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.