MANY and large volumes have been written on the celebrated city of London, which now, beyond doubt, for magnitude, splendor, riches, and traffic, exceeds every city upon the globe: the famous Pekin of China only boasts itself to be larger. London, then called Trinobantum, was a considerable trading emporium in British times, and before Cæsar’s arrival here. But the greatest curiosity of London, and what renders it highly illustrious, has never been observed by any writer: to give some account of it, is the purpose of this paper.
When I resided in London in the former part of my life, I proposed to myself, as a subject of inquiry, for my excursions now and then on horseback round the circuit of the metropolis, to trace out the journeyings of Cæsar in his British expeditions. This I account the æra from whence we derive the certain intelligence of the state and affairs of our native country. I was pretty successful therein, and made many drawings of his camps, and mansions; several of which I then engraved with a design of printing the copious memoirs I had wrote concerning them.
No subject concerning our own country antiquities could be more noble. But what I mean to speak of at this time, is a camp of his, which I have long since observed no farther off than Pancras church.
In all my former travels, I ever proposed an entertainment of the mind, in inquiries into matters of antiquity, a former state of things in my own country: and now it is easy to imagine the pleasure to be found in an agreeable walk from my situation in Queen’s Square, through the fields that lead me to the footsteps of Cæsar, when, without going to foreign parts, I can tread the ground which he trod. By finding out several of his camps, I was enabled, off-hand, to distinguish them; and they are very different from all others we meet withal.
It was the method of Roman discipline, to make a camp every night, though they marched the next morning; but in an expedition like Cæsar’s, in a new and unknown country, he was to trust to his own head, and the arms of his troops, more than to banks and ditches: yet, for the sake of discipline, a camp must be made every night; it was their mansion, and as an home; where was the prætorium, or general’s tent, and the Prætorian cohorts, as his guards; it was the residence of the majesty of the Roman genius, in the person of the commander; it was as a fixed point, subservient to order and regular discipline military; where and whence every portion and subdivision of an army knew their regular appointment and action.
This camp was very small; designed but for a night’s abode, unless the exigence of affairs required some stay: but the third part of the army lying under arms every night, prevented the danger of a surprise.
Cæsar, led on by divine Providence, entered our country in the year before the vulgar æra of Christ 54. the second time, about the middle of the month of July, as we now reckon, in his own Julian kalendar. I shall not recapitulate what I have observed of the footsteps of this great man in Kent; I hesitate not in believing that Carvilius, one of the four kings, as called, who attacked his camp while he was on this side the Thames, lived at Guildford; the name of the place shows it; the river was called Villy, or Willy, a common British name for rivers; so that Carvilius was a local title of honour, as was the British custom, like that of our present nobility: so Casvelhan, Cæsar’s opponent, was king of the Cassii, Cogidubnus of the Dobuni, Togodumnus of the Dumnonii, Taeog being Dux in British. It was the method of the British princes thus to take the names of towns, and of people, as it was the method of their ancestors the Midianites; of which we find an instance in Josephus, Antiq. IV. 7. Rekam, a king there, of the same name as his city, the capital of all Arabia; now Petra.
Cæsar passed the Thames at Coway stakes, notwithstanding the stakes: the town of Chertsey preserves a memorial of his name, as Cherburg in France: he pursued the Britons along the bank of the Thames as far as Sheperton, where the stakes were placed, and there pitched his camp with the back of it upon the Thames. At his camp on Greenfield common, near Staines, a splendid embassy came to him from the Londoners; desiring his alliance and protection, and that he would restore their prince Mandubrace, who was then in his retinue. To his little camp, or prætorium, on this account he orders another to be drawn round it, for reception of these ambassadors, and their prince, together with forty hostages which he demanded, and corn for his army.
Upon this, ambassadors came to him from the Cenimani, people of Cambridgeshire; the Segontiaci, Hampshire; Ancalites, Buckinghamshire; Bibroci, about Berkshire; and Cassii, of Hertfordshire; submitting themselves to him. For them he orders another appendix to his camp, to receive them.
When business was done with them, he moves forward to attack Casvelhan, who was retreated into his fortified town at Watford. One of his camps thitherward, is to be seen very fair on Hounslow heath, in the way to Longford; which I showed to lord Hertford then president, and to lord Winchelsea vice-president, of the Antiquarian Society, in April, 1723; who measured it, and expressed the greatest pleasure at the sight.