ib._, 13 Supplementband, 1884, p. 618), remarking that Napoleon
admits that Caesar quitted Britain in 55 B.C. as early as the 12th
of September, says that the rise of Arcturus, which, according to
Pliny (_Nat. Hist._, xviii, 31 [74], § 310), took place on that day,
marked the commencement of the stormy season, and that it is therefore
inconceivable that Caesar would have postponed his departure until
the middle of the month. I do not attach the least importance to this
argument. Caesar went by the equinox, not by the rise of Arcturus,
and he waited as long as he thought safe. Moreover, Bergk apparently
forgets that the date fixed by Pliny for the rise of Arcturus was
borrowed from the Julian calendar, the astronomical calculations for
which were not made until 46 B.C. [It should be noted that, according
to Columella (_De re rust._, xi, 2), whom Bergk also quotes, the rise
of Arcturus took place on the 17th of September, but the 13th presaged
the approach of stormy weather (_tempestatem significat_).]
[3583] Vol. ii (3rd ed.), pp. 251-2. See also Varro, _Rerum rust._, ii,
1, and W. Soltau, _Röm. Chron._, 1889, p. 38, n. 1.
[3584] _Hist. Rom._, xl, 47, § 1.
[3585] _Ib._, xlviii, 33, § 4.
[3586] _Nat. Hist._, xviii, 25 (57), § 211.--ea ipsa ratio postea
comperto errore correcta est, ita ut duodecim annis continuis non
intercalaretur.
[3587] _Collect. rerum memorabilium_, i, 45-6.--vitium admissum est per
sacerdotes. Nam cum praeceptum esset, anno quarto ut intercalarent unum
diem, et oporteret confecto quarto anno id observari, antequam quintus
auspicaretur, illi incipiente quarto intercalarunt, non desinente.
Sic per annos sex et triginta cum novem dies tantummodo sufficere
debuissent, duodecim sunt intercalati.
[3588] _Divus Augustus_, 31.--Annum a Divo Iulio ordinatum, sed postea
neglegentia conturbatum atque confusum, rursus ad pristinam rationem
redegit.
[3589] _Ib._, 40.--annumque ad cursum solis accommodavit, ut
trecentorum sexaginta quinque dierum esset, et intercalario mense
sublato unus dies quarto quoquo anno intercalaretur.
[3590] _De die natali_, xx, 4, § 10.--Praeterea pro quadrante diei, qui
annum verum suppleturus videbatur, instituit, ut peracto quadrienni
circuitu dies unus, ubi mensis quondam solebat, post Terminalia
intercalaretur.
[3591] _Sat._, i, 14, §§ 6, 13.--[Caesar] statuit ut quarto quoque
anno sacerdotes ... unum intercalarent diem ... sic annum civilem
Caesar habitis ad lunam dimensionibus constitutum edicto palam posito
publicavit et [error] huc usque stare potuisset, ni sacerdotes sibi
errorem novum ex ipsa emendatione fecissent. Nam cum oporteret diem
qui ex quadrantibus confit quarto quoque anno confecto antequam
quintus inciperet intercalare, illi quarto non peracto sed incipiente
intercalabant. Hic error sex et triginta annos permansit ... sed
hunc quoque errorem ... correxit Augustus, qui annos duodecim sine
intercalari die transigi iussit, ut illi tres dies ... sequentibus
annis duodecim nullo die intercalato devorarentur.
[3592] See W. Soltau, _Röm. Chron._, p. 171, and L. Holzapfel in
_Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 67.
[3593] See p. 713, _supra_.
[3594] xl, 47, § 1.--καὶ ἡ ἀγορὰ ἡ διὰ τῶν ἐννέα ἀεὶ ἡμερῶν ἀγομένη ἐν
αὐτῇ τῇ τοῦ Ἰανουαρίου νουμηνίᾳ ἤχθη.
[3595] xlviii, 33, § 4.--ἡμέρα ἐμβόλιμος παρὰ τὰ καθεστηκότα ἐνεβλήθη,
ἵνα μὴ ἡ νουμηνία τοῦ ἐχομένου ἔτους τὴν ἀγορὰν τὴν διὰ τῶν ἐννέα
ἡμερῶν ἀγομένην λάβῃ &c.
[3596] Mommsen, falling into an inexplicable confusion of thought,
insists (_Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, pp. 283-6) that the
extraordinary intercalation mentioned by Dion took place not in 713
but in 714. Dion’s words, he says (_ib._, p. 283, n. 5), belong to a
passage which immediately follows his description of the events of 714;
which deals with the events of 713 and 714; which begins with the words
ἔν τε τῷ πρὸ τούτου ἔτει (713); and which ends with the words ταῦτα
μὲν ἐν τοῖς δύο ἔτεσιν (713-4) ἐγένετο. He says that Dion’s words,
taken by themselves, allow us to refer the extraordinary intercalation
either to 713 or to 714; but he maintains that it must be referred to
714, because otherwise the sequence of the nundinal letters would be
inexplicable. But the truth is, as the simple arithmetical calculation
which I have given on pp. 713-4 shows, that the sequence is perfectly
explicable if the extraordinary intercalation took place in 713,
hopelessly inexplicable if it took place in 714. Except Unger, all
recent chronologists (see, for instance, _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p.
51 and n. 1) have recognized Mommsen’s blunder. Dion says that the
extraordinary intercalation took place ἐν τῷ πρὸ τούτου ἔτει: Mommsen
himself affirms that τὸ πρὸ τούτου ἔτος was the year 713; yet he will
have it that the extraordinary intercalation took place in 714!
[3597] The year 702, as we have already seen, contained 378 days; each
of the five years 703, 704, 705, 706, and 707 contained 355 days; the
year 708 contained 445 days; one of the four years 709, 710, 711, and
712 contained _ex hypothesi_ 366 days, and the other three 365; and if
there had been no intercalation in 713, that year would have contained
365 days. Then the number of days from the Kalends of January, 702, to
the last day of December, 713, would have been 378 + 355 × 5 + 445 +
366 + 365 × 4 = 4,424 days, which is a multiple of 8.
[3598] _Röm. Chron._, pp. 171-3.
[3599] Holzapfel, A. Mommsen, and Unger.
[3600] See _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 88.
[3601] See p. 715, _supra_.
[3602] καὶ δῆλον ὅτι [ἡμέρα ἐμβόλιμος] ἀνθυφῃρέθη αὖθις, ὅπως ὁ χρόνος
κατὰ τὰ τῷ Καίσαρι τῷ προτέρῳ δόξαντα συμβῇ (_Hist. Rom._, xlviii, 33,
§ 4).
[3603] _Röm. Chron._, i, 1883, pp. 11-8.
[3604] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 56, note.
[3605] See p. 716, _supra_.
[3606] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 85.
[3607] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 72.
[3608] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 50.
[3609] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 48.
[3610] Assuming that the pontiffs misunderstood Caesar’s regulation,
and did not simply set it aside, is it possible to explain their
mistake? It is often taken for granted that the Romans only used the
inclusive method of reckoning. This, however, is an error: Holzapfel
shows that our method was generally adopted by Cicero, except of course
in the case of dates. Generally, however, in ordinary speech, when
the number in question was less than ten, the tendency was to employ
the inclusive method; and, as the same tendency prevailed in official
phraseology, Holzapfel argues (_Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 74) that it
would not have been unnatural for the pontiffs to interpret Caesar’s
regulations in this sense. See also Th. Mommsen, _Die röm. Chron. bis
auf Caesar_, 1859, pp. 162-3, 317; L. Holzapfel, _Röm. Chron._, pp.
353-4; and p. 602, n. 5, _supra_. But, apart from the question of Roman
methods of reckoning, is it likely that the pontiffs should have been
ignorant of the astronomical reason which led Caesar to enact that one
year in every four must contain an intercalary day? Holzapfel thinks
that it is. ‘We shall hardly do the pontiffs an injustice,’ he says
(_Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 74), ‘if we assume that they knew about
as much of the actual duration of the [solar] year as Censorinus, who
treats the matter as not yet thoroughly ascertained.’ The passage
in Censorinus (_De die natali_, xix, 2), to which Holzapfel refers,
runs as follows:--_Hoc tempus quot dierum esset, ad certum nondum
astrologi reperire potuerunt_. He then quotes various astronomers, all
of whom agreed of course that the number of days was 365, but differed
in regard to the fraction of a day by which the duration of the year
exceeded 365 days. Perhaps the pontiffs did not know that Sosigenes,
upon whose calculations Caesar relied, estimated that fraction at one
quarter (see p. 725, _infra_). If they set aside Caesar’s regulation
not from ignorance but deliberately, their motive must have been to
avoid the coincidence of the Kalends of January in every third year
with a nundinal day.
[3611] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 72 and n. 1.
[3612] _Sat._, i, 13, § 17.--quotiens incipiente anno dies coepit qui
addictus est nundinis, omnis ille annus infaustis casibus luctuosus
fuit, maximeque Lepidiano tumultu opinio ista firmata est.
[3613] To spare the reader the trouble of doing a sum, I give the
proof. The 1st of January, 702, fell, as we have already seen (p. 713),
on a market-day; therefore, if the 1st of January, 711, did the same,
the number of days that elapsed from the 1st of January, 702, to the
last day of December, 710, inclusive, must have been divisible by 8.
The year 702 contained 378 days; each of the years 703-7 contained 355
days; 708 contained 445; and _ex hypothesi_ 709 and 710 each contained
365. Now 378 + 355 × 5 + 445 + 365 × 2 = 3,328, which is exactly
divisible by 8.
[3614] Cf. Th. Mommsen, _Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, pp. 25,
286. Unger remarks (_Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cxxix, 1884,
p. 760) that the outburst of 676 [or rather 677] was too insignificant
to have been selected by Macrobius as an illustration. Moreover, says
Holzapfel, the particular _tumultus_ owing to which the superstitious
dread of the coincidence of _nundinae_ with the Kalends of January was
intensified must have been preceded by other calamities associated with
the same coincidence. In the earlier part of 702, when the Kalends of
January fell on a market-day, there were no consuls, which might well
awaken apprehensions. In 705, when the same coincidence occurred, the
Civil War broke out. The _Lepidianus tumultus_ of 711 was accompanied
by proscriptions; therefore the superstition would have been confirmed,
as Macrobius says, by that _tumultus_.
Undoubtedly,--if, as Holzapfel maintains, it is true that in 711 the
Kalends of January fell upon a market-day. But this is the very point
at issue; and Holzapfel seems to ignore the possibility that the
_Lepidianus tumultus_ of 677 may also ‘have been preceded by other
calamities associated with the same coincidence’. Moreover, Matzat
objects that of the events of 711 the outbreak of Lepidus was the least
important, and that if Macrobius had intended to refer to that year,
he would have said _tumultus Antonianus_. Holzapfel replies that when
Lepidus joined Antony, the war which the latter had begun assumed a
new phase, and Lepidus became commander-in-chief of the united armies
(Velleius Paterculus, ii, 63, § 1; Appian, _B. C._, iii, 84), a fact
which justifies the phrase, _Lepidianus tumultus_. Further, to show
how flagitious the conduct of Lepidus appeared to contemporaries, he
refers to Cicero, _Fam._, xii, 8, § 1 (_Scelus adfinis tui Lepidi ...
cognosse te arbitror_), 9, § 2 (_Nos, confectum bellum quom putaremus,
repente a Lepido tuo in summam sollicitudinem sumus adducti_), and 10,
§ 3 (_Praeclare viceramus, nisi spoliatum, inermem, fugientem Lepidus
recepisset Antonium. Itaque numquam tanto odio civitati Antonius fuit
quanto est Lepidus; ille enim ex turbulenta re p., hic ex pace et
victoria bellum excitavit_).
[3615] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cxxix, 1884, p. 760.
[3616] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 60-1.
[3617] _Pharsalia_, viii, 808.
[3618] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 69.
[3619] Matzat’s theory, Holzapfel insists (_Philologus_, xlix, 1890,
pp. 71-2), forces him to contradict himself. First, he argues (_Röm.
Chron._, i, 1883, p. 17) that Caesar fixed the time of his first
intercalation _simply_ with the object of preventing the Kalends of
January, 711, from falling on a market-day; in other words, he holds
that the intercalary day contemplated by Caesar was a movable one.
But if so, we must disregard the testimony of Dion, who says that
the intercalation of 713 was ‘contrary to the regulations’ (παρὰ τὰ
καθεστηκότα). Accordingly in _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 51, Matzat
silently abandons his earlier view, and assumes that Caesar intended to
intercalate in 714, 718, 722, &c. But if this cycle had been observed,
the 1st of January, 714, 717, 720, and so on, would have fallen on
a market-day; and therefore Matzat’s revised theory is obviously
irreconcilable with his original view, that Caesar intercalated in 710
in order to prevent the Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a
market-day.
Matzat has not, so far as I can discover, made any rejoinder to
Holzapfel’s article; but it is not impossible to answer this argument.
Supposing that Caesar intercalated in 710 in order to prevent the
Kalends of January, 711, from falling on a market-day, why should we
disregard the testimony of Dion? Caesar’s regulation was that the
intercalation should take place every four years. If, no matter for
what reason, the first intercalation took place in 710, the second
would fall due in 714. By transferring it to 713, Caesar’s regulation
would be contravened. Nor is the theory that Caesar intended to
intercalate in 714, 718, 722, &c., necessarily inconsistent with the
view that he intercalated in 710 in order to prevent the Kalends of
January, 711, from falling on a market-day; for, as I have remarked in
the text, he may perhaps have failed to look ahead.
[3620] _Röm. Chron._, pp. 328-9; _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, pp. 77-8.
[3621] The writers of the article CALENDARIUM in Smith’s _Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Antiquities_ (i, 344), who assume that Caesar’s
calendar came into operation on the 1st of January, 45 B.C., argue
that his motive for making the year begin on that day ‘was probably
the desire to gratify the superstition of the Romans by causing the
first year (_sic_) of the reformed calendar to fall on the day of the
new moon ... the mean new moon occurred at Rome on the 1st of January,
45 B.C., at 6^h 16′ p.m. In this way alone can be explained the phrase
used by Macrobius (_Sat._, i, 14, 13): _annum civilem Caesar habitis
ad lunam dimensionibus constitutum edicto palam posito publicavit_.’
Holzapfel, on the other hand, shows (_Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 87)
that ‘Macrobius’s words, if one considers the context, only imply
that Caesar made no alteration in the place of Kalends, Nones, and
Ides, which originally had reference to the lunar phases’. See also
Th. Mommsen (_Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar_, 1859, p. 277, n. 2)
and Matzat (_Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 61-3). Matzat’s arguments were
directed against A. Mommsen, who assumed (_Philologus_, xlv, 1886, pp.
411-38) that the new moon had occurred on the 2nd of January 45 B.C.,
and accordingly argued that Caesar’s calendar began on that day. Mr.
J. K. Fotheringham (_Journal of Philology_, No. 57, 1903, pp. 98-9)
affirms that ‘there was a new moon on the 2nd of January, 45 B.C.,
which Caesar may have calculated for the 1st, and there was another new
moon on the 1st of March’. I have myself calculated the date of the
new moon in question, first by reckoning back the number of lunations
from the new moon of January 6, 1856, which occurred at 11.17 p.m.,
taking the length of a lunation to be 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes,
2·84 seconds, and allowing 2 hours for the secular acceleration of the
moon’s mean motion; and, secondly, by the method explained in Augustus
De Morgan’s _Book of Almanacs_, 1851, pp. xiv-xv. Both methods have led
me to the same result, namely, that there was a new moon on January 2,
45 B.C.
[3622] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 57-8.
[3623] _Sat._, i, 13, § 19.--dies ille quo abundare annum diximus
eorum est permissus arbitrio qui fastis praeerant, uti, cum vellent,
intercalaretur, dum modo eam in medio Terminaliorum vel mensis
intercalaris ita locarent ut a suspecto die celebritatem averteret
nundinarum. Atque hoc est quod quidam veterum retulerunt non solum
mensem apud Romanos verum etiam diem intercalarem fuisse.
[3624] _Ueber die vierjährigen Sonnenkreise der Alten_, 1863, p. 1.
[3625] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 56.
[3626] _Röm. Chron._, p. 328; _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, pp. 66-7, 72,
77.
[3627] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 57.
[3628] _Hist. Rom._, xlviii, 33, § 4.
[3629] _Philologus_, xlix, 1890, p. 76.
[3630] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, p. 57.
[3631] See p. 714, _supra_.
[3632] See pp. 719-21, _supra_.
[3633] _Sat._, i, 14, § 15.--post hoc unum diem secundum ordinationem
Caesaris quinto quoque anno incipiente intercalari iussit, &c.
[3634] _Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 52-3.
[3635] See p. 719, _supra_.
[3636] A. Mommsen, a brother of the great historian, has devised a
singular theory of the working of the Julian calendar (_Philologus_,
xlv, 1886, pp. 411-38), which Holzapfel (_ib._, xlix, 1890, pp. 85-7)
as well as Matzat (_Hermes_, xxiii, 1888, pp. 61 ff.) has conclusively
refuted.
[3637] See p. 327, _supra_.
[3638] Rice Holmes, _Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul_, 1899, pp. 490-1.
[3639] _B. G._, v, 1-8.
[3640] _Q. fr._, ii, 13, § 1.
[3641] Napoleon (_Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 195, n. 4) arbitrarily
identifies Blandeno with Lodi.
[3642] _Q. fr._, ii, 13, § 1.
[3643] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 199.
[3644] _Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13 Supplementband, 1884,
pp. 615, 620.
[3645] See O. E. Schmidt, _Der Briefwechsel des M. Tullius Cicero_, pp.
201-5, 378-9. The distance from Placentia to Rome _via_ Luca was 378
miles, _via_ Ariminum 403. See _Itin. Ant._, ed. Wesseling, pp. 124-7,
284, 287-8.
[3646] _Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13 Supplementband, 1884,
pp. 615-20; Napoleon III, _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 199.
[3647] See O. E. Schmidt, _Der Briefwechsel des M. Tullius Cicero_, pp.
378-80. Caesar did occasionally, as Schmidt admits, travel at the rate
of 100 Roman miles a day (Plutarch, _Caesar_, 17; Suetonius, _Divus
Iulius_, 57. Cf. Caesar, _B. C._, i, 3, § 6). In 1852, Lord Dalhousie
rode and drove from Benares to Barrackpore, a distance of 400 miles,
in 80 hours, including stoppages; and in the same year General Godwin
travelled from Meerut to Calcutta--over 950 miles--in 11 days (Sir W.
Lee-Warner’s _Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie_, i, 1904, pp. 403, 422).
[3648] See p. 730, _infra_.
[3649] _Att._, iv, 15, § 10.
[3650] _Q. fr._, ii, 15, § 4.
[3651] _Att._, iv, 15, § 9.
[3652] _Q. fr._, ii, 15, § 3.
[3653] Asconius, _in Scaurianum_, p. 18 (_M. Tullii Ciceronis opera_,
ed. Orelli and Baiter, vol. v, pars ii, 1833).--Summus iudicii dies
fuit a. d. IIII Non. Septembr.
[3654] ‘Caesar,’ writes Cicero, ‘wrote me a letter from Britain on
the 1st of September, which reached me on the 27th’ (_Ex Britannia
Caesar ad me K. Septembr. dedit litteras, quas ego accepi a. d. IIII
K. Octobr._ [_Q. fr._, iii, 1, § 25]). ‘Your fourth letter,’ he tells
Quintus, ‘reached me on the 13th of September, dated on the 10th of
August from Britain’ (_Quarta epistola mihi reddita est Idibus Sept.,
quam a.d. IIII Idus Sext. ex Britannia dederas_ [_ib._, 1, § 13]). And,
as we have already seen, letters from Caesar and Quintus, written on
the British coast on the 25th of September, reached Cicero on the 24th
of October. The extraordinarily long time--33 days--which Quintus’s
‘fourth letter’ took to reach his brother may easily be accounted for:
Cicero was not at Rome when he received it, but at Laterium, near
Arpinum, about 70 Roman miles E. by S. of Rome (_ib._, in, 1, § 4).
Napoleon insists (_Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 196, n, 3) that,
in favourable circumstances, letters only required 20 days for
transmission from Britain to Rome. This view is based upon a passage
in one of Cicero’s letters (_Q. fr._ iii, 1, § 17) which, in the MSS.,
runs as follows:--_tabellarii a vobis venerunt a. d. XI K. Septembr.
vicesimo die_ (‘letter-carriers arrived from you and Caesar on the
22nd of August after a journey of 20 days’). It is obvious, and is
universally admitted, that (unless Cicero made a slip) _Septembr._ is
wrong, and that Cicero meant ‘the eleventh day before the Kalends of
October’, that is to say, September 20. It is equally obvious that he
did not write _vicesimo_, or that, if he did, he made a mistake. For,
at the end of the letter, he says (as we have already seen), ‘Caesar
wrote me a letter from Britain on the 1st of September’; and, as the
letter from Quintus reached him on the 20th of September, it must have
been dispatched, if it really arrived _vicesimo die_, on the 1st of
September, that is to say, on the same day as the letter from Caesar.
But this, as Dr. Vogel remarks (_Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c.,
cliii, 1896, pp. 273-4), is disproved by the fact that Caesar, in this
very letter, begged Cicero not to be alarmed at not having received
a letter from Quintus by the same messenger, as Quintus was 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_). As it is clear,
therefore, that _vicesimo_ is wrong, various attempts have been made to
amend the MS. reading. Bergk (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_,
13 Supplementband, 1884, p. 622) arbitrarily changes _vicesimo_ to
_tricesimo_. The most satisfactory conjecture, in my opinion, is that
of C. Bardt (_Quaest. Tullianae_, 1866, p. 32). He believes that what
Cicero wrote was _a. d. XI Kal., septimo vicesimo die_; that a copyist
abbreviated this into _a. d. XI Kal., sept. vicesimo die_; and that
this was corrupted into _a. d. XI Kal. Sept., vicesimo die_.
If Professor Tyrrell, who reads _a. d. XI Kal._ [_Sept._] _vicensimo
die_ (_Correspondence_, ii, 1886, p. 150), reads this note, I am
confident that he will allow his text to be emended in the next edition
of his and Dr. Purser’s great work.
[3655] There can, I think, be little doubt that Quintus wrote and
dispatched this letter on the very day of his arrival, or, at the
latest, before the storm which totally wrecked 40 of Caesar’s ships on
the next night but one after his arrival. If the storm had occurred
when he wrote, he would surely have mentioned it; and there is not a
word in Marcus Cicero’s reply which would lead us to suppose that he
had done so. Moreover, Quintus knew that Marcus was waiting impatiently
for news; and Caesar would naturally have desired to communicate at
once with Labienus whom he had left in command in Gaul.
[3656] _B. G._, v, 8, § 2.--longius delatus aestu orta luce sub
sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit. Tum rursus aestus commutationem
secutus, &c.
[3657] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 198.
[3658] _Decline of the Roman Republic_, iv, 205.
[3659] See pp. 600-3, _supra_.
[3660] See pp. 706-7, _supra_.
[3661] _Norman Conquest_, iii, 399.
[3662] Dr. F. Vogel, who rightly concludes that Caesar could not have
sailed on the 20th of July, has recourse to an unsatisfactory argument
to prove his case. We know, he says (_Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_,
&c., cliii, 1896, p. 275), what misfortunes Caesar had met with in the
preceding year owing to the high tide which was raised by the full
moon: how then can we believe that he would have chosen the day of
full moon for his second expedition? But Dr. Vogel himself argues that
Caesar sailed about the 8th of July, the day after new moon. Did not
the doctor forget that the tidal phenomena at full and new moon are
nearly identical, and that the 8th of July was the very day on which a
springtide occurred? If Caesar was himself unaware of these facts, his
Gallic seamen could have enlightened him. Moreover, he must have known
that at least one full moon would occur while he remained in Britain.
[3663] _B. G._, v, 9-10; 11, §§ 1-7.
[3664] _Q. fr._, iii, i, § 25.
[3665] See pp. 712-3, 726, _supra_.
[3666] _B. G._, v. 22, §§ 3-4.
[3667] _Ib._, 23, § 1.
[3668] _Ib._, 23, § 2.
[3669] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 280.
[3670] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 194, 199.
[3671] _Ib._, pp. 198-9.
[3672] Trebonius defeated Cassivellaunus about the 20th of July of the
Julian calendar; and we may assume that Caesar did not begin to march
towards the territories of Cassivellaunus until the following day. By
the 5th of August he had returned to his naval camp. In those 17 days
he marched to the Thames; crossed it at or near Brentford; marched on
through the territory of Cassivellaunus into that of the Trinovantes
(Essex); marched thence to the stronghold of Cassivellaunus, which
was not far off; captured it in a single day; and marched back to the
coast. Altogether the distance that he marched cannot have been less
than about 200 miles. Evidently, therefore, he would not have had time
enough to negotiate with Cassivellaunus and to receive the hostages
whom he demanded before he returned to the coast.
Bergk insists (_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, 13
Supplementband, 1884, pp. 616-8) that the campaign must have been
finished at the beginning of August of the Julian calendar, because
Caesar (_B. G._, v, 22, § 4) tells us that when it was finished the
summer was nearly at an end, and, according to Caesar himself, autumn
began on the 11th of August. But when Bergk says that, according to
Caesar, autumn began on the 11th of August he seems to forget that
this date was fixed in the Julian calendar, eight years after the
invasion of Britain. He also forgets that the word _aestas_, in the
_Commentaries_, denotes, not a season which ended on a fixed date, but
the period during which campaigning was practicable; and two passages
prove that it extended at least as far as the middle of September. In
the last chapter of his First Book Caesar remarks that in a single
‘summer’ he had finished two important campaigns (_una aestate duobus
maximis bellis confectis_); and it has been proved that the decisive
battle of the second campaign was fought about the 14th of September
(Rice Holmes, _Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul_, p. 642). In the 20th chapter
of the Fourth Book he says that he determined to invade Britain (in
55 B.C.), although only a small part of the ‘summer’ remained, and in
this part of the world ‘winter’ set in early (_Exigua parte aestatis
reliqua Caesar, etsi in his locis ... maturae sunt hiemes, tamen in
Britanniam proficisci contendit_); and we know that he did not land in
Britain until the 26th of August (see pp. 600-3, _supra_). The second
passage, moreover, is one of many which prove that Caesar generally
took no account of spring and autumn, but (like Thucydides) divided the
year into two seasons,--_aestas_, the season in which campaigning was
practicable, and _hiems_. He only once uses the word _ver_ (spring),
namely, in _B. G._, vi, 3, § 4; and only three times--once only in the
_Gallic War_ (vii, 35, § 1), twice in the _Civil War_ (iii, 2, § 3;
87, § 3)--uses the word _autumnus_; and in none of these four passages
is there any reference to campaigning. The Latin word for ‘winter’,
properly so called, is not _hiems_ but _bruma_.
[3673] _B. G._, v, 17, § 5--18, § 1.--Ex hac fuga protinus quae undique
convenerant auxilia discesserunt, neque post id tempus umquam summis
nobiscum copiis hostes contenderunt. Caesar cognito consilio eorum ad
flumen Tamesim in fines Cassivellauni exercitum duxit.
[3674] About the 20th of October Cicero wrote to his brother (_Q. fr._,
iii, 3, § 1), ‘for more than fifty days I have heard nothing from you
or from Caesar’ (_dierum iam amplius quinquaginta intervallo nihil
a te, nihil a Caesare ... adfluxit_). The last letter which he had
received was the one written by Caesar on the 1st of September.
[3675] _Hist. de Jules César_, ii, 194.
[3676] _B. G._, v, 22, §§ 1-3.
[3677] See p. 726, _supra_.
[3678] _Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie_, &c., cliii, 1896, p. 284.
[3679] _Ib._, pp. 284-5.
[3680] _Q. fr._, iii, 8, § 1.--Superiori epistolae quod respondeam,
nihil est; quae plena stomachi et querelarum est, quo in genere alteram
quoque te scribis pridie Labieno dedisse, qui adhuc non venerat.
Delevit enim mihi omnem molestiam recentior epistola.
[3681] _B. G._, v, 8, § 1; 23, § 4.
[3682] _Q. fr._, iii, 8, § 2.
[3683] _B. G._, v, 24, § 2.
[3684] _Ib._, 24, § 1; 46; 47, § 1.
[3685] _Q. fr._, iii, 3, § 4.
[3686] See p. 728, n. 6, _supra_.
[3687] Of course I do not mean that he would not have attempted to do
so in any conceivable circumstances; but that Volusenus would never
have advised him to undertake such an operation when there was the
alternative of landing between Walmer and Sandwich. 5.10.06.
[3688] See pp. 613-4, _supra_.
[Transcriber’s Note:
Page 389, Extra footnote “See p. 61, _supra_.” combined with duplicate
number (FN 1605).
Page 568, Footnote anchor 2773 added at the end of first paragraph.
Obvious printer errors corrected silently.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]