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]