[2885] See pp. 616, 651, infra.
[2886] B. G., v, 8, § 2.
[2887] Nat. Hist., iv, 23 (37), § 122. Wauters (Bull. de l’Acad. Roy ... de Belgique, 2e sér., xlvii, 1879, pp. 125-6) actually argues that because Lambert of Ardres, who wrote in the thirteenth century, called Wissant the portus Britannicus, therefore Wissant was the portus Morinorum Britannicus of Pliny! He forgets that Lambert was not referring to the time of the Roman Empire: he simply meant that in his own time Wissant was a frequented port of departure for England.
Courtois insists (Bull. de la Soc. des ant. de la Morinie, iii, 1862, p. 391) that Pliny distinguishes the portus Morinorum Britannicus from Gesoriacum. As well might a modern leader-writer be said to distinguish London from ‘the metropolis’.
[2888] See A. E. E. Desjardins, Géogr. de la Gaule rom., i, 363-8, 371-2, 383-8. Roman tiles, bearing the inscription CL. BR., have been found at Bréquerecque, east of Boulogne, on the banks of the Liane; and inscriptions found at Tintelleries and Bréquerecque prove that CL. BR. stands for classis Britannica (ib., p. 364, and V. J. Vaillant, Classis Britannica, 1888, pp. 16-7).
[2889] A. E. E. Desjardins, Géogr. de la Gaule rom., i, 367-8.
[2890] Divus Claudius, 17.
[2891] Itin. Ant., ed. Wesseling, pp. 356-63; A. E. E. Desjardins, Géogr. de la Gaule rom., i, 387.
[2892] Zosimus (Hist. Nov., ed. L. Mendelssohn, 1887, vi, 2, § 2) says that Bononia was the first port to be met with in Germania (Inferior), that is to say, by a traveller coming from the east; and much stress has been laid upon this passage by the advocates of Boulogne: but it only proves what we knew already, namely, that if Wissant had ever been a Gallic port, it fell into complete disuse under the empire.
[2893] Géogr. de la Gaule rom., i, 383.