This article surveys the period just prior to Caesar's journey across the channel, discussing potential motivations and contextual factors, asking, why Britannia?
In the summer of 56BC, entering Rome's northern inland boundary, the territory of Sugamrbi, east of the Rhine, Caesar ordered his legions to construct a bridge to cross the river. After ten days the bridge was assembled. Caesar and his legions crossed over, held by guards at each end. This marked a milestone in the history of the Republic; no Roman army to date had crossed the Rhine. Caesar immediately sent envoys to the surrounding tribes of the region with pledges of peace, protection and friendship, notwithstanding the standard demand of hostages. Not all tribes yielded. The Usipetes and Tencteri were advised by the Sugambri to the Roman approach, temporarily evacuating their settlements, hiding in the outskirt forests.
Caesar’s army stayed in this territory for over a week. He plotted to molest the local tribes along the eastern Rhine, forcing their submission with terrorizing tactics. He targeted retribution at those who resisted Roman alliance. The legions scorched the earth, destroyed their settlements, farms and villages were burnt, crops uprooted and defiled. Caesar gained a temporary alliance with the Ubii, which proved thoroughly beneficial.
Tribesman of the Ubii revealed to Caesar how the Seubi (having noticed the Roman’s construct the bridge) alerted all surrounding tribes to abandon their villages, taking all women and children to safety: demanding that all capable men gather for a mass assault upon the Roman camp. News being leaked to Caesar, he feared encirclement from a coalescing mob of armed barbarians preparing a counter assault. He decided to withdraw from the Sugamrbi, ordering retreat across the bridge they constructed eighteen days before. After the last legionary crossed, the bridge of the Rhine was destroyed.
Caesar gives to reason to why he decided to withdraw because he ‘achieved all the objects of which he (I) had come (…) to over-awe the Germans, punish the Sugambri and relieve the Ubii from the harassing pressure of the Suebi’ [1]. After eighteen days across the Rhine, Caesar concluded ‘he had done all that honour or interest had required’[2]. Alongside his legions, Caesar travelled back to Northern Gaul for the fall of summer, remarking how the sun ‘set's early in those parts’.
Caesar's Motivations for the Invasion of Britannia
It is worth questioning whether Caesar truly avouches for his honest motivations in crossing to Britannia that summer. In his Campaigns. Caesar justified the expedition as an offensive to deter the Britons from providing continual support and amnesty to the partisans of Gaul. He states ‘in almost all the Gallic campaigns the Gaul’s had received reinforcements from the Britons’[3].
Was it his desire to dazzle Rome?
Historian John Bowle infers a more pragmatic than egoic factor, one of necessity, to ensure his political survival. Bowle states ‘Caesar was almost obliged to look for further opportunities of conquest by the extension of his provincial command following the conference of Luca in 56BC’[4].
Notorious classicist Dame Mary Beard called this conference an attempt to ‘patch up their alliance’ (‘their’ being the First Triumvirate) established in 60BC. Four years later, in 56BC, the First Triumvirate, of Pompey, Crassus and Caesar, she claims was ‘fraying, partly because of Caesar’s increasing clout — thanks to his victories in Gaul.’[5]. Thus far, Caesar's victorious campaign had not only raised his domestic gravitas, but kept him reasonably distant from the troubles festering in Rome, with turbulent civil strife and instigated mob violence erupting in the capital.
Both Crassus and Pompey grew concerned by Caesar’s military feats, that clearly cast him favorably against the backdrop of domestic chaos. No doubt that Crassus and Pompey were momentarily allied in fear by the balance of power tilting towards Caesar. The conference concluded with a deal determining that Pompey and Crassus would stand for consulship after the elections in the following year, and Caesar’s consulship and command would be extended for a further five years, to 51BC.
Following the conference of Luca, Caesar sought to further his achievements, flexing his power by military force: his supreme vehicle to power. Biographer and contemporary to Caesar, Seutonious, remarked how the celebrated General never allowed enemies to re-rally after being routed: to capitalize on the high morale whilst he possessed momentum of attack. Caesar possessed the strength of force and devotion of his legions. They were governed by a fierce, iron discipline. He propagated ceremony, and painted his own halo with aggrandizing proclamations. Famously during the Pontic triumphal procession, he ordered a wagon to be painted with the immortal phrase ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’.
Caesar’s ambitious extended limitations. From a tally of successive victories, he broadened the territorial scope of Rome, instilling fear in the eyes of opponents and magnifying Rome across the continent. This all the while, entrenched his political and financial influence.
In terms of acts and policy, Plutarch accounted for Caesar’s proposal to erect a temple to Mars, far surpassing all previous constructions. A practical mover, Caesar plans ranged from draining the Pontine marshes, south of Rome near Latina, to constructing a vast highway through the Apennine Mountains, stretching from the North Adriatic coast to the Tiber river. Plutarch spoke of Caesar’s long-term strategical plan to subdue the neighboring power of the Parthian Empire, invading them through the Iranian Euphrates, advancing into Scythia, east of the Vistula river, and thereby carve an southern inroad into Germania.
Securing these results of spectacular achievement cultivated his esteem and prowess. Considering it a Roman purification of the Gaul, he leveraged it to strengthen his political and financial position.
Why Britannia?
Modern historian Peter Salway speculated that Britannia presented Caesar with a ‘mysterious and dangerous country’. An opportunity to ‘subdue the natives and astound Rome’[6]. On a domestic level, John Bowle adds ‘Romans remained ignorant of Northern Europe: vague about the interior of Germany, vaguer still about the Baltic and Scandinavian area and afraid of the islands in the far west’[7]. Theodore Mommsen stated that the cost considerations of policing the island would exclude any financial gain or economic motif on the part of Rome.
Another consideration was proposed by Winston Churchill, who wrote (speaking of the British Celts): ‘the natives, though uncouth, had a certain value as slaves for rougher work on the land, in mines and even about the house’[8]. Did this cross the mind of Caesar? From his own accounts, detailing his interactions with chieftains of Gaul, Caesar understood that the natives of Britannia shared a standard of civilization to that which he encountered in Gaul. Simon Schama delineates that ‘by Roman standard they were still primitive timber settlements, with waddle and daub huts; a far cry from the simpler stone cities of the Mediterranean world’[9].
Summary
From the offset of his conquest of Gaul, Caesar’s legions had subdued the Belgae (the main geo-strategic division covering Northern France, Belgium, South Holland and eastern Germany) west of the Rhine. The initial capture of Gaul was a swift decisive sweep across an area covering the Rhone to the Rhine, from Saone to the Loire, the Seine to the Sambre, lasting short of a year. However, it took a subsequent six years of continuous campaign to fully fortify the region. Quashing rebellions, thwarting insurrections, dealing political alliances that eventually, and considerably, pacified the region under Roman rule. It seems that Britannia presented a further opportunity for Caesar to extend the limits of his campaign, by crossing yet another immortal landmark in Roman history.
In part 2, I will investigate the days leading up to the invasion, and the subsequent events of the landing.
References
[1] The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar, (xx)
[2] The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar, (xx)
[3] The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar, (xx)
[4] A History of Roman Britain, Peter Salway, p.12
[5] /articles/conference-lucca-56-bc/: accessed 18th March 2022
[6] The English Experience, John Bowle, p.16
[7] The English Experience, John Bowle, p.16 [8] The History of the English Speaking People, p.1 [9] A History of Britain: The Edge of the World 3000 BC-AD 1603, Simon Schama, p.4
Bibliography
A History of Britain: The Edge of the World 3000 BC-AD 1603, Simon Schama, (The Bodley Head, London, 2009)
A History of Roman Britain, Peter Salway (Oxford University Press, London, 2001)
History of the English Speaking People, Winston Churchill (Orion Publishing Group, London, 1999)
Invasion: The Roman Conquest of Britain, John Peddie (St Martin, New York, 1987)
The English Experience: A Survey of English History from Early to Modern Times (G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1971)
The conference at Lucca (56 BC) By Mary Beard, TLS:
The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar (Penguin Classics, London, 2001)
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