Chapter VIII: The Results of Caesar’s Invasions of Britain (9)

Evidently, then, unless the problem is to be abandoned in despair, there is room for another treatise. But this treatise must justify its existence. I have not ‘the implicit faith of local topographers’: but there are more data than Mommsen had leisure to examine; and the locality can be determined with absolute certainty.

There is indeed a summary way of dealing with the question which has long since satisfied practical men: doubt is confined to the minds of scholars and of those who look to them for guidance. Men who are familiar with war and who have a sufficient knowledge of the conditions of navigation in the Straits of Dover know that there was only one port on the north-eastern coast of Gaul which would have answered all Caesar’s requirements, and that Caesar would not have made a foolish choice. Accordingly the greatest of modern soldiers affirmed without hesitation that the greatest soldier of Rome had sailed to Britain from Boulogne. But this reasoning, perhaps because of its simplicity, has not seemed conclusive to the learned world.

II. THE DATA FURNISHED BY CAESAR, STRABO, AND PTOLEMY

Caesar says that, before his first expedition to Britain, he sent Gaius Volusenus to reconnoitre the British coast and ascertain what harbours were capable of accommodating a large fleet, and that he himself marched with his whole force for the country of the Morini, ‘because the shortest passage to Britain was from their country’ (_quod inde erat brevissimus in Britanniam traiectus_); and he goes on to say that he ordered ships from the neighbouring districts, and likewise the fleet which he had built in the previous summer for the war with the Veneti, to assemble there. He set sail soon after midnight with about 80 transports, some ships of war, and some small fast-sailing vessels (_speculatoria navigia_) from a port which he does not name, and sent his cavalry to ‘a further port’ (_in ulteriorem portum_) about 8 Roman miles off, with orders to embark there in eighteen transports, which had been prevented by contrary winds from reaching the port whence he himself sailed, and to follow him. In another chapter he speaks of the _ulterior portus_ as _superior portus_; and it is admitted that this port was either north or east of the one from which he himself sailed. On the fourth day after he landed in Britain (the day of landing being doubtless reckoned as the first day[2685]) the eighteen transports set sail. They were getting close to Britain and were descried from the Roman camp when a storm suddenly arose, and none of them could keep on its course, but some were carried back to the place from which they had started, that is to say, to the _superior portus_; while the rest were driven down ‘in great peril to the lower and more westerly part of the island’ (_ad inferiorem partem insulae, quae est propius solis occasum magno suo cum periculo deicerentur_), whence, after anchoring for a time and shipping a quantity of water, they were compelled to stand out to sea, and ran for the Continent. When Caesar returned to Gaul, two of his ships were unable to reach ‘the same ports’ (_eosdem portus_) as the rest of the fleet, and were carried ‘a little further down’ (_paulo infra_). Before his second expedition he assembled a fleet of about 540 transports and 28 ships of war at the Portus Itius, ‘from which port he had ascertained that the passage to Britain was most convenient,[2686] being about 30 [Roman] miles from the Continent’ (_quo ex portu commodissimum in Britanniam traiectum esse cognoverat, circiter milium passuum_ XXX _transmissum a continenti_). His entire flotilla amounted to more than 800 sail, as it included privately owned vessels. The transports were of small draught and comparatively broad, and were constructed for rowing as well as sailing. Caesar was delayed at the Portus Itius for about 25 days by north-westerly winds.[2687] His entire army, which was with him all that time, amounted to 8 legions and 4000 cavalry. He set sail about sunset, accompanied by 5 legions and 2000 cavalry, with a light south-westerly wind, or, to speak more accurately, the wind called _Africus_, which may have blown from any quarter between south-west and W. by S. ⅓ S. Labienus was left behind with 3 legions and 2000 cavalry ‘to protect the ports’ (_ut portus tueretur_), which implies that on the second expedition, as on the first, Caesar thought it necessary to keep more than one port under his control; and during his absence Labienus built 60 ships.[2688]

Strabo,[2689] evidently referring to Caesar’s first expedition, says that he sailed from ‘the Itian’ [naval station?] (τὸ Ἴτιον), and that the length of his voyage to the point which he reached ‘about the fourth hour’ was 320 stades, which is equivalent to 40 Roman miles.

Ptolemy[2690] mentions the Itian promontory. Its longitude, he says, was 22° 15′, and its latitude 53° 30′; and he places it on the west of Gesoriacum, or Boulogne. The longitude of Gesoriacum, he says, was 22° 30′, and its latitude 53° 30′.

III. CAESAR SAILED FROM THE PORTUS ITIUS ON BOTH HIS EXPEDITIONS

It is necessary to inquire whether Caesar sailed from the same port on both his expeditions; for he mentions the _ulterior portus_ only in connexion with the first; and if on that occasion he sailed from the Portus Itius, the search for the Portus Itius is conditioned by the existence of the _ulterior portus_. Drumann,[2691] remarking that Caesar chose the Portus Itius in 54 B.C. because he had ascertained that the passage from it to the island was _the most convenient_, argues that ‘before it was consequently unknown to him’, and that ‘at first he sought _the shortest passage_’. Long,[2692] on the other hand, insists that when Caesar says that he had ascertained that the passage from the Portus Itius was the most convenient, he apparently means ‘that he had by his first voyage found out that this was the best place to sail from’. ‘His first voyage,’ Long continues, ‘was very lucky, and there was no reason to change his place of embarkation, particularly as he intended to land, and did land, at the place where he had landed before. Besides this, when he speaks (v. 8) of his landing-place on the second voyage, he says, “qua optimum esse egressum superiore aestate cognoverat”; the same form of expression that he uses in speaking of the place of embarkation (v. 2), except that he does not there use the words “superiore aestate”.’ I may observe that it is not quite true that Caesar in 54 B.C. ‘intended to land, and did land, at the place where he had landed before’.[2693] On the other hand, Mr. H. E. Malden has remarked (though he has since abandoned the conclusion to which his remarks led him) that Caesar ‘names the second [port] and does not name the first ... he especially mentions that he disembarked on both occasions at the same place, he gives himself every opportunity for saying that he sailed from the same port, if he did so, but yet he never says it’.[2694] Strabo admittedly implies that in the first expedition Caesar’s point of departure was the Portus Itius: but his testimony does not settle the question; for he may only have been putting his own construction on Caesar’s words. Rudolf Schneider[2695] concludes that it is impossible to _prove_ that the Portus Itius was the starting-point of both voyages, but that it most probably was, because Caesar, before his first expedition, had stayed long enough in the country of the Morini to find out the most convenient harbour. I go further, and shall prove, in the course of this discussion, that, on his first as on his second expedition, Caesar sailed from the Portus Itius.[2696]

IV. THE VALUE OF CAESAR’S ESTIMATE OF THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE PORTUS ITIUS AND BRITAIN

Rudolf Schneider[2697] insists that it is idle to lay stress on Caesar’s estimate of the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain, first, because he had no means of making an accurate calculation, and, secondly, because we cannot tell whether he reckoned the distance to the nearest point of Britain or to his own landing-place. As regards correspondence with Caesar’s estimate, Schneider continues, there is nothing to choose between Boulogne, Wissant, and Calais: Dover is 34 Roman miles from Boulogne, 25 from Wissant, 28 from Calais. It might perhaps be argued that, if Caesar took his own landing-place as the terminus, it would be hardly safe to ignore his estimate. For Wissant is 27 Roman miles from Deal, and Boulogne 39; and, assuming that Caesar landed near Hythe, Wissant is 32 Roman miles from that port, and Boulogne 37. It appears, however, to me almost certain that Caesar’s estimate referred to the distance from the Portus Itius to the nearest frequented port of Britain;[2698] and it must not be forgotten that the ancient writers generally overestimated the distance from one port to another.[2699] Moreover, it is not absolutely certain that Caesar estimated the distance of the Portus Itius from Britain at 30 Roman miles. _XXX_ is indeed found in all the extant _MSS._;[2700] but as Strabo unquestionably used the _Commentaries_ when he wrote his notice of Caesar’s voyage, and estimated its length as 320 stades, it is not improbable that he found in his copy the number _XXXX_.[2701] Schneider, however, points out that Strabo’s estimate of the length of the south coast of Britain differs from Caesar’s; and the accuracy of the _MSS._, as regards the number _XXX_, may perhaps, as he says, be supported by a comparison of Pliny with Caesar. Pliny[2702] says that the shortest passage between Ireland and Britain is 30 miles, and Caesar[2703] says that the passage from Ireland to Britain is equal in length to the passage from Britain to Gaul. On the whole, we may conclude that Caesar’s estimate of the distance between the Portus Itius and Britain does not help us to decide whether the Portus Itius is to be identified with Wissant or with Boulogne. But, in considering the arguments for the identity of the Portus Itius with the mouth of the Somme, Caesar’s estimate must obviously be taken into account.[2704]

V. THE ESTUARY OF THE SOMME

The advocate of the Somme was the late Astronomer-Royal, Sir George Airy. His arguments shall be considered for the benefit of those who are influenced by his great reputation; but one fact, which he ignores, is alone sufficient to wreck his theory. If Caesar sailed from the mouth of the Somme, the _superior portus_, from which his cavalry transports sailed was, as Airy of course maintains, the mouth of the Authie, and the place where he landed in Britain was, as Airy likewise maintains, Pevensey. Therefore, on Airy’s theory, the cavalry transports, when they were approaching Britain and were seen in the offing from Caesar’s camp, were approaching Pevensey; and the gale which prevented them from reaching their destination and drove some of them ‘in great peril’ (_magno cum periculo_) westward down the coast, carried the others back to the mouth of the Authie.[2705] But, as the harbour-master of Dover remarked to me, and as any one may see for himself who has the most rudimentary knowledge of seamanship, it would have been utterly impossible for them to fetch the mouth of that river.

But to timid reasoners this may appear too summary a method of disposing of Airy’s theory. Let us then hear what he has to say.

First, Airy maintains that Caesar, when he says that he ‘set out for the country of the Morini’ (_in Morinos proficiscitur_), merely implies that he arrived ‘near it or close to it’, not necessarily that he actually entered it. He insists that in every instance in which Caesar ‘uses the inflexions or derivatives of “proficiscor”’ ‘another sentence or another clause is required to denote arrival at the journey’s end’.[2706]

Now Caesar uses _proficisci_ with _in_ thirty-five times. If the reader will turn to the lists of those passages in Meusel’s _Lexicon Caesarianum_ (ii, 96, 1240), he will find that in almost every instance in which Caesar says that he himself or any one else ‘started for’ or was about to ‘start for’ this or that place, the context proves that the place was reached. Of course the proof is generally furnished by ‘another sentence or another clause’, or by more than one other sentence. But this is not always the case.[2707] And for the passage in question similar proof is forthcoming. Immediately after telling us that he marched for the country of the Morini, Caesar goes on to say that he ordered his fleet to assemble there.[2708] As Long sensibly remarks,[2709] ‘when a man says that he “marches for” or “towards the country of the Morini because the passage from there to Britain was the shortest”; that he ordered all his ships to come there; and that while he was waiting “in these parts” (_in his locis_[2710]) to get his ships ready, ambassadors from a large part of the Morini came to him, there is only one conclusion, which is, that he was in the country of the Morini and sailed from it.’ If Caesar had removed his ships from the country where he had assembled them and had sailed from some other place, he would surely have said something to warn his readers against drawing the conclusion which, to every one except Airy, has always appeared inevitable.

Secondly, Airy points to the passage[2711] in which Caesar relates that while he was collecting ships for the first expedition envoys came to him from the Morini: ‘the visit of the ambassadors,’ he argues, ‘without any mention of hostile occupation, seems to imply that neither Caesar nor any part of his army was in the country of the Morini at the time of preparing the naval expedition, and appears to render it most improbable that he had passed through their country.’[2712]

No unbiassed reader would assent to this conclusion. The Morini naturally sent ambassadors to Caesar because they wished to deprecate his wrath. Similarly in 53 B.C. the Ubii sent envoys to him when he was in their country, not as an enemy but as a friend.[2713] Besides, Airy, not having a really intimate knowledge of the _Commentaries_, overlooked another important point:--the Morini did not act as one undivided state; some only of their _pagi_, or sub-divisional communities, sent ambassadors: others sent none.[2714]

Thirdly, Airy refers to Caesar’s statement, that, on returning to the Portus Itius from his second expedition, he directed Gaius Fabius to winter in the country of the Morini with one legion.[2715] ‘It appears to me,’ he says, ‘that the order (after his second return) for legions to march _from the Portus Itius_[2716] “in Morinos” makes it certain that he was not in their country.’[2717]

The words ‘from the Portus Itius’ beg the question. One legion (not ‘legions’) was sent into the country of the Morini, not from the Portus Itius but from Samarobriva, in the country of the Ambiani, where, as the context shows, all the legions were temporarily assembled.[2718] Similarly in the following year, 53 B.C., Caesar concentrated all his legions at Durocortorum, or Reims, immediately before distributing them in their respective quarters for the winter.[2719]

Fourthly, Airy refers to the well-known passage in which Strabo[2720] says that ‘the Itian’ [naval station?] is παρὰ (τοῖς Μορινοῖς). Παρά, he seriously affirms, means ‘near to’, not ‘in’ (the country of the Morini[2721]).

If Airy’s sense of humour had not been dormant, it would surely have occurred to him that, in a matter of pure scholarship, it was unlikely that all Greek scholars should be wrong while he alone was right. Dr. Guest took the trouble to refute him;[2722] and if he had referred to other passages in Strabo,[2723] he would have seen for himself that παρ’ οἷς means ‘in whose country’.

Airy was far too vigilant a controversialist not to see that there were well-grounded objections to his theory; and he attempted to anticipate them. Caesar, as we have seen, states that when his fleet was returning to Gaul after the first expedition, two of the ships failed to make the same harbours as the rest, and ‘were carried a little lower down’ (_duae_ [naves] _eosdem quos reliqui portus capere non potuerunt et paulo infra delatae sunt_[2724]); and he goes on to say that the troops who landed from these two ships were attacked by the Morini while they were marching from the place where they had disembarked to his own camp. The words _paulo infra delatae sunt_ are interpreted by almost every commentator except Airy[2725] as meaning that the two ships were carried a little further down the coast than the other ships; and if this interpretation is correct, it is obvious that the harbours in which the other ships came to land were in the country of the Morini. But Airy is unmoved by this consensus of opinion. ‘The word “delatae”,’ he says, ‘is repeatedly used by Caesar for “drifted”, and “infra delatae” is “drifted down”, the word “down” apparently relating not to any geographical direction, but to the force of the wind.’[2726]

As a matter of fact, Caesar uses the past participle of _defero_ in the sense of ‘drifted’ four times,[2727] namely, in the passage which we are now considering and in _B. G._, v, 8, § 2 (_longius delatus aestu orta luce sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit_), _B. C._, iii, 14, § 2 (_una ex his_ [navibus] ... _delata Oricum atque a Bibulo expugnata est_), and _B. C._, iii, 30, § 1 (_praetervectas Apolloniam Dyrrachiumque naves viderant ... sed quo essent eae delatae ... ignorabant_). None of these passages lends the slightest support to Airy’s theory; and the other three passages in which he uses the adverb _infra_[2728] in a local sense, namely, _B. G._, vi, 35, § 6 (_transeunt Rhenum ... XXX milibus passuum infra eum locum ubi pons erat perfectus_[2729]), _B. G._, vii, 61, § 3 (_nuntiatur ... magnum ire agmen adverso flumine sonitumque remorum in eadem parte exaudiri et paulo infra milites navibus transportari_[2730]), and _B. C._, i, 64, § 6 (_reliquas legiones expeditas educit magnoque numero iumentorum in flumine supra atque infra constituto traducit exercitum_[2731]), are fatal to it.

Again, the passage in which Caesar says that the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain is about 30 [Roman] miles,[2732] assuming that it is genuine, might well have disconcerted a less resourceful reasoner; for the distance from the mouth of the Somme to St. Leonards, off which place Airy maintains that Caesar anchored on his first voyage,[2733] is about 65 Roman miles; and to Pevensey Level, where he makes Caesar land, a little more. But Airy confidently grapples with the difficulty. ‘I conceive,’ he remarks, ‘that the sentence has been mistranslated. The Portus Itius and the continent are placed in contradistinction. The _convenient passage_ was from the Portus Itius, the distance of 30 miles was from the continent.’[2734]

Read the sentence again,--_portum Itium ... quo ex portu commodissimum in Britanniam traiectum esse cognoverat, circiter milium passuum XXX transmissum a continenti_. Classical scholars are agreed that these words can only mean what Airy insists that they do not mean, namely, that the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain was about 30 Roman miles. If not from the Portus Itius, from what port? What would have been the good of specifying the distance if Caesar had been thinking of some other port which he did not use?[2735]

Furthermore, the distance from the mouth of the Somme to Pevensey Level is about twice the distance from Boulogne to Dover, to Hythe, or to Lympne; and Caesar says that the reason why he marched for the country of the Morini was that the passage from their country to Britain was the shortest.

But it would seem that Airy was not quite convinced of the soundness of his own reasoning. ‘If,’ he says, ‘any reader thinks that the reasons for excluding the Portus Itius from the land of the Morini are not sufficiently cogent, the whole is easily reconciled with the hypothesis that the Portus Itius was the mouth of the Somme by supposing that in the time of Caesar the Morini stretched south-west of the Somme ... the geography which limits their territory to the north of the Somme is 120 years later. Any one who reflects on the change of boundary of Russia, of Prussia, of Turkey, and of other European States, within a period of much less than 120 years, will find no difficulty in admitting this change in the limits of the Morini.’[2736]

It is sufficient to answer that there is no analogy between the political history of Europe in the earlier half of the nineteenth century and that of Gaul in the 120 years that followed the invasion of Britain by Caesar. The Gallic peoples during that period were not at war with one another; and there is not the slightest reason to suppose that the Morini possessed a wider seaboard in Caesar’s time than 120 years later. Lewin’s reply to Airy is worth quoting[2737]:--‘He offers, as a solution of the difficulty, that in the time of Caesar the Morini stretched south-west of the Somme. If so, then the Somme itself, from which Caesar sailed, and to which he returned, was, according to the Astronomer-Royal, in the country of the Morini; and yet, a few lines before, the Astronomer-Royal had stated that the order (after Caesar’s second return) for legions to march into the country of the Morini made it _certain_ that he was _not in their country_! Thus to avoid Scylla, it is laid down, as _certain_ that Caesar did not sail from the Morini; and then, to avoid Charybdis, the reader is invited to assume that the place of embarkation was amongst the Morini.’

Finally, Airy affirms that the mouth of the Somme was by far the best harbour which Caesar could have selected, and that its capability for his purpose ‘is proved by the ... experience of William of Normandy, who at one tide floated out of it 1400 ships’.[2738]

Now William the Conqueror assembled his fleet and embarked his army not in the mouth of the Somme but in the mouth of the Dive:[2739] he was merely obliged, as Lewin says,[2740] ‘to take temporary shelter ... at the mouth of the Somme.’ But this blunder is of no great consequence. The Somme might have served Caesar’s purpose if only it had not been twice as far from that part of Britain to which he intended to go as Boulogne.

VI. AMBLETEUSE

The _Commission de la Topographie des Gaules_[2741] identify the Portus Itius with Ambleteuse; and Mommsen[2742] is disposed to agree with them. They argue that Strabo[2743] affirms the existence of two ports in the country of the Morini; that one of the two was evidently Gesoriacum; and that the Portus Itius was therefore something different. The passage in Strabo to which the commission refers will be most conveniently examined in a later section.[2744] Meanwhile it is enough to say that if it proves that the Portus Itius was not Gesoriacum, it does not prove that the Portus Itius was Ambleteuse.

General Creuly[2745] decides for Ambleteuse on the ground that its distance from Wissant corresponds with Caesar’s statement of the distance which separated his own port of embarkation from the _ulterior portus_, and that the intervention of Cape Grisnez between Ambleteuse and Wissant would have justified Caesar in describing the latter as the _ulterior portus_. He remarks that if the Portus Itius is identified with Boulogne, the _ulterior portus_ must have been Ambleteuse. But, referring to Vergil’s well-known line--_tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore_[2746]--he argues that the word _ulterior_ implies the intervention between the Portus Itius and the _ulterior portus_ of an ‘objet disjonctif’, such as a promontory; and he insists that no such ‘objet’ intervenes between Boulogne and Ambleteuse. But Heller[2747] observes that a passage in the _Germania_[2748] of Tacitus--(Gerunt et ferarum pelles), _proximi ripae negligenter, ulteriores exquisitius_--would seem to show that _ulterior_ means much the same as _longinquior_.[2749] Besides, if the distance from Ambleteuse to Wissant justifies us in identifying Ambleteuse with the Portus Itius and Wissant with the _ulterior portus_, the distance from Boulogne to Ambleteuse, as I shall presently show, equally justifies us in identifying Boulogne with the Portus Itius and Ambleteuse with the _ulterior portus_.[2750]

Not a single valid argument ever has been or can be adduced in favour of Ambleteuse. The harbour is far too small to have contained Caesar’s fleet; and the merest tiro in his army could have decided at a glance between its merits and those of Boulogne.[2751]

VII. CALAIS

I only consider the claims of Calais because their one modern advocate, General von Göler,[2752] was a distinguished Caesarian scholar. There is no evidence that Calais was ever used as a harbour in, or for twelve centuries after, the time of Caesar. If Caesar started from the Portus Itius on his first expedition, it is impossible, on the theory that Calais was the Portus Itius, to find the _ulterior portus_. Moreover, it would have been impossible for Caesar to sail, on his second expedition, from Calais to any point of the Kentish coast between Walmer and Sandwich.[2753] For, as the wind was from the south-west, he would have had to sail within seven points and a half of the wind on a flood tide, which would have tended to carry him into the North Sea, and with shallow flat-bottomed vessels which made excessive lee-way.[2754] Finally, Calais Harbour is not natural but artificial; and it is certain that it did not exist in the time of Caesar.[2755]

VIII. WISSANT

Wissant is between Cape Grisnez and Cape Blancnez, both of which, in Caesar’s time, projected somewhat further out to sea than they do now.[2756] Dr. Guest argues that the sandy waste, more than two miles long and varying in breadth from a quarter to half a mile, which lies between the uplands and the sand-hills, was once covered by the sea;[2757] and he conjectures that the ‘pool-harbour’ thus formed communicated with the English Channel by ‘the gap through which flows the Rieu des Aiguilles’, a rivulet which crosses the sandy plain. At the same time he admits that it is very difficult to say what the limits of the ancient harbour were.[2758]

Dr. Guest’s theory, which was regarded by Mr. Freeman and Dean Merivale as conclusive, is a theory and nothing more. Mariette, the famous Egyptologist, states that the dunes themselves (without which Dr. Guest’s harbour could not have been) were not formed before the time of Edward the Third;[2759] and M. H. Rigaux concludes, from a recent minute exploration of the coast between Cape Grisnez and Sangatte, that the dune which extends from the ‘ruisseau de Guiptun’, near Tardinghem, to the ‘ruisseau d’Herlan’ at Wissant did not exist in Caesar’s day.[2760] Moreover, pottery, pre-Roman and Roman, has been found in the sand behind the dunes between Wissant and Tardinghem as well as east of Wissant;[2761] numerous finds have proved that the coast between Sangatte and Dunkirk has undergone subsidence and extended further seaward in Roman times than now;[2762] and it may be concluded that the sandy plain at Wissant was not then covered by the sea. It would appear, then, that Dr. Guest’s pool-harbour was imaginary. Haigneré,[2763] moreover, remarks that if there ever had been such a harbour, it must have been speedily choked up by sand blown from the very dunes which _ex hypothesi_ formed it; and this argument is confirmed by the fact that irruptions of blown sand, before the dunes were ‘fixed’ by being planted with coarse grass, engulfed many buildings at Wissant.[2764] It has, however, been pointed out by Mr. E. C. H. Day[2765] that ‘a shoal having less than a fathom of water on it at the lowest tides, extends from Cape Grisnez, in a north-easterly direction, in such a manner as to cut off a channel about half a mile in width, and having a depth of from two to three fathoms of water in it, directly abreast of Wissant. The shoal,’ he adds, ‘during the course of centuries of exposure to the heavy seas that break upon the coast, must have undergone some considerable amount of destruction. Formerly, therefore, this shoal must have formed a natural breakwater, and have rendered the channel within it a convenient harbour.’ But, assuming the correctness of Mr. Day’s deduction, this ‘harbour’ would have been exposed to the fury both of the west and of the north-east wind. M. Léon Lejeal,[2766] who tells us that a French engineer, M. J. Voisin, supposes that the shoal was once connected with the mainland, and thus formed a partially-sheltered harbour, concludes that there is nothing to show that it was large enough to shelter the fleet ‘que voulut y ancrer l’imagination d’une archéologie en délire’;[2767] and M. Leblanc, who in the year 1863 was engineer of the port of Calais and was intimately acquainted with the geology of Wissant, ridicules such a notion. ‘Toutes les fois,’ he remarks, ‘que j’allais de Calais au Gris-Nez ... je traversais Wissant, en étudiant cette question, et je me disais à moi-même: quelle preuve peut on avoir d’une pareille absurdité?’[2768] Hariulf, a chronicler who lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, described the harbour of Wissant as an ‘inlet’ (_ingressum maris_),[2769] which would seem to imply that it was simply a creek formed by one of the rivulets which meander across the sand. Henry, the historian of Boulogne, who was bent upon proving the identity of Wissant with the Portus Itius, would certainly have anticipated Guest’s theory if he could have done so with truth; but, after a careful examination of the site, he came to the conclusion that Caesar’s ships must have been drawn up on an exposed beach.[2770]

1. Long[2771] argues that the distance of Wissant from Sangatte corresponds with the distance between the port from which Caesar started on his first expedition and the _superior portus_; that its distance from the English coast agrees ‘at least as well as any other place’ with Caesar’s estimate of the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain; that its name, which [according to Michel Baudrand,[2772] a writer of the seventeenth, century] French sailors used to call Esseu and the Flemings Isten, ‘is near enough to Itius to add to the probability of the identity of the two places’; that there are traces of a Roman road from Wissant to Thérouanne; that in the neighbourhood of Wissant ‘fresh water was abundant, the soil rich, and the beach the best that there could be for such ships as Caesar’s’; and that, if Wissant was not, strictly speaking, a port at all, ‘Caesar did not want a port in the modern sense of the word. He wanted his ships at the nearest place to Britain.... His vessels would be hauled up on the beach till the wind was fair. He had no port on the British coast, and he hauled up all his ships after they were damaged by a storm.’ ‘This long sandy beach,’ he says, ‘was the best place along all this coast for Caesar’s purpose.’[2773]

Of these arguments the first, _mutatis mutandis_, is equally applicable to Boulogne. The argument from nomenclature is worthless:[2774] ‘Wissant’ is not derived from ‘Itius’; it is said to be merely a corruption of ‘Weiss-sand’ (Whitesand).[2775] There is no evidence for the alleged Roman road. The Roman road which, according to Henry,[2776] led from Thérouanne to Wissant, really led to Sangatte.[2777] Dr. Guest, who carefully explored Wissant and its neighbourhood, found that the soil, which Long calls ‘rich’, is ‘notoriously barren’.[2778] And, in reply to the last of Long’s arguments, it is sufficient to say that, although Caesar did perforce beach his ships on the coast of Britain, yet he suffered heavily from not having a port; and the mere fact that he sent Volusenus to ascertain what ports on the British coast were capable of accommodating a large fleet proves that his original intention was to land in a port, and not on an open beach. Long’s assertion, that the beach at Wissant ‘was the best place along all this coast for Caesar’s purpose’, Dr. Guest, who agrees with him in identifying the Portus Itius with Wissant, treats with utter scorn; but his criticism is founded upon the groundless assumption that the sand-dune between Wissant and Tardinghem then existed.[2779] However, Long admits that ‘it would not be possible _now_ to draw up a fleet like Caesar’s on the beach’. ‘But,’ he persists, ‘if there have been such great changes on this coast that Dr. Guest’s huge harbour is filled up, why may not my beach have undergone some change also?’[2780] The reply is obvious. What Long calls ‘my beach’ may have undergone changes: but, unless it can be proved not only that ships could have been hauled up on the beach of Wissant in Caesar’s time, but also that there then existed at Wissant a harbour large enough to accommodate Caesar’s fleet, the claim of Wissant to be identified with the Portus Itius cannot be admitted.

But Long is not the only writer who maintains that the Portus Itius was not a port properly so called; and this question is so important that we must fairly examine the arguments that have been adduced in support of Long’s view.

Heller argues that since Caesar beached his ships on his return from the second expedition, we may conclude that the Portus Itius was not a harbour in the strict sense, as, if the shelter of a harbour had been available, he would not have taken the trouble to draw them up on shore.[2781]

But Heller forgets that the ancients never left their ships at anchor for any lengthened period, but invariably laid them up high and dry for the winter.[2782] Moreover, if eight hundred ships had been beached at Wissant, would it not have been necessary, in order to protect them from storm-driven spring tides, to construct an enormous naval camp, the earth necessary for which did not exist?

Professor Ridgeway insists that, if Strabo is to be believed, the Portus Itius can only be identified with Wissant.[2783] Strabo[2784] calls Caesar’s place of embarkation το Ιτιον. This word, the professor observes, is obviously an adjective, and, as it agrees with a neuter word understood, it cannot agree with λιμήν or κόλπος (a harbour), but must agree with ἄκρον or ἀκρωτήριον (a headland). Evidently, then, Strabo’s το Ιτιον is the same as Ptolemy’s Ἴτιον ἄκρον. Similarly Strabo[2785] speaks of Cape Finisterre as Νέριον, while Ptolemy[2786] calls it Νέριον ἀκρωτήριον. Now Strabo does not call το Ἴτιον a harbour, but only a roadstead ναύσταθμον, a term which Thucydides[2787] applies to Cape Malea. Thus, if Strabo was right, the Portus Itius was the roadstead sheltered by the Itian promontory.

The professor’s argument is not convincing. Granted that Ιτιον must agree with ἄκρον, on him lies the burden of proving that the headland in question was not Cap d’Alprech, which shelters the estuary of the Liane, and the geographical position of which corresponds closely enough with that which Ptolemy assigns to Ιτιον ἄκρον.[2788] When the professor remarks[2789] that ‘the advocates of both Wissant and Boulogne support the claim of Grisnez’ against Alprech he is mistaken. Desjardins is only one of many French writers who ‘support the claim’ of Alprech against Grisnez. Moreover, supposing that the professor is right in identifying the Itian promontory with Grisnez, he is wrong in assuming that the word ναύσταθμον necessarily excludes the idea of a harbour. Sometimes it is used to denote a port already described as a λιμήν, or harbour properly so called, in order to draw attention to the fact that that harbour was a naval station. Thus Strabo,[2790] immediately after mentioning the Piraeus and the other two harbours of Athens, says that the ναύσταθμον was capable of accommodating the four hundred ships which composed the Athenian fleet. And Pausanias,[2791] speaking of Nauplia, the port of Argos, which, according to Strabo,[2792] was the ναύσταθμον of the Argives, says, ‘there are harbours in Nauplia’ (λιμένες εἰσὶν ἐν Ναυπλίᾳ).[2793] To anybody who knows anything about ancient navigation, the suggestion that Caesar would have kept 800 ships riding at anchor for several weeks in an open roadstead, exposed to the fury of the north-west wind, while, a few miles off in the Liane, there was an ample sheltered harbour available, must appear simply ridiculous. And, assuming that Strabo did intend to convey that το Ιτιον was merely a roadstead, the answer is that Strabo is refuted by Caesar, who says that his ships assembled _ad portum Itium_,[2794]--‘in the Itian harbour.’ The Portus Itius must have been a port, properly so called; and the more discerning advocates of Wissant naturally accept this view.[2795]

Long maintains, further, that, although Caesar does not say directly that the passage from the Portus Itius to Britain was actually the shortest, yet he does so indirectly; for he tells us that he went to the country of the Morini ‘because the shortest passage to Britain was from their country’; and the port in their country which he selected was the Portus Itius.[2796] But, as all who are familiar with the _Commentaries_ will admit, Long throws an undue strain upon Caesar’s language. Caesar tells us, in general terms, that the shortest passage to Britain was from the country of the Morini: but it is bad logic to conclude from this statement that the passage from the Portus Itius must have been actually the shortest as the crow flies. Caesar would never have chosen the passage which was in this sense the shortest if it had been on other grounds objectionable: obviously what he meant to say was that of the regular passages to Britain that from the country of the Morini was the shortest; and the passage from the Portus Itius being, as he says, ‘the most convenient,’ was, for all practical purposes, the shortest.

It is clear, then, that Long failed to establish the identity of the Portus Itius with Wissant. Let us see what better informed advocates of the same theory have to say.

2. Not to mention the arguments which are common to him and Long, Dr. Guest gives the following reasons for his belief:--that the (assumed) harbour of Wissant was large enough to hold Caesar’s fleet; that it lay beneath Cape Grisnez, which he identifies with the Itian promontory; and that William of Poitiers, a chronicler of the eleventh century, called it ‘Portus Icius’.[2797] He will not admit that William was simply stating his own opinion: ‘I think,’ he says, ‘this name may have been handed down to him by the Romanised Gauls, inasmuch as the name of Ician seems to have been long kept afloat in the recollection of the Celtic population of these islands’; and he points out that ‘the old Irish name for the English Channel is _Muir n’ Icht_’, or ‘the Itian sea’. But the fact on which he lays most stress is the proximity of Wissant to Cape Grisnez. He freely admits, indeed, that Cap d’Alprech may, in Caesar’s time, have been a more considerable promontory than it is at present;[2798] but he cannot conceive that the promontory which Ptolemy selected for especial mention should have been any other than the famous cape which is and must always have been the most conspicuous feature of the north-eastern coast of France, and which marks the point where the coast, making a sharp angle, begins to trend towards the east. ‘Cape Grisnez,’ he concludes, ‘there can hardly be a doubt, was the Ician promontory, and if so, the great port which lay beneath it must have been the Ician Port.’[2799]

‘The great port which lay beneath it,’--these words, Dr. Guest, beg the whole question. That the harbour of Wissant was large enough to hold Caesar’s fleet would be true, if Dr. Guest’s conjectural tracing of its outline were _correct_: but the fact, if it were a fact, would simply remove one of the objections which have been brought against Wissant; it would not prove that Wissant was the Portus Itius. For the harbour of Boulogne was also large enough, and was also, as will presently appear, in other respects far more convenient. The argument that William of Poitiers called Wissant the Portus Itius has no weight. Maistre Wace, who wrote about a century after William of Poitiers, believed that Caesar had sailed from Boulogne.[2800] Moreover, Hericus, a monk of the ninth century,[2801] identified Bibracte with Autun; but it is now universally admitted, and it is certain, that Hericus was wrong.[2802] It may be admitted that _a priori_ it would seem much more likely that the Itian promontory was Cape Grisnez than that it was Cap d’Alprech; but if the former identification is to be accepted, it is necessary to assume that Ptolemy made a gross blunder. It is of course quite true, as Dr. Guest says,[2803] that Ptolemy did make mistakes; but still the fact remains that the geographical position which he assigns to the Itian promontory is, allowing for a slight error in longitude, that of Cap d’Alprech. As Mr. Peskett puts it, ‘Ptolemy, proceeding northward, places the headland between the Somme and Boulogne’;[2804] and I may add that if you only know Cap d’Alprech by the map, you will be surprised, when you actually see it, to find how bold a headland it is. Moreover, even if Ptolemy was mistaken, it does not follow that the Itian harbour was Wissant. Professor Rhys, who believes that the Gauls as well as the Irish called the Channel ‘the sea of Icht’, remarks that ‘in that case Portus Ictius would designate Caesar’s place of embarcation, somewhat in the same way that Dover might in English be termed the Channel Harbour. The former probably had a Gaulish name of its own, which may have become the Latin one also as soon as the Romans began to be a little more at home in the north of Gaul; so that it would be labour in vain to try to detect _Ictius_ in any place-name still current on the French coast.’[2805] Let us, however, assume, for the sake of argument, that Professor Rhys is mistaken. Even then it does not follow that the Portus Itius was Wissant. For it will not be denied that Boulogne was, in Caesar’s time as in the time of the emperors, a frequented harbour; and it is certain that Wissant was not a harbour capable of containing Caesar’s fleet. Therefore Boulogne, which is only nine statute miles south of Cape Grisnez, was obviously the nearest important harbour to that promontory. Why, then, if Cape Grisnez was the Itian promontory, should Boulogne not have been called the Itian harbour? Even on the desperate theory that when Caesar spoke of a harbour, he did not mean a harbour but only a roadstead, that roadstead was not at Wissant; for if Caesar’s ships had waited there, either at anchor or on the beach, exposed to the north-west winds for twenty-five days, they would have been in extreme peril.

Dr. Guest admits of course that Boulogne, not Wissant, was the permanent harbour of the Romans in North-Eastern Gaul under the empire; but in this fact he sees no objection to his theory. He believes that the Romans, when they had to choose a permanent harbour, rejected Wissant and chose Boulogne because of the sterility of the country in the neighbourhood of the former. ‘Wissant,’ he remarks, ‘or rather the port adjacent to Wissant, may have answered Caesar’s purpose, when he had hundreds of ships to supply the wants of his commissariat; but when a port was to be provided to meet the ordinary purposes of traffic, it was necessary to select one that possessed local resources.’[2806]

The reason which Dr. Guest gives for the choice of Boulogne is sound enough as far as it goes; but what support does it lend to the theory that Caesar used Wissant as a temporary harbour? The sterility of the neighbourhood would hardly have recommended it. It must have had some great advantage to compensate for this defect if it was really to be preferred, even as a temporary harbour, to Boulogne. But it is impossible to point out one single advantage which Wissant could have had, for Caesar’s purpose, over Boulogne, save only that, as the crow flies, it was a little nearer to Britain.

Dr. Guest, indeed, assures us that ‘Caesar had no time for weighing the comparative merits of the ports north and south of him, and for determining which of them was “the most convenient”’.[2807] No time! Had he not five days to spare for Volusenus’s reconnaissance? A single day would have sufficed to ride along the coast from Wissant to Boulogne; a few minutes spent at each of those places would have sufficed ‘for determining which of them was “the most convenient”’: but the greatest general of Rome could not spare even one day for a duty which the worst would not have neglected; so he pitched upon Wissant, because, as Dr. Guest tells us, ‘it afforded him the shortest passage’! So argued the man who, according to Freeman, ‘settled the whole matter,’ the man who, from Freeman’s point of view, appeared to stand, side by side with Stubbs, ‘at the head of living students of English history.’[2808]

3. Heller is not as ardent an advocate of Wissant as Guest; but he has written some very ingenious papers in defence of Guest’s view. Many of his reasons are virtually identical with those of the English scholar; but from Caesar’s narrative of his second voyage he deduces a fresh argument, which deserves special attention. Caesar, as we have seen, set sail about sunset with a light south-westerly wind. About midnight the wind dropped: the fleet, borne by the tide, drifted out of its course;[2809] and ‘at daybreak Caesar saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter’ (_orta luce sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit_[2810]). From the last statement Heller infers that Caesar’s ship must have drifted to some point off the North Foreland: otherwise, he argues, the word _relictam_ would be meaningless. For, he remarks, Caesar believed that one side of Britain faced the north. Therefore it must be assumed that he had no knowledge of that part of the coast which trends northward beyond the mouth of the Thames: he must have thought that the coast, at the North Foreland, turned sharply towards the west. Otherwise he could not have believed that he had left Britain behind; nor could he have believed this unless he had drifted to some point off the North Foreland. Now Caesar started on his voyage about the 6th of July.[2811] On that day the sun set about 8.16; and on the following morning it rose about 3.54. There must have been light enough to show the British coast as early as 3.15 or 3.20. Heller maintains that Caesar could by daybreak have reached a point about 2 German [or 9½ English] miles south-east of the North Foreland, not quite as far north as the latitude of Ramsgate, if he had sailed from Wissant; but he insists that if he had sailed from Boulogne, he could not have drifted further northward than the latitude of Deal, in which case he could not have said that he ‘saw Britain left _behind_ on the port quarter’.[2812]

This argument rests upon a strained interpretation of the word _relictam_. It is probably true that Caesar could not have drifted as far north as the latitude of Ramsgate if he had sailed from Boulogne;[2813] but even if he had only drifted as far north as the latitude of Walmer, he would have been perfectly justified in using the word _relictam_. For that word does not imply that Caesar believed himself to have left the _northern_ coast of Britain behind: it simply implies that, as the current was carrying him in a north-easterly direction[2814] and therefore sweeping him every minute further and further away from Britain, ‘he saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter.’ There is a parallel passage in the twenty-first chapter of the _Acts of the Apostles_, which shows that this was his meaning. In the second and third verses of that chapter the writer, after describing the voyage of himself and St. Paul from Ephesus by way of Cos and Rhodes to Patara, says, ‘Having found a ship crossing over unto Phoenicia, we went aboard, and set sail. And _when we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left hand_, we sailed unto Syria, and landed at Tyre’ (καὶ εὑρόντες πλοῖον διαπερῶν εἰς Φοινίκην ἐπιβάντες ἀνήχθημεν, ἀναφάναντες δὲ τὴν Κύπρον καὶ καταλιπόντες αὐτὴν εὐώνυμον ἐπλέομεν εἰς Συρίαν καὶ κατήλθομεν εἰς Τύρον). If the reader will look at his map, he will see that the writer of the _Acts_, when he came in sight of Cyprus and left it on the left hand, was in precisely the same position with regard to Cyprus as Caesar would have been in with regard to Britain if, drifting in a north-easterly direction, he had descried the coast of Britain from some point in the latitude of Deal.[2815] And if Heller will use his common sense he will see that if a ship about the latitude of Deal were drifting away from Britain, that ship would have left Britain behind just as really as if it had passed Cape Wrath and were drifting towards Iceland.

Lastly, even if Heller’s explanation of the word _relictam_ were correct, the argument which he builds upon it would be unsound; for obviously that argument would only hold good if Caesar had drifted north of the latitude of the North Foreland. Heller himself admits that he had hardly drifted so far north as the latitude of Ramsgate; and at this point, on Heller’s own theory, he could no more have said that he had left _the northern coast_ of Britain _behind_ than if he had been in the latitude of Deal.

Both Heller[2816] and Guest[2817] deduce an argument in favour of Wissant from a well-known passage of Strabo.[2818] It runs as follows:--‘There are four regular passages from the Continent to the island, namely, from the mouths of the Rhine, the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne. People who cross from the country near the Rhine do not sail from the mouth of that river, but from the country of the Morini ... _and_ in their country is the Itian (harbour), which Caesar used as his naval station, when he was crossing to the island’ (τέτταρα δ’ ἐστὶ διάρματα, οἷς χρῶνται συνήθως ἐπὶ τὴν νῆσον ἐκ τῆς ἠπείρου, τὰ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐκβολῶν τῶν ποταμῶν, τοῦ τε Ῥήνου καὶ τοῦ Σηκοάνα καὶ τοῦ Λείγηρος καὶ τοῦ Γαρούνα. τοῖς δ’ ἀπὸ τῶν περὶ τὸν Ῥῆνον τόπων ἀναγομένοις οὐκ ἀπ’ αὐτῶν τῶν ἐκβολῶν ὁ πλοῦς ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμορούντων τοῖς Μεναπίοις Μορινῶν, παρ’ οἷς ἐστι καὶ τὸ Ἴτιον, ᾧ ἐχρήσατο ναυστάθμῳ Καῖσαρ ὁ θεός, διαίρων εἰς τὴν νῆσον). I have italicized the word _and_, because the meaning of καί has been disputed. Dr. Guest argues that the port from which the inhabitants of the country near the Rhine sailed must have been Boulogne; and, he continues, ‘every unprejudiced reader ... will be of opinion that he (Strabo) distinguishes it from his “Itium”.’ In other words, Guest would translate the doubtful clause by ‘in whose country there is _also_ the Itian (harbour)’.

I, for one, fully agree with Dr. Guest; but some scholars are unable to do so. Long,[2819] remarking that a similar use of καί, particularly in clauses which begin with a relative, as παρ’ οἷς, is common in Strabo and also in Thucydides, affirms that ‘the purpose of καί, when it is so used, is to mark emphatically some thing or circumstance in addition to one which has been mentioned’. Guest[2820] retorts that Xylander, in his Latin version of Strabo, first published in Casaubon’s edition of 1597, and revised by Siebenkees, who did not alter Xylander’s translation of the passage in question, and Groskurd, in his German version of 1831--‘the most careful and conscientious translation of Strabo that has yet appeared’--both render και by ‘also’. This array of authorities does not disconcert Long. He remarks[2821] that the old Latin versions of Strabo and other Greek writers, although they were very useful in their day, ‘are not of much value when there is any great difficulty.’ Groskurd’s translation--‘wo auch der Hafen Ition ist’--he regards as ambiguous. Had Groskurd desired to express, in his translation, that Strabo meant to affirm the existence of another harbour, besides those which he had just mentioned, he would have written, not ‘wo _auch_’, but ‘wo _ebenfalls_’ (der Hafen Ition ist). But, says Long, ‘Strabo mentions four usual points of transit from Gallia to Britain, and if in this passage he means that there was another besides the Itius, then there would be five points of transit instead of four, and Strabo would contradict himself.’[2822] Long then quotes two passages in support of his interpretation of και. ‘Strabo,’ he remarks, ‘says that Sinuessa is in the gulf of Setia, and adds αφ ου και το ονομα.[2823] Groskurd translates και by “auch”, which has no meaning here.... Again, Strabo, speaking of the high Alps, says περι ὁ δη και συνισταντο οι λησται;[2824] which Groskurd translates, “die Gipfel, um welche denn auch die Räuber sassen.” Xylander simply says “ubi degebant latrones”, which I prefer to Groskurd’s version, though Xylander’s version is not quite exact.’

To these arguments Guest made no reply; but Heller[2825] did so. He admits that Thucydides, in relative sentences, often did use καί in the sense which Long claims for it; but this sense, he maintains, is restricted to phrases of which the meaning is unmistakable.