The conclusion is that Caesar, on his first voyage, did not land either in the neighbourhood of Sandwich or at Richborough, and that he did land between Walmer and Deal. The disembarkation must of course have taken place along a front of considerable extent; and the most southerly point at which it would have been easily practicable is quite close to Walmer Castle.
In the following year, however, the fleet must have made the land somewhere between the site of Deal Castle and the latitude of Sandwich. For the Romans, as we have seen, on the morning after their disembarkation, fought a cavalry action on the banks of a river, at a spot about twelve miles from the camp which Caesar had constructed near the place of landing: the river, as we shall afterwards see,[3340] was the Stour; and if the length of the march was estimated with tolerable accuracy, the camp must have been in the neighbourhood of Sandwich.[3341] Besides, Caesar tells us that ‘he felt little anxiety for the ships, as he was leaving them at anchor on a nice open shore’ (eo minus veritus navibus, quod in litore molli atque aperto deligatas ad ancoras relinquebat[3342]). The meaning of the epithet, mollis, has been already explained;[3343] and, moreover, although no commentator has noticed the fact, it does not need much acumen to see that Caesar was here excusing himself for having left his ships at anchor, in spite of the severe lesson which the storm of the previous year had given him, by the plea that he had selected a more favourable anchorage.[3344]
I began this inquiry early in 1900 with a mind absolutely unbiassed, resolved to do one of two things,—either to solve the problem, or, if that could not be done, to show, once for all, that it was insoluble. The reader knows that I have not neglected any means of ascertaining the truth; and I have provided him with the means of controlling every statement which I have made. I have set down fully and fairly the arguments of those from whom I differ; and I have kept back nothing, I have called attention to everything, that might appear to tell against the conclusion to which the evidence inevitably led. I need not say anything by way of recapitulation, for no man who has read this article attentively can be lacking either in patience or in intelligence; and I am sure that the reader is by this time convinced of these things:—that it has been demonstrated that Caesar did not land at Pevensey, or anywhere in Sussex; that it has been demonstrated that he did not land at Hythe, or anywhere in Romney Marsh; and that it has been demonstrated that he did land both in 55 and in 54 B.C. in East Kent,—in the former year between Walmer Castle and Deal Castle, in the latter north of Deal Castle. That some will still for a time dispute these conclusions is likely enough; but not those whose judgements count. For them the problem is solved.
Note.—The following is a transcript of the report of Messrs. Doak, Hudson, and Sprigge, sent to me from the Nautical Almanac Office, and alluded to on page 610, supra:—
‘The calculations have proved somewhat more lengthy and complicated than was at first anticipated, since it was found on examination that no approximate process would give results of a satisfactory degree of accuracy. In consequence the following work has been done:—
1. Twelve complete places of the Moon were determined from Hansen’s “Tables de la Lune”, embodying all the inequalities. Longitude, Latitude, and Parallax were thus obtained.
2. The Sun’s Longitude, the Obliquity of the Ecliptic and the Sidereal Time were then computed from Newcomb’s Tables for seven successive Greenwich Mean Noons. A slight shortening was possible in the case of the Longitude, but the resulting error cannot, in the opinion of Professor Newcomb, exceed ±30 seconds of arc, and is probably about ±12 seconds.
3. The Moon’s position was then converted from Longitude and Latitude to Right Ascension and Declination.
4. The Greenwich Mean Time of Moon’s Transit was computed for twelve transits.
5. The times of High Water at Dover were obtained by applying the proper quantities from the Admiralty Tidal Curve for Dover to the times of Moon’s Transit.
6. From the Longitudes of Moon and Sun the time of Full Moon was determined.
7. The whole of the calculations were then examined and duplicated where desirable.
With the one exception of the Sun’s Longitude the calculations have been rigorous, and, so far as the computing is concerned, are of the same degree of accuracy as those published annually in the Nautical Almanac. A very slight divergence from the truth is, however, possible owing to the fact that the tables of the Moon and Sun are used for an epoch nineteen-and-a-half centuries ago; but it is very unlikely that this is large enough to affect the times of high water or of full moon.
4th October, 1902.’
THE CREDIBILITY OF CAESAR’S NARRATIVE OF HIS INVASIONS OF BRITAIN
I have already published in Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul an essay upon the credibility of Caesar’s Commentaries; but, as it only deals incidentally with the invasions of Britain, I intend in this place to examine certain charges which have been made against that section of Caesar’s narrative. It has been objected, perhaps justly, to the essay by competent critics in this country (though not on the Continent[3345]) that it devotes an undue amount of space to the refutation of inferior writers; but at all events those who have read it will believe that the charges which I leave unnoticed in the present article may safely be disregarded.
I agree with Dr. F. Vogel that, apart from internal evidence, virtually the only authority by which we can test the Commentaries is the correspondence of Cicero; and the opinion which I have already expressed of Dion Cassius[3346] is supported by the German scholar.[3347]
1. Dr. Vogel points to a passage in one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus,[3348] which, he says, has not yet received due attention or been correctly explained:—Britannici belli exitus exspectatur; constat enim aditus insulae esse muratos[3349] mirificis molibus; etiam illud iam cognitum est, neque argenti scripulum esse ullum in illa insula neque ullam spem praedae nisi ex mancipiis, &c. The following translation will be generally accepted as accurate:—‘The result of the British war is a source of anxiety. For it is notorious that the approaches to the island are ramparted by astonishing masses of cliff; and, besides, it is now known that there isn’t a pennyworth of silver in the island, nor any hope of loot except from slaves.’ But Dr. Vogel insists that the words Britannici belli exitus exspectatur ‘can only mean “the end of the British war is expected”, that is to say, it is expected that the war, being too hazardous and too unremunerative, will be entirely abandoned’.[3350] The letter in question was written, as Dr. Vogel remarks, before the 3rd of July, A.U.C. 700, that is to say, before the 8th of June of the Julian calendar.[3351] He goes on to say that for some time afterwards it must have continued an open question whether the expedition was not to be given up; for in a letter written after the 15th of July,[3352] Cicero says to his brother, ‘I wish that you could come at the time you arranged’ (cuperem te ad id tempus venire quod dixeras). But, says Dr. Vogel, Caesar says not a word to show that the proposed expedition was almost abandoned. Not a word directly: but Dr. Vogel believes that he can detect a significant hint in the Commentaries. Caesar relates that, before he sailed for Britain, he was obliged to march into the country of the Treveri, who were said to be preparing for rebellion. Soon after the legions entered the country, Indutiomarus, the leader of the malcontents, finding that resistance would, for the time being, be hopeless, sent envoys to Caesar to assure him of his loyalty and to make excuses for not having come in person to pay his respects. On which Caesar remarks, ‘Caesar was aware of his motive for saying this, and of the circumstances that deterred him from prosecuting the design which he had formed: still, in order to avoid having to waste the summer in the country of the Treveri after having made all his preparations for a campaign in Britain, he told Indutiomarus to present himself with two hundred hostages’ (Caesar, etsi intellegebat qua de causa ea dicerentur quaeque eum res ab instituto consilio deterreret, tamen, ne aestatem in Treveris consumere cogeretur omnibus ad Britannicum bellum rebus comparatis, Indutiomarum ad se cum ducentis obsidibus venire iussit[3353]). Now, says Dr. Vogel, although Caesar is silent as to his real motive, we may divine from the words ‘in order to avoid having to waste the summer in the country of the Treveri after having made all his preparations for a campaign in Britain’ that he hesitated for some time to carry out his resolve of making a second British expedition.[3354]