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.