[2791] Descr. Graeciae, ii, 38, § 2.
[2792] Geogr., viii, 6, § 2.
[2793] Evidently ναύσταθμον had a wider range of meaning than statio navium. Plutarch (Aristides, 23) implies that a ναύσταθμον could be burned, from which Haigneré (Recueil hist. du Boulonnais, iii, 1897, p. 455) infers that ‘un ναύσταθμος n’est pas une rade foraine, ni une anse, mais un lieu fermé, où se trouvent des arsenaux maritimes’. This was sometimes the meaning of the word, but only rarely. Pliny (Nat. Hist., iii, 8 [14], § 89) mentions a harbour in Sicily, called Portus Naustathmus. See also Stephanus, Thesaurus Graecae linguae, v, 1842-6, col. 1383-4. Professor Haverfield (Eng. Hist. Rev., xviii, 1903, p. 335) insists that Strabo (iv, 5, § 2) meant by ναύσταθμον ‘the whole region of the Itian highland in which Caesar had his portus Itius and his ulterior portus’.
[2794] B. G., v, 2, § 3; 5, § 2.
[2795] It is quite true, as General Creuly observes (Rev. arch., nouv. sér., viii, 1863, p. 306) that the author of Bellum Africum (c. 10, § 1) applies the name of portus to a mere anchorage (cf. Col. Stoffel, Hist. de Jules César,—Guerre civile, ii, 110-1, and pl. 20). But Bellum Africum was not written by Caesar; and the question is, what Caesar meant by the word portus. Now there are certainly two instances in which he applies that word to a harbour very different from the estuary of a river. The harbour of Nymphaeum (now the bay of Medua) on the eastern coast of the Adriatic has a comparatively wide entrance, and is exposed to the full force of the south wind; but against all other winds it is perfectly safe, and it might fairly be called a portus and not a statio (B. C., iii, 26, § 4. Cf. Col. Stoffel, Hist. de Jules César, &c. pl. 14 bis). The harbour of Alexandria was formed, as Caesar says (B. C., iii, 112, § 2. Cf. Stoffel, pl. 19), by the island which extended opposite the city, and was divided into two portions by the mole which connected the island with the mainland: the western portion must have been exposed to south westerly winds, but the other offered complete shelter. The conclusion is that the word portus had a somewhat elastic signification, but would not have been applied by Caesar to Wissant unless the anchorage there had been protected, as Dr. Guest imagined, by sand-dunes.
[2796] The Reader, Sept, 19, 1863, p. 317.
[2797] M. Bouquet, Recueil des hist. des Gaules, xi, 1767, pp. 40C, 75C.
[2798] This is undeniable. See J. F. Henry, Essai ... sur l’arrondissement communal de Boulogne-sur-mer, pp. 66-71; D. Haigneré, Etude sur le Portus Itius, p. 85, n. 1; and Dict. arch. de la Gaule, ii, 45. Henry calculated from the loss known to have been suffered by Cap d’Alprech and the promontory on which the Tour d’Odre stood during the two centuries and a half that preceded the year 1810, that in Caesar’s time they must have extended from 700 to 800 metres further seaward than in 1810. This, however, I believe to be an exaggeration.
[2799] Archaeol. Journal, xxi, 1864, pp. 227-8.
[2800] Le Roman de Brut, ed. Le Roux de Lincy, 1836, vv. 3937-40. Similarly Geoffrey of Monmouth (Hist. Britonum, iv, § 3) and Matthew Paris (Chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard, i, 1872, p. 73) supposed that Caesar, after his second expediion, had returned to Boulogne.