Note 2452 — THE COAST BETWEEN CALAIS AND THE SOMME IN THE TIME OF CAESAR

Rev. sc., 2e sér., xv, 1878-9 (1879), pp. 90-3. According to M. V. J. Vaillant (Classis Britannica, 1888, pp. 66-7), an inscription (SALINATORES CIVITATIS MORINORVM), ‘cité par I. Gruter, nous rapporte à une époque où la mer pénétrait librement jusqu’au delà de Saint-Omer et où les marais salants étaient exploités sur les rives de ce large golfe par les Morins et les Ménapiens.’ M. Vaillant gives neither the reference nor the date of the inscription: it was found at Ariminum in Cisalpine Gaul, and makes mention of the emperor Vespasian; and it is reproduced in Gruter’s Inscr. ant. totius orbis Romani, ii, 1707, p. MXCVI, 4. Needless to say, it does not prove that the ‘gulf’ existed in Vespasian’s time, but only that there were salt-works in the territory of the Morini.