History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2. Napoleon III

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СКАЧАТЬ in vain their assailants offered them their lives if they would surrender. They defended themselves valiantly during more than four hours, until the arrival of all the cavalry, which Cæsar sent to their succour. Seized with terror, the Morini threw down their arms, and were nearly all massacred.360

      Chastisement of the Morini and Menapii.

      VI. On the day after the return of the army to the continent, Labienus received orders to reduce, with the two legions brought back from Britain, the revolted Morini, whom the marshes, dried up by the summer heats, no longer sheltered from attack, as they had done the year before. On another side, Q. Titurius Sabinus and L. Cotta rejoined Cæsar, after laying waste and burning the territory of the Menapii, who had taken refuge in the depths of their forests. The army was established in winter quarters among the Belgæ. The Senate, when it received the news of these successes, decreed twenty days of thanksgiving.361

      Order for Rebuilding the Fleet. Departure for Illyria.

      VII. Before he left for Italy, Cæsar ordered his lieutenants to repair the old ships, and to construct during the winter a greater number, of which he fixed the form and dimensions. That it might be easier to load them and draw them on land, he recommended them to be made a little lower than those which were in use in Italy; this disposition presented no inconvenience, for he had remarked that the waves of the channel rose to a less elevation than those of the Mediterranean, which he attributed wrongly to the frequency of the motions of the tide and ebb. He desired also to have greater breadth in the vessels on account of the baggage and beasts of burden he had to transport, and ordered them to be arranged so as to be able to employ oars, the use of which was facilitated by the small elevation of the side-planks. According to Dio Cassius, these ships held the mean between the light vessels of the Romans and the transport ships of the Gauls.362 He procured from Spain all the rigging necessary for the equipment of these vessels.

      Having given these instructions, Cæsar went into Italy to hold the assembly of Citerior Gaul, and afterwards started for Illyria, on the news that the Pirustes (peoples of the Carnic Alps) were laying the frontier waste. Immediately on his arrival, by prompt and energetic measures, he put a stop to these disorders, and re-established tranquillity.363

      Points of Embarking and Landing. Date of the Arrival in Britain.

      VIII. We have indicated, in the preceding pages, Boulogne as the port at which Cæsar embarked, and Deal as the point where he landed in Britain. Before explaining our reasons, it will not be useless to state that in this first expedition, as well as in the second, the account of which will follow, the places of embarking and landing were the same. In the first place, the terms used in the “Commentaries” lead us to suppose it; next, as we will endeavour to prove, he could only start from Boulogne; and lastly, according to the relation of Dio Cassius, he landed on both occasions at the same spot.364 It is, then, convenient to treat here the question for both expeditions, and to anticipate in regard to certain facts.

      Writers of great repute have placed the Portus Itius, some at Wissant, others at Calais, Etaples, or Mardyke; but the Emperor Napoleon I, in his Précis des Guerres de César, has not hesitated in preferring Boulogne. It will be easy for us to prove in effect that the port of Boulogne is the Portus Itius, which alone answers the necessities of the text, and at the same time satisfies the requirements of a considerable expedition.365

      To proceed logically, let us suppose the absence of all kind of data. The only means to approach the truth would then be to adopt, as the place where Cæsar embarked, the port mentioned most anciently by historians; for, in all probability, the point of the coast rendered famous by the first expeditions to Britain would have been chosen in preference for subsequent voyages. Now, as early as the reign of Augustus, Agrippa caused a road to be constructed, which went from Lyons to the ocean, across the country of the Bellovaci and the Ambiani,366 and was to end at Gesoriacum (Boulogne), since the Itinerary of Antoninus traces it thus.367 It was at Boulogne that Caligula caused a pharos to be raised,368 and that Claudius embarked for Britain.369 It was thence that Lupicinus, under the Emperor Julian,370 and Theodosius, under the Emperor Valentinian,371 Constantius Chlorus,372 and lastly, in 893, the Danes,373 set sail. This port, then, was known and frequented a short time after Cæsar, and continued to be used during the following centuries, while Wissant and Calais are only mentioned by historians three or four centuries later. Lastly, at Boulogne, Roman antiquities are found in abundance; none exist at Calais or Wissant. Cæsar’s camp, of which certain authors speak as situated near Wissant, is only a small modern redoubt, incapable of containing more than 200 men.

      To this first presumption in favour of Boulogne we may add another: the ancient authors speak only of a single port on the coast of Gaul nearest to Britain; therefore, they very probably give different names to the same place, among which names figures that of Gesoriacum. Florus374 calls the place where Cæsar embarked the port of the Morini. Strabo375 says that this port was called Itius; Pomponius Mela, who lived less than a century after Cæsar, cites Gesoriacum as the port of the Morini best known;376 Pliny expresses himself in analogous terms.377

      Let us now show that the port of Boulogne agrees with the conditions specified in the “Commentaries.”

      1. Cæsar, in his first expedition, repaired to the country of the Morini, whence the passage from Gaul to Britain is shortest. Now, Boulogne is actually situated on the territory of that people which, occupying the western part of the department of the Pas-de-Calais, was the nearest to England.

      2. In his second expedition, Cæsar embarked at the port Itius, which he had found to offer the most convenient passage for proceeding to Britain, distant from the continent about thirty Roman miles. Now, even at the present day, it is from Boulogne that the passage is easiest to arrive in England, because the favourable 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” СКАЧАТЬ