[2894] Portus Itius, p. 12.
[2895] Chorographia, iii, 2, § 23.
[2896] Nat. Hist., iv, 16 (30), § 102; 23 (37), § 122.
[2897] Napoleon III (Hist. de Jules César, ii, 171-2) maintains that the fact of the great Napoleon’s having selected Boulogne for the embarkation of the troops with which he intended to invade England is a strong argument in favour of Caesar’s having done the same. I lay no stress upon this argument because it is superfluous if it can be shown that Wissant would not have served Caesar’s purpose equally well; and that this has been shown those who have read so far will not deny. It is hardly necessary to add that Boulogne was only one, though the principal, of several ports selected by Napoleon.
[2898] Decline of the Roman Republic, iv, 432. ‘If,’ says Long, ‘it was named Gesoriacum in Caesar’s time, why did he name it Itium?’ The obvious answer is that he did not name it ‘Itium’. He named it, or rather its harbour, portus Itius,—‘the Itian harbour,’ or, as Professor Rhys expresses it, ‘the Channel harbour.’
[2899] Géogr. de la Gaule rom., i, 383-4, 473.
[2900] Dict. arch. de la Gaule, ii, 45-7.
[2901] Portus Itius, p. 19.
[2902] Desjardins also finds it necessary to explain why the name Gesoriacum was succeeded by Bononia. His explanation (Géogr. de la Gaule rom., i, 373) is that the port of Gesoriacum was different from the port of Bononia. Remarking that, according to Eumenius (Paneg. Constantii, c. vi), the port of Gesoriacum was blocked by the emperor Constantius Chlorus, in order to prevent the escape of Carausias, he says that ‘sans doute’ this port was then abandoned for the new (and hypothetical) port of Bononia, ‘aux Tintelleries,’ further down the Liane. This, he says, explains why the name Bononia was alone used (except in the itineraries) after the time of Constantine. I have noticed that Desjardins uses the words ‘sans doute’ when there is a doubt which he is unable to remove. As he insists that the ports of Bononia and Gesoriacum were different, he must, I think, have been off his guard when he quoted, in support of his contention, an anonymous writer, who mentions the arrival of Constantine at ‘Bononia, which the Gauls originally called Gesoriacum’ (Bononiam, quam Galli prius Gesoriacum vocabant [M. Bouquet, Recueil des hist. des Gaules, i, 1738, p. 563B]). And in his own edition of the Peutinger Table (p. 13, col. 2) I find the words Gesogiaco quod nunc Bononia.
[2903] The Reader, Sept. 5, 1863, p. 254.