SOUTH EASTERN BRITAIN
[See note on page XVI.]
The Veneti surrendered unconditionally. Caesar was determined to teach the Gauls that ‘the rights of envoys’[1286] must be respected in future. The Venetian senate were put to death; and all the tribesmen who failed to escape were sold into slavery.
Campaign against the Morini.
It remained only to subdue the Morini, who had never yet acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. Caesar marched against them: but the season was too far advanced; and he found it impossible to strike a decisive blow. The Morini would not risk a battle, and took refuge in their forests. Caesar allowed himself to be surprised on the outskirts and lost a few men, though he succeeded in punishing his assailants; and after the legions had spent some days in cutting down trees, capturing baggage, and driving off cattle, stormy weather set in, and rain fell so heavily and continuously that they could no longer live safely in tents, Its failure leaves Caesar’s base not quite secure. and were forced to abandon the campaign. Owing to this failure, which Caesar hardly atoned for by ravaging the cultivated lands as he retreated, the base of operations for the expedition which was to take place in the following year was still insecure. On the other hand, the maritime tribes between the Somme and the Pyrenees were effectually subdued; and Caesar was absolute master of the sea.
55 B.C. Caesar determines to sail from the Portus Itius (Boulogne.)
When the campaign of the following year against the Germans was over, Caesar marched westward into the country of the Morini, ‘because,’ as he tells us, ‘the shortest passage to Britain was from their coast.’[1287] Probably he had already ascertained what was the best port to sail from; but any competent cavalry officer could have procured the information in a couple of days. Between the Scheldt and the Somme there was only one harbour which would satisfy all his requirements. Calais did not then exist: Sangatte, on the east of Cape Blancnez, was at best a mere roadstead; and the sandy waste between Cape Blancnez and Cape Grisnez, from which the village of Wissant derives its name, though it possessed two tiny creeks formed by rivulets, offered no shelter for a fleet and no facilities for building or repairing ships, or for provisioning an army. The Canche, the Authie, and the Somme, if at that time they were used as harbours, were too far from Britain. But the estuary of the Liane, on whose right bank stood Gesoriacum, the village whose site is now covered by Boulogne, combined every advantage. Caesar, Latinizing its Celtic name—the port of Icht, or ‘the Channel harbour’—called it the Portus Itius. Gallic merchants sailed from it to the ports of Kent: from the time of Augustus it was the Roman port of embarkation for Britain, and at a later period the naval station of the Roman Channel Fleet. The estuary, longer, wider, and deeper than it is now, was protected from every gale by the bold bluff of land which on the west throws out the promontory of Alprech, and which then projected northward considerably beyond its present limit.[1288] Vessels of light draught could enter the harbour at low tide. Shipyards lined its banks. Roads connected it with the interior; and timber in abundance could be floated down the river from the forest of Boulogne. The heights that look down from the east upon the harbour, about half a mile south of the column which commemorates the assemblage of Napoleon’s ‘Grand Army’, offered an excellent site for the encampment of the force that was destined to protect the communications; and perhaps a detachment may have been posted on the opposite bank of the river.[1289] If the distance in a straight line to Britain was a little longer than from the creeks of Wissant, the passage, owing to the set of the tidal streams and the prevalence of south-westerly winds, was more convenient. Caesar therefore gave orders that vessels should be collected from the adjacent coasts, and assemble, along with the galleys which had been docked after the war with the Veneti, in the Portus Itius.
He attempts to obtain information about Britain from Gallic traders.
The summer was now far advanced; and Caesar saw his first expedition must be a mere reconnaissance: but, as he tells us, ‘he thought that it would be well worth his while merely to visit the island, see what the people were like, and make himself acquainted with the features of the country, the harbours, and the landing-places.’[1290] Though on a clear day he could see beyond the straits those ‘astonishing masses of cliff’ which haunted the imagination of Cicero,[1291] he was about to venture into an unknown land. The Italians of that time knew hardly anything of the island which they vaguely regarded as the end of the inhabited world, except that it produced tin, some of which found its way to the markets of the Mediterranean.[1292] Perhaps Cicero and other cultivated men had read extracts from the journal of Pytheas: but Pytheas was a discredited writer; and, after all, his description of the Britons who lived in the time of Alexander the Great would have been little more useful to Caesar than Bernier’s account of the empire of Aurangzeb would be to a traveller who intended to spend a winter in India. Caesar sent for traders from all parts of North-Eastern Gaul, and questioned them about the island:—How large was it? What tribes inhabited it? What were their methods of fighting, their manners and customs? What ports were capable of accommodating a large fleet? He failed to obtain the information which he required. Many commentators have insisted that the traders could have told him all that he wanted to know; and certainly it seems difficult to understand how they could have professed ignorance of the harbours without manifest contumacy: but at least as regards the other questions, the reason which Caesar assigns for their silence is sufficient:—‘even they know nothing of Britain except the coast and the parts opposite the various regions of Gaul.’[1293] Moreover, it must be remembered that Caesar asked them what harbours could shelter a large fleet; and as they were only acquainted with the harbours of Kent, none of which would fulfil this requirement, it is quite intelligible that even on this point they should have been unable to enlighten him. Still, they could have given valuable information about the Kentish coast; and the passage in which Strabo accounts for the hostility of the Veneti suggests that they kept silence from interested motives.[1294] They could not foresee that Caesar’s expeditions would powerfully stimulate British trade.
Gaius Volusenus sent to reconnoitre the opposite coast.
Thrown back upon his own resources, Caesar sent a military tribune, named Gaius Volusenus, in a galley to reconnoitre the opposite coast. Volusenus had distinguished himself in a campaign, conducted by one of Caesar’s generals, against the mountaineers of the upper Rhône: he possessed, as his later history proved, not merely a keen eye for the features of a country, but daring of that kind which characterized the sons of Zeruiah; and how highly Caesar thought of him is evident from the fact that he was the only military tribune whose name is mentioned with honour in the Commentaries.[1295]