This argument obviously depends upon the untenable assumption that the sand-dune existed in Caesar’s time; and it is shaken by the fact that Roman antiquities have been discovered at Ambleteuse.[2914] Moreover, according to the writer of the article Ambleteuse in M. Vivien de Saint-Martin’s Nouveau Dictionnaire de Géographie Universelle (i, 1879, p. 115), Ambleteuse, under the rule of the English, had an excellent harbour,[2915] and was not choked up by the accumulation of sand until after 1549.[2916]
5. General Creuly,[2917] referring to the attack made by 6,000 of the Morini upon the Roman soldiers who disembarked from the two ships which failed to make the harbours in 55 B.C. and were carried ‘a little further down’, insists that Caesar’s account of this episode[2918] is incompatible with the view that the Portus Itius was Boulogne. For, he argues, the 6,000 Morini could not have belonged to the pagus Gesoriacus, that is to say, the district of Boulogne, since the inhabitants of this region had submitted to Caesar, and, moreover, it was so sparsely populated that 6,000 men could not have assembled on the spur of the moment. He also reminds us that on the day following the attack Labienus marched against the rebellious Morini, and soon subdued them, as, owing to a drought, they were unable to take refuge in the marshes which had served them as an asylum in the preceding year;[2919] and he denies that there were any marshes in the pagus Gesoriacus large enough to serve such a purpose.
Creuly can only make a show of sustaining these objections by resorting to Airy’s fantastic theory,[2920]—that Caesar, when he said that two of his ships were carried ‘a little further down’, meant not ‘down the coast’ but ‘in the direction of the wind’. If the inhabitants of the district of Boulogne had submitted, why should they not have rebelled? The Aduatuci submitted and afterwards rebelled:[2921] the Nervii submitted and afterwards rebelled;[2922] the Britons submitted and afterwards rebelled:[2923]—but it is needless to multiply examples. For Caesar expressly states that the Morini who attacked his soldiers had submitted to him before he sailed for Britain.[2924] I am not concerned to defend the accuracy of his statement, that their number was 6,000: but Creuly admits that 6,000 Morini did assemble somewhere in their own country; and how can he prove that the district of Boulogne was more sparsely populated than any other? As to the marshes, there is no evidence that they were in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where the soldiers were attacked; but if they were, what is there to prevent us from identifying them with the marshes south of Boulogne, between Camiers and Dannes?[2925]
6. Heller’s objection,[2926] that if Caesar had sailed from Boulogne in 54 B.C. it would have been impossible for his ship to drift so far by daybreak on the following morning as to justify him in saying that he ‘saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter’ (sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit[2927]), has been already answered.
7. Caesar, describing his return to Gaul in 54 B.C., says that ‘at daybreak he reached land’ (prima luce terram attigit), and that his ‘ships were hauled up on the shore’ (subductis navibus[2928]). It has been argued that ‘both of these expressions point to the conclusion that he did not enter the mouth of a river’, and that ‘if the Portus Itius was in the estuary of the Liane, to haul up the ships over the banks on to the meadows would surely have been a difficult operation’.[2929] The author of this argument forgot that the ships need not have been hauled up on to the meadows at all unless they had gone far up the river, and that they may have been docked. But an expert whom he has since consulted assures him that, even if it had been necessary to haul up the ships over the banks on to the meadows, the operation would have involved no serious difficulty.
If this inquiry had merely established the probability of the identification of the Portus Itius with the harbour of Boulogne, it would not be possible to justify the labour which has been expended upon it except on the ground that it will save those who may wish to inform themselves a vast amount of research, and provide them with complete equipment for arriving at an independent conclusion. But that conclusion, if it is reached conscientiously by an unbiassed mind, can only be one.
THE PLACE OF CAESAR’S LANDING IN BRITAIN
I. INTRODUCTION
After I had completed the researches which I undertook for the purpose of writing this article, I saw that if an able soldier, or even an intelligent civilian, who had a sufficient knowledge of ancient warfare, were to ask himself where Caesar landed in Britain, he could solve the problem after a brief inspection of the Ordnance Map. He would perceive that there was only one part of the Kentish coast on which Caesar could have expected to land, in the face of an enemy, and then to march into the interior, without incurring unnecessary loss. If he were told that a study of the tides had proved that Caesar must have landed elsewhere, he would reply, ‘There must be something wrong in your calculations. Perhaps you have neglected to allow for the influence which strong winds and other causes exert upon the tidal currents. Perhaps you have misinterpreted or unduly strained certain parts of Caesar’s narrative. It is even possible that Caesar himself may, from lapse of memory, have mis-stated the day on which he first landed. Any one of these suppositions is credible: but it is incredible that the experienced officer whom he sent to reconnoitre the British coast should have advised him to land below a range of hills when open country was more easily accessible; still more that he should have accepted the advice. It is absolutely certain that Caesar did not commit an act of folly which any general who knew his business would have avoided.’