Note 2956 — THE PLACE OF CAESAR’S LANDING IN BRITAIN

Napoleon III (Hist. de Jules César, ii, 175), after citing two irrelevant passages, asserts that ‘le post diem quartum de César doit se comprendre dans le sens de quatre jours révolus, sans compter le jour du débarquement’; and then, remarking that the storm broke out on the 30th of August, he concludes that ‘quatre jours pleins s’étaient écoulés depuis le débarquement; cela nous conduit au 26. César prit donc terre le 25 août.’ To make things perfectly clear, let us put the matter in this way:—the orthodox view is that, according to the common Roman method of reckoning, the fourth day after Monday would be Thursday; Napoleon’s view is that it would be Saturday! It is neither profitable nor exciting to slay the slain. I will therefore only remark that Napoleon’s interpretation of the words post diem quartum is peculiar to himself, and that it has been demolished by Merivale (Contemporary Review, iii, 1866, pp. 125-6) and, still more effectively, by Heller (Philologus, xxvi, 1867, pp. 674-6).

Long (Decline of the Roman Republic, iv, 169), remarking that ‘the Romans sometimes reckoned inclusively and sometimes not’, concludes that ‘the expression “on the fourth day” is ambiguous’. The famous jurist, F. C. von Savigny (System des heutigen römischen, Rechts, iv, 1841, pp. 602-16), collected a large number of examples of both methods, which both Merivale and Heller have overlooked; and L. Holzapfel (see p. 719, n. 1, infra) shows that Cicero often used the exclusive method, which, for numbers from ten upwards, appears to have been invariable (Th. Mommsen, Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar, 2nd ed., 1859, p. 163, n. 17, and L. Holzapfel, Röm. Chron., 1885, p. 353). Those, however, who are familiar with the language of the Commentaries will have no difficulty in concluding that Caesar himself, in that work, used the inclusive method. In B. G., vi, 33, § 4, he writes, discedens post diem VII sese reversurum confirmat; and in vi, 35, § 1, diesque adpetebat VII quem ad diem Caesar ... reverti constituerat. Therefore, as Merivale observes, ‘dies VII = post diem VII.’ See also Th. Mommsen, Die röm. Chron. bis auf Caesar, 2nd ed., 1859, p. 163, n. 317; L. Holzapfel, Röm. Chron., pp. 353-6; Philologus, xlix, 1890, p. 74; and Rice Holmes, Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul, 1899, pp. 723-5.