PORTUS ITIUS

I. REVIEW OF THE CONTROVERSY

The greater part of the vast literature which has accumulated on the question of the identity of the Portus Itius is obsolete;2665 and it is now sometimes taken for granted that the choice is restricted to Wissant and Boulogne. Nevertheless, as I am determined to set the question at rest, I shall examine the claims of three other ports, which, in recent times, have found advocates whose names command respect,—the estuary of the Somme, Ambleteuse, and Calais.

The question began to be seriously discussed in the fifteenth century. The Italian geographer, Raymond de Marliano, identified the Portus Itius with Calais;2666 and in the following century the famous Ortelius2667 did the same. Chifflet2668 and other scholars, well known in their day, chose St. Omer, situated, as they believed, at the head of a wide and shallow gulf, which was erroneously assumed to have covered the low-lying lands between Sangatte and Dunkirk.2669 Adrien de Valois2670 declared for Étaples; and numerous other absurd suggestions were defended with more or less ingenuity. From Dieppe to Ghent there was not a harbour, a roadstead, or a fishing port, which had not its champion. But the controversy soon began to centre itself between Wissant and Boulogne. Camden2671 was the first to declare for Wissant. Du Fresne2672 (commonly called Du Cange), one of the most illustrious French scholars of the seventeenth century, defended its claims against Sanson; and d’Anville,2673 Henry,2674 Walckenaer,2675 and Sir Richard Colt Hoare2676 followed his example. Cluver2677 wrote briefly but effectively on the other side; and Scaliger2678 characteristically exclaimed that those who did not, like himself, decide for Boulogne, were lunatics. During the last half-century, although Wissant has not lacked able defenders, the case for Boulogne has been tending to prevail. But the arguments of Haigneré, of Napoleon the Third, of Desjardins, and finally of Rudolf Schneider failed to silence opposition. Men so able as George Long, Dr. Guest, Dean Merivale, Dr. Hodgkin, Karl Müller, and Alphonse Wauters remained unconvinced: Freeman2679 roundly asserted that ‘since Dr. Guest’s exposition of the matter it is hardly necessary to say that “Portus Itius” or “Iccius” is not Boulogne’: Professor Ridgeway and Mr. H. E. Malden, in their animated controversy2680 on the question of Caesar’s landing-place, agreed in identifying the harbour from which he sailed with Wissant: more recently Dr. Emil Hübner2681 has done the same; and the well-known Caesarian scholar, Professor H. J. Heller, at the close of a pungent criticism2682 of Schneider’s dissertation, concluded that the identity of the Portus Itius was still an open question. Mr. H. F. Tozer,2683 indeed, has recently pronounced the question to be insoluble; and Mommsen,2684 who in 1889 still adhered to his old belief, that ‘among the many possibilities most may perhaps be said in favour of the view that the Itian port ... is to be sought near Ambleteuse’, nevertheless remained convinced that ‘it requires the implicit faith of local topographers to proceed to the determination of the locality with such data’.

Evidently, then, unless the problem is to be abandoned in despair, there is room for another treatise. But this treatise must justify its existence. I have not ‘the implicit faith of local topographers’: but there are more data than Mommsen had leisure to examine; and the locality can be determined with absolute certainty.

There is indeed a summary way of dealing with the question which has long since satisfied practical men: doubt is confined to the minds of scholars and of those who look to them for guidance. Men who are familiar with war and who have a sufficient knowledge of the conditions of navigation in the Straits of Dover know that there was only one port on the north-eastern coast of Gaul which would have answered all Caesar’s requirements, and that Caesar would not have made a foolish choice. Accordingly the greatest of modern soldiers affirmed without hesitation that the greatest soldier of Rome had sailed to Britain from Boulogne. But this reasoning, perhaps because of its simplicity, has not seemed conclusive to the learned world.

II. THE DATA FURNISHED BY CAESAR, STRABO, AND PTOLEMY

Caesar says that, before his first expedition to Britain, he sent Gaius Volusenus to reconnoitre the British coast and ascertain what harbours were capable of accommodating a large fleet, and that he himself marched with his whole force for the country of the Morini, ‘because the shortest passage to Britain was from their country’ (quod inde erat brevissimus in Britanniam traiectus); and he goes on to say that he ordered ships from the neighbouring districts, and likewise the fleet which he had built in the previous summer for the war with the Veneti, to assemble there. He set sail soon after midnight with about 80 transports, some ships of war, and some small fast-sailing vessels (speculatoria navigia) from a port which he does not name, and sent his cavalry to ‘a further port’ (in ulteriorem portum) about 8 Roman miles off, with orders to embark there in eighteen transports, which had been prevented by contrary winds from reaching the port whence he himself sailed, and to follow him. In another chapter he speaks of the ulterior portus as superior portus; and it is admitted that this port was either north or east of the one from which he himself sailed. On the fourth day after he landed in Britain (the day of landing being doubtless reckoned as the first day2685) the eighteen transports set sail. They were getting close to Britain and were descried from the Roman camp when a storm suddenly arose, and none of them could keep on its course, but some were carried back to the place from which they had started, that is to say, to the superior portus; while the rest were driven down ‘in great peril to the lower and more westerly part of the island’ (ad inferiorem partem insulae, quae est propius solis occasum magno suo cum periculo deicerentur), whence, after anchoring for a time and shipping a quantity of water, they were compelled to stand out to sea, and ran for the Continent. When Caesar returned to Gaul, two of his ships were unable to reach ‘the same ports’ (eosdem portus) as the rest of the fleet, and were carried ‘a little further down’ (paulo infra). Before his second expedition he assembled a fleet of about 540 transports and 28 ships of war at the Portus Itius, ‘from which port he had ascertained that the passage to Britain was most convenient,2686 being about 30 [Roman] miles from the Continent’ (quo ex portu commodissimum in Britanniam traiectum esse cognoverat, circiter milium passuum XXX transmissum a continenti). His entire flotilla amounted to more than 800 sail, as it included privately owned vessels. The transports were of small draught and comparatively broad, and were constructed for rowing as well as sailing. Caesar was delayed at the Portus Itius for about 25 days by north-westerly winds.2687 His entire army, which was with him all that time, amounted to 8 legions and 4000 cavalry. He set sail about sunset, accompanied by 5 legions and 2000 cavalry, with a light south-westerly wind, or, to speak more accurately, the wind called Africus, which may have blown from any quarter between south-west and W. by S. ⅓ S. Labienus was left behind with 3 legions and 2000 cavalry ‘to protect the ports’ (ut portus tueretur), which implies that on the second expedition, as on the first, Caesar thought it necessary to keep more than one port under his control; and during his absence Labienus built 60 ships.2688

Strabo,2689 evidently referring to Caesar’s first expedition, says that he sailed from ‘the Itian’ [naval station?] (τὸ Ἴτιον), and that the length of his voyage to the point which he reached ‘about the fourth hour’ was 320 stades, which is equivalent to 40 Roman miles.

Ptolemy2690 mentions the Itian promontory. Its longitude, he says, was 22° 15′, and its latitude 53° 30′; and he places it on the west of Gesoriacum, or Boulogne. The longitude of Gesoriacum, he says, was 22° 30′, and its latitude 53° 30′.

III. CAESAR SAILED FROM THE PORTUS ITIUS ON BOTH HIS EXPEDITIONS

It is necessary to inquire whether Caesar sailed from the same port on both his expeditions; for he mentions the ulterior portus only in connexion with the first; and if on that occasion he sailed from the Portus Itius, the search for the Portus Itius is conditioned by the existence of the ulterior portus. Drumann,2691 remarking that Caesar chose the Portus Itius in 54 B.C. because he had ascertained that the passage from it to the island was the most convenient, argues that ‘before it was consequently unknown to him’, and that ‘at first he sought the shortest passage’. Long,2692 on the other hand, insists that when Caesar says that he had ascertained that the passage from the Portus Itius was the most convenient, he apparently means ‘that he had by his first voyage found out that this was the best place to sail from’. ‘His first voyage,’ Long continues, ‘was very lucky, and there was no reason to change his place of embarkation, particularly as he intended to land, and did land, at the place where he had landed before. Besides this, when he speaks (v. 8) of his landing-place on the second voyage, he says, “qua optimum esse egressum superiore aestate cognoverat”; the same form of expression that he uses in speaking of the place of embarkation (v. 2), except that he does not there use the words “superiore aestate”.’ I may observe that it is not quite true that Caesar in 54 B.C. ‘intended to land, and did land, at the place where he had landed before’.2693 On the other hand, Mr. H. E. Malden has remarked (though he has since abandoned the conclusion to which his remarks led him) that Caesar ‘names the second [port] and does not name the first ... he especially mentions that he disembarked on both occasions at the same place, he gives himself every opportunity for saying that he sailed from the same port, if he did so, but yet he never says it’.2694 Strabo admittedly implies that in the first expedition Caesar’s point of departure was the Portus Itius: but his testimony does not settle the question; for he may only have been putting his own construction on Caesar’s words. Rudolf Schneider2695 concludes that it is impossible to prove that the Portus Itius was the starting-point of both voyages, but that it most probably was, because Caesar, before his first expedition, had stayed long enough in the country of the Morini to find out the most convenient harbour. I go further, and shall prove, in the course of this discussion, that, on his first as on his second expedition, Caesar sailed from the Portus Itius.2696

IV. THE VALUE OF CAESAR’S ESTIMATE OF THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE PORTUS ITIUS AND BRITAIN

Rudolf Schneider2697 insists that it is idle to lay stress on Caesar’s estimate of the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain, first, because he had no means of making an accurate calculation, and, secondly, because we cannot tell whether he reckoned the distance to the nearest point of Britain or to his own landing-place. As regards correspondence with Caesar’s estimate, Schneider continues, there is nothing to choose between Boulogne, Wissant, and Calais: Dover is 34 Roman miles from Boulogne, 25 from Wissant, 28 from Calais. It might perhaps be argued that, if Caesar took his own landing-place as the terminus, it would be hardly safe to ignore his estimate. For Wissant is 27 Roman miles from Deal, and Boulogne 39; and, assuming that Caesar landed near Hythe, Wissant is 32 Roman miles from that port, and Boulogne 37. It appears, however, to me almost certain that Caesar’s estimate referred to the distance from the Portus Itius to the nearest frequented port of Britain;2698 and it must not be forgotten that the ancient writers generally overestimated the distance from one port to another.2699 Moreover, it is not absolutely certain that Caesar estimated the distance of the Portus Itius from Britain at 30 Roman miles. XXX is indeed found in all the extant MSS.;2700 but as Strabo unquestionably used the Commentaries when he wrote his notice of Caesar’s voyage, and estimated its length as 320 stades, it is not improbable that he found in his copy the number XXXX.2701 Schneider, however, points out that Strabo’s estimate of the length of the south coast of Britain differs from Caesar’s; and the accuracy of the MSS., as regards the number XXX, may perhaps, as he says, be supported by a comparison of Pliny with Caesar. Pliny2702 says that the shortest passage between Ireland and Britain is 30 miles, and Caesar2703 says that the passage from Ireland to Britain is equal in length to the passage from Britain to Gaul. On the whole, we may conclude that Caesar’s estimate of the distance between the Portus Itius and Britain does not help us to decide whether the Portus Itius is to be identified with Wissant or with Boulogne. But, in considering the arguments for the identity of the Portus Itius with the mouth of the Somme, Caesar’s estimate must obviously be taken into account.2704

V. THE ESTUARY OF THE SOMME

The advocate of the Somme was the late Astronomer-Royal, Sir George Airy. His arguments shall be considered for the benefit of those who are influenced by his great reputation; but one fact, which he ignores, is alone sufficient to wreck his theory. If Caesar sailed from the mouth of the Somme, the superior portus, from which his cavalry transports sailed was, as Airy of course maintains, the mouth of the Authie, and the place where he landed in Britain was, as Airy likewise maintains, Pevensey. Therefore, on Airy’s theory, the cavalry transports, when they were approaching Britain and were seen in the offing from Caesar’s camp, were approaching Pevensey; and the gale which prevented them from reaching their destination and drove some of them ‘in great peril’ (magno cum periculo) westward down the coast, carried the others back to the mouth of the Authie.2705 But, as the harbour-master of Dover remarked to me, and as any one may see for himself who has the most rudimentary knowledge of seamanship, it would have been utterly impossible for them to fetch the mouth of that river.

But to timid reasoners this may appear too summary a method of disposing of Airy’s theory. Let us then hear what he has to say.

First, Airy maintains that Caesar, when he says that he ‘set out for the country of the Morini’ (in Morinos proficiscitur), merely implies that he arrived ‘near it or close to it’, not necessarily that he actually entered it. He insists that in every instance in which Caesar ‘uses the inflexions or derivatives of “proficiscor”’ ‘another sentence or another clause is required to denote arrival at the journey’s end’.2706

Now Caesar uses proficisci with in thirty-five times. If the reader will turn to the lists of those passages in Meusel’s Lexicon Caesarianum (ii, 96, 1240), he will find that in almost every instance in which Caesar says that he himself or any one else ‘started for’ or was about to ‘start for’ this or that place, the context proves that the place was reached. Of course the proof is generally furnished by ‘another sentence or another clause’, or by more than one other sentence. But this is not always the case.2707 And for the passage in question similar proof is forthcoming. Immediately after telling us that he marched for the country of the Morini, Caesar goes on to say that he ordered his fleet to assemble there.2708 As Long sensibly remarks,2709 ‘when a man says that he “marches for” or “towards the country of the Morini because the passage from there to Britain was the shortest”; that he ordered all his ships to come there; and that while he was waiting “in these parts” (in his locis2710) to get his ships ready, ambassadors from a large part of the Morini came to him, there is only one conclusion, which is, that he was in the country of the Morini and sailed from it.’ If Caesar had removed his ships from the country where he had assembled them and had sailed from some other place, he would surely have said something to warn his readers against drawing the conclusion which, to every one except Airy, has always appeared inevitable.

Secondly, Airy points to the passage2711 in which Caesar relates that while he was collecting ships for the first expedition envoys came to him from the Morini: ‘the visit of the ambassadors,’ he argues, ‘without any mention of hostile occupation, seems to imply that neither Caesar nor any part of his army was in the country of the Morini at the time of preparing the naval expedition, and appears to render it most improbable that he had passed through their country.’2712

No unbiassed reader would assent to this conclusion. The Morini naturally sent ambassadors to Caesar because they wished to deprecate his wrath. Similarly in 53 B.C. the Ubii sent envoys to him when he was in their country, not as an enemy but as a friend.2713 Besides, Airy, not having a really intimate knowledge of the Commentaries, overlooked another important point:—the Morini did not act as one undivided state; some only of their pagi, or sub-divisional communities, sent ambassadors: others sent none.2714

Thirdly, Airy refers to Caesar’s statement, that, on returning to the Portus Itius from his second expedition, he directed Gaius Fabius to winter in the country of the Morini with one legion.2715 ‘It appears to me,’ he says, ‘that the order (after his second return) for legions to march from the Portus Itius2716 “in Morinos” makes it certain that he was not in their country.’2717

The words ‘from the Portus Itius’ beg the question. One legion (not ‘legions’) was sent into the country of the Morini, not from the Portus Itius but from Samarobriva, in the country of the Ambiani, where, as the context shows, all the legions were temporarily assembled.2718 Similarly in the following year, 53 B.C., Caesar concentrated all his legions at Durocortorum, or Reims, immediately before distributing them in their respective quarters for the winter.2719

Fourthly, Airy refers to the well-known passage in which Strabo2720 says that ‘the Itian’ [naval station?] is παρὰ (τοῖς Μορινοῖς). Παρά, he seriously affirms, means ‘near to’, not ‘in’ (the country of the Morini2721).

If Airy’s sense of humour had not been dormant, it would surely have occurred to him that, in a matter of pure scholarship, it was unlikely that all Greek scholars should be wrong while he alone was right. Dr. Guest took the trouble to refute him;2722 and if he had referred to other passages in Strabo,2723 he would have seen for himself that παρ’ οἷς means ‘in whose country’.

Airy was far too vigilant a controversialist not to see that there were well-grounded objections to his theory; and he attempted to anticipate them. Caesar, as we have seen, states that when his fleet was returning to Gaul after the first expedition, two of the ships failed to make the same harbours as the rest, and ‘were carried a little lower down’ (duae [naves] eosdem quos reliqui portus capere non potuerunt et paulo infra delatae sunt2724); and he goes on to say that the troops who landed from these two ships were attacked by the Morini while they were marching from the place where they had disembarked to his own camp. The words paulo infra delatae sunt are interpreted by almost every commentator except Airy2725 as meaning that the two ships were carried a little further down the coast than the other ships; and if this interpretation is correct, it is obvious that the harbours in which the other ships came to land were in the country of the Morini. But Airy is unmoved by this consensus of opinion. ‘The word “delatae”,’ he says, ‘is repeatedly used by Caesar for “drifted”, and “infra delatae” is “drifted down”, the word “down” apparently relating not to any geographical direction, but to the force of the wind.’2726

As a matter of fact, Caesar uses the past participle of defero in the sense of ‘drifted’ four times,2727 namely, in the passage which we are now considering and in B. G., v, 8, § 2 (longius delatus aestu orta luce sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit), B. C., iii, 14, § 2 (una ex his [navibus] ... delata Oricum atque a Bibulo expugnata est), and B. C., iii, 30, § 1 (praetervectas Apolloniam Dyrrachiumque naves viderant ... sed quo essent eae delatae ... ignorabant). None of these passages lends the slightest support to Airy’s theory; and the other three passages in which he uses the adverb infra2728 in a local sense, namely, B. G., vi, 35, § 6 (transeunt Rhenum ... XXX milibus passuum infra eum locum ubi pons erat perfectus2729), B. G., vii, 61, § 3 (nuntiatur ... magnum ire agmen adverso flumine sonitumque remorum in eadem parte exaudiri et paulo infra milites navibus transportari2730), and B. C., i, 64, § 6 (reliquas legiones expeditas educit magnoque numero iumentorum in flumine supra atque infra constituto traducit exercitum2731), are fatal to it.

Again, the passage in which Caesar says that the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain is about 30 [Roman] miles,2732 assuming that it is genuine, might well have disconcerted a less resourceful reasoner; for the distance from the mouth of the Somme to St. Leonards, off which place Airy maintains that Caesar anchored on his first voyage,2733 is about 65 Roman miles; and to Pevensey Level, where he makes Caesar land, a little more. But Airy confidently grapples with the difficulty. ‘I conceive,’ he remarks, ‘that the sentence has been mistranslated. The Portus Itius and the continent are placed in contradistinction. The convenient passage was from the Portus Itius, the distance of 30 miles was from the continent.’2734

Read the sentence again,—portum Itium ... quo ex portu commodissimum in Britanniam traiectum esse cognoverat, circiter milium passuum XXX transmissum a continenti. Classical scholars are agreed that these words can only mean what Airy insists that they do not mean, namely, that the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain was about 30 Roman miles. If not from the Portus Itius, from what port? What would have been the good of specifying the distance if Caesar had been thinking of some other port which he did not use?2735

Furthermore, the distance from the mouth of the Somme to Pevensey Level is about twice the distance from Boulogne to Dover, to Hythe, or to Lympne; and Caesar says that the reason why he marched for the country of the Morini was that the passage from their country to Britain was the shortest.

But it would seem that Airy was not quite convinced of the soundness of his own reasoning. ‘If,’ he says, ‘any reader thinks that the reasons for excluding the Portus Itius from the land of the Morini are not sufficiently cogent, the whole is easily reconciled with the hypothesis that the Portus Itius was the mouth of the Somme by supposing that in the time of Caesar the Morini stretched south-west of the Somme ... the geography which limits their territory to the north of the Somme is 120 years later. Any one who reflects on the change of boundary of Russia, of Prussia, of Turkey, and of other European States, within a period of much less than 120 years, will find no difficulty in admitting this change in the limits of the Morini.’2736

It is sufficient to answer that there is no analogy between the political history of Europe in the earlier half of the nineteenth century and that of Gaul in the 120 years that followed the invasion of Britain by Caesar. The Gallic peoples during that period were not at war with one another; and there is not the slightest reason to suppose that the Morini possessed a wider seaboard in Caesar’s time than 120 years later. Lewin’s reply to Airy is worth quoting2737:—‘He offers, as a solution of the difficulty, that in the time of Caesar the Morini stretched south-west of the Somme. If so, then the Somme itself, from which Caesar sailed, and to which he returned, was, according to the Astronomer-Royal, in the country of the Morini; and yet, a few lines before, the Astronomer-Royal had stated that the order (after Caesar’s second return) for legions to march into the country of the Morini made it certain that he was not in their country! Thus to avoid Scylla, it is laid down, as certain that Caesar did not sail from the Morini; and then, to avoid Charybdis, the reader is invited to assume that the place of embarkation was amongst the Morini.’

Finally, Airy affirms that the mouth of the Somme was by far the best harbour which Caesar could have selected, and that its capability for his purpose ‘is proved by the ... experience of William of Normandy, who at one tide floated out of it 1400 ships’.2738

Now William the Conqueror assembled his fleet and embarked his army not in the mouth of the Somme but in the mouth of the Dive:2739 he was merely obliged, as Lewin says,2740 ‘to take temporary shelter ... at the mouth of the Somme.’ But this blunder is of no great consequence. The Somme might have served Caesar’s purpose if only it had not been twice as far from that part of Britain to which he intended to go as Boulogne.

VI. AMBLETEUSE

The Commission de la Topographie des Gaules2741 identify the Portus Itius with Ambleteuse; and Mommsen2742 is disposed to agree with them. They argue that Strabo2743 affirms the existence of two ports in the country of the Morini; that one of the two was evidently Gesoriacum; and that the Portus Itius was therefore something different. The passage in Strabo to which the commission refers will be most conveniently examined in a later section.2744 Meanwhile it is enough to say that if it proves that the Portus Itius was not Gesoriacum, it does not prove that the Portus Itius was Ambleteuse.

General Creuly2745 decides for Ambleteuse on the ground that its distance from Wissant corresponds with Caesar’s statement of the distance which separated his own port of embarkation from the ulterior portus, and that the intervention of Cape Grisnez between Ambleteuse and Wissant would have justified Caesar in describing the latter as the ulterior portus. He remarks that if the Portus Itius is identified with Boulogne, the ulterior portus must have been Ambleteuse. But, referring to Vergil’s well-known line—tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore2746—he argues that the word ulterior implies the intervention between the Portus Itius and the ulterior portus of an ‘objet disjonctif’, such as a promontory; and he insists that no such ‘objet’ intervenes between Boulogne and Ambleteuse. But Heller2747 observes that a passage in the Germania2748 of Tacitus—(Gerunt et ferarum pelles), proximi ripae negligenter, ulteriores exquisitius—would seem to show that ulterior means much the same as longinquior.2749 Besides, if the distance from Ambleteuse to Wissant justifies us in identifying Ambleteuse with the Portus Itius and Wissant with the ulterior portus, the distance from Boulogne to Ambleteuse, as I shall presently show, equally justifies us in identifying Boulogne with the Portus Itius and Ambleteuse with the ulterior portus.2750

Not a single valid argument ever has been or can be adduced in favour of Ambleteuse. The harbour is far too small to have contained Caesar’s fleet; and the merest tiro in his army could have decided at a glance between its merits and those of Boulogne.2751

VII. CALAIS

I only consider the claims of Calais because their one modern advocate, General von Göler,2752 was a distinguished Caesarian scholar. There is no evidence that Calais was ever used as a harbour in, or for twelve centuries after, the time of Caesar. If Caesar started from the Portus Itius on his first expedition, it is impossible, on the theory that Calais was the Portus Itius, to find the ulterior portus. Moreover, it would have been impossible for Caesar to sail, on his second expedition, from Calais to any point of the Kentish coast between Walmer and Sandwich.2753 For, as the wind was from the south-west, he would have had to sail within seven points and a half of the wind on a flood tide, which would have tended to carry him into the North Sea, and with shallow flat-bottomed vessels which made excessive lee-way.2754 Finally, Calais Harbour is not natural but artificial; and it is certain that it did not exist in the time of Caesar.2755

VIII. WISSANT

Wissant is between Cape Grisnez and Cape Blancnez, both of which, in Caesar’s time, projected somewhat further out to sea than they do now.2756 Dr. Guest argues that the sandy waste, more than two miles long and varying in breadth from a quarter to half a mile, which lies between the uplands and the sand-hills, was once covered by the sea;2757 and he conjectures that the ‘pool-harbour’ thus formed communicated with the English Channel by ‘the gap through which flows the Rieu des Aiguilles’, a rivulet which crosses the sandy plain. At the same time he admits that it is very difficult to say what the limits of the ancient harbour were.2758

Dr. Guest’s theory, which was regarded by Mr. Freeman and Dean Merivale as conclusive, is a theory and nothing more. Mariette, the famous Egyptologist, states that the dunes themselves (without which Dr. Guest’s harbour could not have been) were not formed before the time of Edward the Third;2759 and M. H. Rigaux concludes, from a recent minute exploration of the coast between Cape Grisnez and Sangatte, that the dune which extends from the ‘ruisseau de Guiptun’, near Tardinghem, to the ‘ruisseau d’Herlan’ at Wissant did not exist in Caesar’s day.2760 Moreover, pottery, pre-Roman and Roman, has been found in the sand behind the dunes between Wissant and Tardinghem as well as east of Wissant;2761 numerous finds have proved that the coast between Sangatte and Dunkirk has undergone subsidence and extended further seaward in Roman times than now;2762 and it may be concluded that the sandy plain at Wissant was not then covered by the sea. It would appear, then, that Dr. Guest’s pool-harbour was imaginary. Haigneré,2763 moreover, remarks that if there ever had been such a harbour, it must have been speedily choked up by sand blown from the very dunes which ex hypothesi formed it; and this argument is confirmed by the fact that irruptions of blown sand, before the dunes were ‘fixed’ by being planted with coarse grass, engulfed many buildings at Wissant.2764 It has, however, been pointed out by Mr. E. C. H. Day2765 that ‘a shoal having less than a fathom of water on it at the lowest tides, extends from Cape Grisnez, in a north-easterly direction, in such a manner as to cut off a channel about half a mile in width, and having a depth of from two to three fathoms of water in it, directly abreast of Wissant. The shoal,’ he adds, ‘during the course of centuries of exposure to the heavy seas that break upon the coast, must have undergone some considerable amount of destruction. Formerly, therefore, this shoal must have formed a natural breakwater, and have rendered the channel within it a convenient harbour.’ But, assuming the correctness of Mr. Day’s deduction, this ‘harbour’ would have been exposed to the fury both of the west and of the north-east wind. M. Léon Lejeal,2766 who tells us that a French engineer, M. J. Voisin, supposes that the shoal was once connected with the mainland, and thus formed a partially-sheltered harbour, concludes that there is nothing to show that it was large enough to shelter the fleet ‘que voulut y ancrer l’imagination d’une archéologie en délire’;2767 and M. Leblanc, who in the year 1863 was engineer of the port of Calais and was intimately acquainted with the geology of Wissant, ridicules such a notion. ‘Toutes les fois,’ he remarks, ‘que j’allais de Calais au Gris-Nez ... je traversais Wissant, en étudiant cette question, et je me disais à moi-même: quelle preuve peut on avoir d’une pareille absurdité?’2768 Hariulf, a chronicler who lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, described the harbour of Wissant as an ‘inlet’ (ingressum maris),2769 which would seem to imply that it was simply a creek formed by one of the rivulets which meander across the sand. Henry, the historian of Boulogne, who was bent upon proving the identity of Wissant with the Portus Itius, would certainly have anticipated Guest’s theory if he could have done so with truth; but, after a careful examination of the site, he came to the conclusion that Caesar’s ships must have been drawn up on an exposed beach.2770

1. Long2771 argues that the distance of Wissant from Sangatte corresponds with the distance between the port from which Caesar started on his first expedition and the superior portus; that its distance from the English coast agrees ‘at least as well as any other place’ with Caesar’s estimate of the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain; that its name, which [according to Michel Baudrand,2772 a writer of the seventeenth, century] French sailors used to call Esseu and the Flemings Isten, ‘is near enough to Itius to add to the probability of the identity of the two places’; that there are traces of a Roman road from Wissant to Thérouanne; that in the neighbourhood of Wissant ‘fresh water was abundant, the soil rich, and the beach the best that there could be for such ships as Caesar’s’; and that, if Wissant was not, strictly speaking, a port at all, ‘Caesar did not want a port in the modern sense of the word. He wanted his ships at the nearest place to Britain.... His vessels would be hauled up on the beach till the wind was fair. He had no port on the British coast, and he hauled up all his ships after they were damaged by a storm.’ ‘This long sandy beach,’ he says, ‘was the best place along all this coast for Caesar’s purpose.’2773

Of these arguments the first, mutatis mutandis, is equally applicable to Boulogne. The argument from nomenclature is worthless:2774 ‘Wissant’ is not derived from ‘Itius’; it is said to be merely a corruption of ‘Weiss-sand’ (Whitesand).2775 There is no evidence for the alleged Roman road. The Roman road which, according to Henry,2776 led from Thérouanne to Wissant, really led to Sangatte.2777 Dr. Guest, who carefully explored Wissant and its neighbourhood, found that the soil, which Long calls ‘rich’, is ‘notoriously barren’.2778 And, in reply to the last of Long’s arguments, it is sufficient to say that, although Caesar did perforce beach his ships on the coast of Britain, yet he suffered heavily from not having a port; and the mere fact that he sent Volusenus to ascertain what ports on the British coast were capable of accommodating a large fleet proves that his original intention was to land in a port, and not on an open beach. Long’s assertion, that the beach at Wissant ‘was the best place along all this coast for Caesar’s purpose’, Dr. Guest, who agrees with him in identifying the Portus Itius with Wissant, treats with utter scorn; but his criticism is founded upon the groundless assumption that the sand-dune between Wissant and Tardinghem then existed.2779 However, Long admits that ‘it would not be possible now to draw up a fleet like Caesar’s on the beach’. ‘But,’ he persists, ‘if there have been such great changes on this coast that Dr. Guest’s huge harbour is filled up, why may not my beach have undergone some change also?’2780 The reply is obvious. What Long calls ‘my beach’ may have undergone changes: but, unless it can be proved not only that ships could have been hauled up on the beach of Wissant in Caesar’s time, but also that there then existed at Wissant a harbour large enough to accommodate Caesar’s fleet, the claim of Wissant to be identified with the Portus Itius cannot be admitted.

But Long is not the only writer who maintains that the Portus Itius was not a port properly so called; and this question is so important that we must fairly examine the arguments that have been adduced in support of Long’s view.

Heller argues that since Caesar beached his ships on his return from the second expedition, we may conclude that the Portus Itius was not a harbour in the strict sense, as, if the shelter of a harbour had been available, he would not have taken the trouble to draw them up on shore.2781

But Heller forgets that the ancients never left their ships at anchor for any lengthened period, but invariably laid them up high and dry for the winter.2782 Moreover, if eight hundred ships had been beached at Wissant, would it not have been necessary, in order to protect them from storm-driven spring tides, to construct an enormous naval camp, the earth necessary for which did not exist?

Professor Ridgeway insists that, if Strabo is to be believed, the Portus Itius can only be identified with Wissant.2783 Strabo2784 calls Caesar’s place of embarkation τὸ Ἴτιον. This word, the professor observes, is obviously an adjective, and, as it agrees with a neuter word understood, it cannot agree with λιμήν or κόλπος (a harbour), but must agree with ἄκρον or ἀκρωτήριον (a headland). Evidently, then, Strabo’s τὸ Ἴτιον is the same as Ptolemy’s Ἴτιον ἄκρον. Similarly Strabo2785 speaks of Cape Finisterre as Νέριον,, while Ptolemy2786 calls it Νέριον ἀκρωτήριον. Now Strabo does not call Ἴτιον a harbour, but only a roadstead ναύσταθμον, a term which Thucydides2787 applies to Cape Malea. Thus, if Strabo was right, the Portus Itius was the roadstead sheltered by the Itian promontory.

The professor’s argument is not convincing. Granted that Ἴτιον must agree with ἄκρον, on him lies the burden of proving that the headland in question was not Cap d’Alprech, which shelters the estuary of the Liane, and the geographical position of which corresponds closely enough with that which Ptolemy assigns to Ἴτιον ἄκρον.2788 When the professor remarks2789 that ‘the advocates of both Wissant and Boulogne support the claim of Grisnez’ against Alprech he is mistaken. Desjardins is only one of many French writers who ‘support the claim’ of Alprech against Grisnez. Moreover, supposing that the professor is right in identifying the Itian promontory with Grisnez, he is wrong in assuming that the word ναύσταθμον necessarily excludes the idea of a harbour. Sometimes it is used to denote a port already described as a λιμήν, or harbour properly so called, in order to draw attention to the fact that that harbour was a naval station. Thus Strabo,2790 immediately after mentioning the Piraeus and the other two harbours of Athens, says that the ναύσταθμον was capable of accommodating the four hundred ships which composed the Athenian fleet. And Pausanias,2791 speaking of Nauplia, the port of Argos, which, according to Strabo,2792 was the ναύσταθμον of the Argives, says, ‘there are harbours in Nauplia’ (λιμένες εἰσὶν ἐν Ναυπλίᾳ).2793 To anybody who knows anything about ancient navigation, the suggestion that Caesar would have kept 800 ships riding at anchor for several weeks in an open roadstead, exposed to the fury of the north-west wind, while, a few miles off in the Liane, there was an ample sheltered harbour available, must appear simply ridiculous. And, assuming that Strabo did intend to convey that τὸ Ἴτιον was merely a roadstead, the answer is that Strabo is refuted by Caesar, who says that his ships assembled ad portum Itium,2794—‘in the Itian harbour.’ The Portus Itius must have been a port, properly so called; and the more discerning advocates of Wissant naturally accept this view.2795

Long maintains, further, that, although Caesar does not say directly that the passage from the Portus Itius to Britain was actually the shortest, yet he does so indirectly; for he tells us that he went to the country of the Morini ‘because the shortest passage to Britain was from their country’; and the port in their country which he selected was the Portus Itius.2796 But, as all who are familiar with the Commentaries will admit, Long throws an undue strain upon Caesar’s language. Caesar tells us, in general terms, that the shortest passage to Britain was from the country of the Morini: but it is bad logic to conclude from this statement that the passage from the Portus Itius must have been actually the shortest as the crow flies. Caesar would never have chosen the passage which was in this sense the shortest if it had been on other grounds objectionable: obviously what he meant to say was that of the regular passages to Britain that from the country of the Morini was the shortest; and the passage from the Portus Itius being, as he says, ‘the most convenient,’ was, for all practical purposes, the shortest.

It is clear, then, that Long failed to establish the identity of the Portus Itius with Wissant. Let us see what better informed advocates of the same theory have to say.

2. Not to mention the arguments which are common to him and Long, Dr. Guest gives the following reasons for his belief:—that the (assumed) harbour of Wissant was large enough to hold Caesar’s fleet; that it lay beneath Cape Grisnez, which he identifies with the Itian promontory; and that William of Poitiers, a chronicler of the eleventh century, called it ‘Portus Icius’.2797 He will not admit that William was simply stating his own opinion: ‘I think,’ he says, ‘this name may have been handed down to him by the Romanised Gauls, inasmuch as the name of Ician seems to have been long kept afloat in the recollection of the Celtic population of these islands’; and he points out that ‘the old Irish name for the English Channel is Muir n’ Icht’, or ‘the Itian sea’. But the fact on which he lays most stress is the proximity of Wissant to Cape Grisnez. He freely admits, indeed, that Cap d’Alprech may, in Caesar’s time, have been a more considerable promontory than it is at present;2798 but he cannot conceive that the promontory which Ptolemy selected for especial mention should have been any other than the famous cape which is and must always have been the most conspicuous feature of the north-eastern coast of France, and which marks the point where the coast, making a sharp angle, begins to trend towards the east. ‘Cape Grisnez,’ he concludes, ‘there can hardly be a doubt, was the Ician promontory, and if so, the great port which lay beneath it must have been the Ician Port.’2799

‘The great port which lay beneath it,’—these words, Dr. Guest, beg the whole question. That the harbour of Wissant was large enough to hold Caesar’s fleet would be true, if Dr. Guest’s conjectural tracing of its outline were correct: but the fact, if it were a fact, would simply remove one of the objections which have been brought against Wissant; it would not prove that Wissant was the Portus Itius. For the harbour of Boulogne was also large enough, and was also, as will presently appear, in other respects far more convenient. The argument that William of Poitiers called Wissant the Portus Itius has no weight. Maistre Wace, who wrote about a century after William of Poitiers, believed that Caesar had sailed from Boulogne.2800 Moreover, Hericus, a monk of the ninth century,2801 identified Bibracte with Autun; but it is now universally admitted, and it is certain, that Hericus was wrong.2802 It may be admitted that a priori it would seem much more likely that the Itian promontory was Cape Grisnez than that it was Cap d’Alprech; but if the former identification is to be accepted, it is necessary to assume that Ptolemy made a gross blunder. It is of course quite true, as Dr. Guest says,2803 that Ptolemy did make mistakes; but still the fact remains that the geographical position which he assigns to the Itian promontory is, allowing for a slight error in longitude, that of Cap d’Alprech. As Mr. Peskett puts it, ‘Ptolemy, proceeding northward, places the headland between the Somme and Boulogne’;2804 and I may add that if you only know Cap d’Alprech by the map, you will be surprised, when you actually see it, to find how bold a headland it is. Moreover, even if Ptolemy was mistaken, it does not follow that the Itian harbour was Wissant. Professor Rhys, who believes that the Gauls as well as the Irish called the Channel ‘the sea of Icht’, remarks that ‘in that case Portus Ictius would designate Caesar’s place of embarcation, somewhat in the same way that Dover might in English be termed the Channel Harbour. The former probably had a Gaulish name of its own, which may have become the Latin one also as soon as the Romans began to be a little more at home in the north of Gaul; so that it would be labour in vain to try to detect Ictius in any place-name still current on the French coast.’2805 Let us, however, assume, for the sake of argument, that Professor Rhys is mistaken. Even then it does not follow that the Portus Itius was Wissant. For it will not be denied that Boulogne was, in Caesar’s time as in the time of the emperors, a frequented harbour; and it is certain that Wissant was not a harbour capable of containing Caesar’s fleet. Therefore Boulogne, which is only nine statute miles south of Cape Grisnez, was obviously the nearest important harbour to that promontory. Why, then, if Cape Grisnez was the Itian promontory, should Boulogne not have been called the Itian harbour? Even on the desperate theory that when Caesar spoke of a harbour, he did not mean a harbour but only a roadstead, that roadstead was not at Wissant; for if Caesar’s ships had waited there, either at anchor or on the beach, exposed to the north-west winds for twenty-five days, they would have been in extreme peril.

Dr. Guest admits of course that Boulogne, not Wissant, was the permanent harbour of the Romans in North-Eastern Gaul under the empire; but in this fact he sees no objection to his theory. He believes that the Romans, when they had to choose a permanent harbour, rejected Wissant and chose Boulogne because of the sterility of the country in the neighbourhood of the former. ‘Wissant,’ he remarks, ‘or rather the port adjacent to Wissant, may have answered Caesar’s purpose, when he had hundreds of ships to supply the wants of his commissariat; but when a port was to be provided to meet the ordinary purposes of traffic, it was necessary to select one that possessed local resources.’2806

The reason which Dr. Guest gives for the choice of Boulogne is sound enough as far as it goes; but what support does it lend to the theory that Caesar used Wissant as a temporary harbour? The sterility of the neighbourhood would hardly have recommended it. It must have had some great advantage to compensate for this defect if it was really to be preferred, even as a temporary harbour, to Boulogne. But it is impossible to point out one single advantage which Wissant could have had, for Caesar’s purpose, over Boulogne, save only that, as the crow flies, it was a little nearer to Britain.

Dr. Guest, indeed, assures us that ‘Caesar had no time for weighing the comparative merits of the ports north and south of him, and for determining which of them was “the most convenient”’.2807 No time! Had he not five days to spare for Volusenus’s reconnaissance? A single day would have sufficed to ride along the coast from Wissant to Boulogne; a few minutes spent at each of those places would have sufficed ‘for determining which of them was “the most convenient”’: but the greatest general of Rome could not spare even one day for a duty which the worst would not have neglected; so he pitched upon Wissant, because, as Dr. Guest tells us, ‘it afforded him the shortest passage’! So argued the man who, according to Freeman, ‘settled the whole matter,’ the man who, from Freeman’s point of view, appeared to stand, side by side with Stubbs, ‘at the head of living students of English history.’2808

3. Heller is not as ardent an advocate of Wissant as Guest; but he has written some very ingenious papers in defence of Guest’s view. Many of his reasons are virtually identical with those of the English scholar; but from Caesar’s narrative of his second voyage he deduces a fresh argument, which deserves special attention. Caesar, as we have seen, set sail about sunset with a light south-westerly wind. About midnight the wind dropped: the fleet, borne by the tide, drifted out of its course;2809 and ‘at daybreak Caesar saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter’ (orta luce sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit2810). From the last statement Heller infers that Caesar’s ship must have drifted to some point off the North Foreland: otherwise, he argues, the word relictam would be meaningless. For, he remarks, Caesar believed that one side of Britain faced the north. Therefore it must be assumed that he had no knowledge of that part of the coast which trends northward beyond the mouth of the Thames: he must have thought that the coast, at the North Foreland, turned sharply towards the west. Otherwise he could not have believed that he had left Britain behind; nor could he have believed this unless he had drifted to some point off the North Foreland. Now Caesar started on his voyage about the 6th of July.2811 On that day the sun set about 8.16; and on the following morning it rose about 3.54. There must have been light enough to show the British coast as early as 3.15 or 3.20. Heller maintains that Caesar could by daybreak have reached a point about 2 German [or 9½ English] miles south-east of the North Foreland, not quite as far north as the latitude of Ramsgate, if he had sailed from Wissant; but he insists that if he had sailed from Boulogne, he could not have drifted further northward than the latitude of Deal, in which case he could not have said that he ‘saw Britain left behind on the port quarter’.2812

This argument rests upon a strained interpretation of the word relictam. It is probably true that Caesar could not have drifted as far north as the latitude of Ramsgate if he had sailed from Boulogne;2813 but even if he had only drifted as far north as the latitude of Walmer, he would have been perfectly justified in using the word relictam. For that word does not imply that Caesar believed himself to have left the northern coast of Britain behind: it simply implies that, as the current was carrying him in a north-easterly direction2814 and therefore sweeping him every minute further and further away from Britain, ‘he saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter.’ There is a parallel passage in the twenty-first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, which shows that this was his meaning. In the second and third verses of that chapter the writer, after describing the voyage of himself and St. Paul from Ephesus by way of Cos and Rhodes to Patara, says, ‘Having found a ship crossing over unto Phoenicia, we went aboard, and set sail. And when we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left hand, we sailed unto Syria, and landed at Tyre’ (καὶ εὑρόντες πλοῖον διαπερῶν εἰς Φοινίκην ἐπιβάντες ἀνήχθημεν, ἀναφάναντες δὲ τὴν Κύπρον καὶ καταλιπόντες αὐτὴν εὐώνυμον ἐπλέομεν εἰς Συρίαν καὶ κατήλθομεν εἰς Τύρον). If the reader will look at his map, he will see that the writer of the Acts, when he came in sight of Cyprus and left it on the left hand, was in precisely the same position with regard to Cyprus as Caesar would have been in with regard to Britain if, drifting in a north-easterly direction, he had descried the coast of Britain from some point in the latitude of Deal.2815 And if Heller will use his common sense he will see that if a ship about the latitude of Deal were drifting away from Britain, that ship would have left Britain behind just as really as if it had passed Cape Wrath and were drifting towards Iceland.

Lastly, even if Heller’s explanation of the word relictam were correct, the argument which he builds upon it would be unsound; for obviously that argument would only hold good if Caesar had drifted north of the latitude of the North Foreland. Heller himself admits that he had hardly drifted so far north as the latitude of Ramsgate; and at this point, on Heller’s own theory, he could no more have said that he had left the northern coast of Britain behind than if he had been in the latitude of Deal.

Both Heller2816 and Guest2817 deduce an argument in favour of Wissant from a well-known passage of Strabo.2818 It runs as follows:—‘There are four regular passages from the Continent to the island, namely, from the mouths of the Rhine, the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne. People who cross from the country near the Rhine do not sail from the mouth of that river, but from the country of the Morini ... and in their country is the Itian (harbour), which Caesar used as his naval station, when he was crossing to the island’ (τέτταρα δ’ ἐστὶ διάρματα, οἷς χρῶνται συνήθως ἐπὶ τὴν νῆσον ἐκ τῆς ἠπείρου, τὰ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐκβολῶν τῶν ποταμῶν, τοῦ τε Ῥήνου καὶ τοῦ Σηκοάνα καὶ τοῦ Λείγηρος καὶ τοῦ Γαρούνα. τοῖς δ’ ἀπὸ τῶν περὶ τὸν Ῥῆνον τόπων ἀναγομένοις οὐκ ἀπ’ αὐτῶν τῶν ἐκβολῶν ὁ πλοῦς ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμορούντων τοῖς Μεναπίοις Μορινῶν, παρ’ οἷς ἐστι καὶ τὸ Ἴτιον, ᾧ ἐχρήσατο ναυστάθμῳ Καῖσαρ ὁ θεός, διαίρων εἰς τὴν νῆσον). I have italicized the word and, because the meaning of καί has been disputed. Dr. Guest argues that the port from which the inhabitants of the country near the Rhine sailed must have been Boulogne; and, he continues, ‘every unprejudiced reader ... will be of opinion that he (Strabo) distinguishes it from his “Itium”.’ In other words, Guest would translate the doubtful clause by ‘in whose country there is also the Itian (harbour)’.

I, for one, fully agree with Dr. Guest; but some scholars are unable to do so. Long,2819 remarking that a similar use of καί, particularly in clauses which begin with a relative, as παρ’ οἷς, is common in Strabo and also in Thucydides, affirms that ‘the purpose of καί, when it is so used, is to mark emphatically some thing or circumstance in addition to one which has been mentioned’. Guest2820 retorts that Xylander, in his Latin version of Strabo, first published in Casaubon’s edition of 1597, and revised by Siebenkees, who did not alter Xylander’s translation of the passage in question, and Groskurd, in his German version of 1831—‘the most careful and conscientious translation of Strabo that has yet appeared’—both render καί by ‘also’. This array of authorities does not disconcert Long. He remarks2821 that the old Latin versions of Strabo and other Greek writers, although they were very useful in their day, ‘are not of much value when there is any great difficulty.’ Groskurd’s translation—‘wo auch der Hafen Ition ist’—he regards as ambiguous. Had Groskurd desired to express, in his translation, that Strabo meant to affirm the existence of another harbour, besides those which he had just mentioned, he would have written, not ‘wo auch’, but ‘wo ebenfalls’ (der Hafen Ition ist). But, says Long, ‘Strabo mentions four usual points of transit from Gallia to Britain, and if in this passage he means that there was another besides the Itius, then there would be five points of transit instead of four, and Strabo would contradict himself.’2822 Long then quotes two passages in support of his interpretation of καί. ‘Strabo,’ he remarks, ‘says that Sinuessa is in the gulf of Setia, and adds ἀφ’ οὗ καὶ τὸ ὄνομα.2823 Groskurd translates καί by “auch”, which has no meaning here.... Again, Strabo, speaking of the high Alps, says περὶ ὃ δὴ καὶ συνίσταντο οἱ λῃσταί;2824 which Groskurd translates, “die Gipfel, um welche denn auch die Räuber sassen.” Xylander simply says “ubi degebant latrones”, which I prefer to Groskurd’s version, though Xylander’s version is not quite exact.’

To these arguments Guest made no reply; but Heller2825 did so. He admits that Thucydides, in relative sentences, often did use καί in the sense which Long claims for it; but this sense, he maintains, is restricted to phrases of which the meaning is unmistakable.

If Strabo did really mean to say that the Itian port was different from that port of the Morini which was commonly used as the point of departure for Britain, then I can only say that I believe, with Rudolf Schneider,2826 that Strabo was mistaken. As Caesar was the only other ancient writer who mentioned the Portus Itius, and as he did not say exactly where it was, it would have been quite natural for Strabo to suppose that the Portus Itius was not the same as the well-known port of the Morini.

4. Finally, it has been affirmed by Henry2827 and many other writers that the so-called ‘Camp de César’ and the various hillocks known as ‘mottes’ which are to be found in the neighbourhood of Wissant were defensive works erected by Caesar or his lieutenants for the protection of the Portus Itius; and de Saulcy tells us that an inhabitant of Wissant, whose trustworthiness he had proved, informed him that about two kilometres north-east of the village, at Haute-Sombre, there existed a camp several hectares in extent, in which, he says, ‘il faudra reconnaître le camp des trois légions et des deux mille cavaliers de Labienus.’2828

All these allegations have been disproved. The so-called tradition which ascribed the ‘Camp de César’ to the invader of Britain originated in the eighteenth century:2829 at all events it is not mentioned by any of the earlier advocates of Wissant; and the camp has been proved to be of post-Roman date.2830 Moreover, its area is not more than 50 ares 30 centiares, or 6,016 square yards, less than one acre and a quarter, which would not have sufficed to accommodate more than 500 men.2831 As for the ‘mottes’, they have been excavated, and have been proved to be simply tumuli, which contained skeletons, flint implements, and bone pins. And the Abbé Haigneré2832 has shown, in an amusing paragraph, that the so-called camp of Labienus, which, needless to say, is not marked on the Carte de l’État-Major, is purely imaginary.

Every argument which has been adduced in favour of Wissant has now been examined; and if I could have accepted them or any one of them, I would gladly have done so, for I myself once argued that the Portus Itius was at Wissant. But my knowledge was then imperfect. It is not possible to prove that the Portus Itius was at Wissant: it is possible to prove that it was not.

1. Although Wissant is nearer to England than Boulogne, yet Caesar would have gained nothing, even in regard to his mere voyage, by making Wissant his place of departure. Captain Iron, the harbour-master of Dover, unhesitatingly affirmed, after we had studied the chart together, that the fleet would have ‘made a better run’ from Boulogne than from Wissant. The reader will have no difficulty in understanding this if he will consult the Admiralty Chart (Dungeness to the Thames), and the Atlas entitled Tidal Streams in the English and Irish Channels. It must be remembered that both in 55 and in 54 B.C. Caesar started from Gaul when the tide was running down the Channel; and that on his first voyage the tide turned north-eastward between 4.30 and 5 a.m., when he had been three or four hours at sea, and on his second about 9.30 p.m., two hours or so after he had set sail. Thus, on each occasion, the latter and greater portion of the voyage was made on the flood tide.2833

Wauters does indeed succeed in proving that, in the middle ages, Wissant was very frequently used as a place of embarkation by travellers, merchants, and even troops sailing for the opposite coast;2834 and the point of his argument is that if, in the middle ages, a large army could embark at Wissant, Caesar’s army could have done the same; and that if Wissant was a convenient point of departure for a voyage to Britain in the middle ages, it was not less convenient in the time of Caesar. Haigneré2835 retorts, truly enough, that the quantity of merchandise which passed through the port at any one time was very small, and that, as a rule, not more than two or three vessels left the port simultaneously; but when he affirms2836 that the largest army which ever sailed from Wissant was a force of 2,000 men, which John of Hainault led in 1327 to assist Edward the Third against the Scots,2837 he lays himself open to criticism. Wauters2838 replies that the force with which the Earl of Leicester sailed from Wissant in 1173 must have been very large; for in the battle of Fornham, in which the earl suffered defeat soon after he had landed in Suffolk, 10,000 of his men were killed. This statement, which was accepted by the late Bishop of Oxford,2839 was made on the authority of Benedict of Peterborough,2840 who also describes the army of the Earl of Leicester as infinitus exercitus. But (if we are to accept the statement of a mediaeval monk as to the number of men who were killed in a battle) Benedict does not say that the army set sail from Wissant, while Ralph de Diceto2841 merely says that the Earl of Leicester embarked in a ship at Wissant, accompanied by a numerous band (venit apud Witsant, ubi ... plurima comitante caterva, navem ascendit); and, assuming that the troops all embarked at Wissant, there is no evidence that all the transports which carried them sailed together. It is generally admitted even by the partisans of Wissant (though not by Dr. Guest) that the mediaeval port was merely the creek formed by the Rieu d’Herlan, otherwise called Rieu de Sombre; and if it is true that an army which lost 10,000 men in a single battle embarked at Wissant in 1173, the bulk of the ships which carried it must have been anchored in the roadstead. The frequency with which Wissant was used as a place of embarkation in the middle ages undoubtedly proves that it was convenient, and this fact has been slurred over by the advocates of Boulogne; but it nevertheless remains certain that Caesar would not have found it convenient to sail from Wissant when the greater part of his voyage would have to be made upon the eastward stream, and with a south-west wind. At the same time I admit that we do not know from what quarter the wind was blowing in his first voyage: we only know that when he set sail it was favourable.2842

2. There is another objection to Wissant, which Dr. Guest, if he had been consistent, would have been the first to urge. Like all the other advocates of Wissant, he identifies the superior portus with Sangatte. Yet he tells us himself that it is hard to see how there could ever have been a harbour at Sangatte.2843 Similarly, H. L. Long, himself an advocate of Wissant, who was well acquainted with the coast between Boulogne and Calais, observes that ‘as a port, in our acceptation of the term, Sangatte has fewer pretensions ... than even Wissant; but still it is, and always has been a small station’.2844 The theory that it was a naval station is no doubt supported by the fact that it was the terminus of a Roman road: but Caesar speaks of a portus; and when Dr. Guest has to confute George Long, he is most emphatic in insisting that portus means ‘a harbour’ in the strictest sense of the word.2845

Let us, however, assume that Sangatte may conceivably have possessed a harbour in Caesar’s time. Even so, it is impossible to admit that Sangatte can have been the superior portus. For, if the eighteen ships which carried the cavalry had started from Sangatte, the conditions of wind and tide which would have rendered a voyage from Wissant to Kent less favourable than from Boulogne would obviously have been more unfavourable still.

3. There is one passage in Caesar’s narrative which, to a sailor, would be alone sufficient to prove that Wissant was not the port from which Caesar sailed in 55 B.C. We have seen that the gale which drove some of the cavalry transports from the point where they were first sighted westward down the coast carried the others back to the port from which they had started. I will assume that the latter were laid to on the port tack:2846 if they could not work to windward, a glance at the map will show that they could not have returned to any point east of Wissant. The gale must obviously have blown from some point between the east and the north; and, if Caesar sailed from Wissant, the place from which the transports started must, as we have seen, have been Sangatte. Now it is absolutely incredible that a gale which drove some of these ships from a point near the South Foreland2847 westward down the coast should have carried the others back to Sangatte. Caesar says that the former were ‘in great peril’, and that, when they anchored, the waves broke over them. A sailor would at once understand what their peril was. They were in no danger of being driven ashore; for while the gale was at its height they stood out to sea.2848 They ran before the wind; and they were in danger either of broaching to or, possibly, of being ‘pooped’.2849 From this we should conclude that the wind, when it struck the ships somewhere east or north-east of the South Foreland,2850 blew from about the north-east: indeed, as the waves broke over the ships, it may have blown from north-east by east; for, if it had blown from the north-east or north-east by north, the ships, if they anchored close in shore, west of Folkestone, would have been in a sheltered position.2851 The most easterly point at which they can be assumed to have been when they were caught by the gale is NW. 4° N. of Sangatte. Therefore if the wind had blown from the north-east, the ships that were carried back to the port from which they had started would have had to sail within less than eight points and a half of it in order to reach Sangatte. But, as Falconer2852 says, a ship laid to in a gale makes from 5½ to 6½ points of lee-way. Reduce this estimate to four, and you will see that the transports would have had to lie within less than four points and a half of the wind in order to make Sangatte. No ancient ship could have done this. Close-hauled and under short canvas, as they would necessarily have been, the transports, as Commander Richmond remarked to me, would ‘just have sagged to leeward’. It may be objected that the tide would have helped them if it was running up the Channel. But the flood tide is almost neutralized by a north-easterly gale, and simply makes the sea more vicious: the ships would have moved so slowly that they could not have crossed the Channel in one tide; and when it turned and began to sweep them westward, their prospect of reaching Sangatte would have been more hopeless than ever. With a north-easterly gale, or even one which blew from north-east by north, it would have been absolutely impossible, so Commander Richmond and the harbour-master of Dover have separately and independently affirmed, for the vessels to fetch that anchorage.2853

4. Desjardins2854 shows that, whereas four Roman roads, meeting at Gesoriacum, are mentioned in the itineraries,2855 not a single Roman road led to Wissant. The advocates of Wissant have, indeed, replied that this proves nothing, since, in Caesar’s time, there were no Roman roads in any part of Gaul.2856 But this reply is nugatory. Since no Roman roads led to Wissant, it is clear that if Wissant was the Portus Itius, this harbour, which Caesar had ascertained to be ‘the most convenient’ port of departure for Britain, was regarded by his successors as useless. Such a hypothesis is not tenable.

5. The mention of roads suggests another objection to Wissant. We have seen that Caesar’s army, consisting of five legions and 2,000 cavalry, remained weatherbound at the Portus Itius in 54 B.C. for about twenty-five days; and that with them were three other legions and 2,000 cavalry, who were left behind under the command of Labienus to guard the ports during Caesar’s absence.2857 Thus for twenty-five days a force amounting to at least 32,000 men and 4,000 horses had to be fed; and of these not less than 12,500 men and 2,000 horses for about ten weeks more.2858 No calculation is needed to show that these multitudes could not possibly have been supplied by the country in the neighbourhood of Wissant, even if it were as fertile as (according to Dr. Guest himself) it is ‘notoriously barren’.2859 Their food must have come from a distance; and to transport it to Wissant without roads would have been a task of extreme difficulty. Dr. Guest assumes that Caesar’s fleet would have supplied his wants.2860 But the fleet could only have procured grain from a port. Surely, then, Caesar would have found it most convenient to start from a port which was in communication by road or by river with the interior. Such a port was Boulogne, which enjoyed both these means of transit. What would have been gained by abandoning it for the isolated Wissant?

Again, it will be remembered that Labienus built sixty ships during Caesar’s absence in Britain;2861 and we have seen that most of the modern advocates of Wissant admit that there was no harbour there, except the tiny creek formed by the ruisseau d’Herlan, or possibly a roadstead which may have been partially sheltered by the Banc de Laine. Not one of them has attempted to explain how Labienus could have found the means of building sixty ships upon an exposed beach. But let us admit that his genius could have improvised dockyards.2862 Let us even admit that the harbour of Dr. Guest’s imagination did really exist. Still, sixty ships cannot be built without timber. How was all this timber to be brought to Wissant without roads and without a river? Even assuming that there was a Gallic road, it is doubtful whether Labienus could have impressed the amount of carriage necessary to transport the timber from the forests. But a few miles off at Boulogne the difficulty would have disappeared.2863

6. Another objection is so obvious that it must impress every candid inquirer. If Wissant was the Portus Itius, why was Wissant never once mentioned during the first millennium of our era? There is no evidence worthy of the name that it was used as a port before the year 1013.2864 It is surely inexplicable that the port which Caesar regarded as the most convenient for his purpose should have been found so inconvenient or so superfluous by his successors that during the imperial epoch it fell into entire disuse. Wauters indeed retorts that if Wissant was eclipsed by Gesoriacum under the Empire, so was the Gallic town of Bibracte by the Gallo-Roman Augustodunum, and that, although the naval station was Gesoriacum, Wissant may have been a great commercial port.2865 But he omits to explain how a great commercial port could have been left unnoticed by history, or how it could have existed without a river and roads to connect it with the interior. Nor is there any analogy between Wissant and Bibracte. The hill-fort of Bibracte gradually fell into disuse because when Gaul settled down under the Roman dominion it was no longer required.2866

7. Finally, Mariette2867 argues that the mere name of Wissant, which, like the names of many other villages in the Boulonnais, is of German origin, proves that it was not founded before the fifth century, and consequently that there could have been no frequented harbour there in Caesar’s time.

It has now been demonstrated that Caesar did not sail from Wissant. That it was the point of departure of his first expedition is out of the question; for in that case the portus ulterior, from which the cavalry transports set sail, must have been Sangatte; and we have seen that they could not have returned to Sangatte when they were dispersed by the gale. The portus ulterior can only have been Ambleteuse; and therefore Caesar sailed in 55 B.C. from Boulogne. But nobody will believe that, having had experience of the advantages of Boulogne, he would have discarded it in favour of a place which, for his purpose, was in all respects inferior.

Nevertheless, to satisfy doubters, I shall state the case for and against Boulogne.

IX. BOULOGNE

The reasons which point to the identification of the Portus Itius with Boulogne are, speaking generally, that Boulogne, and Boulogne only, satisfies all the requirements of Caesar’s narrative.

To begin with, the passage for sailing-vessels from Boulogne to the south-eastern part of Britain is, and always has been, in circumstances such as Caesar described, not only very convenient but by far the most convenient. This is the testimony of seafaring men, both English and French, who have practical experience of the winds and the currents in the Channel: it was admitted, or rather strenuously maintained, by Henry,2868 who advocated the claims of Wissant; and any man who studies the Admiralty Chart—Dungeness to the Thames—the Channel Pilot, and the Atlas, published by the Admiralty, which is entitled Tidal Streams in the English and Irish Channels, may convince himself of its truth. Captain Pollet, the harbour-master of Calais and Boulogne, furnished information to Ernest de Saulcy, who was determined, by hook or by crook, to make out a plausible case in support of Wissant; but he avowed his own opinion that Caesar must have sailed from Boulogne.2869 Captain Iron, the harbour-master of Dover, in conversation with me, has done the same.

Secondly, the whole of Caesar’s fleet could easily have assembled in the port of Boulogne; and they certainly could not have assembled in any other port, properly so-called, on the coast of the Morini,2870 except the mouth of the Canche, which was several miles further from Britain than Boulogne, and was in no respect more convenient. Desjardins2871 has shown that the estuary of the Liane was much broader and deeper in Caesar’s time than it was in the nineteenth century before the harbour was modernized, and that, as the headland which sheltered it has suffered greatly from erosion, it extended further seaward; and not only was it ample in extent, but it was the only port protected from every wind.2872 No one has described its merits more eloquently than Henry, the advocate of Wissant; and no one was more competent to form an opinion. He describes Gesoriacum as ‘le havre le plus commode et le mieux situé de toute la Gaule-Belgique, pour le commerce, la construction et l’équipement des vaisseaux’.2873 But, although it is certain that there would have been ample room in the Liane for Caesar’s 800 small vessels,2874 Airy insists that it would have been impossible for them to clear the harbour in a single tide.2875 Now Caesar does not say that they did clear the harbour in a single tide; nor is it necessary to assume that they did. Captain Iron has, however, assured me that Caesar’s fleet of shallow vessels could have cleared the harbour in a single tide even if the depth of the water then had been no greater than in 1877. In that year the depth at low tide was 1 metre 60, or more than 5 feet2876; and it may be regarded as certain that the draught of Caesar’s vessels in the second expedition was much less than five feet.2877 The estuary of the Liane has been silted up so much since Caesar’s time that it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that its depth then was three times as much as in 1877;2878 and it has been ascertained from the sinking of artesian wells at the cement works of M. Demarle at Capécure2879 that at that place the ancient bed of the river is 19 metres below the level of spring tides.2880

Thirdly, the distance of Ambleteuse from Boulogne corresponds closely enough with Caesar’s estimate of the distance of the ulterior portus from the Portus Itius. This does not prove the identity of the Portus Itius with Boulogne: but, if it is not a fact, the Portus Itius was not Boulogne; and it is therefore necessary to examine the arguments of those who have denied it. ‘On measuring,’ says Airy,2881 ‘upon the beautiful Admiralty Chart the distance between the centre of the entrance to Boulogne and the centre of the entrance to Ambleteuse, I find it to be not quite 4½ nautical miles, or 5½ Roman miles; instead of the 8 miles given by Caesar.’ This estimate is accurate; but it is also irrelevant; for Airy measures the distance by sea; and Caesar must have meant the distance by land. ‘It was quite immaterial,’ says Lewin,2882 ‘what was the distance by sea, for the eighteen transports were windbound, and could not reach him; but, as he could not dispense with the vessels, he had to consider what portion of his force could be most conveniently despatched thither, and as the transports lay eight miles off, he thought it best, in order to save time, to send thither his cavalry ... by the nearest road from the port of Boulogne, through Wimille and Slacq to the church at Ambleteuse, the distance is twelve kilometres.’2883 It is amusing to find that Airy, who lays so much stress upon the accuracy of Caesar’s (assumed) estimate of the distance by sea from the Portus Itius to the ulterior portus, maintains on the preceding page (Essays on the Invasion of Britain, &c., p. 27) that Caesar’s estimates of distances by sea were valueless.

Fourthly, Caesar’s narrative of the adventures of his cavalry transports is easily comprehensible on the hypothesis that the port from which he himself sailed was Boulogne, but on no other.2884 As we have seen, the storm of the 30th of August, 55 B.C., which prevented them from making the Kentish coast near Caesar’s camp, drove some of them westward to a point on the south coast, and carried the rest back to the point whence they had started, namely, the ulterior portus. That port, if Caesar sailed from Boulogne, was Ambleteuse; and there is no difficulty in believing, nor has it ever been denied, that the wind, before which some of the ships ran from the neighbourhood of the South Foreland2885 in the direction of Dungeness, would have carried the others, which were laid to, back to Ambleteuse.

Fifthly, Caesar, as we have seen, sailed from the Portus Itius with a south-westerly wind;2886 and it is needless to tell any one who will consult the map that to sail with a south-westerly wind, especially with flat-bottomed vessels which made a great deal of lee-way, and on the easterly going stream, from Boulogne either to Sandwich, Deal, Walmer, Hythe, or Lympne, would have been easier than to sail from Wissant.

Sixthly, it is universally admitted that Boulogne, which Pliny2887 calls the portus Morinorum Britannicus, was the permanent naval station of the Romans in the imperial epoch, and that it was the harbour from which they habitually sailed for the coast of Kent.2888 An inscription preserved in the Boulogne museum2889 proves that this station was established at least as early as the reign of Claudius, while Suetonius2890 tells us that Claudius embarked at Gesoriacum for Britain. Indeed there is indirect evidence that the station existed in the time of Augustus; for the road which ran from Mediolanum (Milan) past Lugdunum (Lyons), Durocortorum (Reims), and Ambiani (Amiens), to Gesoriacum2891 was constructed by Agrippa. It has been argued that, although Gesoriacum was the recognized harbour from the time of Augustus, the fact does not prove that it was the harbour from which Caesar sailed. But to those who admit that it has been proved that no other port existed which would have served Caesar’s purpose the fact will appear conclusive.2892

Seventhly, Desjardins2893 has pointed out that Gallic ports were always either in the mouths of rivers or otherwise sheltered from storms. Such a port was Gesoriacum; and if Wissant was a Gallic harbour at all, it was a solitary exception to the rule.

Lastly, Rudolf Schneider2894 lays great stress upon the fact that, according to Pomponius Mela,2895 no harbour on the northern coast of Gaul was better known than Gesoriacum; and he reminds us that Pliny2896 mentioned no other harbour in the country of the Morini. Unless, he argues, the Portus Itius was identical with Gesoriacum, Mela, Pliny, and the later writers must have forgotten its existence. Now nothing would be easier than to make a dialectical reply to this argument,—Is it not equally remarkable that none of these writers even hints that Gesoriacum was the Portus Itius? This was the reply which I made myself on another occasion. But the reply was sophistical. Schneider’s argument depends upon the assumption that the Portus Itius was one of the great harbours of Gaul; and considering that it could accommodate 800 vessels, this assumption is certainly reasonable. At all events it is impossible to suggest any other explanation of the fact that after Strabo no writer mentioned the Portus Itius for more than a thousand years, except this,—that the Portus Itius and Gesoriacum were one.

It would be waste of time to repeat the arguments, which have already been stated by implication in the section on Wissant, based upon the unique advantages that Boulogne possessed in being connected with the interior by river and road.2897

It remains only to consider the objections which have been made to the identification of the Portus Itius with Boulogne.

1. The very fact that Boulogne was called Gesoriacum is regarded by Long2898 as presumptive evidence that it was not called Portus Itius.

Desjardins,2899 who evidently regards this as a serious objection, has taken great pains to remove it. He argues that the Portus Itius was not exactly the same as the imperial harbour of Gesoriacum, but that it comprised that part of the estuary of the Liane which lies between Bréquerecque and Isques; and, he triumphantly remarks, the name ‘Isques’ is derived from Itius. But ‘Isques’ cannot have been derived from Itius: the names ‘Ausques’,‘Quesques’, ‘Clerques’, ‘Setques’, and ‘Wisques’ are derived from Alciacum, Kessiacum, Quertliacum, Sethiacum, and Wiciacum; and the inference is that not Itius but Isiacum would have been transformed into ‘Isques’.2900 Rudolf Schneider,2901 who is too honest and too hard-headed to be deluded by Desjardins’s attempt to draw a distinction between Gesoriacum and Portus Itius, frankly admits that the unrecorded change of name has not been explained. But is there anything to explain? ‘Portus Itius’ is not, properly speaking, a name at all: it does not designate a town; it means simply ‘the Itian harbour’. Long saw nothing inexplicable in the fact that Gesoriacum was called by Pliny portus [Morinorum] Britannicus: why, then, should he have found it impossible to believe that its harbour was called by Caesar portus Itius?2902 Was not the port of Athens called the Piraeus?

2. Long, after making the amazing remark that ‘such a port as Boulogne would have been quite useless in Caesar’s second expedition’, says that ‘the Romans estimated the distance from Boulogne to the British coast at fifty Roman miles; but this is too much.... However, they were right in making the distance more than the distance from Itius to the nearest point of the British coast; and the conclusion is that Gesoriacum and Itius were different places.’2903

The conclusion is simply that, assuming the identity of Gesoriacum with the Portus Itius, Caesar’s estimate of the distance from Gesoriacum to Britain was different from that of later writers. Besides, the only one of ‘the Romans’, as far as we know, who ‘estimated the distance from Boulogne to the British coast at fifty Roman miles’ was Pliny;2904 and it may be presumed that by ‘the British coast’ he meant Rutupiae, or Richborough, which was a port, if not the chief port, of arrival in his day. For he estimated the shortest passage at fifty Roman miles: according to Dion Cassius,2905 the shortest passage was 450 stades; and this, according to the Itinerary of Antonine,2906 was precisely the length of the passage from Boulogne to Richborough.

Long goes on to say that in the Itinerary of Antonine the distance from Boulogne to Richborough ‘was estimated at 450 stadia; and, if we follow d’Anville in estimating this maritime stadium at ten to the Roman mile, the distance is fairly given. So if we take the 320 stadia which Strabo gives as the length of Caesar’s voyages, we have thirty-two Roman miles; or, if we take the reading which Eustathius, copying Strabo, has in his commentary on Dionysius, 300 stadia, we have exactly thirty Roman miles, as in Caesar’s text. The conclusion is that, in addition to the fact of Boulogne (Gesoriacum) and Ouissant (Itius) having different names, the ancient authorities place them at different distances from the British coast.’2907

Again Long’s conclusion is at fault. To begin with, Strabo did not estimate the maritime stadium at ten, but at eight to the Roman mile.2908 Assuming, however, that he did estimate it at one-tenth of a Roman mile, there is no reason to suppose that when Caesar estimated the distance from the Portus Itius to Britain, he meant the distance to Richborough; and the only conclusion that can be drawn from Long’s data is that ‘the ancient authorities’ reckoned the length of Caesar’s voyage less than the distance between Richborough and Boulogne. And when Long says that the estimated distance, 450 stadia, from Boulogne to Richborough ‘is fairly given’, it is amusing to find him admitting that Caesar’s estimate of 30 miles ‘exceeds the distance from Wissant to the nearest part of the English coast, and it is about the true distance from Boulogne to the same part of the English coast’. Thus, on Long’s own showing, Caesar’s estimate of the distance from the Portus Itius to the British coast corresponds with the actual distance from Boulogne to the same, and the estimate of the Itinerary is equally true. The reader who has followed him so far will hardly be surprised by his remark, that ‘even a real good harbour would have been useless to Caesar’.2909

3. Heller,2910 after quoting the statement of Pliny as to the length of the shortest passage from Boulogne to Britain, and the statement of the Itinerary of Antonine as to the distance from Boulogne to Richborough, argues (a) that, as they overestimated the distance from Gaul to Britain, Caesar probably did the same; (b) that if Pliny had identified Boulogne with the Portus Itius, he would not have estimated the distance of Boulogne from the nearest point of Britain at 50 miles, but would have followed Caesar and written ‘about 30’; (c) that if Caesar had started from Boulogne, he would, according to the usual tendency of the ancients, have overestimated the distance from Boulogne to Britain, and would therefore have reckoned it at considerably more than ‘about 30 miles’, seeing that the actual distance from Boulogne to Dover is 33.

The first of these arguments, if it had come from a tiro, might have been passed over with a smile; but one would hardly have expected it from Heller. The third is based upon a misleading statement;2911 and even if we could be sure that Caesar overestimated the length of his voyage, it would be inconclusive, for, as we have seen,2912 it is not improbable that he estimated it at 40 Roman miles. And as for Pliny, ‘the shortest passage,’ which he estimated at 50 miles, was probably, I repeat, the passage from Boulogne to Richborough.

4. H. L. Long,2913 if I do not misunderstand him, argues that there could have been no port at Ambleteuse in the days of Caesar. Speaking of ‘the immense irruption of blown sand’, he maintains that ‘this dune ... acts as a dam to the drainage of the valley; an interruption which must have produced swamps in former days, and is now but imperfectly corrected by an artificial channel, the embouchure of which forms the little harbour of Ambleteuse’.

This argument obviously depends upon the untenable assumption that the sand-dune existed in Caesar’s time; and it is shaken by the fact that Roman antiquities have been discovered at Ambleteuse.2914 Moreover, according to the writer of the article Ambleteuse in M. Vivien de Saint-Martin’s Nouveau Dictionnaire de Géographie Universelle (i, 1879, p. 115), Ambleteuse, under the rule of the English, had an excellent harbour,2915 and was not choked up by the accumulation of sand until after 1549.2916

5. General Creuly,2917 referring to the attack made by 6,000 of the Morini upon the Roman soldiers who disembarked from the two ships which failed to make the harbours in 55 B.C. and were carried ‘a little further down’, insists that Caesar’s account of this episode2918 is incompatible with the view that the Portus Itius was Boulogne. For, he argues, the 6,000 Morini could not have belonged to the pagus Gesoriacus, that is to say, the district of Boulogne, since the inhabitants of this region had submitted to Caesar, and, moreover, it was so sparsely populated that 6,000 men could not have assembled on the spur of the moment. He also reminds us that on the day following the attack Labienus marched against the rebellious Morini, and soon subdued them, as, owing to a drought, they were unable to take refuge in the marshes which had served them as an asylum in the preceding year;2919 and he denies that there were any marshes in the pagus Gesoriacus large enough to serve such a purpose.

Creuly can only make a show of sustaining these objections by resorting to Airy’s fantastic theory,2920—that Caesar, when he said that two of his ships were carried ‘a little further down’, meant not ‘down the coast’ but ‘in the direction of the wind’. If the inhabitants of the district of Boulogne had submitted, why should they not have rebelled? The Aduatuci submitted and afterwards rebelled:2921 the Nervii submitted and afterwards rebelled;2922 the Britons submitted and afterwards rebelled:2923—but it is needless to multiply examples. For Caesar expressly states that the Morini who attacked his soldiers had submitted to him before he sailed for Britain.2924 I am not concerned to defend the accuracy of his statement, that their number was 6,000: but Creuly admits that 6,000 Morini did assemble somewhere in their own country; and how can he prove that the district of Boulogne was more sparsely populated than any other? As to the marshes, there is no evidence that they were in the immediate neighbourhood of the spot where the soldiers were attacked; but if they were, what is there to prevent us from identifying them with the marshes south of Boulogne, between Camiers and Dannes?2925

6. Heller’s objection,2926 that if Caesar had sailed from Boulogne in 54 B.C. it would have been impossible for his ship to drift so far by daybreak on the following morning as to justify him in saying that he ‘saw Britain lying behind on the port quarter’ (sub sinistra Britanniam relictam conspexit2927), has been already answered.

7. Caesar, describing his return to Gaul in 54 B.C., says that ‘at daybreak he reached land’ (prima luce terram attigit), and that his ‘ships were hauled up on the shore’ (subductis navibus2928). It has been argued that ‘both of these expressions point to the conclusion that he did not enter the mouth of a river’, and that ‘if the Portus Itius was in the estuary of the Liane, to haul up the ships over the banks on to the meadows would surely have been a difficult operation’.2929 The author of this argument forgot that the ships need not have been hauled up on to the meadows at all unless they had gone far up the river, and that they may have been docked. But an expert whom he has since consulted assures him that, even if it had been necessary to haul up the ships over the banks on to the meadows, the operation would have involved no serious difficulty.

If this inquiry had merely established the probability of the identification of the Portus Itius with the harbour of Boulogne, it would not be possible to justify the labour which has been expended upon it except on the ground that it will save those who may wish to inform themselves a vast amount of research, and provide them with complete equipment for arriving at an independent conclusion. But that conclusion, if it is reached conscientiously by an unbiassed mind, can only be one.