THE DISEMBARKATION OF THE ROMANS IN 55 B. C.
‘The men ... weighed down with their heavy cumbrous armour, had to leap down from the ships and keep their foothold in the waves,’ &c. (militibus autem ... magno et gravi onere armorum oppressis simul et de navibus desiliendum et in fluctibus consistendum, &c.[3378]) This passage has occasioned needless perplexity to commentators who forgot that the ships’ bows may have projected considerably, and also that when they were run aground they would necessarily have been buried for a considerable depth.[3379] Thus it would have been possible to jump into four feet six inches or five feet of water from the bow of a ship whose draught was a good deal more.