No unbiassed reader would assent to this conclusion. The Morini naturally sent ambassadors to Caesar because they wished to deprecate his wrath. Similarly in 53 B.C. the Ubii sent envoys to him when he was in their country, not as an enemy but as a friend.[2713] Besides, Airy, not having a really intimate knowledge of the Commentaries, overlooked another important point:—the Morini did not act as one undivided state; some only of their pagi, or sub-divisional communities, sent ambassadors: others sent none.[2714]
Thirdly, Airy refers to Caesar’s statement, that, on returning to the Portus Itius from his second expedition, he directed Gaius Fabius to winter in the country of the Morini with one legion.[2715] ‘It appears to me,’ he says, ‘that the order (after his second return) for legions to march from the Portus Itius[2716] “in Morinos” makes it certain that he was not in their country.’[2717]
The words ‘from the Portus Itius’ beg the question. One legion (not ‘legions’) was sent into the country of the Morini, not from the Portus Itius but from Samarobriva, in the country of the Ambiani, where, as the context shows, all the legions were temporarily assembled.[2718] Similarly in the following year, 53 B.C., Caesar concentrated all his legions at Durocortorum, or Reims, immediately before distributing them in their respective quarters for the winter.[2719]
Fourthly, Airy refers to the well-known passage in which Strabo[2720] says that ‘the Itian’ [naval station?] is παρὰ (τοῖς Μορινοῖς). Παρά, he seriously affirms, means ‘near to’, not ‘in’ (the country of the Morini[2721]).
If Airy’s sense of humour had not been dormant, it would surely have occurred to him that, in a matter of pure scholarship, it was unlikely that all Greek scholars should be wrong while he alone was right. Dr. Guest took the trouble to refute him;[2722] and if he had referred to other passages in Strabo,[2723] he would have seen for himself that παρ’ οἷς means ‘in whose country’.
Airy was far too vigilant a controversialist not to see that there were well-grounded objections to his theory; and he attempted to anticipate them. Caesar, as we have seen, states that when his fleet was returning to Gaul after the first expedition, two of the ships failed to make the same harbours as the rest, and ‘were carried a little lower down’ (duae [naves] eosdem quos reliqui portus capere non potuerunt et paulo infra delatae sunt[2724]); and he goes on to say that the troops who landed from these two ships were attacked by the Morini while they were marching from the place where they had disembarked to his own camp. The words paulo infra delatae sunt are interpreted by almost every commentator except Airy[2725] as meaning that the two ships were carried a little further down the coast than the other ships; and if this interpretation is correct, it is obvious that the harbours in which the other ships came to land were in the country of the Morini. But Airy is unmoved by this consensus of opinion. ‘The word “delatae”,’ he says, ‘is repeatedly used by Caesar for “drifted”, and “infra delatae” is “drifted down”, the word “down” apparently relating not to any geographical direction, but to the force of the wind.’[2726]
As a matter of fact, Caesar uses the past participle of defero in the sense of ‘drifted’ four times,[2727] namely, in the passage which we are now considering and in B. G., v, 8, § 2 (longius delatus aestu orta luce sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit), B. C., iii, 14, § 2 (una ex his [navibus] ... delata Oricum atque a Bibulo expugnata est), and B. C., iii, 30, § 1 (praetervectas Apolloniam Dyrrachiumque naves viderant ... sed quo essent eae delatae ... ignorabant). None of these passages lends the slightest support to Airy’s theory; and the other three passages in which he uses the adverb infra[2728] in a local sense, namely, B. G., vi, 35, § 6 (transeunt Rhenum ... XXX milibus passuum infra eum locum ubi pons erat perfectus[2729]), B. G., vii, 61, § 3 (nuntiatur ... magnum ire agmen adverso flumine sonitumque remorum in eadem parte exaudiri et paulo infra milites navibus transportari[2730]), and B. C., i, 64, § 6 (reliquas legiones expeditas educit magnoque numero iumentorum in flumine supra atque infra constituto traducit exercitum[2731]), are fatal to it.
Again, the passage in which Caesar says that the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain is about 30 [Roman] miles,[2732] assuming that it is genuine, might well have disconcerted a less resourceful reasoner; for the distance from the mouth of the Somme to St. Leonards, off which place Airy maintains that Caesar anchored on his first voyage,[2733] is about 65 Roman miles; and to Pevensey Level, where he makes Caesar land, a little more. But Airy confidently grapples with the difficulty. ‘I conceive,’ he remarks, ‘that the sentence has been mistranslated. The Portus Itius and the continent are placed in contradistinction. The convenient passage was from the Portus Itius, the distance of 30 miles was from the continent.’[2734]
Read the sentence again,—portum Itium ... quo ex portu commodissimum in Britanniam traiectum esse cognoverat, circiter milium passuum XXX transmissum a continenti. Classical scholars are agreed that these words can only mean what Airy insists that they do not mean, namely, that the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain was about 30 Roman miles. If not from the Portus Itius, from what port? What would have been the good of specifying the distance if Caesar had been thinking of some other port which he did not use?[2735]
Furthermore, the distance from the mouth of the Somme to Pevensey Level is about twice the distance from Boulogne to Dover, to Hythe, or to Lympne; and Caesar says that the reason why he marched for the country of the Morini was that the passage from their country to Britain was the shortest.