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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
If you think the annexed sheets will cast any additional light on a controverted point of Julius Caesar's account of his expedition to Britain, I shall be obliged to you to present them to the Antiquarian Society.
page 2 note [a] By consulting Chifflet, Somner, Camden, Horsley, and others; it will be found, the Portus Ittius mentioned by Julius Cæsar has been fixed at every little dirty stream between Dunkirk and Whitsan.
page 2 note [b] C. Julii Cæsaris de Bello Gallico, lib. iv. § 18.
page 3 note [c] Cæsar de Bello Gallico, lib. v. § 20.
page 3 note [d] Idem, lib. iv. § 19.
page 3 note [e] Those, who have contended for the Portus Iccius being to the Eastward of the high cliffs on the Continent, have been guided by Ptolemy; who has placed Gessoriacum in the same latitude, but Eastward of the promontory; and there they have been searching for a place to agree with the distance as mentioned by Pliny, lib. iv. c. 16; or Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom. lib. 39; where the first makes the distance 50, and the second 56 miles.
page 4 note [f] D'Anville Notice de l'Ancienne Gaule, p. 389.
“L'opinion la plus singulière est celle de Malbranq, auteur d'un gros ouvrage sur les Morini, qui suppose, que la mer formoit autrefois un golfe assez profond pour pénétrer jusqu'à Sithiu ou S. Omer, & auquel le nom de Sinus Ittius conviendroit.”
page 5 note [g] Camden's Brit, p. 282.
Horsley (Britannia Romana, p. 13, note) knowing that no traces of the Romans have ever been discovered at Calais, in order to get clear of a difficulty, supposed the camp of Julius Cæsar might be buried by the sea. If he had known the sea has been receding from it for a course of time, he surely would not have formed such a conjecture to support his opinion.
page 5 note [h] De Bello Gallico, lib. iv. § 20.
page 7 note [i] Camden's Brit. p. 282. Somner's Portus Ittius, p. 74 and 85.
page 8 note [k] Rowland's Mona Antiqua, p. 23. § 5. I place no stress upon Itius, or Iccius, being derived from Eitha; but I think is as probable as Chifflet's derivation, where he changes Mardike to Mardiccium, and by dropping the four first letters gets Iccium, and then Iccius.
Itium is also obtained by writing Calais, Calitium, and droping the three first letters. See Somner's Portus Ittius, p. 14, 15, & 21. Mardike is clearly compounded of Mare, and Diick, which, Minshew says, is an old Belgic word for ditch, or a work, cast up against the sea. Such kind of work is still called Dicker work in some places.
page 8 note [l] Cæsar de Bello Gallico, lib. iv. § 20.
page 9 note [m] I believe the advocates for Chifflet's opinion will be puzzled to point out a place eight miles to the eastward either of Calais, Mardike, or Graveling, where the eighteen ships could be confined in a port by a south-west wind; but in the bay near Combleteuse, they would have been fixed with a south-west wind.
page 9 note [n] Cæsar de Bello Gallico, lib. v. § 7.
page 10 note [o] Lib. iv. § 21. See also Phil. Trans. No. 193, on the time and place of Cæsar's descent upon Britain, by Dr. Halley.
page 10 note [p] Cæsar de Bello Gallico, lib, iv. § 21.
page 11 note [q] There is such a long list of authors, and most of them well known, who make Deal the landing place of the Romans, that I shall omit any reference to them.
page 11 note [r] See Bede's Eccl. Hist. lib. i. c. 25; and several authors, who mention the river Wansum as navigable long after Cæsar's landing.
In the Cotton Library, Julius, B. iv. p. 25, is a copy of a Survey made A. D. 1565, which contains an account of all the towns, &c. from Hithe to London, with the number of houses in each place, the vessels, inhabitants, landing-places, and other particulars; but there is not any mention made of Deal in it; from which it is plain, as the water has receded, it has been followed by people in building towns.
page 12 note [s] Cæsar de Bello Gallico, lib. iv. § 23.
page 12 note [t] See note e foregoing.
page 13 note [u] Suetonius, Edit. Delphini, p. 344.
page 13 note [x] Montfaucon's Antiq. Suppl. Vol. IV. b. vi. p. 462.
It appears in the painting of the siege of Boulogne at Cowdry, published by the Society, and is described by Sir Joseph Ayloffe, Arch. Vol. III. p. 257.
page 15 note [y] Da Costa‘s Nat. Hist. of Fossils, Series II. Sect. 18. p. 135. See also Theophrastus' Hist. of Stones, by Hill, p. 39.
page 15 note [z] Kirwan's Mineralogy, p. 25. The Tophus, he says, is the Duckstein (or, as Hill calls it, the Toffstein, or Tustein, of the Germans; and that it differs from the Stalactites in being formed by a gradual deposition of earths, chiefly of the calcareous kind, barely diffused through water, and within the water itself.
page 16 note [z] Faber's Letters on the Natural History of the Mountains in Italy, p. 205 The volcanic productions near Trivali have been in many places covered with new strata of calcareous tophus, produced by the calcareous waters of the Apennines, or the overflowings of the tophaceous Lago de Tatari and Lago de Bagiri.