Note 759 — Chapter VII · THE TOWNS.

It is clear that Caesar was not greatly harassed in his march towards the ford of the Thames near Chertsey; and if, as is probable, his advance disarmed the Cantii generally, or compelled the more warlike of their body to retire upon the force of Cassivelaunus, concentrated on the left bank of the river, we can understand what would otherwise seem a very dangerous movement,—a march into Surrey, leaving London unoccupied on the right flank. Thus it seems to me that the fact of Caesar’s not noticing the city may be more readily explained by its not lying within the scope of his manœuvres, than by its not existing in his time. And indeed it is probable that just here some portion of his memoirs has been lost: for in the nineteenth chapter of the fifth book, he distinctly says: “Cassivelaunus, ut supra demonstravimus, omni deposita spe contentionis,” etc.; but nothing now remains in what we possess, to which these words can possibly be referred. Caesar’s Commentaries were the private literary occupation of the great soldier in peaceful times, and we cannot attribute this contradiction in his finished work to carelessness.