Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press (52 page)

pr oconsul 58–50 BC

have speculated that he was now aware of the Wantsum Channel and used it, but this is not entirely convincing in the light of subsequent events. A more natural reading would suggest that it was at or fairly close to the beach chosen the year before. Wherever it was, the Britons had mustered to meet them but were daunted by the sight of hundreds of vessels coming towards them and retired. Most of the fleet was at the beach by noon. The Romans began landing, marking out and constructing a camp behind the beach as almost their first task. Patrols went out to find prisoners, who informed them of the withdrawal of the British army to a new position inland.29

Caesar decided on an immediate attack, and marched out under cover of darkness with forty cohorts and 1,700 cavalry. The remaining legionaries and horsemen were left at the camp under the command of Quintus Atrius. The Roman fleet lay mostly at anchor, Caesar confident that it would be safe lying off ‘a calm, open shore’. Caesar’s column made good progress, covering some 12 miles before dawn came and revealed the Britons waiting behind the line of a river – most probably the Stour near modern Canterbury. On wooded hills there was a walled enclosure – possibly the hillfort at Bigbury Wood – where the main tribal force waited. Small parties of cavalry, chariots and skirmishers periodically dashed forward from this shelter to hurl missiles at the Romans. Such tactics were doubtless effective enough in inter-tribal warfare, but posed few problems for veteran legions. Caesar attacked, his cavalry brushing aside the Britons and allowing the
Seventh
Legion to launch a direct assault on the hillfort. The legionaries formed the famous
testudo
or tortoise, overlapped shields held above their heads to create a roof able to stop all but the heaviest missiles. There was little need for the more complex engineering often employed by the Romans in sieges. A simple ramp was piled up against the wall and the enclosure stormed. There was only a short pursuit of the fleeing enemy. Caesar’s men were tired after the Channel crossing, night march and battle, and he still wanted them to construct a marching camp in the proper way. The army halted for the night.30

On the following morning Caesar sent out three independent columns to seek the enemy. It was normal on such occasions to burn and plunder during the advance until the local leaders came to seek peace. Caesar clearly believed that there was no prospect of the Britons re-forming as a single main army so soon after their defeat, and therefore it was better to cover more ground with a number of flying columns. He does not seem to have accompanied any of these troops, but remained in the marching camp and was there when a messenger came in from Quintus Atrius. The news was bad, for a storm had blown up during the previous night and struck the anchored 288

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fleet causing a great deal of damage. Caesar recalled the three columns and rode back to inspect the damage, discovering that forty ships were smashed beyond repair. The craftsmen were called out from the ranks of the legions and sent back to the camp to work on the remainder. A message was also sent to Labienus in Gaul ordering him to set his legionaries to the task of building more ships. After ten days of intense labour the bulk of the ships with Caesar were once again in serviceable condition. Other soldiers worked to construct a ditch and rampart running from the camp onto the beach itself. All of the repaired ships were dragged ashore and beached inside the protection of this fortification. The root of Caesar’s problem was that he had no harbour in which his ships could be sheltered and easily loaded and offloaded. The Wantsum Channel around the Isle of Thanet would probably have given him most of what he needed, but the damage suffered in this storm makes it very unlikely that he used it. Perhaps the Romans remained unaware of it, or lacked the knowledge to find and navigate its entrance. Throughout history the weather has always posed huge problems to seaborne invasions – in 1944 the British, Americans and Canadians took their own artificial ‘Mulberry’ harbours to Normandy, but still suffered great disruption to the build-up after D-Day because of the heavy storms from 19–23 June. Although it is hard to see what he could have done to solve this problem, there is something cavalier in the way Caesar had done nothing to alter his plans in 54 BC in spite of the carnage wrought on his fleet by the storm in the previous year. The new fortification would serve to defend the ships from enemy attack, but offered little protection against the elements. Many commentators have criticised this failure to learn from experience. Most of such criticism has been justified, but, unless he had simply sent the ships back to the ports of Gaul and hoped that they would be able to return when needed, the only safe alternative was not to have launched the second expedition at all. Caesar was determined to do this, for reasons that were essentially political and personal. On both British expeditions his luck nearly failed him, but in each case he managed to escape.31

The pause gave the Britons time to recover. Several tribes, who in normal circumstances were hostile to each other, combined to face the common danger and appointed a war-leader named Cassivellaunus. Caesar tells us that he came from a tribe north of the Thames, but nothing else is known of him and we cannot be certain which tribe this was. When Caesar rejoined the main force at the inland camp and resumed his advance, his patrols were continually harassed by parties of chariots and horsemen. In close combat, especially between large formed bodies of troops, Caesar’s legionaries and 289

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auxiliary cavalry consistently demonstrated their superiority, but in a number of skirmishes parties of his men were lured into ambushes and suffered badly. Cassivellaunus was encouraged and launched a big attack on the Romans when they halted at the end of the march to begin entrenching their camp. Caesar sent two cohorts up to reinforce his outposts, but it took more reinforcements to drive the Britons back. One of his tribunes was killed in the fighting. On the following day the British attacks were not pressed as hard, until Caesar sent one of his legates out with three legions on a foraging expedition. When most of the legionaries dispersed to set about their task, the British chariots and cavalry rushed in to exploit this weakness. However, the Romans quickly rallied, formed up and drove the enemy off. For a while the British tribes dispersed and resistance was light.32

Caesar decided to target Cassivellaunus’ own homeland and marched towards the Thames. It is not clear where he crossed – probably somewhere in what is now central London – but his men forded the river and brushed aside the warriors defending the far bank. The British commander decided not to risk another open battle and resolved instead to harass the enemy, relying mainly on his chariot force. Caesar claims that there were 4,000 of these, but this seems likely to be an inflated figure – for instance it would mean 8,000 ponies. Herds were driven from the fields along the Romans’

route of march and food supplies destroyed or hidden. The chariots were there to ambush the Roman foragers. Caesar’s men began to suffer a steady trickle of losses in these skirmishes, until he was forced to keep men close to the main column at all times. Fortunately, as he had so often done in Gaul, Caesar was able to make use of a local ally. With the army was Mandubracius, a prince of the Trinovantes – a people living north of the Thames in East Anglia – who had been driven into exile after Cassivellaunus had killed his father. This tribe surrendered, asking Caesar to restore Mandubracius to the throne, and willingly handed over both hostages and food. Their example was soon followed by five other small tribes, whose names are not otherwise known to history. The fragile alliance between the British tribes was crumbling under the pressure of long-standing animosities. From these new allies Caesar discovered the location of Cassivellaunus’ own stronghold, hidden amidst woods and marshes. Straightaway he marched the legions there and stormed the place, capturing considerable quantities of cattle. It was a major blow to the war-leader’s prestige. At around the same time Cassivellaunus had arranged for the tribes of Kent to mount an attack on Atrius and the cohorts guarding the ships, but this was repulsed with heavy losses.33

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Following these twin blows Cassivellaunus decided to seek peace. It was now nearly the end of September and the proconsul was eager to resolve matters and get back to Gaul. Negotiations were facilitated by Commius, who had once again accompanied Caesar. The British war-leader promised hostages and an annual tribute, and pledged not to attack Mandubracius and the Trinovantes. Waiting only for the hostages to be delivered, Caesar began to embark his army. However, even with all the repaired vessels he doubted that there was enough capacity to carry both the soldiers and the large numbers of hostages and slaves they had taken. The proconsul decided to make two crossings. The first went smoothly, but it proved impossible for the empty ships to return from the Gaulish side of the Channel. Similarly, none of the vessels built or found by Labienus were able to get to the army in Britain. After waiting for several days, Caesar decided that it was too risky to stay where he was. It was already September and the weather was likely to get worse, raising the prospect that he might be stranded in Britain with only part of his army. Cramming the troops into those vessels he had, they sailed overnight to reach Gaul by dawn. Caesar left Britain never to return. It would be almost a century before another Roman army would invade the island and turn it into a province.34

On both British expeditions Caesar avoided disaster, if only narrowly. It is normally assumed that the annual tribute promised by the British tribes was never paid or at least quickly lapsed. Trade between Britain and the Roman world steadily increased in the years after Caesar, shifting away from the old routes to the south-west and moving instead to the south-eastern corner that he had visited. The destruction of the Veneti probably contributed much to this shift, but it does also seem that more Roman merchants were able to reach Britain as the century progressed. Yet even the tribes who had submitted to Caesar could not in any meaningful way be described as now being part of Rome’s empire – despite the occasional claims of Roman propagandists. Cicero noted the quick realisation in Rome that campaigns in Britain were not going to yield the eagerly anticipated profits. There was no silver, nor any hope of ‘booty except for slaves; but I doubt we’ll find any scribes or musicians amongst them’ – in other words those likely to fetch a high price. Yet he remained excited by the whole business and wrote with enthusiasm about his brother’s account of the expedition, for Quintus Cicero was now serving as one of Caesar’s legates. Although influenced by this family involvement, his mood seems to have been fairly typical of many Romans. The expeditions to Britain brought Caesar huge and highly favourable public attention, excited by the novelty and tales of chariots and 291

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barbarians who painted their bodies blue with woad. The landings were undoubted propaganda successes, even if the actual results were negligible and the risks taken very high. Cato’s attacks on him in 55 BC had shown the difficulty of dealing with opponents when he could not confront them face to face in the Senate or Forum. Yet no one could doubt that Caesar was making the most of his opportunity to win glory and make himself fabulously rich in the process. Even if the profits of the British expeditions were a little disappointing, the cumulative result of five years of successful campaigning had raised him from a debtor on the brink of ruin to one of the Republic’s wealthiest men.35

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XIV

Rebellion, Disaster

and Vengeance

‘And then, since he had not anticipated anything, Sabinus panicked, and rushed here and there deploying the cohorts, but even this he did timidly and in confusion – as is usually the case when a man is forced to decide everything in the heat of the action. In contrast Cotta, who had guessed that this might happen on the march and because of this had spoken against setting out, did everything to ensure the safety of the force – and in challenging and inspiring the legionaries he did the duty of a general, while in the fighting he played the part of a soldier.’ –
Caesar.
1

While Caesar was in Britain in August 54 BC, his daughter Julia died in childbirth. The infant – a girl in some accounts and a boy in others – survived her by just a few days. For the Roman aristocracy, as indeed for most of humanity until the modern age, such deaths were all too common. Julia had become pregnant at least once before during her marriage, but had miscarried, shocked, it was said, by the sight of her husband coming back from the elections spattered in blood – someone else’s blood as it turned out. Since we do not know her date of birth we cannot calculate Julia’s age when she died, but at most she was in her mid twenties. Caesar’s mother Aurelia also died in 54 BC. The cause is unknown, but she was by this time in her sixties, and had been a widow for three decades. In one year Caesar lost the two members of his family who were closest to him. It was his mother to whom he had declared that he would come home as
Pontifex Maximus
or not at all, and who had presided over the Bona Dea celebrations in his house. She was a formidable woman who had had a great influence on her only son, and had lived long enough to see some of his great successes. Now she was gone. The news of both deaths reached Caesar by letter. There is no evidence that he had seen either his mother or daughter in the four years since he had left 293

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Rome. These were bitter personal blows, most especially the loss of his child. Cicero wrote an earnest letter of condolence to Caesar – he was devoted, perhaps excessively so, to his own daughter Tullia and heartbroken when she also died some years later. There was genuine grief and emotion and not mere political bonding on such occasions. Pompey, too, was deeply sorrowful at the death of his young wife. The couple had been very much in love in spite of the great difference in age and the political inspiration of their union. In recent years Pompey had often been criticised for spending too much time with his wife on his grand estates, enjoying himself when he ought to have been attending to the Republic’s affairs. Plutarch claims that he had not even had any affairs while married to Julia.2