Continuing the story of Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain in the year 54 BC, I look at his second attempt to conquer the whole of the country. This time, I cover the invasion of the west coast of England, and the fall of the Roman Republic.
00:00:00.080Hello and welcome to this episode of Epochs where I shall be continuing my narrative of the decline and fall of the Roman Republic
00:00:05.700and specifically the bit where Julius Caesar is in Gaul, which I'm doing in lots and lots of detail, which people seem to like, and I enjoy doing it.
00:00:13.120As you'll notice, for technical and scheduling reasons, we're not in the second studio, in the first studio,
00:00:18.080but we've got this old background that we put together and then never used at one point.
00:00:22.220It serves us very well today, doesn't it?
00:00:23.620Okay, so straight into the narrative, if you remember last time picked up, or left off rather, where Julius Caesar was just about to invade Britain for the second time in the year 54 BC.
00:00:35.780So Caesar picks up his own story by saying this, quote,
00:00:38.720Caesar then set sail, leaving Labinius on the continent with three legions and 2,000 cavalry, with orders to guard the ports, provide for a supply of corn, watch events in Gaul, and act as circumstances from time to time might require.
00:00:51.740Caesar took with him five legions and the remaining 2,000 cavalry.
00:00:56.340Five legions and 2,000 cavalry, that's quite a lot.
00:01:02.040And putting out about sunset was at first carried on his way by a light southwesterly breeze.
00:01:08.160But about midnight the wind dropped, with the result that he was driven far out of his course by the tidal current, and at daybreak saw Britain left behind on the port side.
00:01:17.180When the set of the current changed, he went with it, and rode hard to make the part of the island where he had found the best landing places the year before.
00:01:25.160The soldiers worked splendidly, and by a continuous rowing, enabled the heavily laden transports to keep up with the warships.
00:01:31.800When the whole fleet reached Britain about midday, no enemy was to be seen.
00:01:59.100People have always argued to what extent Caesar, what Caesar really meant to achieve with this second invasion.
00:02:06.600The first one was pretty clearly a reconnaissance in force, no more than that.
00:02:11.920But this second one, people argue, did he mean, do you think he did want to try and actually subdue the whole island, or at least the majority of it, or not at this point?
00:02:20.980You know, the amount of men and material and effort he's putting into it, I would be inclined to believe that he is trying to conquer the whole of Britannia.
00:02:29.280Maybe not the whole of it, I mean, they didn't even know the extent, how far north it stretched, but to give it a bloody good crack.
00:02:38.100Caesar disembarked his army and chose a suitable spot for a camp.
00:02:41.540On learning from prisoners where the enemy were posted, he left 10 cohorts and 300 cavalry on the coast to guard the fleet, and marched against the Britons shortly after midnight.
00:02:52.120Feeling little anxiety about the ships, because he was leaving them anchored on an open shore and soft sand.
00:02:57.800The fleet and his guard were put under the command of Quintus Atreus.
00:03:01.300So now we get to the crux of it, the fighting starts.
00:03:04.340Caesar jumps straight in, I mean, in this relatively small section of the whole story, his second invasion of Britain.
00:03:12.500Caesar doesn't spend a great deal of time and energy describing things in lots and lots of detail, so it's almost a montage, but he just jumps straight into the action.
00:03:21.160There's no real preamble and not much politicking going on.
00:03:26.540A night march of about 12 miles brought Caesar in sight of the enemy, who advanced to a river with their cavalry and chariots, and tried to bar his way by attacking from a position on higher ground.
00:03:37.060Repulsed by his cavalry, they hid in the woods, where they occupied a well-fortified post of great natural strength, previously prepared, no doubt, for some war among themselves, since all the entrances were blocked by felled trees laid close together.
00:03:51.640Scattered parties made skirmishing attacks out of the woods, trying to prevent the Romans from penetrating the defences.
00:03:57.480But the soldiers of the 7th legion, locking their shields together over their heads and piling up the earth against the fortifications, captured the place and drove them out of the woods at the cost of only a few men wounded.
00:04:09.100Caesar forbade them to pursue far, however, because he did not know the ground and because he wanted to devote the few remaining hours of the day to the fortification of his camp.
00:04:18.200The next morning, he sent out a force of infantry and cavalry in three columns to pursue the fleeing enemy.
00:04:23.860They had advanced some way and were in sight of the nearest fugitives, when dispatch riders brought up news from Atreus of a great storm in the night, by which nearly all the ships had been damaged or cast ashore.
00:04:34.660The anchors and cables had not held, and the sailors and their captains could not cope with such a violent gale, so that many vessels were disabled by running foul of one another.
00:04:43.660Another naval catastrophe for Caesar in the Channel.
00:04:47.180Caesar at once ordered the legions and cavalry to be halted and recalled.
00:04:51.180He himself went back to the beach, where with his own eyes he saw pretty much what the messengers and the dispatch had described.
00:05:00.200The rest looked as if they could be repaired at the cost of much trouble.
00:05:03.840Accordingly, he called out all the skilled workmen from the legions, sent to the continent for more, and wrote to tell Labienus to build as many ships as possible with the troops under his command.
00:05:13.140Further, although it was a task involving enormous labour, he decided that it would be best to have all the ships beached and enclosed together with the camp by one fortification.
00:05:23.140This work, although it was continued day and night, took some ten days to complete.
00:05:28.220As soon as the ships were hauled up and the camp strongly fortified, Caesar left the same units as before to guard them, and returned to the place from which he had come.
00:05:36.280On arriving there, he found that the larger British forces had now been assembled from all sides by Cassiovolinus, to whom the chief command and direction of the campaign had been entrusted by common consent.
00:05:48.480Cassiovolinus's territory is separated from the maritime tribes by a river called the Thames, and lies about 75 miles from the sea.
00:05:55.520Previously, he had been continually at war with the other tribes, but the arrival of our army frightened them into appointing him their supreme commander.
00:06:03.340So there's nothing like a deadly common enemy to draw people together.
00:06:08.280Everyone recognised Caesar as the existential threat, of course.
00:06:12.820Now at this point in the narrative, Caesar breaks off a bit from the action.
00:06:16.800He was just about to have a battle with Cassiovolinus, but now he sort of breaks off his narrative just briefly to just talk about Britain in general terms.
00:06:24.580So he says this, and these lines are gold dust, you know, just like the Germans and the Gauls.
00:06:31.000There hasn't been a great deal of any real literary evidence before this, so it's some of the first details we get about Britons, in a literary sense anyway.
00:06:40.940The population is exceedingly large, the ground thickly studded with homesteads, closely resembling those of the Gauls, and the cattle very numerous.
00:07:06.360For money, they use either bronze or gold coins, or iron ingots of fixed weights.
00:07:12.100Tin is found inland, and small quantities of iron near the coast.
00:07:17.740There is timber of every kind, as in Gaul, except beech and fir.
00:07:21.620Hairs, fowl and geese, they think is unlawful to eat, but rear them for pleasure and amusement.
00:07:26.860The climate is more temperate than in Gaul, the cold being less severe, end quote.
00:07:31.320Now, if anyone remembers, I have read that passage before when I did talk to Josh in the old studio quite a while ago, a couple of years ago now, about Roman Britain.
00:07:39.660But it is a very, very famous paragraph, and if you hadn't noticed, there are a few odd things in there that they keep hares and fowl and geese just for fun.
00:07:48.260I think it's unlawful to eat those things.
00:08:23.220The length of this side is about 475 miles.
00:08:26.360Another side faces west, towards Spain.
00:08:29.160In this direction is Ireland, which is supposed to be half the size of Britain, and lies at the same distance from it as Gaul.
00:08:35.800Midway across is the Isle of Man, and it is believed that there are also a number of smaller islands,
00:08:40.800in which, according to some writers, there is a month of perpetual darkness at the winter solstice.
00:08:46.020Our enquiries on this subject were always fruitless, but we found by accurate measurements, with a water clock, that the nights are shorter than on the continent.
00:08:55.380This side of Britain, according to the natives' estimate, is 665 miles long.
00:09:11.100Thus, the whole island is 1,900 miles in circumference.
00:09:14.000By far the most civilised inhabitants are those living in Kent, a purely maritime district, whose way of life differs little from that of the Gauls.
00:09:22.720Most of the tribes in the interior do not grow corn, but live on milk and meat, and wear skins.
00:09:28.740All the Britons dye their bodies with woad, which produces a blue colour, and shave the whole of their bodies, except the head and the upper lip.
00:09:36.360Wives are shared between groups of 10 or 12 men, especially between brothers, and between fathers and sons.
00:09:42.280But the offspring of these unions are counted as the children of the men with whom a particular woman cohabited first.
00:10:28.040The British cavalry and charioteers had a fierce encounter with our cavalry on the march.
00:10:33.160But our men had the best of it everywhere and drove them into the woods and hills, killing a good many, but also incurring some casualties themselves by a too eager pursuit.
00:10:42.480The enemy waited for a time and then, while our soldiers were off their guard and busy fortifying the camp, suddenly dashed out of the woods, swooped upon the outpost on duty in front of the camp and started a violent battle.
00:10:55.300Caesar sent two cohorts, the first of their respective legions, to the rescue.
00:10:59.660And these took up a position close together.
00:11:02.080But the men were unnerved by the unfamiliar tactics and the enemy very daringly broke through between them and got away unhurt.
00:11:09.060That day, Quintus Liberius Duras, a military tribune, was killed.
00:11:14.540The attack was eventually repulsed by throwing in some more cohorts.
00:11:18.060You get the impression Caesar's fairly blasé about some of this stuff sometimes, knowing that if it's any sort of one-on-one combat or any sort of encounter where the numbers will have any sort of parity, Caesar's not worried.
00:11:31.400He's completely confident that his men will overcome any sort of native resistance with ease if it's anywhere near close in numbers.
00:11:38.900Throughout this particular combat, which was fought in front of the camp in full view of everyone, it was seen that our troops were too heavily weighted by their armour to deal with such an enemy.
00:11:49.360They could not pursue them when they retreated and dared not yet separate from their standards.
00:11:54.380The cavalry, too, found it very dangerous work fighting the charioteers, for the Britons would generally give ground on purpose and, after drawing them some distance from the legions, would jump down from their chariots and fight on foot with the odds in their favour.
00:12:08.040In engaging their cavalry, our men were not much better off.
00:12:11.880Their tactics were such that the danger was exactly the same for both pursuers and pursued.
00:12:16.840A further difficulty was that they never fought in very close order, but in very open formation, and had reserves posted here and there.
00:12:24.000In this way, the various groups covered one another's retreat, and fresh troops replaced those who were tired.
00:12:29.960So, the different tactics of the charioteers causing a bit of a headache for Caesar.
00:12:34.180But, if we know Caesar by now, he'll be able to think up some sort of countermeasures.
00:12:39.780He continues his narrative saying this, quote,
00:12:41.480Next day, the enemy took up a position on the hills at a distance from the camp.
00:12:45.720They showed themselves now only in small parties, and harassed our cavalry with less vigour than the day before.
00:12:51.620But at midday, when Caesar had sent three legions and all the cavalry on a foraging expedition under his general, Gaius Trebonius,
00:12:59.540they suddenly sweeped down on them from all sides, pressing their attack right up to the standards of the legions.
00:13:05.300The legionaries drove them off by a strong counterattack, and continued to pursue, until the cavalry, emboldened by the support of the legions, which they saw close behind them, made a charge that sent the natives flying headlong.
00:13:18.900A great many were killed, and the rest were given no chance of rallying, or making a stand, or jumping from their chariots.
00:13:25.000This rout caused the immediate dispersal of the forces that had assembled from various tribes to Cassiovolinus' aid, and the Britons never again joined the battle with their whole strength.
00:13:35.560So it seems like Caesar made fairly short work of them, to be perfectly honest.
00:13:40.280I mean, there's more to go yet, the story isn't over, but in that first sort of sharp engagement, sort of testing the waters, testing out each other's abilities and skills and numbers and things,
00:13:50.940Caesar and the Romans were just completely unfazed, as usual.
00:13:55.000And the native Britons just seem to have shrunk from the challenge.
00:14:00.940On learning the enemy's plan of campaign, Caesar led his army to the Thames, in order to enter Cassiovolinus' territory.
00:14:07.820The river is foldable at one point only, and even there with difficulty.
00:14:12.160At this place, he found large enemy forces drawn up on the opposite bank.
00:14:16.160The bank was also fenced by sharp stakes fixed along the edge, and he was told by prisoners and deserters that similar ones were concealed in the riverbed.
00:14:25.160He sent the cavalry across first, and then at once ordered the infantry to follow, but the infantry went with such speed and impetuosity, although they had only their heads above the water, that they attacked at the same moment as the cavalry.
00:14:38.460The enemy was overpowered and fled from the riverbank.
00:14:41.160Cassiovolinus had now given up all hope of fighting a pitched battle.
00:14:45.180Disbanding the greater part of his troops, he retained only some 4,000 charioteers, with whom he watched our line of march.
00:14:52.320He would retire a short way from the route and hide in dense thickets, driving the inhabitants and cattle from the open country into the woods, wherever he knew we intended to pass.
00:15:02.180If ever our cavalry incautiously ventured too far away in plundering and devastating the country, he would send all his charioteers out of the woods by well-known lanes and pathways, and deliver very formidable attacks, hoping by this means to make them afraid to go far afield.
00:15:18.560Caesar was thus compelled to keep the cavalry in touch with the column of infantry, and to let the enemy off with such devastation and burning as could be done under the protection of the legionaries, tired as they often were with marching.
00:15:30.940So just to reiterate, a lot of this is about murder and rapine and rape and completely wanton destruction, and there just would have been a swathe of misery and killing in the Romans' path, in the Romans' wake.
00:15:46.520During this march, envoys arrived from the Trinovantes, about the strongest tribe in south-eastern Britain.
00:15:53.040Mandubracius, a young man of his tribe, had gone over to the continent to put himself under Caesar's protection, having fled for his life when his father, the king of the Trinovantes, was killed by Cassiovolinus.
00:16:04.520The envoys promised to surrender and obey Caesar's commands, and asked him to protect Mandubracius from Cassiovolinus, and send him home to rule his people as king.
00:16:15.460Caesar demanded 40 hostages for his troops, and then allowed Mandubracius to go.
00:16:20.800The Trinovantes promptly sent the required number of hostages and the grain.
00:16:25.060When they saw that the Trinovantes had been protected against Cassiovolinus, and spared any injury on the part of the Roman troops, several other tribes, the Senimangi, Segontiaki, Ancolite, Bibrochi and Cassi, sent embassies and surrendered.
00:16:40.400From them, Caesar learnt that he was not far from Cassiovolinus' stronghold, which was protected by forests and marshes, and had been filled with a large number of men and cattle.
00:16:49.880The Britons apply the term strongholds to densely wooded spots fortified with a rampart and trench, to which they retire in order to escape the attacks of invaders.
00:16:59.200He marched to the place with his legions, and found that it was of great natural strength, and excellently fortified.
00:17:05.980Nevertheless, he proceeded to assault it on two sides.
00:17:09.140After a short time, the enemy proved unable to resist the violent attack of the legions, and rushed out of the fortress on another side.
00:17:16.400A quantity of cattle was found there, and many of the fugitives were captured or killed.
00:17:21.240So again, from us who wish we had so much more detail, Caesar seems, feels a bit flippant there.
00:17:26.700They had these great strongholds, but we just overawed them easily.
00:18:22.200Caesar had decided to return to the continent for the winter, for fear any sudden rising should break out in Gaul.
00:18:28.320The summer too was nearly over, and he knew that the Britons could easily hold out for the short time that remained.
00:18:33.980Accordingly, he granted Cassiovolinus' request for terms, demanding hostages, fixing an annual tribute to be paid by the Britons to the Roman government,
00:18:43.960and strictly forbading Cassiovolinus to molest Mandubracchius or the Trinovantes.
00:18:49.140As soon as the hostages were delivered, he led the army back to the coast, where he found the ships repaired.
00:18:54.940He had them launched, and as he had a large number of prisoners, and some of the ships had been destroyed by the storm,
00:19:00.220decided to make the return voyage in two trips.
00:19:03.500It happened that all of these large fleets which made so many voyages in this and the preceding war,
00:19:09.680not a single ship with troops on board was lost, while very few of the vessels coming over empty from the continent,
00:19:15.440i.e. those which had returned to Gaul after landing troops in Britain,
00:19:18.980and sixty that Labinus had built after the start of the expedition, reached their destination,
00:19:24.500nearly all the rest being forced back to land.
00:19:26.480After waiting a long time for them in vain, Caesar was afraid of being prevented from sailing by the approaching season of the equinox,
00:19:34.000and so had to pack the men more tightly than usual on the ships he had.
00:19:37.900The sea becoming very calm, he set sail late in the evening, and brought all the fleets safely to land at dawn."
00:19:43.700So that is the entirety of Caesar's account of his second incursion into Britain,
00:19:49.220and at the considerable risk of sounding like a broken record,
00:19:52.320we wish we had more on that, but that's all we've got, and he just moves on, and it's a shame.
00:19:58.500There is, of course, all sorts of archaeology backing up this stuff.
00:20:02.560Some people say they don't believe anything, or hardly anything, Caesar wrote in this account.