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Athena Review 1,1: Landings of Caesar in Britain, 55 and 54 BCfree trialissue subscribe backissues Athena Review, Vol.1, no.1 The Landings of Caesar in Britain, 55 and 54 BC . Deal Beach in Kent.This shoreline near Walmer Castle is probably in the area where Julius Caesarand his troops landed during the two Roman excursions to Britain of 55 and54 BC. In the distance, the cliffs of Dover may be seen to the south. Thebeach is made up of small stones or shingles. .[Fig.1: Area of Deal Beach where Caesar's ships probably landed(photo: Athena Review).]. Caesar, the historian.In 58 BC, Julius Caesar became governor and military commander of the Romanprovince of Gaul, which included modern France, Belgium, and portions ofSwitzerland, Holland, and Germany west of the Rhine. For the next eight years,Caesar led military campaigns involving both the Roman legions and tribesin Gaul who were often competing among themselves. The story has been preservedin Caesar's account, Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, originally publishedin 50 BC. In the firstcentury BC, Britain was settled by Iron Age societies, many with long-termroots in Britain, and others closely tied to tribes of northern France (fig.2).Commerce was flourishing, populations were relatively large, and at leastseven different British tribes had their own coinages. Tribes in southwestBritain and Wales controlled considerable mineral wealth in tin depositsand copper mines.For this period, Caesar is the only extant source providing first-handdescriptions of Britain. His observations, while confined to the southeastareas of Kent and the lower Thames, are thus essential to understanding thoseregions. While no doubt self-serving in a political sense when written, Caesar'saccount is nevertheless regarded as basically accurate and historically reliableboth by earlier scholars such as C. Rice Holmes (1907), and by today'sauthorities including Sheppard Frere (1987). Both the 55 and 54 BC Roman expeditions left from Boulogne (Portus Itius),and landed at Deal, a few miles northeast of Dover. In 55 BC, the Roman cavalryships were forced back to Gaul by a storm, and Caesar's troops were confinedto the shore. In 54 BC, a larger Roman expedition landed at Deal and penetratedinland along the River Thames...[Fig.2: Map of the crossings of Caesar over the English Channel.] The first Roman landing in Britain (55 BC).Caesar probably planned an expedition to Britain in 56 BC, a year when theArmorican tribes in the coast of Britanny revolted against the Romans withaid from the tribes of southern Britain. The operation was further delayedby battles with the Morini and Menapi, Belgic tribes who controlled the Straitsof Dover.Finally, on August 26, 55 BC, two Roman Legions (about 10,000 soldiers) underCaesar's personal command crossed the channel in a group of transport shipsleaving from Portus Itius (today's Boulogne). By the next morning (August27), as Caesar reports, the Roman ships were just off the chalky cliffs ofDover, whose upper banks were lined with British warriors prepared to dobattle. The Romans therefore sailed several miles further northeast up thecoastline and landed on the flat, pebbly shore around Deal.The Britons met the legionaries at the beach with a large force, includingwarriors in horse-drawn chariots, an antiquated fighting method not usedby the Roman military. After an initial skirmish, the British war leaderssought a truce, and handed over hostages.Four days later, however, when Roman ships with 500 cavalry soldiers andhorses also tried to make the channel crossing, they were driven back toFrance by bad weather. The same storm seriously damaged many of the Romanships on the beach at Deal. This quirk of fate resulted in Caesar's initiallanding force having no cavalry, which seriously restricted the mobilityof the 55 BC operations. It was also disastrous for the planned reconnaissancesince the legionary soldiers were forced to repair the ships and were vulnerableto the British forces who began new attacks.Thus immobilized, the Roman legions had to survive in a coastal zone whichthey found both politically hostile, and naturally fertile. The need to procurefood locally resulted in scouting and foraging missions into the adjacentcountryside. Caesar reports abundant grain crops along a heavily populatedcoastline; and frequent encounters with British warriors in chariots. Afterrepairing most of the ships, Caesar ordered a return to Gaul, thus curtailingthe reconnaissance of 55 BC.  The second Roman expedition to Britain (54 BC).The next year saw the Romans organize a much larger expedition to Britain,with a total of 800 ships used to transport five legions and 2000 cavalrytroops, plus horses and a large baggage train. They sailed from Boulogneat night on July 6, and landed unopposed the next day on the beach betweenDeal and Sandwich.Upon seeing the large size of the Roman force, the Britons retreated inlandto higher ground. Caesar immediately marched inland with most of his troopsto the Stour River, about 12 miles from the beach landing camp. At daybreakon the 8th of July, 54 BC, the Romans encountered British forces at a fordon the Stour (later the town of Canterbury). The Romans easily dispersedthe Britons, who retreated to a hill fort or stronghold (oppidum), whichfrom Caesar's description, is probably the hill fort at Bigbury, a site withearthwork and ditch enclosures mile and a half from the river ford. The SeventhRoman legion attacked the hillfort but were blocked out by trees piled inthe entrance by the Britons. To advance, the Roman troops filled in the outerditch with earth and brush, making a ramp across it, and then capturing thefort.Bad news came for the Romans, however, shortly thereafter from the beachcamp at Deal. An overnight storm had driven most of the Roman ships on shore.The main body of troops returned to the beach, to find at least forty boatscompletely wrecked. Security precautions required Caesar's army to spendten long days building a land fort within which the entire fleet of 760 shipswas transported. This, the second catastrophe for Roman ships in as manyyears caused by storms on the open beach, could have been averted had Caesarsailed only a few miles further up the coast to the protected harbor atRichborough (where the Romans landed when they next invaded Britain, in 43AD).[Fig.3: Tribes in Northern Gaul during Caesar's excursions to Britain,55-54 BC.]During this ten day hiatus, a large British force was briefly united undera single commander, Cassivellaunus, who ruled the Catuvellauni tribe on thenorth side of the River Thames. The army of Cassivellaunus met the Romansagain at the Stour crossing. The Britons used chariot warfare, with two horsespulling a driver and warrior, the latter hurling javelins, then dismountingat close quarters to fight infantry-style. After a hard-fought battle, theRomans eventually drove back the Britons, and then pursued Cassivellaunustoward the Thames.In the wooded terrain north of the River Thames, Cassivellaunus adoptedscorched-earth, guerrilla-warfare methods, destroying local food sourcesand using chariots to harrass the Roman legions. But neighboring tribes whoresented the domination by Cassivellaunus, including the Trinovantes andtheir allies the Cenimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci and Cassi (thelatter five tribes, known to us only through Caesar's account) then wentover to the Romans.Caesar thus learned from native informants the location of the secret strongholdof Cassivellaunus, probably the hill fort at Wheathampstead, located on thewest bank of the River Lea, near St. Albans. Even as the Roman army underCaesar were massing outside his fort's gates, however, Cassivellaunus madethe bold move of ordering his allies in Kent to attack the Roman beach campat Deal. This attack failed, and Cassivellaunus then gave up. Yet the termsof surrender he negotiated with the Romans seem to have been moderate, asCaesar had learned of mounting problems back in Gaul, and wanted to returnthere. The Roman legions left Britain in early September, 54 BC. They werenot to return again for 97 years, when the Claudian invasion of AD 43 beganthe active Roman conquest of Britain. Caesar's two expeditions, meanwhile,provided basic information on the terrain, inhabitants, and political, economicand military customs of Britain, our only direct historical record for thattime period. sources: Caesar, Julius. (orig. 50 BC) Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. (transl. H.J. Edwards). Loeb Classical Library. Frere, Sheppard. 1987. Britannia: A History of Roman Britain (3rd edition). London. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Holmes, T. Rice. 1907. Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 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