Julius Caesar (17 page)

Nothing was known of Britain except the white cliffs that could be seen from the Calais area, while Roman and other merchants who had been there had never ventured into the interior. The island was reputed to be rich in cattle and corn, iron, gold, silver and tin, but little was known of its people except that they harbored many refugees from Gaul, and that some of them had even fought with the Veneti against the Romans the previous year. Caesar, if we are to believe the story, was also interested in this remote and strange place because of the high quality of its freshwater pearls, and his passion for pearls was well known. (Certainly there was no legend in this, and the freshwater pearls from the pearl-bearing mussel, although far less common than centuries ago, are still found in some of the country’s rivers.) There were further good reasons for investigating this island at the world’s rim: the availability of the fleet that had defeated the Veneti, and the fact that the trade of the Veneti was now passing into Roman hands. For this to succeed, warehouses would need to be established on the southeast coast of Britain and these in their turn would require protective strongpoints that could be garrisoned—with the ultimate view of extending roads into the country and preparing it for conquest. There was perhaps yet another good reason for this expedition to Britain. Caesar had crossed the Rhine, where no Roman general had been before, but the Rhine was only a river while the Channel was an unknown sea. Nevertheless the Romans were finding out, as have all similar conquering races subsequently, that an ever-expanding conquest poses more problems than it solves—and this was to be emphasized in Britain.

Leaving the harbor of Boulogne, the Seventh and Tenth legions, embarked in eighty ships, set off in the wake of Caesar and his staff officers. The ground had already been prepared by diplomatic negotiations with a number of British tribes. One foretaste of the difficulties inherent in a sea-crossing, however relatively small, was that the cavalry had not been ready as scheduled, so that the legionaries would be without their support in a land known to be furnished with many horsemen and charioteers. There was to be no friendly reception either, for, on reaching the coast off Dover, massed crowds were seen on the heights and their appearance was anything but welcoming.

Dover was clearly no place to land, under the threat of javelins and rocks, so the fleet moved a few miles westward to reach a wide beach, very probably near Deal. Once again the Britons, having followed them along the coast, were waiting, and Caesar realized that his legions would have to land and charge up a sloping beach in the face of the enemy. It was not an attractive proposition and it was made more awkward because the transports, on account of their draft, were unable to get right into the shallows. The legionaries, heavily-burdened with their arms and armor, would have to jump into an indeterminate depth—and this was no pellucid Mediterranean but moving, silt-ridden, tidal waters unfamiliar to Romans. A standard bearer of the Tenth is said to have been the first to jump into the water, and the legionaries, with their usual disciplined resolution and determination not to let one division put another to shame, followed him. The Britons, although they had the commanding position and should by rights have driven the invaders back into the sea, were totally unfamiliar with troops—let alone disciplined ones like these—landing on their native shore. The legionaries, on the other hand, no doubt relieved at being back on dry land and conscious of that superiority which they had found in themselves everywhere else, followed their centurions and drove the natives back. If they had had their cavalry, now would have been the time to rout the defenders and chase them back into the woods beyond the foreshore.

The next day the Britons returned to sue for peace, bringing with them Caesar’s envoy, whom they had bound as a traitor but now apologetically released. They appeared to be cowed, but this was probably no more than a gesture designed to keep the Romans inactive while they called up other tribes from inland. Some of the delegates even offered themselves as hostages, and many more were promised. The legionaries, in any case, immediately began building a camp, probably on the cliffs at Walmer, and establishing themselves in the immediate area. Caesar waited for the arrival of the cavalry, without whom any advance into this unknown land would be impossible. Then, “on the fourth day after his arrival in Britain” as the
Commentaries
record, “the eagerly expected convoy arrived in the vicinity.” While it was closing the shore a gale from the west sprang up and the transports were forced to run off before it. Many of them were driven back toward the Continent, while others tried to anchor but had to give up the attempt and stand out to sea. That night, “it happened to be full moon, a time at which the Atlantic tides are more than usually high—something unknown to the Romans.”

Not only had the long-awaited transports disappeared into the night and the storm, but their own ships, which were beached or riding at anchor (thoughtlessly as if in the Mediterranean) were cast up by the tide. Some of the vessels, with insufficient lengths of cable out, were either constrained by the tide until they began to dip their bows and fill, or broke from their cables and headed out to sea. “This state of affairs,” writes Caesar with some understatement, “moved the whole army very deeply.” They had no cavalry, they had come with only limited provisions, baggage and shelter, and it now seemed as if they were marooned on a hostile shore. The natives who had watched the events began discreetly to disappear; no promised hostages arrived, and it soon became clear that the earlier protestations of friendship might be forgotten.

In the days that followed, the Tenth Legion, turning to boatbuilding from work on the camp, began to resurrect the ships that were left, while the Seventh scattered over the nearby countryside in search of grain and other food. It was not surprising that the natives took advantage of these men foraging more or less independently through the land to launch a surprise attack upon them—an attack that would have succeeded if Caesar had not realized by dust-clouds rising over the fields what was happening and gone to their rescue. In their usual fashion, the Britons on encountering organized opposition took to their heels and faded away into their omnipresent forests. While the boats were being completed, some that were seaworthy being sent to Boulogne for further materials, more attacks were made on the embattled beachhead and camp.

It became clear to Caesar that this island, whose size and geography remained unknown, would not yield except to a carefully-planned invasion with all the logistical preparations that this entailed. At the first sign of fair weather, he, his staff, and the legions set off across the Channel, leaving the Britons with the comfort of seeing them go, but also with the uneasy awareness that their isolation at the end of the world was drawing to a close.

Caesar’s interest in this potential new conquest, coupled with his concern about affairs in Gaul, led him for the first time since he had become proconsul to forgo his annual visit to northern Italy during the winter of 55-54. There had been trouble among some of the Gauls in his absence, the Morini in their marshy districts refusing to accept the dominance of Rome, while there were signs elsewhere that at the slightest slackening of the rein things could get out of hand. In Britain the expeditionary force had suffered some casualties, but he had been lucky to get away without more, or without being forced to attempt to winter in that inhospitable land. Furthermore, the promised hostages had failed to appear before his departure. Preparations for the invasion of Britain were carried on over the winter and every port from Spain to Belgic Gaul was put to work on the assembly of an invasion fleet, while conquered towns on navigable rivers were also given their quota to fill.

It was a difficult year to justify in dispatches, and the senate, quite apart from Cato, was becoming concerned about the way in which Caesar seemed to be constantly involving the state in new wars—entirely on his own account and without reference to Rome. First Gaul, then Belgium, then Germany, and now this island, Britain, somewhere at the end of the earth. The old
Optimates
must have snarled disapprovingly. Cato took the moral stance of the stoic that he was, and indicted Caesar for treachery and unwarranted massacre. Then there were those who sneered; even Pompey was later to maintain that the Channel was no more than a mudflat.

That was on one side, but on the other the populace was excited by these reports of new countries and peoples, rivers, mountains and forests, and—now—of a great unconquered island in the Ocean. Petitions pursued Caesar from men with suitable—and unsuitable—recommendations, all looking for a job and hoping for plunder in these newfound lands. Even Cicero, who was now inclined in his favor by the way in which Caesar had included him in his correspondence, was moved to seek posts for people whom he knew. Caesar’s voluminous correspondence with his friends and agents in Rome was balanced by their reports to him on every aspect of life in the capital. From the writings of poets such as Catullus who traduced him (but whom he later forgave because he recognized his talent), and from men like Oppius and his friend Balbus, who more or less ran a news-service for him, he knew the climate of the distant city. Above all, unlike the
Optimates,
he knew the feelings of the people, and he knew that to them these foreign conquests and discoveries were exciting, a promise of an ever-expanding Rome with more and more wealth for distribution.

The report that was sent off to Rome detailing that year’s campaigns has long been lost, but it is probable that the gist of it can be discerned in Caesar’s
Commentaries.
Caesar was adept at propaganda and he knew that almost anything can be so arranged to create a favorable impression. The massacre of a German tribe, following the arrest of their ambassadors and leaders? It was in return for a treacherous attack on his own troops, and it had led to a glorious victory which had saved Gaul from invaders. The crossing of the Rhine? An important advance into hitherto unknown territory and a valuable display of strength—“Showing the Eagles.” The crossing to Britain and the landing on this remote island? It was but an earnest of things to come. Another conquest lay ahead.

18

Invasion

THE second expedition to Britain was a well-prepared invasion, backed by all the weight and resources of the Roman Empire. Caesar was well aware that he had started too late the previous year and that the island was clearly a very large one. He knew too that the natives showed every sign of being as belligerent as the worst of the Belgae or Gauls. Then, just as everything was being readied for an invasion to take place in late spring or early summer 54, his whole timetable was disrupted.

Having seen that all the preparations were in hand, he had traveled to Cisalpine Gaul, hoping to make his legal circuit quickly, deal with anything outstanding in the quiet province, and then return to the scene of operations. He was frustrated in this by an urgent report from his neglected province of Illyricum that wild tribesmen from the hinterland were laying waste the borders. At the garrison-fortress of Aquileia he immediately summoned out the militia (paid for by the local communities) to deal with the invaders. This in itself was enough to bring them to heel, and they meekly handed over hostages and accepted an arbitrator appointed to assess what damage they had done and ensure that reparations were paid. It was all over neatly and quickly—a typical example of the work that had to be constantly carried out around the frontiers of the empire—and Caesar returned to Gaul.

The construction program was almost complete, some eight hundred ships in all. Although there were a few armed galleys, they were mainly transports, and two hundred of them had been built by private enterprise. The merchants concerned were willing to invest in ships and lend them to the fleet in return for profits (human and otherwise) at the end of the campaign. While all these preparations were being made and the fleet was beginning to assemble at Boulogne the powerful tribe of the Treveri (whose base was probably near Treves) openly repudiated its ties with Rome. In the two previous years, 56 and 55, it had taken no part in the Gallic assemblies called by Caesar, and news now reached him from his agents that its chieftain Indutiomarus was only waiting for the Romans to cross the Channel to call on his neighbors to revolt. As was often the case in tribal communities there was rivalry for leadership among the Treveri, the anti-Roman faction being led by Indutiomarus, while his son-in-law Cingetorix, looking toward an inevitable future, was the head of the Romanophiles and planned to supplant his father-in-law. (The news of the planned revolt may well have come from him.)

Clearly Gaul could not be left under so dangerous a threat, and Caesar summoned four legions to deal with the situation. The Treveri were among the finest horsemen in Gaul (had indeed fought in company with the legions during the Belgic campaign) and if, as it appeared, they were in communication with their German neighbors the only solution was sharp action. But the younger party who followed the chieftain’s son-in-law came over to Caesar
en masse
and Indutiomarus found himself increasingly isolated. He realized in time that against the legions and so many of his own tribe he had no chance of succeeding, so he sent envoys to the proconsul and finally—having received a list of two hundred hostages whom he was to hand over—was allowed to give formal assurances of unquestionable loyalty.

Indutiomarus was left as official chief of the Treveri, but his son-in-law was promoted to the position of “friend of Caesar”—which meant that the chieftain knew that every move he made while the latter was away would be watched and reported. It was a neat solution from Caesar’s point of view for, by maintaining Indutiomarus as the formal head, he had satisfied the old “conservatives” of the tribe, while at the same time he had given them warning that they were under observation by the younger man who opposed them. Caesar’s troubles, however, were not over, for next he had to deal with problems among the Aedui, upon whose pro-Roman stance he had based much of his policy. Here the nationalist leader Dumnorix, who clearly had the idea of taking over the kingdom during Caesar’s absence, refused to supply the cavalry that had been agreed upon for the invasion and made to ride off home taking them with him. Caesar’s reply was to send all the Roman cavalry after him and cut him down. As so often happened with the Gauls, once his men were deprived of their leader they accepted Caesar’s command and dutifully joined the embarking forces. These two episodes alone, however, should have been enough to tell Caesar that the newly-conquered territories were a simmering cauldron. It only required the right man at the right time to rise up and shout “Liberty!” and everything would boil over.