Julius Caesar's Invasion of Britain by Nolan Roger;

Author:Nolan, Roger;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY /Ancient/Rome
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2019-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

The First Landing

Pin pointing the landing site of the first expedition is extremely difficult, unlike that of the second. The reason is that the information Caesar gives about the landing is open to a number of interpretations.

Caesar writes that he first invaded merely to visit the island, see what its inhabitants were like and also to familiarise himself with the lie of the land, the harbours and the landing places.

Surprisingly, he states that, in general, the Gauls knew nothing about Britain, only the traders who frequently visited the Island. As a result, he questioned a number of traders to discover what he could about Britain, especially details of the native tribes, their methods of fighting and the harbours capable of accommodating a large fleet of big ships.

In order to acquire more information, he sent one of his tribunes, Gaius Volusenus, to reconnoitre the coast, which he completed over a period of four days. This would have been long enough to enable him to have covered a considerable distance and reconnoitre most of the coast from Thanet round to beyond Hastings.

On the basis that there were almost certainly enough suitable harbours nearer to the French coast, Caesar is unlikely to have been advised by Volusenus to sail as far north as Thanet or round the coast to Hastings or even beyond.

Eighty ships, containing two legions, totalling between 9,000 and 12,000 men, set sail from Portus Itius and a further eighteen ships carrying cavalry left from a point eight miles further along the French coast. This fairly moderate sized force no doubt reflected Caesar’s view that having reached an accord with the British leaders prior to sailing he would not meet any opposition to landing. It is this slightly naïve trust on his part which led to the difficulties in the first campaign and undoubtedly caused him to land the following year with an overwhelmingly larger force.

They reached the British coast at around 09.00 hours and found that the enemy had gathered on all the hills, and Caesar writes that he was very concerned because the enemy would be able to hurl javelins on to the narrow beach between the cliffs and the sea.

On the face of it this could refer to a site anywhere between Walmer and Hythe However, given that Volusenus had been charged with finding a suitable landing place and Caesar had questioned traders to try to find harbours capable of accommodating a large fleet of big ships, it is most likely that he was heading for such a harbour. Furthermore, he would almost certainly have set out to cross the channel by the shortest route. So, if we are looking for an existing harbour capable of accommodating a fleet of ships which was closest to the continent then there are three possibilities. These are Dover, Folkestone and possibly Port Lympne which was known to have been a harbour only a few hundred years later during the Romano British era and which had cliffs behind it. We can however

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