Chapter VIII: The Results of Caesar’s Invasions of Britain (10)

If Strabo did really mean to say that the Itian port was different from that port of the Morini which was commonly used as the point of departure for Britain, then I can only say that I believe, with Rudolf Schneider,[2826] that Strabo was mistaken. As Caesar was the only other ancient writer who mentioned the Portus Itius, and as he did not say exactly where it was, it would have been quite natural for Strabo to suppose that the Portus Itius was not the same as the well-known port of the Morini.

4. Finally, it has been affirmed by Henry[2827] and many other writers that the so-called ‘Camp de César’ and the various hillocks known as ‘mottes’ which are to be found in the neighbourhood of Wissant were defensive works erected by Caesar or his lieutenants for the protection of the Portus Itius; and de Saulcy tells us that an inhabitant of Wissant, whose trustworthiness he had proved, informed him that about two kilometres north-east of the village, at Haute-Sombre, there existed a camp several hectares in extent, in which, he says, ‘il faudra reconnaître le camp des trois légions et des deux mille cavaliers de Labienus.’[2828]

All these allegations have been disproved. The so-called tradition which ascribed the ‘Camp de César’ to the invader of Britain originated in the eighteenth century:[2829] at all events it is not mentioned by any of the earlier advocates of Wissant; and the camp has been proved to be of post-Roman date.[2830] Moreover, its area is not more than 50 ares 30 centiares, or 6,016 square yards, less than one acre and a quarter, which would not have sufficed to accommodate more than 500 men.[2831] As for the ‘mottes’, they have been excavated, and have been proved to be simply _tumuli_, which contained skeletons, flint implements, and bone pins. And the Abbé Haigneré[2832] has shown, in an amusing paragraph, that the so-called camp of Labienus, which, needless to say, is not marked on the _Carte de l’État-Major_, is purely imaginary.

Every argument which has been adduced in favour of Wissant has now been examined; and if I could have accepted them or any one of them, I would gladly have done so, for I myself once argued that the Portus Itius was at Wissant. But my knowledge was then imperfect. It is not possible to prove that the Portus Itius was at Wissant: it is possible to prove that it was not.

1. Although Wissant is nearer to England than Boulogne, yet Caesar would have gained nothing, even in regard to his mere voyage, by making Wissant his place of departure. Captain Iron, the harbour-master of Dover, unhesitatingly affirmed, after we had studied the chart together, that the fleet would have ‘made a better run’ from Boulogne than from Wissant. The reader will have no difficulty in understanding this if he will consult the Admiralty Chart (_Dungeness to the Thames_), and the Atlas entitled _Tidal Streams in the English and Irish Channels_. It must be remembered that both in 55 and in 54 B.C. Caesar started from Gaul when the tide was running down the Channel; and that on his first voyage the tide turned north-eastward between 4.30 and 5 a.m., when he had been three or four hours at sea, and on his second about 9.30 p.m., two hours or so after he had set sail. Thus, on each occasion, the latter and greater portion of the voyage was made on the flood tide.[2833]

Wauters does indeed succeed in proving that, in the middle ages, Wissant was very frequently used as a place of embarkation by travellers, merchants, and even troops sailing for the opposite coast;[2834] and the point of his argument is that if, in the middle ages, a large army could embark at Wissant, Caesar’s army could have done the same; and that if Wissant was a convenient point of departure for a voyage to Britain in the middle ages, it was not less convenient in the time of Caesar. Haigneré[2835] retorts, truly enough, that the quantity of merchandise which passed through the port at any one time was very small, and that, as a rule, not more than two or three vessels left the port simultaneously; but when he affirms[2836] that the largest army which ever sailed from Wissant was a force of 2,000 men, which John of Hainault led in 1327 to assist Edward the Third against the Scots,[2837] he lays himself open to criticism. Wauters[2838] replies that the force with which the Earl of Leicester sailed from Wissant in 1173 must have been very large; for in the battle of Fornham, in which the earl suffered defeat soon after he had landed in Suffolk, 10,000 of his men were killed. This statement, which was accepted by the late Bishop of Oxford,[2839] was made on the authority of Benedict of Peterborough,[2840] who also describes the army of the Earl of Leicester as _infinitus exercitus_. But (if we are to accept the statement of a mediaeval monk as to the number of men who were killed in a battle) Benedict does not say that _the army_ set sail from Wissant, while Ralph de Diceto[2841] merely says that the Earl of Leicester embarked in a ship at Wissant, accompanied by a numerous band (_venit apud Witsant, ubi ... plurima comitante caterva, navem ascendit_); and, assuming that the troops all embarked at Wissant, there is no evidence that all the transports which carried them sailed together. It is generally admitted even by the partisans of Wissant (though not by Dr. Guest) that the mediaeval port was merely the creek formed by the Rieu d’Herlan, otherwise called Rieu de Sombre; and if it is true that an army which lost 10,000 men in a single battle embarked at Wissant in 1173, the bulk of the ships which carried it must have been anchored in the roadstead. The frequency with which Wissant was used as a place of embarkation in the middle ages undoubtedly proves that it was convenient, and this fact has been slurred over by the advocates of Boulogne; but it nevertheless remains certain that Caesar would not have found it convenient to sail from Wissant when _the greater part of his voyage would have to be made upon the eastward stream, and with a south-west wind_. At the same time I admit that we do not know from what quarter the wind was blowing in his first voyage: we only know that when he set sail it was favourable.[2842]

2. There is another objection to Wissant, which Dr. Guest, if he had been consistent, would have been the first to urge. Like all the other advocates of Wissant, he identifies the _superior portus_ with Sangatte. Yet he tells us himself that it is hard to see how there could ever have been a harbour at Sangatte.[2843] Similarly, H. L. Long, himself an advocate of Wissant, who was well acquainted with the coast between Boulogne and Calais, observes that ‘as a port, in our acceptation of the term, Sangatte has fewer pretensions ... than even Wissant; but still it is, and always has been a small station’.[2844] The theory that it was a naval station is no doubt supported by the fact that it was the terminus of a Roman road: but Caesar speaks of a _portus_; and when Dr. Guest has to confute George Long, he is most emphatic in insisting that _portus_ means ‘a harbour’ in the strictest sense of the word.[2845]

Let us, however, assume that Sangatte may conceivably have possessed a harbour in Caesar’s time. Even so, it is impossible to admit that Sangatte can have been the _superior portus_. For, if the eighteen ships which carried the cavalry had started from Sangatte, the conditions of wind and tide which would have rendered a voyage from Wissant to Kent less favourable than from Boulogne would obviously have been more unfavourable still.

3. There is one passage in Caesar’s narrative which, to a sailor, would be alone sufficient to prove that Wissant was not the port from which Caesar sailed in 55 B.C. We have seen that the gale which drove some of the cavalry transports from the point where they were first sighted westward down the coast carried the others back to the port from which they had started. I will assume that the latter were laid to on the port tack:[2846] if they could not work to windward, a glance at the map will show that they could not have returned to any point east of Wissant. The gale must obviously have blown from some point between the east and the north; and, if Caesar sailed from Wissant, the place from which the transports started must, as we have seen, have been Sangatte. Now it is absolutely incredible that a gale which drove some of these ships from a point near the South Foreland[2847] westward down the coast should have carried the others back to Sangatte. Caesar says that the former were ‘in great peril’, and that, when they anchored, the waves broke over them. A sailor would at once understand what their peril was. They were in no danger of being driven ashore; for while the gale was at its height they stood out to sea.[2848] They ran before the wind; and they were in danger either of broaching to or, possibly, of being ‘pooped’.[2849] From this we should conclude that the wind, when it struck the ships somewhere east or north-east of the South Foreland,[2850] blew from about the north-east: indeed, as the waves broke over the ships, it may have blown from north-east by east; for, if it had blown from the north-east or north-east by north, the ships, if they anchored close in shore, west of Folkestone, would have been in a sheltered position.[2851] The most easterly point at which they can be assumed to have been when they were caught by the gale is NW. 4° N. of Sangatte. Therefore if the wind had blown from the north-east, the ships that were carried back to the port from which they had started would have had to sail within less than eight points and a half of it in order to reach Sangatte. But, as Falconer[2852] says, a ship laid to in a gale makes from 5½ to 6½ points of lee-way. Reduce this estimate to four, and you will see that the transports would have had to lie within less than four points and a half of the wind in order to make Sangatte. No ancient ship could have done this. Close-hauled and under short canvas, as they would necessarily have been, the transports, as Commander Richmond remarked to me, would ‘just have sagged to leeward’. It may be objected that the tide would have helped them if it was running up the Channel. But the flood tide is almost neutralized by a north-easterly gale, and simply makes the sea more vicious: the ships would have moved so slowly that they could not have crossed the Channel in one tide; and when it turned and began to sweep them westward, their prospect of reaching Sangatte would have been more hopeless than ever. With a north-easterly gale, or even one which blew from north-east by north, it would have been absolutely impossible, so Commander Richmond and the harbour-master of Dover have separately and independently affirmed, for the vessels to fetch that anchorage.[2853]

4. Desjardins[2854] shows that, whereas four Roman roads, meeting at Gesoriacum, are mentioned in the itineraries,[2855] not a single Roman road led to Wissant. The advocates of Wissant have, indeed, replied that this proves nothing, since, in Caesar’s time, there were no Roman roads in any part of Gaul.[2856] But this reply is nugatory. Since no Roman roads led to Wissant, it is clear that if Wissant was the Portus Itius, this harbour, which Caesar had ascertained to be ‘the most convenient’ port of departure for Britain, was regarded by his successors as useless. Such a hypothesis is not tenable.

5. The mention of roads suggests another objection to Wissant. We have seen that Caesar’s army, consisting of five legions and 2,000 cavalry, remained weatherbound at the Portus Itius in 54 B.C. for about twenty-five days; and that with them were three other legions and 2,000 cavalry, who were left behind under the command of Labienus to guard the ports during Caesar’s absence.[2857] Thus for twenty-five days a force amounting to at least 32,000 men and 4,000 horses had to be fed; and of these not less than 12,500 men and 2,000 horses for about ten weeks more.[2858] No calculation is needed to show that these multitudes could not possibly have been supplied by the country in the neighbourhood of Wissant, even if it were as fertile as (according to Dr. Guest himself) it is ‘notoriously barren’.[2859] Their food must have come from a distance; and to transport it to Wissant without roads would have been a task of extreme difficulty. Dr. Guest assumes that Caesar’s fleet would have supplied his wants.[2860] But the fleet could only have procured grain from a port. Surely, then, Caesar would have found it most convenient to start from a port which was in communication by road or by river with the interior. Such a port was Boulogne, which enjoyed both these means of transit. What would have been gained by abandoning it for the isolated Wissant?

Again, it will be remembered that Labienus built sixty ships during Caesar’s absence in Britain;[2861] and we have seen that most of the modern advocates of Wissant admit that there was no harbour there, except the tiny creek formed by the ruisseau d’Herlan, or possibly a roadstead which may have been partially sheltered by the Banc de Laine. Not one of them has attempted to explain how Labienus could have found the means of building sixty ships upon an exposed beach. But let us admit that his genius could have improvised dockyards.[2862] Let us even admit that the harbour of Dr. Guest’s imagination did really exist. Still, sixty ships cannot be built without timber. How was all this timber to be brought to Wissant without roads and without a river? Even assuming that there was a Gallic road, it is doubtful whether Labienus could have impressed the amount of carriage necessary to transport the timber from the forests. But a few miles off at Boulogne the difficulty would have disappeared.[2863]

6. Another objection is so obvious that it must impress every candid inquirer. If Wissant was the Portus Itius, why was Wissant never once mentioned during the first millennium of our era? There is no evidence worthy of the name that it was used as a port before the year 1013.[2864] It is surely inexplicable that the port which Caesar regarded as the most convenient for his purpose should have been found so inconvenient or so superfluous by his successors that during the imperial epoch it fell into entire disuse. Wauters indeed retorts that if Wissant was eclipsed by Gesoriacum under the Empire, so was the Gallic town of Bibracte by the Gallo-Roman Augustodunum, and that, although the naval station was Gesoriacum, Wissant _may_ have been a great commercial port.[2865] But he omits to explain how a great commercial port could have been left unnoticed by history, or how it could have existed without a river and roads to connect it with the interior. Nor is there any analogy between Wissant and Bibracte. The hill-fort of Bibracte gradually fell into disuse because when Gaul settled down under the Roman dominion it was no longer required.[2866]

7. Finally, Mariette[2867] argues that the mere name of Wissant, which, like the names of many other villages in the Boulonnais, is of German origin, proves that it was not founded before the fifth century, and consequently that there could have been no frequented harbour there in Caesar’s time.

It has now been demonstrated that Caesar did not sail from Wissant. That it was the point of departure of his first expedition is out of the question; for in that case the _portus ulterior_, from which the cavalry transports set sail, must have been Sangatte; and we have seen that they could not have returned to Sangatte when they were dispersed by the gale. The _portus ulterior_ can only have been Ambleteuse; and therefore Caesar sailed in 55 B.C. from Boulogne. But nobody will believe that, having had experience of the advantages of Boulogne, he would have discarded it in favour of a place which, for his purpose, was in all respects inferior.

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

IX. BOULOGNE

The reasons which point to the identification of the _Portus Itius_ with Boulogne are, speaking generally, that Boulogne, and Boulogne only, satisfies all the requirements of Caesar’s narrative.

To begin with, the passage for sailing-vessels from Boulogne to the south-eastern part of Britain is, and always has been, in circumstances such as Caesar described, not only very convenient but by far the most convenient. This is the testimony of seafaring men, both English and French, who have practical experience of the winds and the currents in the Channel: it was admitted, or rather strenuously maintained, by Henry,[2868] who advocated the claims of Wissant; and any man who studies the Admiralty Chart--_Dungeness to the Thames_--the _Channel Pilot_, and the Atlas, published by the Admiralty, which is entitled _Tidal Streams in the English and Irish Channels_, may convince himself of its truth. Captain Pollet, the harbour-master of Calais and Boulogne, furnished information to Ernest de Saulcy, who was determined, by hook or by crook, to make out a plausible case in support of Wissant; but he avowed his own opinion that Caesar must have sailed from Boulogne.[2869] Captain Iron, the harbour-master of Dover, in conversation with me, has done the same.

Secondly, the whole of Caesar’s fleet could easily have assembled in the port of Boulogne; and they certainly could not have assembled in any other port, properly so-called, on the coast of the Morini,[2870] except the mouth of the Canche, which was several miles further from Britain than Boulogne, and was in no respect more convenient. Desjardins[2871] has shown that the estuary of the Liane was much broader and deeper in Caesar’s time than it was in the nineteenth century before the harbour was modernized, and that, as the headland which sheltered it has suffered greatly from erosion, it extended further seaward; and not only was it ample in extent, but it was the only port protected from every wind.[2872] No one has described its merits more eloquently than Henry, the advocate of Wissant; and no one was more competent to form an opinion. He describes Gesoriacum as ‘le havre le plus commode et le mieux situé de toute la Gaule-Belgique, pour le commerce, la construction et l’équipement des vaisseaux’.[2873] But, although it is certain that there would have been ample room in the Liane for Caesar’s 800 small vessels,[2874] Airy insists that it would have been impossible for them to clear the harbour in a single tide.[2875] Now Caesar does not say that they did clear the harbour in a single tide; nor is it necessary to assume that they did. Captain Iron has, however, assured me that Caesar’s fleet of shallow vessels could have cleared the harbour in a single tide even if the depth of the water then had been no greater than in 1877. In that year the depth _at low tide_ was 1 metre 60, or more than 5 feet[2876]; and it may be regarded as certain that the draught of Caesar’s vessels in the second expedition was much less than five feet.[2877] The estuary of the Liane has been silted up so much since Caesar’s time that it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that its depth then was three times as much as in 1877;[2878] and it has been ascertained from the sinking of artesian wells at the cement works of M. Demarle at Capécure[2879] that at that place the ancient bed of the river is 19 metres below the level of spring tides.[2880]

Thirdly, the distance of Ambleteuse from Boulogne corresponds closely enough with Caesar’s estimate of the distance of the _ulterior portus_ from the Portus Itius. This does not prove the identity of the Portus Itius with Boulogne: but, if it is not a fact, the Portus Itius was not Boulogne; and it is therefore necessary to examine the arguments of those who have denied it. ‘On measuring,’ says Airy,[2881] ‘upon the beautiful Admiralty Chart the distance between the centre of the entrance to Boulogne and the centre of the entrance to Ambleteuse, I find it to be not quite 4½ nautical miles, or 5½ Roman miles; instead of the 8 miles given by Caesar.’ This estimate is accurate; but it is also irrelevant; for Airy measures the distance by sea; and Caesar must have meant the distance by land. ‘It was quite immaterial,’ says Lewin,[2882] ‘what was the distance by sea, for the eighteen transports were windbound, and could not reach him; but, as he could not dispense with the vessels, he had to consider what portion of his force could be most conveniently despatched thither, and as the transports lay eight miles off, he thought it best, in order to save time, to send thither his cavalry ... by the nearest road from the port of Boulogne, through Wimille and Slacq to the church at Ambleteuse, the distance is twelve kilometres.’[2883] It is amusing to find that Airy, who lays so much stress upon the accuracy of Caesar’s (assumed) estimate of the distance by sea from the Portus Itius to the _ulterior portus_, maintains on the preceding page (_Essays on the Invasion of Britain_, &c., p. 27) that Caesar’s estimates of distances by sea were valueless.

Fourthly, Caesar’s narrative of the adventures of his cavalry transports is easily comprehensible on the hypothesis that the port from which he himself sailed was Boulogne, but on no other.[2884] As we have seen, the storm of the 30th of August, 55 B.C., which prevented them from making the Kentish coast near Caesar’s camp, drove some of them westward to a point on the south coast, and carried the rest back to the point whence they had started, namely, the _ulterior portus_. That port, if Caesar sailed from Boulogne, was Ambleteuse; and there is no difficulty in believing, nor has it ever been denied, that the wind, before which some of the ships ran from the neighbourhood of the South Foreland[2885] in the direction of Dungeness, would have carried the others, which were laid to, back to Ambleteuse.

Fifthly, Caesar, as we have seen, sailed from the Portus Itius with a south-westerly wind;[2886] and it is needless to tell any one who will consult the map that to sail with a south-westerly wind, especially with flat-bottomed vessels which made a great deal of lee-way, and on the easterly going stream, from Boulogne either to Sandwich, Deal, Walmer, Hythe, or Lympne, would have been easier than to sail from Wissant.

Sixthly, it is universally admitted that Boulogne, which Pliny[2887] calls the _portus Morinorum Britannicus_, was the permanent naval station of the Romans in the imperial epoch, and that it was the harbour from which they habitually sailed for the coast of Kent.[2888] An inscription preserved in the Boulogne museum[2889] proves that this station was established at least as early as the reign of Claudius, while Suetonius[2890] tells us that Claudius embarked at Gesoriacum for Britain. Indeed there is indirect evidence that the station existed in the time of Augustus; for the road which ran from Mediolanum (Milan) past Lugdunum (Lyons), Durocortorum (Reims), and Ambiani (Amiens), to Gesoriacum[2891] was constructed by Agrippa. It has been argued that, although Gesoriacum was the recognized harbour from the time of Augustus, the fact does not prove that it was the harbour from which Caesar sailed. But to those who admit that it has been proved that no other port existed which would have served Caesar’s purpose the fact will appear conclusive.[2892]

Seventhly, Desjardins[2893] has pointed out that Gallic ports were always either in the mouths of rivers or otherwise sheltered from storms. Such a port was Gesoriacum; and if Wissant was a Gallic harbour at all, it was a solitary exception to the rule.

Lastly, Rudolf Schneider[2894] lays great stress upon the fact that, according to Pomponius Mela,[2895] no harbour on the northern coast of Gaul was better known than Gesoriacum; and he reminds us that Pliny[2896] mentioned no other harbour in the country of the Morini. Unless, he argues, the Portus Itius was identical with Gesoriacum, Mela, Pliny, and the later writers must have forgotten its existence. Now nothing would be easier than to make a dialectical reply to this argument,--Is it not equally remarkable that none of these writers even hints that Gesoriacum was the Portus Itius? This was the reply which I made myself on another occasion. But the reply was sophistical. Schneider’s argument depends upon the assumption that the Portus Itius was one of the great harbours of Gaul; and considering that it could accommodate 800 vessels, this assumption is certainly reasonable. At all events it is impossible to suggest any other explanation of the fact that after Strabo no writer mentioned the Portus Itius for more than a thousand years, except this,--that the Portus Itius and Gesoriacum were one.

It would be waste of time to repeat the arguments, which have already been stated by implication in the section on Wissant, based upon the unique advantages that Boulogne possessed in being connected with the interior by river and road.[2897]

It remains only to consider the objections which have been made to the identification of the Portus Itius with Boulogne.

1. The very fact that Boulogne was called Gesoriacum is regarded by Long[2898] as presumptive evidence that it was not called Portus Itius.

Desjardins,[2899] who evidently regards this as a serious objection, has taken great pains to remove it. He argues that the Portus Itius was not exactly the same as the imperial harbour of Gesoriacum, but that it comprised that part of the estuary of the Liane which lies between Bréquerecque and Isques; and, he triumphantly remarks, the name ‘Isques’ is derived from _Itius_. But ‘Isques’ cannot have been derived from _Itius_: the names ‘Ausques’,‘Quesques’, ‘Clerques’, ‘Setques’, and ‘Wisques’ are derived from _Alciacum_, _Kessiacum_, _Quertliacum_, _Sethiacum_, and _Wiciacum_; and the inference is that not _Itius_ but _Isiacum_ would have been transformed into ‘Isques’.[2900] Rudolf Schneider,[2901] who is too honest and too hard-headed to be deluded by Desjardins’s attempt to draw a distinction between Gesoriacum and Portus Itius, frankly admits that the unrecorded change of name has not been explained. But is there anything to explain? ‘Portus Itius’ is not, properly speaking, a name at all: it does not designate a town; it means simply ‘the Itian harbour’. Long saw nothing inexplicable in the fact that Gesoriacum was called by Pliny _portus_ [Morinorum] _Britannicus_: why, then, should he have found it impossible to believe that its harbour was called by Caesar _portus Itius_?[2902] Was not the port of Athens called the Piraeus?

2. Long, after making the amazing remark that ‘such a port as Boulogne would have been quite useless in Caesar’s second expedition’, says that ‘the Romans estimated the distance from Boulogne to the British coast at fifty Roman miles; but this is too much.... However, they were right in making the distance more than the distance from Itius to the nearest point of the British coast; and the conclusion is that Gesoriacum and Itius were different places.’[2903]

The conclusion is simply that, assuming the identity of Gesoriacum with the Portus Itius, Caesar’s estimate of the distance from Gesoriacum to Britain was different from that of later writers. Besides, the only one of ‘the Romans’, as far as we know, who ‘estimated the distance from Boulogne to the British coast at fifty Roman miles’ was Pliny;[2904] and it may be presumed that by ‘the British coast’ he meant Rutupiae, or Richborough, which was a port, if not the chief port, of arrival in his day. For he estimated the shortest passage at fifty Roman miles: according to Dion Cassius,[2905] the shortest passage was 450 stades; and this, according to the _Itinerary_ of Antonine,[2906] was precisely the length of the passage from Boulogne to Richborough.

Long goes on to say that in the _Itinerary_ of Antonine the distance from Boulogne to Richborough ‘was estimated at 450 stadia; and, if we follow d’Anville in estimating this maritime stadium at ten to the Roman mile, the distance is fairly given. So if we take the 320 stadia which Strabo gives as the length of Caesar’s voyages, we have thirty-two Roman miles; or, if we take the reading which Eustathius, copying Strabo, has in his commentary on Dionysius, 300 stadia, we have exactly thirty Roman miles, as in Caesar’s text. The conclusion is that, in addition to the fact of Boulogne (Gesoriacum) and Ouissant (Itius) having different names, the ancient authorities place them at different distances from the British coast.’[2907]

Again Long’s conclusion is at fault. To begin with, Strabo did not estimate the maritime stadium at ten, but at eight to the Roman mile.[2908] Assuming, however, that he did estimate it at one-tenth of a Roman mile, there is no reason to suppose that when Caesar estimated the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain, he meant the distance to Richborough; and the only conclusion that can be drawn from Long’s data is that ‘the ancient authorities’ reckoned the length of Caesar’s voyage less than the distance between Richborough and Boulogne. And when Long says that the estimated distance, 450 stadia, from Boulogne to Richborough ‘is fairly given’, it is amusing to find him admitting that Caesar’s estimate of 30 miles ‘exceeds the distance from Wissant to the nearest part of the English coast, and it is about the true distance from Boulogne to the same part of the English coast’. Thus, on Long’s own showing, Caesar’s estimate of the distance from the Portus Itius to the British coast corresponds with the actual distance from Boulogne to the same, and the estimate of the _Itinerary_ is equally true. The reader who has followed him so far will hardly be surprised by his remark, that ‘even a real good harbour would have been useless to Caesar’.[2909]

3. Heller,[2910] after quoting the statement of Pliny as to the length of the shortest passage from Boulogne to Britain, and the statement of the _Itinerary_ of Antonine as to the distance from Boulogne to Richborough, argues (_a_) that, as they overestimated the distance from Gaul to Britain, Caesar probably did the same; (_b_) that if Pliny had identified Boulogne with the Portus Itius, he would not have estimated the distance of Boulogne from the nearest point of Britain at 50 miles, but would have followed Caesar and written ‘about 30’; (_c_) that if Caesar had started from Boulogne, he would, according to the usual tendency of the ancients, have overestimated the distance from Boulogne to Britain, and would therefore have reckoned it at considerably more than ‘about 30 miles’, seeing that the actual distance from Boulogne to Dover is 33.

The first of these arguments, if it had come from a tiro, might have been passed over with a smile; but one would hardly have expected it from Heller. The third is based upon a misleading statement;[2911] and even if we could be sure that Caesar overestimated the length of his voyage, it would be inconclusive, for, as we have seen,[2912] it is not improbable that he estimated it at 40 Roman miles. And as for Pliny, ‘the shortest passage,’ which he estimated at 50 miles, was probably, I repeat, the passage from Boulogne to Richborough.

4. H. L. Long,[2913] if I do not misunderstand him, argues that there could have been no port at Ambleteuse in the days of Caesar. Speaking of ‘the immense irruption of blown sand’, he maintains that ‘this dune ... acts as a dam to the drainage of the valley; an interruption which must have produced swamps in former days, and is now but imperfectly corrected by an artificial channel, the embouchure of which forms the little harbour of Ambleteuse’.

This argument obviously depends upon the untenable assumption that the sand-dune existed in Caesar’s time; and it is shaken by the fact that Roman antiquities have been discovered at Ambleteuse.[2914] Moreover, according to the writer of the article _Ambleteuse_ in M. Vivien de Saint-Martin’s _Nouveau Dictionnaire de Géographie Universelle_ (i, 1879, p. 115), Ambleteuse, under the rule of the English, had an excellent harbour,[2915] and was not choked up by the accumulation of sand until after 1549.[2916]

5. General Creuly,[2917] referring to the attack made by 6,000 of the Morini upon the Roman soldiers who disembarked from the two ships which failed to make the harbours in 55 B.C. and were carried ‘a little further down’, insists that Caesar’s account of this episode[2918] is incompatible with the view that the Portus Itius was Boulogne. For, he argues, the 6,000 Morini could not have belonged to the _pagus Gesoriacus_, that is to say, the district of Boulogne, since the inhabitants of this region had submitted to Caesar, and, moreover, it was so sparsely populated that 6,000 men could not have assembled on the spur of the moment. He also reminds us that on the day following the attack Labienus marched against the rebellious Morini, and soon subdued them, as, owing to a drought, they were unable to take refuge in the marshes which had served them as an asylum in the preceding year;[2919] and he denies that there were any marshes in the _pagus Gesoriacus_ large enough to serve such a purpose.

Creuly can only make a show of sustaining these objections by resorting to Airy’s fantastic theory,[2920]--that Caesar, when he said that two of his ships were carried ‘a little further down’, meant not ‘down the coast’ but ‘in the direction of the wind’. If the inhabitants of the district of Boulogne had submitted, why should they not have rebelled? The Aduatuci submitted and afterwards rebelled:[2921] the Nervii submitted and afterwards rebelled;[2922] the Britons submitted and afterwards rebelled:[2923]--but it is needless to multiply examples. For Caesar expressly states that the Morini who attacked his soldiers _had_ submitted to him before he sailed for Britain.[2924] I am not concerned to defend the accuracy of his statement, that their number was 6,000: but Creuly admits that 6,000 Morini did assemble somewhere in their own country; and how can he prove that the district of Boulogne was more sparsely populated than any other? As to the marshes, there is no evidence that they were in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where the soldiers were attacked; but if they were, what is there to prevent us from identifying them with the marshes south of Boulogne, between Camiers and Dannes?[2925]

6. Heller’s objection,[2926] that if Caesar had sailed from Boulogne in 54 B.C. it would have been impossible for his ship to drift so far by daybreak on the following morning as to justify him in saying that he ‘saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter’ (_sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit_[2927]), has been already answered.

7. Caesar, describing his return to Gaul in 54 B.C., says that ‘at daybreak he reached land’ (_prima luce terram attigit_), and that his ‘ships were hauled up on the shore’ (_subductis navibus_[2928]). It has been argued that ‘both of these expressions point to the conclusion that he did not enter the mouth of a river’, and that ‘if the Portus Itius was in the estuary of the Liane, to haul up the ships over the banks on to the meadows would surely have been a difficult operation’.[2929] The author of this argument forgot that the ships need not have been hauled up on to the meadows at all unless they had gone far up the river, and that they may have been docked. But an expert whom he has since consulted assures him that, even if it had been necessary to haul up the ships over the banks on to the meadows, the operation would have involved no serious difficulty.

If this inquiry had merely established the probability of the identification of the Portus Itius with the harbour of Boulogne, it would not be possible to justify the labour which has been expended upon it except on the ground that it will save those who may wish to inform themselves a vast amount of research, and provide them with complete equipment for arriving at an independent conclusion. But that conclusion, if it is reached conscientiously by an unbiassed mind, can only be one.

THE PLACE OF CAESAR’S LANDING IN BRITAIN

I. INTRODUCTION

After I had completed the researches which I undertook for the purpose of writing this article, I saw that if an able soldier, or even an intelligent civilian, who had a sufficient knowledge of ancient warfare, were to ask himself where Caesar landed in Britain, he could solve the problem after a brief inspection of the Ordnance Map. He would perceive that there was only one part of the Kentish coast on which Caesar could have expected to land, in the face of an enemy, and then to march into the interior, without incurring unnecessary loss. If he were told that a study of the tides had proved that Caesar must have landed elsewhere, he would reply, ‘There must be something wrong in your calculations. Perhaps you have neglected to allow for the influence which strong winds and other causes exert upon the tidal currents. Perhaps you have misinterpreted or unduly strained certain parts of Caesar’s narrative. It is even possible that Caesar himself may, from lapse of memory, have mis-stated the day on which he first landed. Any one of these suppositions is credible: but it is incredible that the experienced officer whom he sent to reconnoitre the British coast should have advised him to land below a range of hills when open country was more easily accessible; still more that he should have accepted the advice. It is absolutely certain that Caesar did not commit an act of folly which any general who knew his business would have avoided.’

But such a summary mode of treating the question would not convince the scholars who must be convinced before it can be set at rest; and the conclusion at which they have arrived is that it is insoluble. So said Mommsen:[2930] so say Mr. Warde Fowler,[2931] Mr. Tozer,[2932] and, apparently, Dr. Hodgkin;[2933] so said the late eminent geographer, H. Kiepert, according to whom the numerous attempts which have been made to determine Caesar’s landing-place ‘have, because of the vagueness of many expressions of the principal source [the _Commentaries_ of Caesar], not attained more than a hypothetical value, even after three centuries of learned quarrels’.[2934] Not because of the vagueness of Caesar’s expressions, but because those who have commented upon them have not taken the trouble to inform themselves. The indications which Caesar gives are sufficient to enable any attentive reader to determine the place where he landed with such certainty that every doubt shall be removed,--if he knows how to use them; if, that is to say, he possesses sufficient collateral knowledge to enable him to understand what he reads. It is not enough to be a Latin scholar. It is necessary also to study the ancient geography of the coast of Kent; to be acquainted with the tidal phenomena of the English Channel; to have at least an elementary knowledge of seamanship; to know Caesar’s writings intimately, and not merely read the Fourth and Fifth Books for the occasion; and, above all, to gain that understanding of the principles of ancient warfare which can only be acquired by one who has studied the history of modern campaigns, and has learned, by experience or from intercourse with practical men, how things actually happen. No genius is needed; only industry, backed by common sense and by some intelligence and acumen; but such industry as may, perhaps, be thought disproportionate with the object. Not even Mommsen, with his colossal power of work, could spare the necessary time.

II. THE DATA FURNISHED BY CAESAR AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITERS

The data which we find in the _Commentaries_ are the following. Before starting on his first voyage, Caesar sent a military tribune, named Volusenus, whom he believed to possess the necessary qualifications, in a ship of war, to make a thorough reconnaissance of the British coast, and to ascertain what harbours were capable of accommodating a large flotilla.[2935] Volusenus returned to Gaul four days after his departure, having made all the observations that it was possible for him to make without landing; for he had not ventured to put himself in the power of the natives. Caesar himself marched his army into the country of the Morini, as the shortest passage to Britain was from their coast. The fleet which he ordered to assemble consisted of about 100 country-built merchant vessels, collected from the neighbouring districts, as well as some ships of war and small fast-sailing vessels, called _speculatoria navigia_, or ‘scouts’. His intention had been made known in Britain by traders; and while his ships were assembling, envoys sent by several British tribes presented themselves before him, and promised to give him hostages, and to submit to the Roman People. On their return they were accompanied by Commius, a Gallic chieftain, who acted as Caesar’s political agent and who took with him about thirty of his own horsemen. Of the merchant vessels eighteen had assembled in a harbour 8 Roman miles ‘beyond’ that which sheltered the rest of the fleet,[2936] and were prevented by contrary winds from joining them. Caesar set sail ‘about the third watch’ (_tertia fere vigilia_) in favourable weather, having ordered the cavalry to march to the ‘further’ port, embark there on the eighteen transports, and follow him. Their movements, however, were somewhat dilatory. ‘About the fourth hour’ (_hora circiter diei quarta_) the leading division of the fleet had approached so close to the British coast that Caesar could see an armed force of the enemy drawn up ‘on all the heights’ (_in omnibus collibus_). ‘The formation of the ground,’ he says, ‘was peculiar, the sea being so closely walled in by precipitous heights that it was possible to throw a missile from the ground above on to the shore.’[2937] Regarding the place as unsuitable for landing, he waited at anchor ‘till the ninth hour’ (_ad horam nonam_) for the arrival of the rest of the fleet. Meanwhile he assembled his generals and military tribunes, communicated to them the report which he had received from Volusenus, and gave them all necessary instructions. They returned to their respective vessels; and, ‘getting wind and tide simultaneously in his favour,’ Caesar weighed anchor, sailed on (_progressus_) about 7 Roman miles, and ran the ships aground ‘on an open and evenly shelving shore’ (_aperto ac plano litore_).[2938]

The natives, divining his intention, had sent on ahead their cavalry and charioteers, who were followed by the rest of the forces. The important points in Caesar’s description of the disembarkation are as follows:--some of the enemy, in opposing it, threw missiles from the shore; others advanced a little way into the water, riding or driving their horses. The transports, on account of their relatively considerable draught, had necessarily grounded in deep water; and on this account the Roman soldiers hesitated before jumping into the sea to wade ashore. During the conflict Caesar made some of his war-galleys sheer off a little from the transports, and take up a position on the enemy’s exposed flank; and later on, when legionaries who had just dropped into the sea and gathered in small groups were being hard pressed, he manned the small fast-sailing craft and the small boats belonging to the galleys, and sent them to the rescue. The enemy derived an advantage from their knowledge of the places where the water was shallow. Caesar concludes his description of the landing by saying that it was impossible to pursue the enemy far, because ‘the cavalry had not been able to keep their course and make the island’.

On the fourth day after the landing (the day of the landing being doubtless reckoned as the first day)[2939] the eighteen transports that carried the cavalry again set sail from the ‘further’ harbour with a light wind. They were approaching the British coast and were visible from Caesar’s camp, when a sudden storm came on with the result that some of them were carried back to the harbour whence they had started, while the others ‘were driven down in great peril to the lower and more westerly part of the island’ (_ad inferiorem partem insulae, quae est propius solis occasum, magno suo cum periculo deicerentur_). They anchored: but the waves broke over them; and they were obliged to stand out to sea in the face of night[2940] and make for the Continent.

On the same night there was a full moon; and Caesar remarks that full moon causes extraordinarily high tides in the ocean. Owing to the high tide and the gale, the ships of war, which had been drawn up on the shore, were waterlogged, and many of the transports, which were riding at anchor, were driven ashore and wrecked. A few days later one of the legions was sent out in the ordinary course to cut corn. Presently Caesar was informed by the troops on guard in front of the camp that an unusual quantity of dust was visible in the direction in which the legion had gone. When he had advanced ‘some little distance’ (_paulo longius_) from the camp, he saw that his troops were in difficulties; and he tells us that the place to which they had gone was the only [accessible] spot in which the corn had not been cut, and that there were woods close by. In repelling an attack which was made upon his camp just before his departure, he made use of Commius’s small troop of cavalry, and immediately afterwards he ‘burned all the buildings far and wide’ (_omnibus longe lateque aedificiis incensis_). On his return voyage he set sail soon after midnight.

The flotilla with which he sailed for Britain in the following year consisted of more than 800 vessels. Of these over 540 were transports and 28 war-galleys, while the rest belonged to individuals.[2941] Some of the vessels used in the former expedition had been repaired: the rest were built and rigged by Caesar’s troops during the winter of 55-54 B.C., and the following spring. The transports drew very little water, and were adapted for rowing as well as sailing; and, to provide room for troop-horses and stores, they were made proportionately broader than the trading vessels used by the Italians in the Mediterranean. Carrying five legions and 2,000 cavalry, they sailed from the Portus Itius ‘about sunset’(_ad solis occasum_), with a light south-westerly breeze. About midnight the wind dropped: the fleet was carried far out of its course by the tidal stream; and at daybreak Caesar ‘descried Britain lying behind on the left’ (_Britanniam sub sinistra relictam conspexit_). He then followed the turn of the tide, and, as he tells us, ‘rowed hard to gain the part of the island where, as he had learned in the preceding summer, it was best to land’ (_remis contendit ut eam partem insulae caperet qua optimum esse egressum superiore aestate cognoverat_). He remarks that the soldiers who rowed the heavily-laden transports deserved great credit for their unremitting labour, which enabled them to keep up with the war-galleys. The whole fleet had reached the coast by about noon. No enemy was to be seen; and Caesar learned afterwards from prisoners that large forces had collected at the landing-place, but that, panic-stricken by the sight of 800 vessels, they had abandoned the shore and retreated to ‘higher ground’ (_superiora loca_).

After the disembarkation Caesar selected a suitable spot for his camp. ‘About the third watch’ (_de tertia vigilia_) he marched to encounter the enemy, whose whereabouts he had ascertained from prisoners. He left the ships riding at anchor in charge of ten cohorts and 300 cavalry; and he describes the anchorage as on ‘a nice open shore’[2942] (_litore molli atque aperto_). The force which accompanied him consisted of four legions and 1,700 horse. After a march of about 12 Roman miles he descried the enemy. They advanced with their cavalry and chariots ‘from the higher ground’ (_ex loco superiore_)[2943] to the banks of a stream, and attempted to prevent the Romans from crossing. Repulsed by Caesar’s cavalry, they took refuge in a stronghold in the neighbouring woods, which is described by Caesar as ‘a well-fortified post of great natural strength’ (_locum egregie et natura et opere munitum_).

In a storm which occurred on the following night most of the ships were driven ashore, about 40 being totally wrecked; and in order to prevent a repetition of this disaster, the ships were all hauled up on dry land and ‘connected with the camp by one entrenchment’ (_cum castris una munitione coniungi_).

In his general description of Britain Caesar says that neither the beech nor the fir grow in the island.[2944] He describes it as triangular, and says that one of its sides faces Gaul, and that ‘one corner of this side, by Kent--the part which almost all ships from Gaul make for--has an easterly, and the lower one a southerly outlook’. Of the other two sides one, he says, ‘trends westward towards Spain’ (_alterum vergit ad Hispaniam atque occidentem solem_); while the other has a northerly aspect, and ‘its corner looks if anything in the direction of Germany’ (_eius angulus lateris maxime ad Germaniam spectat_).

The territories of Cassivellaunus were ‘separated from those of the maritime tribes by a river called the Thames, about 80 [Roman] miles from the sea’.

On the second of the two voyages by which the troops were transported back to Gaul in 54 B.C., the ships started in a dead calm (_summa tranquillitate_) at the beginning of the second watch, and reached harbour at daybreak.[2945]

The only piece of evidence worth quoting which is not in the _Commentaries_ is the statement of Dion,[2946] that Caesar, in sailing from his anchorage to his landing-place in 55 B.C., rounded a promontory. Some commentators, however, believe that important additional evidence is furnished by Plutarch and Valerius Maximus; and the statements in question will be considered in subsequent sections of this article.

III. THE DAY ON WHICH CAESAR LANDED IN 55 B.C.

It is absolutely certain, and is universally admitted, that the full moon which Caesar mentions occurred on the night of August 30-1, 55 B.C.:[2947] to speak more precisely, it occurred at 3 h. 33 m. a.m. on the 31st.[2948] Now, with one or two exceptions, which shall be presently considered, the commentators have concluded that Caesar landed on the fourth day before the full moon, that is to say, on the 27th of August. But any one who has read this article with close attention will have seen that their conclusion rests upon a careless interpretation of Caesar’s narrative. Caesar says that the eighteen cavalry transports sailed from Gaul on the fourth day after he landed in Britain; that when they were approaching the island they were prevented from keeping their course by a storm; that some of them were driven westward down the coast and anchored, but were obliged to run back, in the face of night, for the Continent; and that on the same night there was a full moon.[2949] Whereupon the commentators leap to the conclusion that the day on which Caesar landed was the fourth before the full moon. They forget that what Caesar said was, not that the transports approached the British coast on the fourth day after he landed, but that on that day they started from Gaul. The distinction is important. The transports may have weighed anchor in the night. On all his four voyages Caesar set sail at night; and Strabo says that for vessels sailing from Gaul this was the regular practice.[2950] Let us assume that Caesar landed on the 26th of August. Then, if we adopt, as almost all the commentators have done, the inclusive mode of reckoning, the transports may have sailed from Gaul on the night of the 29th.[2951] On the 30th, in the morning, they would have been approaching Britain. Then came on the storm. On the following night--the night of August 30-1--occurred the full moon.

It may be objected that if Caesar had landed in Britain on the 26th of August, and if his transports had set sail on the night of the 29th, but after midnight--say between 2 and 3 a.m.--he would have said that they set sail not on the fourth but on the fifth day after his landing. I will take note of this objection, but I doubt whether it is valid. In the thirty-third chapter of the Second Book of the _Commentaries_, after describing the sortie made by the Aduatuci, which took place in the third watch of the night, that is to say after midnight, and their repulse, he goes on to say that ‘on the following day the gates were broken open’ (_postridie eius diei refractis portis_ &c.); in other words, he loosely reckoned the third watch of the night as part of the day that preceded the one which he calls _postridie eius diei_. It is therefore at least possible, I think it probable, that he landed on the fifth day before the moon which he described as full.