[3240] Lewin, indeed, objects (The Invasion of Britain, &c., 1862, p. xci) that ‘had another interval of two hours occurred [after the ninth hour] Caesar could not fail to have mentioned it’. But, in the first place, as the reader will have seen, it is unnecessary to assume that the interval lasted as long as two hours, or even one; and, in the second place, there was no reason why Caesar should mention it, except for the benefit of stupid readers, whom he invariably left to their own devices. Some interval there must have been unless the captains of the laggard ships were left without the instructions which had been given to the rest.
[3241] See pp. 610-1, supra.
[3242] If, then, he really did weigh anchor in the ninth hour, and if in the ninth hour the stream was running down the Channel on the 26th of August, he must have landed on the 25th; and it has been shown (p. 600-3, supra) that he may have done so.
[3243] George Long, who was a very able man, was nevertheless capable, if hard pressed in controversy, of writing sheer nonsense. Having only the most superficial knowledge of the tides, he submissively accepted the assertion that, at the time when Caesar weighed anchor off the Kentish cliffs, the stream was running westward; yet he insisted that Caesar landed at Deal! Let him speak for himself. ‘When Caesar says that the tide (aestus) was favourable, he means that he had water sufficient to keep near the shore. There is only one meaning of aestus in Caesar.... Caesar says that he went with wind and tide favourable. If “tide” means stream, his statement is not true. If he means by “tide” what I have said—and there is not the least doubt of that—I should like some sufficient reason to be given why he could not go to Deal, though the stream was against him’ (The Reader, Sept. 5, 1863, pp. 254-5). This singular argument was demolished with somewhat needless vigour by Dr. Guest (Origines Celticae, ii, 1883, pp. 364-5). If in the often quoted passage, longius delatus aestu orta luce sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit, the word aestus does not mean ‘the tidal stream’, it means nothing. That it does mean what I have said Long virtually admits when, in his edition of the Commentaries (p. 225), commenting on this very passage, he observes that Caesar ‘was carried out of his course by the flood tide’.
[3244] B. G., iv, 23, § 6.
[3245] Decline of the Roman Republic, iv, 434.
[3246] Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde, xviii, 1865, p. 129. See also Archaeol. Journal, xxi, 1864, p. 238.
[3247] See H. Meusel, Lex. Caes., ii, 1245-7.
[3248] Hist. Rom., xxxix, 51, § 2.—ἄκραν οὖν τινα προέχουσαν περιπλεύσας, &c.
[3249] The Invasion of Britain, &c., 1862, p. 52.