[2858] I say ‘at least’ advisedly. In order to understate my case, I have assumed that the legions were of the exceptionally low average strength of 3,500 men (B. G., v, 49, §7; Rice Holmes, Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul, pp. 563-7), and have not counted auxiliaries, although there were certainly both slingers and archers (B. G., iv, 25, §1). Probably we should be within the mark if we estimated the force at 40,000 infantry and auxiliaries, besides the 4,000 cavalry.
[2859] See E. B. Hamley’s Operations of War, 4th ed., 1878, pp. 34, 37.
[2860] Archaeol. Journal, xxi, 1864, pp. 224-5.
[2861] B. G., v, 23, § 4.
[2862] See A. E. E. Desjardins, Géogr. de la Gaule rom., i, 362.
[2863] I am aware that, according to Froissart (Chroniques, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, v, 1868, pp. 182-3), timber was conveyed after the battle of Crecy from the forests of the Boulonnais to Wissant by men and horses. But Wissant was then connected with the interior by roads.
[2864] The very earliest mention of Wissant to which its advocates can point refers to the year 566. But the anonymous life of St. Vulgan, in which the reference is to be found, is a work of no authority. See Mém. de l’Acad. d’Arras, xxxv, 1863, p. 253, and A. E. E. Desjardins, Géogr. de la Gaule rom., i, 351-2, note.
[2865] Bull. de l’Acad. Roy. de Belgique, 3e sér., xviii, 1889, pp. 415, 421.
[2866] Cf. E. Lavisse, Hist. de France (tome i, by G. Bloch, 1901, pp. 197-8).
[2867] Lettre à M. Bouillet, &c., pp. 26-7. Haigneré (Étude sur le Portus Itius, p. 122) argues that if Caesar started on his first voyage from Wissant, it is impossible to account for the fact that, on the return voyage, two of his ships failed to make the same harbours as the rest, that is to say, Sangatte and Wissant. Those two ships could not, he insists, have drifted further down the coast, that is to say, southward of Cape Grisnez, unless the wind had been unfavourable; and if the wind was unfavourable, how was it that the remaining ships succeeded in making the harbours? Captain Iron, however, attaches no importance to this objection.