Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar

by T. Rice Holmes

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]

XII. THE THEORY THAT CAESAR LANDED AT RICHBOROUGH OR SANDWICH

The commentators who believe that Caesar landed in the neighbourhood of Sandwich are not agreed among themselves. Napoleon III, who holds that he landed between Walmer and Deal in 55, and at or near Sandwich in 54 B.C., argues that the disaster which befell his ships on the night of the full moon in August, 55 B.C., must have taught him the danger to which they would be exposed on the beach near Deal, and that accordingly he must have selected a better landing-place ‘some kilometres further north’.[3327] Others, like the late George Dowker, maintain that he landed near Sandwich on both occasions.

Dowker assumes that Caesar’s own ship, if not the rest of his fleet, anchored in 55 B.C. off the South Foreland; and he goes on to say that ‘from the South Foreland ... seven miles would bring him near the mouth of Sandwich Haven’. He decides for Sandwich instead of Deal because, in his opinion, the Commentaries show that Caesar landed ‘at or near a point whence he could get his long vessels on the flank of an enemy’, and at Deal ‘no such bay existed’, whereas at Sandwich the very bay which he wanted was formed by the mouth of the Stour.[3328]

That Caesar did ‘get his long vessels on the flank of an enemy’[3329] is unquestionable: but he does not say that he placed them in a bay or in the mouth of the Stour or any other river; nor is it easy to understand why a bay or the mouth of a river should have been necessary for his purpose. The object of placing the ‘long vessels’ on the enemy’s right flank was that the artillerymen, slingers, and archers who manned them might drive away the enemy who were trying to stop the disembarkation; and some of the enemy were standing on the shore, while the rest were wading, or mounted on horseback, or perhaps standing in their cars in the sea close to the water’s edge.[3330] Why should not the ‘long vessels’ have been in the sea too? What was to be gained by sending them into the mouth of a river? When Dowker said that a run of 7 miles would have brought Caesar from the South Foreland nearly to ‘the mouth of Sandwich Haven’, his eagerness to prove his point prevented him from making an accurate measurement. From the South Foreland to the place which was once the mouth of Sandwich Haven, as measured within half a mile from the shore on Sheet 290 of the One Inch Ordnance Map, is just over 11 statute, or 12 Roman miles. Nor does Battely contribute much to the argument when he pleads that VIII milia passuum ‘does not occur invariably in all the editions’, and that Caesar may have made a mistake. We are not concerned with ‘the editions’, but with the MSS.; and VIII milia passuum does not occur in any of them, but VII (or septem) milia passuum in all.[3331] It would be strange if Caesar had not made a slight mistake; but it would be stranger still if he had mistaken twelve miles for seven. Battely[3332] argues that he must have landed at Richborough, (a) because he says that Cantium, where the Gauls generally landed, has an easterly aspect, whereas Dover looks south; (b) because Dion’s description of the landing-place, ‘which, as to the nature of the shore, directly contradicts Caesar’s narrative,’ is applicable to Richborough, where there ‘was a marshy and muddy shore, on which Caesar’s soldiers ... could not keep their footing’;[3333] and (c) because ‘all the time the Romans were masters of our island, Rutupiae ... was the only port where they disembarked’. Now Caesar, who never talks nonsense, does not say that the whole of Cantium, or even that part of it in which the Gauls used to land, faces the east. He merely says that of the side of Britain which faces Gaul ‘one corner, by Kent—the part which almost all ships from Gaul make for—has an easterly ... aspect’ (huius lateris alter angulus, qui est ad Cantium, quo fere omnes ex Gallia naves adpelluntur, ad orientem solem ... spectat[3334]). Besides, nobody would argue that Caesar landed at Dover; and the coast between Walmer and Deal has an easterly aspect no less than Richborough. Secondly, when Battely says that Dion’s description of the landing-place ‘directly contradicts’ Caesar’s narrative, and then elects to believe the inaccurate and rhetorical Greek, who wrote two hundred years after the event, rather than the eye-witness, he shows that he is incapable of serious criticism. Besides, it is not true that Dion’s description of the landing-place[3335] contradicts Caesar’s narrative either directly or indirectly; and neither of them says that the shore was either ‘marshy’ or ‘muddy’.[3336] Thirdly, Rutupiae was not ‘the only port’ where the Romans disembarked after they had become masters of the island. It is certain that Dover Harbour was in use during the Roman occupation of Britain, for it is mentioned in the Itinerary of Antonine;[3337] inscribed tiles found at Dover prove that it was one of the stations of the Classis Britannica,[3338]—the Roman ‘Channel Fleet’; and the mere fact that two disembarkations after the time of Caesar are recorded to have taken place at Rutupiae[3339] does not prove the contrary.