was posted. This was on a river, and it must have been either the Great or Little Stour. We are told the British chariots and cavalry advanced to the river and posted themselves on the high ground to prevent the Roman advance, and the battle then began. Defeated by the Roman cavalry, the Britons sought shelter in the woods, in a position strong by nature, but made stronger by art; doubtless one of those stockaded fortresses of earth of which remains are to be found in many parts. In this case, Cæsar tells us, it seemed that the position had been previously fortified in view of some domestic foe, for every approach to it was barred by a rampart formed of felled timber which would no doubt take some time to make. From behind their vantage the Britons delivered their weapons at the Romans, and prevented them entering the stockade. At length the soldiers of the Seventh Legion raised their shields above their heads in a close mass, and, thus protected from impending weapons, proceeded to build up a mound of earth against the barricade, and then scaled it,* driving the defenders from the wood with small loss to themselves. Cæsar refrained from pursuit, inasmuch as the country before him was not known to him and as the greater part of the day was already spent, and he wished, in the soldierly Roman fashion, to fortify his camp for the night. The following day he sent three divisions of cavalry and infantry in pursuit. They had gone but a short distance, and the rear ranks were still in view, when some horsemen despatched by Q. Atrius reported that the previous night a terrible hurricane had swept over the coast and had driven nearly all the transports from their anchorage and cast them upon the beach. This disaster was a very serious one indeed, and Cæsar promptly recalled his men and once more returned to the landing-place, where he found matters very much as they had been reported to him. concluded, however, that by a sacrifice of about forty ships he could with some trouble repair and refit the remainder. The pioneers and smiths' carpenters in the army were told off for this duty, while others were sent for from the Continent. Orders were also despatched to Labienus, who was in command at Boulogne, that he should, with the legions he had with him, get ready as many ships as he could. To prevent further calamity of the same kind, although the work was one of vast labour, he deemed it most prudent to haul the whole of the fleet ashore and to protect it by a continuous rampart, as was * Cæsar, v. 9; Lewin, op. cit. 90. He the practice with the Romans.* We must remember that the legionaries were pioneers as well as fighting men, and carried entrenching tools with them. The army was continuously occupied in refitting the fleet for ten days, i.e. probably till about July 31. Having sheltered his newly fitted ships in a naval camp, Cæsar entrusted them to the same garrison he had previously left behind. It was probably, as Mr. Lewin suggests, during the delay caused by these precautionary measures that we find Quintus Cicero again writing to his brother at Rome. This letter was probably written about the end of July. Mark's reply is extant, and we gladly adopt Mr. Lewin's vigorous translation of it : 'Now,' he says, 'I come last to that which should perhaps have stood first. O that delightful letter of yours from Britain! I had been so fearful of the ocean, so fearful of the coasts of the island. I do not speak slightingly of all the rest, but the rest carries more of hope than of fear, and I am rather upon the tiptoe of expectation than under serious alarm. But I see that you have a brave subject for composition. What sites! What descriptions of places and things! What manners! What nations! What battles! And above all, what a commander-in-chief! I will gladly assist you, as you asked me, in what you wish. I will forward you the verses you desire, γλαυκ ̓ εἰς ̓Αθήνας. But, I say, you seem to have forgotten me! For, tell me, my brother, what thought Cæsar of my verses? for he wrote me word before that he had read the first book, and that, taking the commencement as a sample, he had never read anything finer, not even of the Greeks. The rest he had reserved till he was more at leisure (¿q0vμórɛpa), for I use his very word. But tell me candidly whether either the subject or the style fails to please. No need to fear, for I shall not think a whit the worse of myself. with it, and write like a true brother as you are.' † Out Having reached his former position on the Stour, Cæsar found the Britons had again assembled there, and had nominated as their chief, Cassivellaunus, whose dominions were separated from the maritime states by the Thames. As was usual among the Celts, and, in fact, as is almost necessarily a rule among all disintegrated communities, he had been selected in a time of great critical danger, no doubt from his known vigour and skill, to superintend the means of resistance, and had been given the authority of a dictator. On his march inland, Cæsar relates that his cavalry had to sustain a sharp struggle with the charioteers of the enemy, in which his people were, however, everywhere successful, * Livy, xxiii. 28, and xxxvi. 45; Long, op. cit. v. 11, note. and compelled the latter to find shelter in the woods and hills. Many of them were killed; but the Romans, pursuing too eagerly and in turn, lost several of their men, After a short interval, the latter were even more severely punished, for being off their guard and engaged in fortifying their camp, a number of the enemy made a rush and surprised the pickets who were keeping guard. Cæsar sent two cohorts of picked men to the rescue. They were, however, disconcerted by the unusual kind of fighting, and the Britons succeeded in cutting their way through the space which intervened between them. The fight was evidently a sharp one. On the same day, Q. Laberius Durus, a military tribune, was killed. Mr. Lewin says that on the southern bank of the Stour, a little to the east of the Wye, and opposite Chilham, there is a tumulus called Julliber's grave, which is traditionally connected with the death of Cæsar's general. He adds, if his name had been Julius Laberius, and not Quintus, there would have been at least a curious coincidence, as the locality is not an improbable one. On the defeat of his men, Cæsar had to send up a large relay of reinforcements, when the Britons were at length repulsed." * The following day, i.e. about August 2, the Britons showed themselves on the neighbouring hills, and began the same skirmishing tactics as before. About noon, Cæsar had sent three legions, with the whole of his cavalry (constituting a considerable army), under Caius Trebonius, for foraging purposes. As the foragers were engaged in collecting supplies, the Britons rushed in from all sides, so bravely and persistently that they followed them up to the standards and the legions. Cæsar says that his men opposed a stubborn front, and repelled the enemy, who were then attacked by the cavalry, encouraged by the legions behind, and were so routed that they never dared to cross arms again.† After the battle the Britons retreated en masse, and Cæsar, knowing their plans, marched his troops to the river Thames, to the borders of the kingdom of Cassivellaunus, to the only spot where the river was fordable on foot, and this with difficulty. The fixing of this ford, and consequently of Cæsar's route from the Stour, has been much debated; nor have we materials for arriving at anything but a probable solution. Cæsar tells us the dominions of Cassivellaunus were separated from the maritime states by the Thames, and adds the ambiguous phrase, a mari circiter milia passuum † Id. 17. * Cæsar, Comm. v. 15. lxxx,' about eighty miles from the sea.' It is reasonable to suppose that he estimated this distance by his march from the coast to where he crossed the river. This makes it probable that the ford was somewhere near Kingston, as was argued long ago by Horsley. The first place where the Thames is easily fordable, and where there has been a regular route across from early times, is at Kingston. The town of Kingston probably arose and derived its early importance from this ford. The importance of the passage there may be gathered from the fact that Kingston_bridge is reported to be the oldest on the Thames except London Bridge, while coins, urns, and other Roman antiquities have been found at Combe, which is close by. All these facts combine with the distance as given by Cæsar to make it exceedingly probable that he crossed the Thames at Kingston. There is only one other place which can seriously dispute with it, and that is Coway Stakes, near Walton, to which we shall revert presently. Having fixed this point, we may roughly map out the course of Cæsar's march from the Stour. As he does not mention crossing the Medway, it is pretty certain that he followed the route through the middle of Kent, and did not cling to the Thames. On leaving the neighbourhood of Durovernum or Canterbury he probably got into the old route which passes through Charing. This old road follows for the most part the high ground, and is said to have been in later times used by the pilgrims who went to Canterbury from the west country, and its course is still marked by lines of Kentish yews.* It led westward to Oldberry Hill, on Ightham Common. Thence the road passes westward to Holwood Hill, generally recognised as the site of Noviomagus, The large fortification here is still called Cæsar's Camp,' a name it bears with many similar sites which have little enough to do with Cæsar. Thence it seems the invaders made for the ford at Kingston. It is probable that it was while the Romans were on their march from the Stour to the Thames that Quintus Cicero again wrote to his brother Mark. His letter does not appear to have been a very confident one, for in his reply Mark says: I learn from your letter that, in regard 'to matters in Britain, there is neither matter for fear nor for 'congratulation.'t Cæsar's narrative tells us that when he reached the river he found the opposite bank occupied by large bodies of the enemy's troops, who had also fixed sharp stakes along their bank, while others were submerged in the bed of †M. H. B. lxxxviii. * Murray's 'Kent,' 201. the river. Having ascertained these facts from the prisoners and deserters who were with him, he ordered the cavalry to force a passage, and the infantry to follow in support immediately behind. This was done with such spirit and élan that, although the legionaries were up to their necks in the water, they carried everything before them, and the Britons fled precipitately. 6 The mention of the stakes in the river has been the source of a great deal of fertile archæological surmising, which began as early at least as the days of Bede, who, in speaking of Cæsar's campaign, says: Traces of the piles are still to be seen, and some of them, as thick as a man's thigh and coated with lead, are immovably fixed in the bed of the river.'+ The only place, apparently, where such stakes were recently to be found, was about a furlong to the west of Walton Bridge, in the parish of Shepperton, where there is a ford. These stakes are known as Coway Stakes; Camden, in 1607, fixed upon them as undoubtedly the very stakes named by Cæsar; and since his day the contest about them has been long and ingenious. Bray, the editor of Manning's Surrey,' was told in 1807 by a fisherman named Simmons that he had fished up several of the stakes, which were about six feet long and shod with iron. He described them as being ranged in two rows, about nine feet asunder, athwart the river, each stake being about four feet from its neighbour. On this Mr. Lewin says very aptly: How could stakes in two rows, nine feet asunder one way, viz. in the course of the stream, and four feet another, viz. across the stream, be intended as a barricade against an enemy, when a foot soldier-not to say a trooper'could pass through them in every direction? How, again, is 'it credible that the stakes, which must have been prepared in ' a hurry, should have been shod with iron in a systematic way, 'as in times of peace for the foundations of a bridge?'§ One of these stakes may be examined at the British Museum. The ford at Coway, again, is said to be nearly six feet deep, an impossible place, therefore, for soldiers to wade across. Putting these facts together, we cannot think there is any good ground for connecting the Coway Stakes with those recorded by Cæsar. 6 6 After the attempt to prevent the Romans crossing the river had failed, Cassivellaunus (the greater part of his army having dispersed) was left, according to Cæsar, with about four thousand Commentaries, v. 18. † Eccl. Hist. i. 2. |