Note 3326 — THE PLACE OF CAESAR’S LANDING IN BRITAIN (continued 2)

The late Professor Rolleston (Sc. Papers, ii, 1884, p. 780) argued that by praeter Caesar meant ‘besides’. It is true that he used the word several times in this sense (H. Meusel, Lex. Caes., ii, 1186-7): but when he did so the meaning was always unmistakable; and, as Mr. Colbeck remarks, in his school edition (p. 49), ‘to say “there is timber of all sorts besides the beech and the fir” is hardly a natural expression, unless these two trees were the commonest form of timber [or were non-existent in Gaul], which they were not.’