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55 B.C. and 54 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

C. E. Stevens
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Extract

The Year 1946 is the Two Thousandth Anniversary of the first historical event in our Island Story, the first Invasion of Julius Caesar ; 1947 that of the first appearance of the first British personality, the first man in England whose name we know, Cassivellaunus. It is fitting, therefore, that ANTIQUITY should choose the turn of the years for its own discussion of England's first ‘ bimillenary ’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 21 , Issue 81 , March 1947 , pp. 3 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1947

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References

1 Balsdon, J.R.S., XXIX, 73 and 170, developing a suggestion of mine in American Journal of Philology, LIX, 176.

2 B.G., I, 44, 2.

3 Suetonius, Divus Julius, 24, I.

4 Strabo, IV, 4, I, p. 194.

5 See the list of allies in B.G., III, 9, 10.

6 B.G., IV, 20, 2 ; cf. II, 4, 7; 14, 4 ; V, 12, 2 (Channel not on ‘the frontier’).

7 De Prov. Cons., 12, 29 ; 14, 34; Pro Balbo, 28, 64.

8 See Balsdon and Stevens, l.c. We need not worry here what exact day was fixed for the end of the command, if there was one.

9 B.G., IV, 19, 4.

10 B.G., IV, 20, 2.

11 Att., IV, 16, 7; Fam., VII, 7, I.

12 Tacitus, Agricola, 12, 6. The observation gains point if Dr Smythe is right in asserting that pigs of lead stamped EX ARG have not been ‘desilverized’ but have actually come from silver mines. (Trans. Newcomen Soc., XX, 139).

13 B.G., IV, 38, 5 ; Plutarch, Cato minor, 51, I (muddled).

14 See Berger, Erdkunde der Griechen, 568.

15 To the authorities cited in the next note may be added as a selection:—ps.-Aristotle, De Mundo, 3, p. 393 ; Virgil, Ecl., I, 67 ; Tacitus, Agricola, 15,4 ; Claudian, De Cons. Stilicho., 148.

16 Lucan, II, 571 (‘Oceanumque vocans incerti stagna profundi’) can hardly be referring to the one bald and casual mention of Oceanus in the Bellum Cullicum (IV, 29, I). All the secondary authorities (deriving from Livy, who may well have used Caesar's despatches) play up the ‘Oceanus angle’ with reference to the first expedition ; see especially Plutarch, Caesar, 23, 2. Interesting parallels are references to Oceanus in panegyrics on Claudius's invasions (Anth. Lat., 419-26) and Claudius’s own words (ILS 212, ‘iactationem gloriae prolati imperi ultra Oceanum’).

17 B.G., V, I, I; z, 2.

18 B.G., V, 22, 4.

19 But I cannot resist reminding the Senior Editor of the scorn which he poured in his younger days upon minute disputation over Caesar's landing-place and the like (Man and his Past, 55).

20 Dunning and Hawkes, Arch. Journ., LXXXVII, 256. Possibly the speed with which Caesar reached the Thames is also due to the fact that west of the Medway the country was not inhabited by (though it may have been ruled by) the Belgae. See Ward-Parkins in Arch, Cant., LI, 169.

21 The late G. Lawrence, who knew more than any man about finds from the Thames bed, assured me in conversation that Montagu Sharpe's Brentford stakes were medieval and that from the incidence of dredged finds he was convinced that the La Tkne (and hence also Caesar's) crossing was in the vicinity of Wandsworth. That there really was a—probahly—early Roman crossing at Westminster (in spite of Haverfield’s scepticism) has been demonstrated by the wonderful (and neglected) field-work of Davis (Surrey Arch. Coll., XLIII, 76).

22 B.G., v, 5, 4.

23 Suetonius, Divus Julius, 28, 2.

24 Q. fr., III, I, 10 ; Att., IV, 17, 3 (‘confecta Britannia’).

25 On the constitutional position of ‘deditio’ and ‘dediticii’, see Mommsen, Staatsrecht, I, 246-57; II, 692; III, 716-31 ; 1158-73.

26 1, 4, 7; III, 38, 3.

27 Livy, Epitome, CV. (‘in potestatem’—technica1) and Livy’s closest copyist, Eutropius, VI, 17, 3 (‘stipendiarios fecit’—also technical). It looks as though the second century epitomiser, Floms (1, 45, 19 ‘non enim provinciae sed nomini studebatur’), was deliberately refuting Livy. Claudius himself seems consciously to have refuted the view that Caesar had done anything before him towards making Britain a province (ILS 216, ‘. . . quod . . . gentes blarbaras trans Oceanum] primus in dici[onem populi Romani redegerit]’.) How like Claudius this would be!

28 Mommsen, Staatsrecht, III, 65.

29 Suetonius, Divus Julius, 25, I ; Eutropius, VI, 17, 3; Sallust, Hist., Fr. I, II (date).

30 Mommsen, Staatsrecht, III, 594.

31 This is quite clear from the accounts of the Claudian invasion and its motives, as well as from ILS 216 (see note above), which is hardly consistent with pre-existing treaty arrangements.

32 Allen, Archaeologia, XC, 15-17.

33 Apicola, 13, 2. There Tacitus implicitly criticizes the ‘Livian’ theory—he knows Livy’s account, of course (ib. 10, 3).