History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2. Napoleon III
winds are more frequent than at Wissant and Calais. As to the distance of about thirty miles (forty-four kilometres), Cæsar gives it evidently as representing the distance from Britain to the Portus Itius: it is exactly the distance from Boulogne to Dover, whereas Wissant and Calais are farther from Dover, the one twenty, the other twenty-three Roman miles.
3. To the north, at eight miles’ distance from the Portus Itius, existed another port, where the cavalry embarked. Boulogne is the only port on this coast at eight miles from which, towards the north, we meet with another, that of Ambleteuse. The distance of eight miles is exact, not as a bird flies, but following the course of the hills. To the north of Wissant, on the contrary, there is only Sangatte or Calais. Now Sangatte is six Roman miles from Wissant, and Calais eleven.
4. The eighteen ships of the upper port were prevented by contrary winds from rallying the fleet at the principal port. We understand easily that these ships, detained at Ambleteuse by winds from the south-west or west-south-west, which prevail frequently in the Channel, were unable to rally the fleet at Boulogne. As to the two ships of burthen, which, at the return of the first expedition, could not make land in the same port as the fleet, but were dragged by the current more to the south, nothing is said in the “Commentaries” which would show that they entered a port; it is probable, indeed, that they were driven upon the shore. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that they may have landed in the little fishers’ ports of Hardelot and Camiers. (See Plate 15.)
We see from what precedes that the port of Boulogne agrees with the text of the “Commentaries.” But the peremptory reason why, in our opinion, the port where Cæsar embarked is certainly that of Boulogne, is, that it would have been impossible to prepare elsewhere an expedition against England, Boulogne being the only place which united the conditions indispensable for collecting the fleet and embarking the troops. In fact, it required a port capable of containing either eighty transport ships and galleys, as in the first expedition, or 800 ships, as in the second; and extensive enough to allow the ships to approach the banks and embark the troops in a single tide. Now these conditions could only be fulfilled where a river sufficiently deep, flowing into the sea, formed a natural port; and, on the part of the coasts nearest to England, we find only at Boulogne a river, the Liane, which presents all these advantages. Moreover, it must not be forgotten, all the coast has been buried in sand. It appears that it is not more than a century and a half that the natural basin of Boulogne has been partly filled; and, according to tradition and geological observations, the coast advanced more than two kilomètres, forming two jetties, between which the high tide filled the valley of the Liane to a distance of four kilomètres inland.
None of the ports situated to the north of Boulogne could serve as the basis of Cæsar’s expedition, for none could receive so great a number of vessels, and we cannot suppose that Cæsar would have left them on the open coast, during more than a month, exposed to the tempests of the ocean, which were so fatal to him on the coasts of Britain.
Boulogne was the only point of the coast where Cæsar could place in safety his depôts, his supplies, and his spare stores. The heights which command the port offered advantageous positions for establishing his camps,378 and the little river Liane allowed him to bring with ease the timber and provisions he required. At Calais he would have found nothing but flats and marshes, at Wissant nothing but sands, as indicated by etymology of the word (white sand).
It is worthy of remark, that the reasons which determined Cæsar to start from Boulogne were the same which decided the choice of Napoleon I. in 1804. In spite of the difference in the times and in the armies, the nautical and practical conditions had undergone no change. “The Emperor chose Boulogne,” says M. Thiers, “because that port had long been pointed out as the best point of departure of an expedition directed against England; he chose Boulogne, because its port is formed by the little river Liane, which allowed him, with some labour, to place in safety from 1,200 to 1,300 vessels.”
We may point out, as another similarity, that certain flat boats, constructed by order of the Emperor, had nearly the same dimensions as those employed by Cæsar. “There required,” says the historian of the ‘Consulate and the Empire,’ “boats which would not need more, when they were laden, than seven or eight feet of water to float, and which would go with oars, so as to pass, either in calm or fog, and strand without breaking on the flat English shores. The great gun-boats carried four pieces of large bore, and were rigged like brigs, that is, with two masts, manœuvred by twenty-four sailors, and capable of carrying a company of a hundred men, with its staff, and its arms and munitions… These boats offered a vexatious inconvenience, that of falling to the leeward, that is, yielding to the currents. This was the result of their clumsy build, which presented more hold to the water than their masts to the wind.”379
Cæsar’s ships experienced the same inconvenience, and, drawn away by the currents in his second expedition, they went to the leeward rather far in the north.
We have seen that Cæsar’s transport boats were flat-bottomed, that they could go either with sails or oars; carry if necessary 150 men, and be loaded and drawn on dry ground with promptness (ad celeritatem onerandi subductionesque). They had thus a great analogy with the flat-bottomed boats of 1804. But there is more, for the Emperor Napoleon had found it expedient to imitate the Roman galleys. “He had seen the necessity,” says M. Thiers, “of constructing boats still lighter and more movable than the preceding, drawing only two or three feet of water, and calculated for landing anywhere. They were large boats, narrow, sixty feet long, having a movable deck which could be laid or withdrawn at will, and were distinguished from the others by the name of pinnaces. These large boats were provided with sixty oars, carried at need a light sail, and moved with extreme swiftness. When sixty soldiers, practised in handling the oar as well as the sailors, set them in motion, they glided over the sea like the light boats dropped from the sides of our great vessels, and surprised the eye by the rapidity of their course.”
The point of landing has been equally the subject of a host of contrary suppositions. St. Leonards, near Hastings, Richborough (Rutupiœ), near Sandwich, Lymne, near Hythe, and Deal, have all been proposed.
The first of these localities, we think, must be rejected, for it answers none of the conditions of the relation given in the “Commentaries,” which inform us that, in the second expedition, the fleet sailed with a gentle wind from the south-west. Now, this is the least favourable of all winds for taking the direction of Hastings, when starting from the coasts of the department of the Pas-de-Calais. In this same passage, Cæsar, after having been drawn away from his course during four hours of the night, perceived, at daybreak, that he had left Britain to his left. This fact cannot possibly be explained if he had intended to land at St. Leonards. As to Richborough, this locality is much too far to the north. Why should Cæsar have gone so far as Sandwich, since he could have landed at Walmer and Deal? Lymne, or rather Romney Marsh, will suit no better. This shore is altogether unfit for a landing-place, and none of the details furnished by the “Commentaries” can be made to suit it.380
There remains Deal; but before describing this place, we must examine if, on his first passage, when Cæsar sailed, after remaining five days opposite the cliffs of Dover, the current of which he took advantage carried him towards the north or towards the south. (See Page 177.) Two celebrated English astronomers, Halley and Mr. Airy, have studied this question; but they agree neither on the place where Cæsar embarked, nor on that where he landed. We may, nevertheless, arrive at a solution of this problem by seeking the day on which Cæsar landed. The year of the expedition is known by the consulate of Pompey and Crassus – it was the year 699. The month in which the departure took place is known by the following data, derived from the “Commentaries;” the fine season was near its end, exuigua parte œstatis reliqua (IV. 20); the wheat had been reaped everywhere, except in one single spot, omni ex reliquis partibus demesso frumento, una pars erat reliqua (IV. 32); the equinox was near at hand, propinqua die œquinoctii (IV. 36). These data point sufficiently clearly to the month of August. Lastly, we have, relative to the day of landing, the following indications: – After four days past since his arrival in Britain… there arose suddenly so violent a tempest…
The camp of Labienus, during the second expedition, was, no doubt, established on the site now occupied by the high town. From thence it commanded the surrounding country, the sea, and the lower course of the Liane.
What is now called
Mr. Lewin appears to have represented as accurately as possible the appearance of Romney Marsh in the time of Cæsar, in the plate which accompanies his work. The part not covered by the sea extended, no doubt, as he represents it, from the bay of Romney to near Hythe, where it terminated in a bank of pebbles of considerable extent. But it appears to us that it would have been difficult for the Roman army to land on a bank of pebbles at the very foot of the rather steep heights of Lymne. Mr. Lewin places the Roman army, in the first expedition, at the foot of the heights, on the bank of pebbles itself, surrounded on almost all sides by the sea. In the second expedition, he supposes it to have been on the heights, at the village of Lymne; and, to explain how Cæsar joined his fleet to the camp by retrenchments common to both, he admits that this fleet was drawn on land as far as the slope of the heights, and shut up in a square space of 300 mètres each side, because we find there the ruins of an ancient castle called