Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/116

 100 ITIUS PORTUS. sage in tlie fifth book (v. 8), in which Caesar describes his second voyage, shows very clearly where he landed. He sailed from Portus Itius, on his second expedition, at sunset, with a wind about SW. by W. ; about mid- night the wind failed him, he could not keep his course, and, being carried too far by the tide, at day- break, when he looked about him, he saw Britannia on his left hand behind him. Taldng advantage of the change of the tide, he used his oars to reach " that part of the island where he had found in the previous summer that there was the best landing." He had been carried a few miles past the Cantium Promontorium, or North Foreland but not out of sight, and he could easily find his way to the beach at Deal. There are many arguments to show that Deal was Caesar's landing-place, as it was for the Eomans under the empire, who built near it the strong place of Rutupiae (^Richhorougli), on the Stow, near Smidwich. D'Anville makes out Caesar s distance of 30 il. P. thus. He reckons 22 or 24 M. P., at most, from Portus Itius to the Enghsh cliffs, and 8 miles from his anchorage under the cliffs to his landing- place make up 30. Perhaps Caesar means to estimate the whole distance that he sailed to his land- ing place ; and if this is so, his estimate of " about 3(J Roman miles" is not far from the truth, and quite as near as we can expect. Strabo (p. 199) makes the distance 320 stadia, or only 300, according to a note of Eustathius on Dionysius Periegetes (v. 566), who either found 300 in his copy of Strabo, or made a mistake about the number; for he derived his in- formation about Caesar's passage only from Strabo. It may be observed here that Strabo mentions two expeditions of Caesar, and only one port of embark- ation, the Itius. He understood Caesar in the same way as all people will do who can draw a conclusion from premises. But even 300 stadia is too great a distance from Wissant to the British coast, if we reckon 8 stadia to the Roman mile ; but there is good reason, as D'Anville says, for making 10 stadia to the mile here Pliny gives the distance from Boulogne to Britannia, that is, we must assume, to the usual landing place, Rutupiae, at 50 JI.P., which is too much ; but it seems to be some evidence that he could not suppose Boulogne to be Caesar's place of embarkation. Caesar mentions another port near Itius. He calls it the Ulterior Portus (iv. 22, 23, 28), or Superior, and it was 8 SI. P. from Itius. We might assume from the terra Ulterior, which has reference to Itius, that this port was further to the north and east than Itius ; and this is proved by what he says of the wind. For the wind which carried him to Britannia on his first expedition, his direct course being nearly north, prevented the ships at the Ulterior Portus from coming to the place where Caesar embarked (iv. 23). The Ulterior, or Superior, Portus is between Wissant and Calais, and may be Sangatte. Calais is too far off. Wlien Caesar was returning from his first expe- dition (iv. 36, 37) two transport ships could not make the same portus — the Itius and the Ulterior or Superior — that the rest of the ships did, but were carried a little lower down (paulo infra), that is, further south, which we know to be Caesar's mean- ing by comparing this with another passage (iv. 28). Caesar does not say that these two ships landed at a "portus," as Ukert supposes (^Gallien, p. 554), who makes a port unknown to Caesar, and gives it the name " Inferior." Du Cange, C;unden, and others, correctly took ITIUS PORTUS. Portus Itius to be Witsand. Besides the resem- blance of name, Du Can<re and Gibson have shown MAP ILLUSTRATING THE POSITION OF PORTUS ITIUS. A. A. Strait of Dover, or Pas de Calais. I. Portus Itius {li'issant). 2. Itium Pr. {Cap. Grisncz). 3. Go- sori.icum, afterwards Bononia (Boulogne). 4. Calais. 5. Savdgate. C. Portus Duhris (Dover). 7. Kutupi;io (Hichburough). 8. River Stuur. ' 9. Cantium Pr. (^.'urth Foreland). 10. Kegulbium (Reculver). that of two middle age Latin writers who mention the passage of Alfred, brother of St. Edward, into England, one calls Wissant Portus Iccius, and the other Portus Wisanti. D'Anville conjectures that Wissant means " white sand," and accordingly the promontory Itium would be the White, a very good name for it. But the word " white," and its various forms, is Teutonic, and not a Celtic word, so for as the

-iter knows ; and the word " Itius" existed in Cae- sar's time on the coast of the ]Iorini, a Celtic people, where we do not expect to see a Teutonic name. Wissant was known to the Romans, for there are traces of a road from it to Taruenna (Therouemie). It is no port now, and never was a port in the modern sense, but it was very well suited for Caesar to draw his ships up on the beach, as he did when he landed in England ; for Wissant is a wide, sheltered, sandy bav. Froissart speaks of Wissant as a large town in 'l. 346. A great deal has been written about Caesar's voy- ages. The first and the best attempt to explain it, though it is not free from some mistakes, is Dr. Hal- ley's, of which an exposition is given in the Classical Museum, No. siii., by G. Long. D'Anville, with his usual judgment, saw that Itius must be Wissant, but he supposed that Caesar landed at Ilythe, south of Dover. Walckenaer ( Geog. Jes Gaules, vol. i. pp. 448, 452) has some remarks on Itius, which he takes to be Wissant; and there are remarks on Portus Itius in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1846, by H. L. Long, Esq. Perhaps the latest examination of the matter is in G. Long's edition of Caesar, Note on Catsars British ExjJeditions, pp. 248 — 257. What the later German geographers and critics, Ukert and others, have said of these voyages is of no value at all. [G. L.]