Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar

by T. Rice Holmes

XI. THE THEORY THAT CAESAR LANDED BETWEEN WALMER AND DEAL

The oldest English writers whose works have come down to us believed that Caesar had landed on the north of the South Foreland. This was certainly the view of Nennius, or of an author whose work Nennius edited;[3215] and Dr. Guest attached great weight to his testimony.[3216] I think that, in doing so, he showed less than his usual judgement; and perhaps he was not aware that Maistre Wace, who lived in the twelfth century, had anticipated the modern theory that Caesar landed on Romney Marsh.[3217] For some centuries, however, the prevailing view, first definitely stated, if I am not mistaken, by Leland,[3218] who lived in the reign of Henry the Eighth, was that the disembarkation took place near Deal.[3219]

1. We know that Caesar, before he set sail from Gaul, intended to land, if possible, in one of the harbours of Britain; for he instructed Volusenus to ascertain what harbours were capable of accommodating a numerous fleet, and, before he set sail, a deputation came to him from numerous British tribes to promise submission.[3220] The choice, as we have seen, lies between the harbours of Dover and Folkestone; and it is not credible that Caesar should have deliberately preferred the small harbour of Folkestone to the more spacious and more easily accessible harbour of Dover.[3221] And if he steered for Dover harbour, the ‘precipitous heights’ off which he anchored in 55 B.C. must have been, not the cliffs of East Wear Bay, but the cliffs between Dover and the South Foreland.[3222]

Airy,[3223] indeed, denies that Caesar ever intended to land in a harbour. ‘This,’ he says, ‘is not the manner of attempting debarkation in a country possessed by an enemy.... Sir Arthur Wellesley made no attempt at Lisbon, but put his troops on shore at the Mondego Beach.’ I wonder whether Airy knew the circumstances and the motives which determined Wellesley’s action: at all events his argument will not mislead any reader who has studied the history of the Peninsular War. Why did Wellesley make ‘no attempt at Lisbon’? Simply because, as Napier[3224] says, ‘the strength of the French, the bar of the river, the disposition of the forts, the difficulty of landing in the immediate neighbourhood, where a heavy surf broke in all the undefended creeks and bays, convinced him such an enterprise was unadvisable if not impracticable.... It was difficult to find a place to land. The coast, from the Minho to the Tagus, save at a few points, is rugged and dangerous; all the river harbours have bars and are difficult of access even for boats.... Seventy miles northward of the Lisbon Rock, the small peninsula of Peniché offered the only safe and accessible bay adapted for a disembarkation; but the anchorage was within range of the fort, which contained a hundred guns and a garrison of a thousand men. The next best place was the Mondego river; there the little fort of Figueras, now occupied by English marines, secured a free entrance, and Sir Arthur adopted it.’ The reader will have noticed that Airy not only ignores the circumstances which forbade Wellesley to attempt a landing at Lisbon, but also ignores the existence of the Mondego river.[3225] Caesar put his troops ashore on a beach; but he had intended to put them on shore in the best available harbour, because, unlike Wellesley, he had had reason to hope that his landing would not be opposed. If he did not intend to land in a harbour, why did he instruct Volusenus to report upon the Kentish harbours? And why did he steer towards ‘precipitous heights’, at the foot of which the dullest soldier in his army knew that it would be madness to land, if he did not intend to enter the harbour formed by the gap in those cliffs? Why did the enemy occupy those heights unless they believed that this was his intention? It might, indeed, be argued that after he received Volusenus’s report, he decided that Dover harbour was unsuitable, and therefore abandoned all idea of landing in a harbour. If so, he would not have steered towards the Dover cliffs; but neither would he have steered towards those of Folkestone or East Wear Bay. The only alternative would be to assume that he anchored off the lower cliffs north of St. Margaret’s Bay in order to wait for the overdue ships, having intended from the outset of his voyage to sail on and land north of Walmer.[3226] But when he says that ‘he thought the place [off which he anchored] most unsuitable for landing’ (hunc ad egrediendum nequaquam idoneum locum arbitratus),[3227] he unmistakably implies that he had contemplated the possibility of landing there; and, as he could have decided with his eyes shut that it would be absurd to land at the foot of ‘precipitous heights’, he must have concluded that it would be unwise to attempt to land, in the face of an enemy, in the harbour which was formed by the gap in the cliffs. Probably, before he knew that his landing would be opposed, he intended to observe the harbour with his own eyes and decide upon its merits himself.

Mr. H. E. Malden, however, remarks that, according to Dion Cassius, ‘Caesar made the land on the first occasion where he ought not, οὐ μέντοι καὶ ᾗ ἔδει προσέσχεν.’ ‘Surely,’ Mr. Malden continues, ‘this implies not that Caesar aimed at a certain point for a landing place and then abandoned it upon a nearer view, but that something like what befell him on the second voyage happened on the first also, and that he drifted out of his course to a point which he did not intend to reach. If so, this disposes of all idea of his aiming at Dover as the usual port of landing.’[3228]

Yes,—‘if so’. According to Mr. Malden,[3229] Caesar landed near Hurst in Romney Marsh. On this theory, he would have anchored off the coast near Sandgate, which was very little out of his course if he intended to land near Hurst, and not at all out of his course if, as Mr. Malden wrongly supposes, he sailed from Wissant. It is universally admitted, and it is certain that when Caesar was approaching Britain, and for some hours previously, the tidal stream was running up the Channel. Will Mr. Malden explain what that current could have been which would have caused Caesar’s ships, while steering either from Wissant or from Boulogne for Hurst, to ‘drift’ towards Sandgate on the eastward stream?

2. The reader is already familiar with the subject of the tidal streams, in so far as it relates to the present discussion.[3230] As we have seen,[3231] Caesar may have landed in Britain on the 26th of August, 55 B.C.; and on that day high water should have occurred at Dover at 6.21 a.m. I say ‘should have occurred’, because observations have shown that high tide sometimes occurs a few minutes earlier or later than the time predicted in the Admiralty Tide Tables.[3232] Therefore, accepting the general rule laid down by Admiral Beechey and Surveyor Calver,[3233] the stream off the Dover cliffs would have turned to the west some time between 10.21 and 11.9 a.m., and again to the east at 5.24 p.m.

But Caesar, we are assured by Airy and Lewin, weighed anchor at 3 p.m.; and at 3 p.m. the stream would still have been running towards the west. The argument has imposed upon weak minds: the reader will see that it has not the slightest force. There is no evidence that Caesar weighed anchor at 3 p.m. What he says is simply that he awaited at anchor the arrival of the rest of the ships—the ships which had failed to keep pace with the leading division of the fleet—until the ninth hour. The ninth hour in the latitude of Dover lasted on the 26th of August from 2.20 till 3.30 p.m.[3234] Therefore Caesar, assuming that his statement was literally correct, may have waited at anchor for the arrival of the laggard ships until 3.30 p.m. Now, as the reader will remember, I have demonstrated, from the evidence to which Airy appeals—the evidence supplied by Admiral Beechey and Surveyor Calver—that on the day of Caesar’s landing the tidal stream may have turned eastward earlier than 3.54 p.m.;[3235] and if it turned twenty-five minutes earlier, it turned in the ninth hour.

Hitherto we have assumed that Caesar’s statements of the hour up to which he awaited the arrival of his overdue ships was literally correct. But now let me beg any one who still feels a doubt whether his narrative agrees with the hypothesis that he sailed eastward from his anchorage, to use his common sense and to remember that he has a sense of humour. Airy, Lewin, Mr. Malden, and the rest argue in this strain:—Caesar waited at anchor till 3 [or 3.30] p.m., and not a minute later: the stream was then running westward; therefore Caesar sailed towards the west.—Q.E.D. This is the sort of argument that might have been expected, not from an Astronomer Royal, or from a barrister like Lewin who knew the world, but from a clever schoolboy. Yet not a single commentator has ever pointed out its absurdity. Had Airy forgotten the discrepant statements that were made by officers who had watches in their pockets as to the hour at which this or that episode occurred in the campaign of Waterloo?[3236] Did Airy or Lewin imagine that Caesar had a Dent’s chronometer on board his galley, and, the moment after he weighed anchor, noted down in his diary the words, Hora nona ancorae sublatae sunt? It is possible that he may have had a water-clock (clepsydra)[3237] on board, which would have enabled him, if it had been duly corrected for the latitude of Dover, and if the sea had been so smooth that the ship was motionless, to tell the time approximately; but surely it is probable that he roughly estimated the time from his observation of the altitude of the sun?[3238] And is it not equally probable that he trusted not to a diary but to his memory? His estimate may have been right: but also it may have been wrong; and anyhow it is folly to stake the whole argument upon its accuracy.

Nor, again, is it even certain that Caesar did weigh anchor at the time which he called horam nonam. As he says that he waited for the arrival of his overdue ships till the ninth hour, it may be presumed that they did not arrive earlier. When they arrived, their captains had, I suppose, to receive instructions, as the generals and military tribunes had done already. As Heller[3239] and de Saulcy have argued, we have no right to infer from the words in ancoris exspectavit that when the period of waiting was over, Caesar ceased to remain at anchor.[3240] And, even if he gave no instructions to the captains of the laggard ships, but left them to their own devices, it remains certain that to get the ships into order, to give the signal for starting, and to weigh anchor, consumed an appreciable time.

But we need not insist upon this argument. We may rest satisfied with the knowledge that the stream may have turned earlier than 3.54 p.m.[3241] We may be assured that Caesar had no means of knowing exactly at what time he weighed anchor; and therefore, even if he intended to convey that he weighed anchor in the ninth hour, we are not compelled to assume that he did so before 3.30 p.m. We know that Caesar was too wise to start for a seven miles’ sail on the last of the ebb tide, when the current was slowest, and when he would have had no certainty that it might not turn against him before he had completed his voyage; and we are confirmed in this conviction by his own words, which tell us that he started when he had got wind and tide in his favour. Finally, we have proved that it is not improbable but impossible that he landed either at Pevensey or on any part of Romney Marsh.[3242] Thus the question of the direction in which the tide was running when Caesar sailed from his anchorage, which in itself would be doubtful, is settled by other considerations. There is but one conclusion to which we can come, and that conclusion is absolutely certain: when Caesar weighed anchor off the Kentish cliffs, he sailed towards the north-east.[3243]

3. It will be remembered that Caesar, in describing the final stage of his first voyage, says that he ‘moved on’ (progressus[3244]), seven miles from his anchorage. Both Long[3245] and Heller[3246] regard the word progressus as a proof that Caesar must have landed on the coast of East Kent. Had he anchored off East Wear Bay, and sailed thence to Hythe or to Lympne, he would not, says Heller, have continued in a straight line the direction of his voyage from Gaul to Britain; but he would have done so if he had anchored off the South Foreland and sailed thence to Deal. I do not commit myself to absolute agreement with this argument, as it stands, although every one who is familiar with Caesar’s use of the word progredi[3247] will admit that it would apply much better to a run from the Dover cliffs to Walmer, made in continuation of a voyage from Boulogne towards the South Foreland, than to a run from East Wear Bay or from a point off Folkestone to Hythe or Lympne.

4. Dion Cassius says that Caesar, in sailing from his anchorage to the place where he landed, rounded a promontory.[3248] I attach some importance to these words for the following reasons. Although Dion is no authority in regard to such matters as the details of a battle, and although, from carelessness or love of meretricious ornament, he constantly misunderstood or misused his authorities, it is not conceivable that he should have made so definite and simple a statement as this without authority, unless he had invented it. I am sure that every one who is capable of weighing the credibility of an historical writer will agree with me that this is not such a statement as Dion would have invented, and that it is such a statement as the most careless and rhetorical of writers, if he had found it in an authority, would have followed correctly. I therefore believe that Dion took it from some authority which is now lost, and that it is true. If so, the promontory which Caesar rounded can only have been the South Foreland. Lewin[3249] admits that the statement, ‘if taken literally, looks as if he went round the South Foreland; but,’ he adds, ‘I am satisfied that if he had done so, Caesar would have mentioned so remarkable a promontory’. This observation only shows that Lewin was not familiar with Caesar’s style. Caesar did not trouble himself about picturesque details, however remarkable they might be, the mention of which was not essential to the clearness of his narrative. ‘If,’ continues Lewin, ‘the descriptive words of so late a writer as Dion are to have any weight, I should interpret them as meaning only that Caesar sailed round the bend of the precipitous shore between Folkestone and Sandgate ... or else that Caesar arrived at first off Eastweir Bay ... and then sailed round the cliff which shuts in the bay on the west.’ I doubt, however, whether either ‘the bend’ or ‘the cliff’ could fairly have been described as ‘a projecting headland’ (ἄκραν προέχουσαν); and Lewin virtually admits that neither would have been worth mentioning. But if any one gainsays this argument, we can well afford to dispense with it.

5. If Volusenus deserved the confidence which Caesar reposed in him, there cannot be the faintest doubt in the mind of any unprejudiced man who has studied military history or even Caesar’s Commentaries, and has taken the trouble to observe the features of the Kentish coast, as to the landing-place which he would have selected. He would not have wasted his time by cruising down the coast of Sussex: the first sight of the lofty hills which hem in East Wear Bay, of the cliffs which extend from Folkestone to Sandgate, and of the heights which back the coast from Shorncliffe to Lympne and beyond, would have warned him not to advise the great captain whom he served to land beneath them; but, as his galley glided past Kingsdown and neared Walmer, he saw, stretching away towards the neighbourhood of Sandwich, the open coast, offering easy access into the interior, of which he was in search. Here and here only, if Dover Harbour were held by an enemy, it would be safe to land. Here and here only it would be possible to follow up a victory by an effective cavalry charge.

6. Assuming that Caesar landed in East Kent, his narrative of the adventures of his cavalry transports and of the shipwrecks in 55 B.C., which, as we have seen,[3250] is inexplicable on any other theory, presents no difficulty. The transports which returned to the port whence they started would have been laid to on the port tack, and would have been carried back to Ambleteuse by the same wind which drove their sister ships westward down the Channel.[3251] This wind, which could not have driven ashore, in the immediate neighbourhood of their anchorage, vessels anchored off Lympne or Hythe, would inevitably have driven ashore, once they had parted their anchors, vessels lying off the coast between Walmer and Deal.[3252]

7. Finally, Caesar sailed on his second voyage to Britain with a south-west wind; and a south-west wind would obviously have been much more favourable to a voyage either from Boulogne or from Wissant to Deal or to any point on the coast of East Kent than to a voyage from Boulogne to Lympne or even Hythe.

It remains to consider objections.

1. I have already refuted Airy’s criticism of the view that Caesar anchored off the cliffs of Dover; and we have seen that Airy is compelled by his own argument to identify the cliffs which Caesar describes as ‘precipitous heights’, and Cicero as ‘astonishing masses of cliff’[3253] with cliffs ‘ten to thirty feet high’.[3254] He maintains that our interpretation of the words angustis montibus ‘must be guided by consideration of the character of place under which an officer would think of attempting to land’, and ‘must also depend upon the possibility of aiming a javelin from the heights’. ‘Both considerations,’ he insists, ‘exclude such lofty cliffs as those of Dover and Folkestone.’[3255] One might have expected that a man so clever as Airy would have perceived that Caesar never intended to land under angusti montes at all, whether they were 300 or, as Airy will have it, 10 feet high. He intended to land in the gap between the angusti montes, that is to say, in Dover Harbour.[3256] Airy, indeed, contends that ‘neither Caesar nor Volusenus would think for a moment of pushing his boats into a creek whose defenders could attack them on both sides’;[3257] but he forgets that Caesar had reason to expect that his landing would not be opposed.[3258] As a matter of fact, Caesar says nothing about javelins; but if Airy had stood on the beach at the foot of Dover cliffs and allowed an army standing above to pelt him with missiles, he would have speedily realized that it was possible to take aim from those ‘lofty cliffs’; and, if he had survived the experiment, he would have been a wiser and a sadder man.

2. Lewin[3259] says that ‘if we assume that Caesar was wholly ignorant of the British coast ... he could not have discovered the level at Deal’.

But what is the use of making absurd assumptions? As we have already seen, it is certain that before Caesar set foot in Britain he knew everything about the coast of East Kent that Volusenus could tell him.[3260]

3. It has been objected that the distance from Dover to Walmer exceeds the seven miles which separated Caesar’s anchorage from his landing-place. But no sensible man maintains that Caesar anchored exactly opposite Dover Harbour. He anchored off the cliffs east of Dover. He says that he sailed ‘about seven miles’ (circiter milia passuum VII[3261]) to his landing-place. The distance by sea from off Dover to a point just north of Walmer Castle is 7½ English miles, or a little less than 8⅛ Roman miles; from off the South Foreland to the same point 4⅞ English miles, or a little more than 5¼ Roman miles. Accordingly, if we assume that Caesar’s landing-place extended for about one mile north of Walmer Castle, and that his anchorage extended eastward for about one mile towards the South Foreland from a point about one mile east of Dover, the requirements of the Commentaries are satisfied absolutely; and even if the ship on the left of the line anchored just east of the harbour, off the Castle cliff, Caesar’s rough estimate, which he qualified by the word ‘about’ (circiter), is hardly violated. Surely the difference between ‘about seven’ and 8⅙ is not worth cavilling over.[3262]

4. Lewin[3263] maintains that the beach at Deal does not correspond with Caesar’s account of his disembarkation. The Romans, he argues, evidently landed on a gradually shelving shore; whereas ‘at Deal the beach ... descends so steeply that with a three hours’ flood transports can come up to the water’s edge’.[3264] Again, remarking that Caesar describes the shore on which he landed as ‘open’ (apertum) and ‘level’ (planum), he says that ‘between Walmer and Deal ... the ground is uneven, and cannot be called flat’. Lastly, he recalls the witnesses whose evidence he had cited in support of his own theory. ‘Caesar, Dion Cassius, Plutarch, and Valerius Maximus, all ... refer to the marshes at the place of landing ... who has ever heard of a marsh at Deal.’[3265] And again, ‘Valerius Maximus speaks of two small islands at the landing-place.... It was never suggested that islands did exist or could have existed at Deal.’[3266]

Now, to begin with, Lewin assumes that the beach between Walmer and Deal has undergone no change, and was as steep 2,000 years ago as it is to-day. In a previous article[3267] I have shown that this assumption is untenable. Secondly, Lewin misunderstands Caesar’s narrative. As some of the Britons threw their missiles from the shore,[3268] it is evident that the deep water[3269] in which the Roman ships grounded was within the range of a sling or of an arrow, that is to say, quite close to the shore. Thirdly, no shore is or could conceivably be ‘level’: the shore between Walmer and Deal is, as anybody may satisfy himself by the evidence of his own eyes, free from obstructions[3270] (apertum) and, speaking generally, evenly shelving (planum)[3271]. Caesar applied these epithets to the shore on which he ran his ships aground, not to ‘the ground’ behind it. As to the arguments which Lewin bases upon the statements of Plutarch, Dion Cassius, and Valerius Maximus, I have already shown[3272] that they are worthless; but if the story told by Valerius Maximus were worth anything, it would not support, but destroy Lewin’s theory. For, as we have seen, Valerius Maximus[3273] speaks not of ‘two small islands’ but of one large island (Britannica insula), and a rock (scopulus); and there are no rocks off Hythe or Lympne.[3274] Moreover, although the fact is of no consequence, there are rocks, called the ‘Malms’, which are visible at low water, during spring tides, opposite Deal;[3275] and in the time of Caesar there were marshes behind the sand-hills north of Deal.

5. General Creuly,[3276] referring to Caesar’s description of the storm by which some of his cavalry transports, after they were descried from his camp in 55 B.C., were driven further down the coast,[3277] maintains that the only point to which they could have been driven was Dungeness. It follows, he says, that the camp could not have been at Deal; for its distance from Dungeness is far too great.

The answer to this curious argument is, first, that it is plainly impossible to indicate the exact point to which the ships were driven; secondly, that it was certainly not Dungeness, for Dungeness did not exist in Caesar’s time;[3278] thirdly, that there is nothing in Caesar’s narrative to show how far the point to which the ships were driven was from his camp; and, fourthly, that if the camp was at or near Deal, there is nothing in his narrative to show that the ships could not have run before the gale as far as the longitude of Dungeness, or even a good deal further. From Deal to Dungeness is only about 28 nautical miles; and if the ships approached the British coast in the morning,[3279] they would have had the greater part of the day in which to make the run.

6. General Creuly[3280] calls attention to the passage, which I have already more than once quoted, in which Caesar tells us that at daybreak, on his second voyage, he ‘saw Britain lying behind on the port-quarter’. If, says the general, Caesar had steered for Deal, he would have had the coast of Britain on the port side throughout the voyage, and there would have been no point in the words sub sinistra. He insists that these words are simply the correlative of longius: Caesar saw Britain on the left because the flood had carried him too far.

It will be remembered that Appach used this passage to prove that Caesar landed in the (assumed) Bay of Appledore.[3281] Creuly uses it to prove that Caesar landed near Hythe. I have shown the futility of Appach’s argument; and to answer Appach is to answer Creuly. I may remark, however, that Caesar does not merely say that he saw Britain ‘on the left’ (sub sinistra): he says that he saw it ‘lying behind on the left’ (sub sinistra relictam). The coast could not have been described as ‘lying behind on the left’ until after Caesar had passed the South Foreland;[3282] and, although he was steering not for Hythe, but for some point on the coast of East Kent, the flood tide did carry him ‘too far’.

7. Many commentators have argued that Caesar’s account of the last stage of his second voyage is inconsistent with the theory that he landed near Deal. It will be remembered that, after telling us that ‘he saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter’, he goes on to say that he then followed the turn of the tide, and that all his ships reached the landing-place by rowing towards midday. The tide which he followed was of course the westward stream: strictly speaking, its direction, if he had drifted to some point east of the Goodwin Sands, was south-west[3283] (magnetic), or between south-west by south and south-south-west (true). It is very doubtful, Lewin thinks, whether, with a current running at the rate of 3¾ miles an hour, the fleet could, by the mere use of oars, have reached Deal at all; and it is certain that, in order to do so, it would have been necessary to steer ‘across, if not actually against the current’. Caesar ‘could not’, Lewin concludes, ‘be said to follow the tide when he was steering athwart it. Besides, as it must necessarily have been almost low water when the tide turned, had he held on for Deal he would infallibly have struck on the Goodwin Sands.’[3284] Airy, on the other hand, asserts that Caesar ‘must have been cast upon the Goodwin Sands’ during the drift.[3285]

Now the reader will have already perceived that if Lewin’s argument tells against the view that Caesar landed near Deal, it is fatal to the view which Lewin himself defends. For Lewin’s theory compels him to assume that Caesar had drifted no further than a point off the South Foreland:[3286] in order to reach Hythe he would have had to row less than thirteen nautical miles, with the stream throughout; and it is therefore not easy to understand why his rowers should have been called upon to make any extraordinary efforts. This point he ignores. Again, he admits, or rather insists, that Caesar must have drifted as far as the South Foreland; but it is easy to demonstrate that if Caesar had been steering for Hythe, he could not have drifted so far. For, as Lewin himself says, the length of the drift must, in that case, have been not less than twelve nautical miles.[3287] Now the drift only lasted from about midnight till daybreak; and, assuming that it lasted four hours—a liberal estimate—the stream actually travelled, at the most, nine miles:[3288] of course the ships would not have travelled so far if they had merely drifted,[3289] but the faint breeze, without which they would not have had steerage-way,[3290] may have made up the deficit. But, in order to give Lewin every chance, let us accept the most favourable of three estimates with which he himself supplies us. He says[3291] that ‘the greatest velocity of the tide is, according to the Tidal Tables, 3.3 knots an hour.... The drift would, of course, be less than the velocity.... From midnight till daybreak at 4 a.m., would, therefore, give a drift of twelve miles’. But Caesar’s voyage took place on or about the 7th of July;[3292] and daybreak was about 3.15 a.m. This consideration alone compels us to reduce Lewin’s estimate to ten miles and a half; and, moreover, he forgets that the tide never runs for four consecutive hours, much less for the last four hours, at its greatest velocity.[3293] Thus the argument upon which he relies to prove that Caesar must have landed at Hythe turns and pulverizes his already shattered theory.

On the hypothesis that Caesar landed anywhere between Walmer and Sandwich, the statement that he ‘followed the turn of the stream’ presents no difficulty unless he meant that from the time when the tide turned until the time when he reached Britain his men were rowing hard exactly in the direction of the stream. This is what Lewin assumes. But Caesar says no such thing. What he says is that, having followed the turn of the tide, he rowed hard in order to gain the desired landing-place. So long as the tide served, hard rowing was obviously unnecessary,—if the Goodwin Sands existed. In that case the true explanation is a modification of that offered by C. Schneider,[3294] who says, ‘As long as it was possible to follow the turn of the tide, rowing was unnecessary. But after they had reached a point where they could do so no longer without being carried past their destination, they took to rowing.’ Of course they would not have trusted to the current alone at any time; but, supposing that the Goodwin Sands then existed or that an island occupied their site, they travelled south-westward with the current until they had turned the obstacle, and then rowed hard in a north-westerly direction, across the current,[3295] till they reached the landing place.[3296]

The question of the Goodwin Sands has been discussed in an earlier part of this book.[3297] Either they did not exist in the time of Caesar, the substratum on which they rest being covered by the sea; or they did exist, but had not accumulated to their present height, or perhaps to their present extent; or they were virtually identical with the present sands, though their limits, which are not constant, may not have been the same as they are now; or, finally, as Sir Charles Lyell suggested, their place may have been occupied by an island. The question cannot be positively settled; but, for reasons which I have already given, I am rather inclined to believe that either Sir Charles Lyell’s suggestion was right, or the sands had accumulated sufficiently to be visible, or at all events dangerous, at certain points at low water. I shall, however, presently take account of the possibility that neither of these alternatives is true.

Much depends upon the answer which is to be given to the question, To what point had Caesar drifted when he saw the coast of Britain? Heller argues that this point must have been about nine miles due east of Ramsgate; but, as I have shown in the previous article, his reasoning is unsound.[3298] If Caesar had drifted to the point which Heller indicates, his course to Deal, where, according to Heller, he disembarked, would have been nearly south-west, that is to say, nearly identical with the direction of the Gull Stream, which is described in the Admiralty Tide Tables as SW. ½ W. (magnetic), or, approximately, SW. by S. true.[3299] But, on this hypothesis, it would be inexplicable that his soldiers were obliged to row hard. Heller, indeed, conjectures that Caesar steered for the nearest point of the coast, that is to say, nearly due west, intending to keep close inshore until he found the landing-place; and he remarks that this would explain why his men were obliged to use their oars instead of committing themselves to the stream alone.[3300] But Caesar must have known the whereabouts of his landing-place; and Heller’s explanation seems to be far-fetched. Besides, as I shall presently show, Caesar, on his second expedition, did not land between Walmer and Deal, but in the neighbourhood of Sandwich.

For reasons which I have given in the article on the Portus Itius[3301] I think we must conclude with Napoleon the Third,[3302] that Caesar could hardly have drifted much further than a point on the latitude of Deal and east of the Goodwin Sands. When the tide turned soon after daybreak—about 4.30 a.m., if, as is probable, the day was the 7th of July[3303]—he would have dropped down with the ebb as I have already explained. If, after he had passed the sands or the island, he had waited till about 9.30 a.m., the stream would have turned, and have begun to flow NE. ½ N.[3304] magnetic, or, approximately, NNE. true: if he had not waited, he would have had to row hard, as I have shown above,[3305] athwart a stream which was flowing at a rate varying from three to two knots, until it turned about 9.30.

The objection that, during the drift, Caesar ‘must have been cast upon the Goodwin Sands’ is as groundless as the objection, which has just been met, that if he had attempted to row to Deal [or to the coast between Sandown Castle and Sandwich] ‘he would infallibly have struck upon the Goodwin Sands’.[3306] Captain Iron, the harbour-master of Dover, traced out upon the chart in my presence the course which the Roman flotilla would naturally have steered from Boulogne, and showed that, after the south-west wind dropped, it would have drifted east of the Sands. If, as is probable, the flat-bottomed vessels had made so much lee-way that, even before the wind dropped, they had got a little out of their course, they would have drifted still further eastward. It may also be objected that if Caesar, after he had followed the tide south-westward, had turned the sands or the island which may have occupied their place, he would have mentioned the fact. The objection would be quite natural if it came from a writer who had merely ‘got up’ so much of Caesar’s narrative as he thought would be necessary to enable him to study the question; but every one who is really familiar with the Commentaries knows that Caesar often omitted to mention matters, especially geographical, which a modern historian would feel bound to record. There remains the possibility—perhaps the probability—that neither the Goodwin Sands nor the hypothetical island then existed. In this case Caesar would have had to row across the current: still he might fairly have said that he followed the turn of the tide. He was bound for Britain, and could not begin to row until the tide began to set towards Britain, though in a different direction from his: what other expression could he have used than aestus commutationem secutus? Lewin doubted whether he could have reached Britain by rowing at all; but Lewin did not understand what he was writing about, and ought to have consulted a treatise on practical navigation.[3307] On the other hand, it might possibly be objected that he would not have taken till noon to reach his destination: that depends upon the exact direction of the current, which often varies from the direction indicated in the Admiralty Tide Tables,[3308] and upon the rate at which the vessels could have been rowed in still water. What he says is that all his ships reached Britain by about noon; and doubtless there were stragglers. Of course it may be argued that there were not, and that all the ships were actually rowed for seven hours. But if any one thinks that the possible objection which I have anticipated is valid he will find himself confronted by another which is absolutely insuperable. For he must needs accept Lewin’s alternative theory, to which the objection would apply with redoubled force,—that Caesar took seven hours to row from a point off the South Foreland (though he could not have drifted so far) to Hythe; in other words, that by rowing hard Caesar could only manage to travel two knots an hour with the stream; and that he took twice as long to row less than thirteen knots with the stream as he had taken to drift twelve knots without rowing!

8. Airy,[3309] remarking that it is evident from the Commentaries that ‘there were forests and cornfields near’ the Roman camp, maintains, first, that if Caesar had landed near Deal ‘he would have had for seven miles all round his camp bare chalk-downs, on which in those days there probably was neither a tree nor a ploughed field’; secondly, that a night march, such as that which Caesar made after he landed in 54 B.C., can only be made upon good roads; that ‘the roads in a woodland and clay-ground country are almost invariable’; that accordingly the roads of East Kent ‘are in the very same tracks as in the days of Julius Caesar’; and that Caesar’s night march, the length of which was 12 Roman miles, would have brought him to the marshes of the Stour, whereas, if the Britons had been posted on that river, he would have crossed it ‘at the sound ground of Canterbury or above it, and would have attacked their flank’; and thirdly, that if Caesar’s march to the point where he crossed the Thames had begun near Deal, ‘his course would have been all the way parallel to the Thames, and the expression “ad Tamesin”[3310] could scarcely have been used.’

The first of these objections is summarily disposed of by Long,[3311] who points out that at Worth, between Deal and Sandwich, there is ‘some of the best wheat land in England’; and by Dr. Guest,[3312] who remarks that ‘the uplands round Deal are every autumn white with corn’;[3313] and that, as many of the great forests which once existed in England have disappeared, the absence of woods in the neighbourhood of Deal is no proof that there were none there in Caesar’s time. But, as a matter of fact, there are no less than five woods at distances varying from about a mile to three miles and a quarter from Upper Deal;[3314] and Caesar only speaks of one wood as having existed in the neighbourhood of his camp, and implies that it was a considerable distance off.[3315] The second objection is valid against the theory that Caesar landed between Walmer and Deal on his second expedition, unless he encountered the Britons on the Little Stour; but I shall presently show that on that occasion he landed near Sandwich, and that his march of ‘about twelve miles’ did bring him either to ‘the sound ground of Canterbury or above it’, or to Fordwich or Sturry below Canterbury, but of course not to ‘the marshes of the Stour’. The third objection, from the point of view of Airy, according to whom Caesar landed at Pevensey, may to some minds appear plausible; but the view that Caesar landed at Pevensey is out of the question. But the same objection has been urged by the advocates of Hythe; and they hardly deserve an answer. Supposing Caesar’s march had been nearly parallel with the Thames, what then? If he had landed at or near Hythe, he must have first encountered the Britons at Wye on the Stour; and from Wye to Brentford[3316] his march would have been hardly less parallel (if the expression may be pardoned) to the Thames than from the neighbourhood of Sandwich. In writing the words ad Tamesim he simply intended to indicate approximately the distance from his naval camp, either to the point where he crossed the Thames or to the nearest frontier of the territory of Cassivellaunus; and the direction of his march is nothing to the purpose. Whether that direction was nearly parallel to the Thames or at right angles to it, the distance was about 80 Roman miles.

9. It will be remembered that at the close of Caesar’s second campaign his camp was attacked by the four chieftains of Kent.[3317] General Creuly argues that if the camp had been at Deal, Caesar, when he was marching to the place where he crossed the Thames, must have traversed the country of the four chieftains without having first subdued them. If, on the other hand, says the general, he had started from Hythe, he would have marched not through the heart of their territory, but close to their frontier; and for this very reason they would not have thought it necessary to submit.[3318]

Heller[3319] has taken the trouble to answer this nebulous argument. He points out that Caesar, having defeated the chieftains in the engagements which immediately followed his arrival, evidently did not think them sufficiently dangerous to wait until he had secured their complete submission. Indeed, if their territory comprised the whole of Kent, or even that part of it which lies east of Maidstone, it is evident that Caesar, marching northward from Hythe to the Stour, and then turning westward or north-westward, would have traversed the heart of their country. Moreover, as Heller might have added, it would have been just as hazardous for Caesar to leave the chiefs unsubdued if he had marched from Hythe as if he had marched from the neighbourhood of Deal or of Sandwich. Furthermore, he had no time to spare; and unless he had completely laid waste their country, and treated their people with the ruthless severity with which he afterwards treated the Eburones[3320]—and to do this would have required the greater part of the time which he had to spend in Britain—it would have been utterly impossible for him to subdue them so thoroughly as to prevent them from attacking his camp in his absence. Think of the Boers!

10. Lastly, it has been objected[3321] that Caesar could not have landed near Deal, or indeed at any point on the coast of East Kent, because, if he had marched against Cassivellaunus from that neighbourhood, he must have passed through tracts abounding in beech-woods, whereas he says expressly that there were no beech-trees in Britain.[3322] But Dr. Guest[3323] disposed of this objection by pointing out that ‘at whatever point on the south coast Caesar landed ... he must have crossed the North Downs on his way to the Thames, and so have passed through “tracts abounding in beech-woods”’. Mr. Mackinder,[3324] indeed, asserts, without giving any authority, that the beech was introduced into this country by the Romans; but it has been found in submerged forests and in deposits of the Bronze Age.[3325] If by the word fagum Caesar meant the beech, his statement was incorrect.[3326]