This charge rests upon a mistranslation.[3355] The words Britannici belli exitus exspectatur will certainly bear the interpretation which I have put upon them: why, then, suggest another interpretation, which, even if it could be got out of the Latin, would necessitate the assumption that Caesar did not know his own mind, and that, after he had kept his army busy for six months building six hundred ships, he told his staff that, all things considered, it would be better not to make use of them, and presently changed his mind again, and did make use of them? Again, in his quotation from Cicero’s letter to Quintus, Dr. Vogel leaves out the important part. The passage runs as follows:—Qua re suavitatis equidem nostrae fruendae causa cuperem te ad id tempus venire quod dixeras, sed illud malo tamen, quod putas magis e re tua; magis ... illa etiam magni aestimo, ἀμφιλαφίαν illam tuam et explicationem debitorum tuorum. Read Professor Tyrrell’s translation:—‘Wherefore I should indeed wish that you could come at the time you arranged, for the sake of our pleasure in each other’s society; but yet I desire more that you should do what you think your interests demand [and stay in the camp of Caesar]; still more do I value other considerations, your being in easy circumstances, and free from embarrassments.’ Professor Tyrrell goes on to point out that ‘the words printed in italics [e re tua; magis], or some such words, must, as Wesenburg suggested, have fallen out’,[3356] &c. As for Caesar’s words, ne aestatem in Treveris consumere cogeretur omnibus ad Britannicum bellum rebus comparatis, I confess that my powers of divination are not equal to those of Dr. Vogel. I am unable to infer from these words that Caesar hesitated for a moment to carry out his matured resolve.
Dr. Vogel then calls our attention to the well-known letter in which Cicero complained that he had had no news either from Quintus or from Caesar for more than fifty days, by which he meant that the last letters which he had received were dated more than fifty days before the time at which he was himself writing.[3357] Caesar’s last letter had been written on the 1st of September, and Quintus’s apparently a few days earlier.[3358] On the 25th of September they both wrote again.[3359] Dr. Vogel admits that from the 1st to the 25th Caesar and Quintus were engaged in operations against Cassivellaunus. But, he says, this does not satisfactorily explain the long break in the arrival of letters. In order to understand it, one must take into account a circumstance which Caesar himself relates,[3360] but the importance of which he minimizes, namely, that while he was campaigning on the north of the Thames, the four kings of Kent made an attack on his naval camp. It is true, says Dr. Vogel, that the attack was repulsed; but what did the Roman success amount to? All that Caesar can say for his troops is that they returned from their sortie unhurt. How long, owing to this outbreak in Kent, the communication between his army and his fleet was interrupted he tries to conceal by the meaningless expression, ‘while the operations above mentioned were going on in this district’ (Dum haec in his locis geruntur[3361]). As he goes on to say that Cassivellaunus, owing to the failure of the attack on the naval camp, sent envoys, one may read between the lines of his narrative that it was the action of the four kings which induced him to accept the embassy, even if he did not actually invite it.[3362]
To ‘read between the lines’ is always easy: the only difficulty is to avoid reading what is not there. The reason for ‘the complete break in the arrival of letters’ to which Dr. Vogel refers is intelligible to any reader who is not determined to convict Caesar of suppressio veri: the reason is either that, as I have elsewhere shown, Caesar was engaged, first in marching back from the coast into the interior, after a temporary visit to his naval camp, then in negotiations with Cassivellaunus, and, finally, in leading his army back to the sea; or, if he remained in his naval camp from the 1st to the 25th of September,[3363] that he saw no reason for writing to Cicero, or did not think it worth while to send a ship to Gaul for the sole purpose of conveying a letter. What Dr. Vogel calls ‘the meaningless expression’, Dum haec in his locis geruntur, is one of a class of expressions, all containing the words dum haec geruntur, which Caesar uses thirteen times:[3364] like our ‘meanwhile’, it is doubtless wanting in chronological precision, but it is not meaningless. Dr. Vogel asserts that ‘the complete break in the arrival of letters’ was due to ‘the outbreak in Kent’ on the part of the four kings. Yet he admits that the attack which the four kings made on the naval camp was repulsed; and Caesar adds that the garrison killed many of the enemy, and captured their leader, Lugotorix. In other words, their success was complete. All that they had to do was to beat off an attack, and this they effectually did. Even assuming that ‘the complete break in the arrival of letters’ was due to the action of the four kings, what then? It was not Caesar’s business to chronicle postal irregularities, but simply to describe his campaign.
To the very end of the narrative Dr. Vogel continues to read between the lines. ‘Thoroughly characteristic,’ he tells us, ‘is the way in which Caesar describes the results of the expedition. It is true that his account[3365] substantially tallies with what Cicero writes to Atticus,—“On the 24th of October I received letters from my brother Quintus and from Caesar, dated from the nearest coasts of Britain on the 25th of September. They had settled affairs in Britain, received hostages, and imposed tribute, though they had got no booty.” (A Quinto fratre et a Caesare accepti a. d. IX Kal. Nov. litteras, datas a littoribus Britanniae proximis a. d. VI Kal. Octobr. Confecta Britannia, obsidibus acceptis, nulla praeda, imperata tamen pecunia,[3366] &c.). But what about Cassivellaunus? How did Caesar balance accounts with him?’ Dr. Vogel reminds us that Caesar’s words have led Mommsen to believe that Cassivellaunus promised to pay tribute and to give hostages. But, says Dr. Vogel, Caesar nowhere says this: he only leads the reader to imagine it. What he says is this:—‘On receiving news of the action [namely, the repulse of the four kings], Cassivellaunus, who was greatly alarmed by the defection of the tribes, following the numerous disasters which he had sustained and the ravaging of his country, availed himself of the mediation of the Atrebatian, Commius, and sent envoys to Caesar, to propose surrender. Caesar had resolved to winter on the Continent because disturbances had broken out suddenly in Gaul: not much of the summer remained; and the enemy, as he knew, could easily spin out the time. Accordingly he ordered hostages to be given, and fixed the tribute which Britain was to pay annually to the Roman People, at the same time expressly forbidding Cassivellaunus to molest Mandubracius or the Trinovantes.’ (Cassivellaunus, hoc proelio nuntiato, tot detrimentis acceptis, vastatis finibus, maxime etiam permotus defectione civitatum, legatos per Atrebatem Commium de deditione ad Caesarem mittit. Caesar, cum constituisset hiemare in continenti propter repentinos Galliae motus neque multum aestatis superesset atque id facile extrahi posse intellegeret, obsides imperat et quid in annos singulos vectigalis populo Romano Britannia penderet constituit; interdicit atque imperat Cassivellauno ne Mandubracio neu Trinovantibus noceat.[3367]) Now, observes Dr. Vogel, in the first sentence Cassivellaunus is grammatically the subject, and in the last the object; but the reader involuntarily supposes him to be the object in the intermediate sentence as well. In other words, the reader takes for granted that Cassivellaunus was ordered to give hostages, though Caesar does not say so. Moreover, the first sentence, taken by itself, leads one to suspect Caesar’s good faith. For how came Caesar’s understrapper, Commius, to be with Cassivellaunus? Is it not clear that Caesar had sent Commius to Cassivellaunus as his envoy? In other words, that, whereas Caesar represents Cassivellaunus as having been driven by a series of reverses to offer submission, Caesar had in reality himself made overtures to Cassivellaunus?[3368]
If I were Caesar’s advocate I should merely reply that as Cicero states, on the testimony of his brother, hostages were given. But, as Caesar was undoubtedly not incapable of misrepresentation, Dr. Vogel’s suspicion is possibly not groundless. Caesar may have sent Commius to Cassivellaunus with an offer of terms; and if so, his narrative is so far misleading. On the other hand, Cassivellaunus may first have signified his willingness to submit; and Caesar may then have employed Commius as his agent.
Dr. Vogel’s general conclusion is that, although Caesar’s narrative is not expressly contradicted by Cicero’s letters, yet it was, from first to last, written for effect. Always literally true, it is often substantially false. His most effective weapon is the apparent clearness and candour of his style, which puts the reader off his guard, and prevents him from noticing how very ambiguous many of the statements are. He conceals essential facts and exaggerates the importance of trivial successes; and he prevents the unwary reader from noticing the slowness of his progress in Britain by inserting in the twelfth and the two following chapters of his Fifth Book a general description of the country and its inhabitants, from which point of view this otherwise very inartistic interpolation must be regarded as a masterpiece of ingenuity.
My general conclusion is that the charges which Dr. Vogel has brought against Caesar’s narrative for the most part break down, but that in the one instance which I have noted he may have detected a flaw.
2. Thomas Lewin, who was a writer of considerable ability, remarked, in regard to Caesar’s narrative of the events that immediately preceded his departure from Britain in 55 B.C., that ‘it is easy to see, notwithstanding the veil attempted to be thrown over the transaction, that he wanted only a plausible pretext for transporting himself and his army back to Gaul’.[3369]
Caesar’s account runs as follows:—‘On the same day the enemy sent envoys, who came to Caesar to sue for peace. Caesar ordered them to furnish twice as many hostages as before and take them across to the Continent; for the equinox was near, and, as his ships were unsound, he did not think it wise to risk a voyage in stormy weather. Taking advantage of favourable weather, he set sail,’ &c. (Eodem die legati ab hostibus missi ad Caesarem de pace venerunt. His Caesar numerum obsidum quem ante imperaverat duplicavit eosque in continentem adduci iussit, quod propinqua die aequinoctii infirmis navibus hiemi navigationem subiciendam non existimabat. Ipse idoneam tempestatem nactus ... naves solvit,[3370] &c.). Where is ‘the veil attempted to be thrown over the transaction’? Dion’s account,[3371] so far as it goes, confirms that of Caesar. ‘From Dion,’ remarks Lewin,[3372] ‘we learn that negotiations were opened by the intervention of some Morini who were friends of the Britons.’ Evidently he had not read Dion with due attention: the negotiations of which Dion speaks[3373] were opened immediately after Caesar had, in spite of British resistance, effected his landing; and Lewin forgets to add that the Britons induced the Morini to intervene. The truth of Caesar’s narrative is confirmed by the humorous frankness with which he avows that the Britons did not all obey his orders. After describing his return to Gaul, he says, ‘Two British tribes and no more sent hostages: the rest neglected to do so’ (Eo duae omnino civitates ex Britannia obsides miserunt, reliquae neglexerunt[3374]).
But I am not concerned to maintain that Caesar’s object was to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.[3375] The most serious omission in his account of his British campaigns has passed almost unnoticed. In the section of this book which deals with the chronology of his operations I have demonstrated that either he passed over in silence a hurried temporary visit to his naval camp which he made just before the 1st of September (the 5th of August of the Julian calendar), 54 B.C., or, if he remained in the camp from that day until his final departure from Britain, his account of his negotiations with Cassivellaunus and of the return march of his army to the coast is misleading.[3376] Moreover, as I have pointed out in the seventh chapter,[3377] there is reason to suspect that he and his officers may have known more than he would admit about the connexion between the tides and the moon’s age. But he told the truth, so far as he could ascertain it, when he had no solid motive for falsification; and when he wrote the Commentaries on the Gallic War, he could generally afford to be true.