[3063] Journal of Philology, xix, 1891, pp. 210-1.
[3064] Caesar’s men certainly did not begin to row at 3 a.m. Daybreak did not occur before 3.15; and, as Mr. Peskett remarks (ib., xx, 1892, p. 198), ‘the starting on the right course with the turn of the tide of a large and probably somewhat scattered fleet is not a momentary act which you can assign to a particular minute of the day.’
[3065] B. G., v, 8, § 5.
[3066] Ib., iv, 23, § 2.
[3067] Ib., v, 8, § 3.
[3068] See Journal of Philology, xix, 1891, pp. 206-10.
[3069] As a matter of fact it would have been against them much longer. See Admiralty Tide Tables, pp. 112, 115, 118, and S. H. Brown, Diagrams and Tables, &c., 1895.
[3070] The professor denies that Caesar’s men could have taken all the time from daybreak to noon to row with the tide from a point off the South Foreland to Romney Marsh; and, on the assumption that they landed on the eastern end of the marsh, he is unquestionably right. But there is no evidence that they began to row at daybreak (see p. 620, n. 3, supra): we are not obliged to assume that because all the ships, including stragglers, had reached Britain by about noon, rowing went on in all till twelve o’clock; and the professor would have done better to conclude, not that they rowed to Pevensey, but that they drifted as far as the latitude of Deal, and rowed to a point on the eastern coast of Kent.
[3071] The theory that Caesar landed between St. Leonards and Bulverhythe, which was advocated by R. C. Hussey (Archaeol. Cant., i, 1858, pp. 94-110), requires no comment; for the same arguments that are fatal to Airy’s theory are fatal also to it.
[3072] See p. 609, supra.