Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar

by T. Rice Holmes

Commius had of course been liberally rewarded for his services: but in the great Gallic insurrection of 52 B.C. he had thrown in his lot with Vercingetorix; and he was one of the four generals to whose joint direction was entrusted the command of the Pan-Gallic host which marched to relieve the latter when he was beleaguered in Alesia. ‘Caesar,’ we read in the seventh Commentary, ‘had found Commius a loyal and serviceable agent in former years in Britain; and, in acknowledgement of these services, he had granted his tribe immunity from forced contributions, restored to it its rights and laws, and placed the Morini under his authority. Yet so intense was the unanimous determination of the entire Gallic people to vindicate their liberty and recover their ancient military renown, that no favours, no recollection of former friendship, had any influence with them, but all devoted their energies and resources to the prosecution of the war.’[1466] Patriotism, however, was not the only motive of Commius: he had a reason for the bitterness of his hostility, which Caesar does not mention, but which we learn from Caesar’s friend, Aulus Hirtius, who wrote the last of the Commentaries on the Gallic War. In the winter of 53-52 B.C., while Caesar was absent in Cisalpine Gaul, Commius took an active part in forming the nucleus of the coalition of which Vercingetorix was destined to be the leader; and Labienus, who found out his designs, commissioned the tribune Volusenus to assassinate him. Commius escaped with a severe wound; and in the year which followed the overthrow of Vercingetorix he formed, in conjunction with a chief of the Bellovaci, a fresh coalition against Caesar, who was obliged to exert all his strength in order to subdue it. For some time Commius led the life of a brigand chief, and succeeded in capturing several convoys which were on their way to Caesar’s winter camp in the country of the Atrebates. He made himself so formidable that Mark Antony sent Volusenus to make a second attempt to kill him; and although he again escaped, he ultimately surrendered on the express condition that he should never again be brought face to face with any Roman.

His conquests in Britain.

When and why Commius took up his abode in Britain is not known; but some probability may be claimed for the conjecture that his motive was to check the encroachments of the Catuvellauni.[1467] No coins have been found which can with absolute certainty be ascribed to him:[1468] but it is admitted that he issued coins before Tasciovanus, who, as we have seen, began to reign at least as early as 30 B.C.;[1469] and before his death he became overlord of the maritime tribes of South-Eastern Britain on the right bank of the Thames.[1470] He Tincommius, Verica, and Eppillus. left three sons, Tincommius, Verica, and Eppillus; and almost all their coins have been found in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire.[1471] Each of these sons described himself on his coins as REX, and each of them appears to have had a kingdom of his own, Tincommius ruling the Regni, who inhabited Sussex, Eppillus the Cantii, and Verica the Atrebates.[1472] The dominions of Verica cannot, however, be certainly defined. There is some reason to suppose that he held sway over the Atrebates of Belgium as well as over those of Britain; for certain coins found in the north of France, and closely resembling others that are common in the south-eastern counties of England, are inscribed with a monogram which appears to denote the abbreviation VE.[1473] It should seem that Eppillus, at some time, was king of the Atrebates, for some of his coins have the legend CALLEV,—an abbreviated form of Calleva, the chief town of that tribe.[1474] Certain coins, however, exist which apparently bear the names of all the three brothers, a fact which can only be explained on the theory that at one time they exercised a joint sovereignty over the dominions which had belonged to their father;[1475] while others are inscribed with the names of Verica and Eppillus only.[1476] It has been assumed that these coins were not struck until after the death of Tincommius;[1477] but another explanation seems possible. Why did Tincommius, alone of the three brothers, solicit the protection of Augustus, and why did he undertake the journey to Rome in conjunction with Dubnovellaunus? Numismatic evidence has led to the belief that Dubnovellaunus had once ruled over the Cantii;[1478] and if so, Eppillus, who afterwards acquired dominion over the same tribe, probably dispossessed him. Dubnovellaunus, as we have already seen, appears to have once ruled over the Trinovantes as well, and to have been expelled from their country by Cunobeline. These successive reverses may have been the motive for the journey which he undertook to Rome; and when we consider that certain coins bear the names of Eppillus and Verica, without that of Tincommius, which on others appears side by side with theirs, it seems possible that Tincommius, finding that his brothers were leagued together against him, threw in his lot with another prince who had been as unfortunate as himself. This conjecture is perhaps somewhat strengthened by the fact that one of the coins of Tincommius bears, along with TIN—the abbreviated form of his name—the inscription DV,[1479] which has baffled the acumen of numismatists, but which, on the analogy of TC—one of the abbreviations of TINCOMMIOS[1480]—may possibly stand for DUBNOVELLAUNOS.[1481]

How the fugitives were received we are not told; but it is certain that Augustus did not grant them armed assistance; nor is there any evidence that they ever recovered power. Augustus contemplates an invasion of Britain. As early as 34 B.C. Augustus had marched into Gaul with the intention, as was generally believed, of invading Britain; but, owing to an insurrection in Dalmatia, he was compelled to abandon his resolve.[1482] For several years, however, it was expected that he would sooner or later complete the work which his adoptive father had begun; and this expectation was voiced in the poetry of the time. About the year 30 B.C. Vergil[1483] prayed that ‘far off Thule’ might obey Augustus; and Horace, in odes which seem to have been officially inspired, called upon Fortune to preserve him in his expedition against the Britons, ‘remotest inhabitants of the world,’[1484] and foretold that when they and the Parthians were brought under the imperial sway he would be hailed a god upon earth.[1485] In 27 and again in 26 B.C. Augustus marched into Gaul with the ostensible purpose of invading Britain, but again without result.[1486] But the latest of these dates was earlier than the flight of Tincommius and Dubnovellaunus; and thenceforward Augustus abandoned all thought of Why he abandoned his intention. invading Britain.[1487] The cause of his inaction is discernible in two passages of Strabo’s Geography,[1488] which give the official explanation of the imperial policy. The conquest of Britain would be very costly; and it was unlikely that the revenue would be more than sufficient to defray the expense of the garrison and the administration: the duties levied at the Gallic harbours on goods imported from and exported to Britain were more productive than any tribute; besides, Britain was too weak to be dangerous, and its conquest was therefore unnecessary. Possibly we may gather from the prominence which is given in the monument of Ancyra to the petition of Tincommius and Dubnovellaunus that it was officially interpreted as a sign of the virtual submission of the Britons.

Continued growth of Roman influence in Britain.

This confidence indeed is not difficult to understand. The conjecture that at the courts of Commius, of Tasciovanus, and of Cunobeline Latin was the official speech[1489] may perhaps be somewhat rash: but at all events Latin was the language of the mint; and perhaps it is not unreasonable to suppose that, as some Pannonian Celts were versed in Latin literature,[1490] a Briton here and there was equally accomplished. Roman silver coins were already eagerly accepted, on account of their purity, in Southern Britain.[1491] And if Rufina, the young British wife of a Roman, whose praises Martial sang,[1492] could hold her own in Italian society, we may realize that before the Roman conquest Britain had begun to be Romanized.

Cessation of British coinage in certain districts which had belonged to the sons of Commius.

With the sons of Commius the British coinage in the districts which they had ruled, with the sole exception of Kent, came to an end.[1493] It may be that the inhabitants had begun, like the Gauls with whom they traded, to use only Roman money; but, as the coinage of Kent continued, the more probable explanation would seem to be that they were no longer able to make head against the King of the Catuvellauni.[1494]

Tincommius and Dubnovellaunus were not the only British Relations of Cunobeline with Rome. princes who paid their respects to the emperor. ‘In our time,’ says Strabo, ‘various British chieftains gained the friendship of Augustus Caesar by sending embassies and performing services; placed votive offerings in the Capitol; and made almost the whole island familiar to the Romans.’[1495] Among them, we can hardly doubt, was Cunobeline, whose coins, like those of his father, testify that Roman mythology had already taken root on British soil,[1496] and who, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth,[1497] voluntarily paid tribute to Rome. If there is any truth in Geoffrey’s statement, the tribute must have been the price paid for moral support. During the reign of Tiberius, who adhered to the conservative and moderate policy of his stepfather, the relations of Cunobeline and of Britain with Rome apparently remained unchanged: history only relates that some soldiers of Germanicus, who had been shipwrecked on the British coast, were sent back by British princes.[1498] It can hardly be doubted, however, that the conquest of Britain was contemplated by Roman statesmen as inevitable: to leave independent the Celtic island which was so near the conquered Celtic mainland His exiled son, Adminius, takes refuge with Caligula. was unnatural, and could not be permanently safe.[1499] The latter part of Cunobeline’s reign was clouded by domestic quarrels; and in A.D. 40, when he was an old man, his son Adminius,[1500] whom he had driven into exile, threw himself on the mercy of Caligula, who was at the time in Gaul, and offered to surrender his father’s kingdom. The feather-pated emperor sent messengers to Rome, who were charged to announce to the Senate in the temple of Mars the submission of the whole island;[1501] but the magniloquent and mendacious message testifies not only to his vanity but to the fame of Cunobeline.

Death of Cunobeline.