The waves are red with blood; mailed Roman and naked Briton hack and hew at each other in confused combat; and slowly but surely the invaders gain the beach. There they form into ranks, shoulder to shoulder, and against that solid wall of disciplined valour nothing can stand. The scythe-wheeled chariots thunder towards the Roman array, the evening sun glinting from their outstretched blades; but the fiery horses are impaled on the iron points of the Roman spears. Step by step the Britons are forced from the strand; fainter and fainter sound the voices of the Druids singing their frenzied war-chants; and ere darkness has settled down the islanders have retreated, and the Roman victors remain on the beach which they have so hardly won.
Next day come chiefs with offers of submission; but four days later, when Cæsar’s cavalry transports are nearing the coast, a great storm arises. The anchored galleys are wrecked; the newcomers are driven back to Gaul. Cæsar is in perilous plight. He has no provisions for his soldiers, no materials with which to repair his shattered ships. The autumn storms have begun, and he is on a treacherous coast, harassed by a fierce, unrelenting foe.
These disasters give new hope to the Britons. They rapidly muster their men, and form an ambush in an uncut field of grain not far from the Roman camp. When the Seventh Legion comes out to reap the corn it is suddenly beset on all sides by a host of horsemen and charioteers. The cloud of dust raised by the chariot wheels betrays the fight to the sentinels of the camp. Cæsar hurries to the spot, and just manages to save the reapers from utter destruction and convey them back to his stronghold. The Britons follow, and make the grievous mistake of attacking the Romans in their trenches. Beaten back time after time, they again retreat to their fastnesses in the woods, and once more offer submission.
Cæsar is quite ready for peace. His troops are weary, for they have been seventeen or eighteen days on the island, and the struggle has never ceased. His twelve thousand men are all too few to overcome the obstinate Britons. He does not wait even to receive the promised hostages, but, taking advantage of the first fair wind that blows, he returns to Gaul, baffled and beaten, without a single token of conquest.
Next year he comes again. The warm spring days that bring the swallows bring the Roman galleys once more. This time he does not despise his enemy. Twenty-five thousand foot and two thousand horse, embarked on eight hundred ships, speed towards the threatened shore. He lands without striking a blow, and stray prisoners inform him that his advance is to be challenged at a ford on the Stour twelve miles away. He is determined not to lose an hour. Through the night his legions tramp over the unknown country, and in the cold gray of the early dawn they find themselves on the bank of a reedy river, with the foe drawn up on the opposite side.
The charge is sounded, and the Roman cavalry dash into the river with the utmost impetuosity. They break through and through the ranks of the British infantry, their bronze swords being no match for the tempered iron of the Roman brands and javelins. Again the Britons give way, and betake themselves to their woodland fortresses barricaded with the trunks of felled trees. Here Cassivellaunus, behind his stockade, holds out stoutly. But his fortifications are carried at last, and the four “kings” of Kent, who have failed in an attack on the Roman camp, come once more in humble guise to offer their submission. Cæsar is again ready for peace. Forest fighting is too perilous for his taste. Amidst the mazes of the woodland the Roman formations are broken up, and in hand-to-hand combats the Britons are the equals of his best and most highly-trained soldiers. So he yields to the inevitable. He receives hostages and empty promises of annual tribute. Again he departs, leaving nothing to mark his so-called conquest but the earthworks of his deserted camps.
Once more he has failed. He may not describe his campaign as he does a later victory—“I came, I saw, I conquered.” He is fain to confess that his usual good fortune has deserted the “eagles” in Britain. A few hostages, a girdle of British pearls for Venus, and a lordly triumph in Rome—these are the only fruits which Cæsar reaps from his toils and perils on this side of the Channel. He vanishes from the pageant to win plentiful laurels on other fields. He has failed in Britain, but elsewhere he becomes unchallenged master of the Roman world. Ten years later, having attained the very summit of his ambition, he falls beneath the daggers of his erstwhile friends.
Cæsar vanishes, and with his departure twilight once more settles down on the land. For nearly a hundred years no Roman soldier sets foot on the island. Nevertheless, Britain is nearer to the masterful city on the Tiber than she has been before. Roman gossips talk of the island in their streets. Adventurous Romans and equally adventurous Britons exchange visits. Trade increases between the far-off island and the heart of the world. Roman huntsmen prize their British hounds, and British slaves are fashionable in the patrician homes of Rome. Britain moves onward in the march of civilization, and ere the century of peace comes to an end she is a real prize of conquest—a laurel worthy of the imperial brow itself.
THE FIRST INVASION OF BRITAIN BY JULIUS CÆSAR.
(From the cartoon by Edward Armitage, R.A.)