Read Online Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen Dando-Collins
Tags: Historical
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troops, he had the time, and he had ships, some provided by new Gallic allies, others captured from the tribes of Brittany the previous year. Now Caesar set plans in motion for a daring amphibious operation.
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INVADING BRITAIN
here was an eerie silence as the dawn broke over the fleet of ships sailing in close company across the English Channel. With T tense expressions, all on board the eighty transports and the dozen warships of their escort strained their eyes to study the foreign land ahead as the white cliffs of Dover began to shine luminously in the new day’s light.
They had sailed from France at midnight, putting out with the tide, after a day of good late summer weather. With a southerly wind behind them they’d made excellent progress in the night, passing Cape Gris-Nez, then turning northwest. They were following a course planned in advance for them by young Colonel Gaius Volusenus, who had earlier reconnoitered potential landing sites along the southern coast of England in the frigate that would have now been leading the invasion convoy.
Julius Caesar and his senior officers were spread among the warships of the escort, frigates and cruisers with banks of oars that flashed and dipped in the early morning light to the beat pounded out by the warships’
keleustes, their timekeepers, with wooden mallets on wooden blocks. On board the transports, locally built craft with relatively flat bottoms, high prows, and sterns and powered by just a single square sail each, were the Spanish legionaries of the 10th and 7th Legions, with an average of 150
men to each troopship.
With just enough vessels at his disposal to carry two legions and several hundred cavalry, it had been a given that one of the legions Caesar would take with him was the 10th. The 7th, four years older than the 10th, with its men aged between twenty-seven and thirty, had won a place in the invasion force after its dominating performances against the Gallic tribes of Brittany and Aquitania over the past few years. The two legions had built an embarkation camp at Boulogne in the Pas de Calais area, and there the preparations for the operation had been made, the equipment 30
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readied, the fleet assembled, and the ammunition and supplies brought in for a brief exploratory visit across the Channel. Caesar himself admitted that little could be achieved in the short amount of campaigning time left to him that year, but, as Plutarch was to say, Caesar had a love of honor and a passion for distinction. He was on a high after his latest successes against the Gauls and the Germans, and, driven by a determination to exceed the reputations of rivals living and dead, he was determined to set foot on Britain, to go where no Roman general had gone before.
While Caesar was engaged on his British expedition, the rest of the army wasn’t to be idle. He had divided the remainder of the legions into two forces. One, under General Publius Sulpicius Rufus, was guarding the embarkation area around Boulogne. The other, under General Quintus Titurius Sabinus, was marching up the coast to subdue a tribe in Belgium and another in Holland that had yet to send ambassadors and negotiate peace treaties with the Romans.
There was movement along the top of the chalk cliffs to their left as the invasion fleet slid up the coast of Kent, or Cantium, as the Romans dubbed it. Observing the ships from the heights were British tribesmen, cavalry and infantry, fully armed and waiting in their war paint—their exposed upper bodies and grim faces daubed in wild, tattoolike patterns with blue-green woad, a plant dye. The Britons’ friends in Gaul had warned them of Roman preparations to cross the Channel, and they had initially sent envoys to Caesar to discuss an alliance with Rome, to fore-stall an invasion. But when Caesar sent his new ally King Commius of the Atrebates tribe—a
c05.qxd 12/5/01 4:55 PM Page 30
V
:
INVADING BRITAIN
here was an eerie silence as the dawn broke over the fleet of ships sailing in close company across the English Channel. With T tense expressions, all on board the eighty transports and the dozen warships of their escort strained their eyes to study the foreign land ahead as the white cliffs of Dover began to shine luminously in the new day’s light.
They had sailed from France at midnight, putting out with the tide, after a day of good late summer weather. With a southerly wind behind them they’d made excellent progress in the night, passing Cape Gris-Nez, then turning northwest. They were following a course planned in advance for them by young Colonel Gaius Volusenus, who had earlier reconnoitered potential landing sites along the southern coast of England in the frigate that would have now been leading the invasion convoy.
Julius Caesar and his senior officers were spread among the warships of the escort, frigates and cruisers with banks of oars that flashed and dipped in the early morning light to the beat pounded out by the warships’
keleustes, their timekeepers, with wooden mallets on wooden blocks. On board the transports, locally built craft with relatively flat bottoms, high prows, and sterns and powered by just a single square sail each, were the Spanish legionaries of the 10th and 7th Legions, with an average of 150
men to each troopship.
With just enough vessels at his disposal to carry two legions and several hundred cavalry, it had been a given that one of the legions Caesar would take with him was the 10th. The 7th, four years older than the 10th, with its men aged between twenty-seven and thirty, had won a place in the invasion force after its dominating performances against the Gallic tribes of Brittany and Aquitania over the past few years. The two legions had built an embarkation camp at Boulogne in the Pas de Calais area, and there the preparations for the operation had been made, the equipment 30
c05.qxd 12/5/01 4:55 PM Page 31
I N VA D I N G B R I TA I N
31
readied, the fleet assembled, and the ammunition and supplies brought in for a brief exploratory visit across the Channel. Caesar himself admitted that little could be achieved in the short amount of campaigning time left to him that year, but, as Plutarch was to say, Caesar had a love of honor and a passion for distinction. He was on a high after his latest successes against the Gauls and the Germans, and, driven by a determination to exceed the reputations of rivals living and dead, he was determined to set foot on Britain, to go where no Roman general had gone before.
While Caesar was engaged on his British expedition, the rest of the army wasn’t to be idle. He had divided the remainder of the legions into two forces. One, under General Publius Sulpicius Rufus, was guarding the embarkation area around Boulogne. The other, under General Quintus Titurius Sabinus, was marching up the coast to subdue a tribe in Belgium and another in Holland that had yet to send ambassadors and negotiate peace treaties with the Romans.
There was movement along the top of the chalk cliffs to their left as the invasion fleet slid up the coast of Kent, or Cantium, as the Romans dubbed it. Observing the ships from the heights were British tribesmen, cavalry and infantry, fully armed and waiting in their war paint—their exposed upper bodies and grim faces daubed in wild, tattoolike patterns with blue-green woad, a plant dye. The Britons’ friends in Gaul had warned them of Roman preparations to cross the Channel, and they had initially sent envoys to Caesar to discuss an alliance with Rome, to fore-stall an invasion. But when Caesar sent his new ally King Commius of the Atrebates tribe—a
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