The Ancients - Julius Caesar’s Invasions of Britain

Episode Date: July 11, 2021

On the day of the Euro 2020 final, we’re talking England versus Italy…Ancients style (well, sort of). Historian and archaeologist Dr Simon Elliott returns to the podcast to talk us through Julius Caesar’s two invasions of Britain in 55 and 54 BC. Hear what the Romans knew about Britain before the expedition, why Caesar wanted to invade, and what the “greatest PR man of the ancient world” learnt from the first, less successful, campaign. Simon’s book, Roman Conquests: Britain is out at the end of July 2021.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host.

And could it be? Could football really be coming home? It's England versus Italy. And in this podcast, we're really going to jump on that bandwagon. We're talking England versus Italy, ancient style, kind of. We're talking all about the two expeditions to Britain by the Roman general Julius Caesar. Caesar's invasions of Britain in 55 and 54 BC. In this podcast, we're going to be going into incredible detail. We're going into the nitty gritty detail of these two expeditions and joining me to talk all about this is Dr Simon

Elliot, an ancient regular, an ancient legend. Simon is a fantastic speaker, it was great to get him on the podcast at such short notice and without further ado here's Simon. Simon he's back, great to have you back on the podcast. Always an absolute pleasure to be on the podcast with all my friends at History Hit, including you, Tristan, especially on such a fantastic day. It is such a fantastic day. It's coming home, England versus Italy, ancient style. We're talking about Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain because, Simon, this does really feel like a watershed moment in the history of Britain. It's worth remembering actually Tristan that when you're looking at the Caesarian invasions of Britain which were in 55 and 54 BC it's definitely a game of two halves because

in the first instance you've got the 55 BC sort of invasion which is the first half and then the second invasion is 54 BC the second half and in actual fact for the Roman conquest of Britain of course it goes to extra time because you've got the Claudian invasion in AD 43 which in actual fact goes to a penalty shootout on the river Medway which the Italians the Romans eventually sort of went ultimately but certainly for the Caesarian invasion so the first half and the second half the victors were the British because Caesar came and saw but didn't conquer. I love that analogy that was brilliant, Simon. You've been thinking about that for some time, haven't you,

with the penalty shootouts and everything? I woke up at 5.30 this morning and that immediately popped into my head. So let's look at the background first of all. Caesar's campaigning up to 55 BC in and around Gaul. Simon, what's he accomplished so far? What's the story so far? Well, Julius Caesar, I think,

was the greatest warlord of the later Roman Republic. So if you imagine you've got the situation where the great seven-time consul and warrior, Consul General Marius, completely reforms the Roman military in the middle of the Cimbria Wars at the end of the second century BC. He creates Roman legions of the kind which Caesar then uses later in his campaigns, including in Britain. of the kind which Caesar then uses later in his campaigns, including in Britain. And in so doing, he actually creates this unique kind of military entity, which enables the military and political leaders of the later Roman Republic to operate effectively as independent warlords. So let's break it down to start with a look at the legions that Marius created and which Caesar used. So Marius changed completely the nature of the Roman military and the elite soldiers, the legionaries in the legions.

He created these legions, which were 6,000 men strong. Every man within the legion was equipped in exactly the same way. So he had the classic Lorica, Hamata, chain mail, Hobock. He had the scutum shield. He had his pilum, heavy lead-weighted throwing javelins, his gladius hispaniensis sword, terrible, terrible psychological weapon, the Gladius we can talk about later maybe, Pugio Dagger, etc. And they're all equipped in the same way. But within those legionaries, you also then had of the 6,000, about 1,800 of them were specialists as well. And so there were specialists at doing things like carpentry or metalworking or fletching arrows or making tiles, every single thing that a legion needed to do to be in the field. So therefore suddenly you have this military entity, the legion, which is completely independent.

It's not reliant on a supply chain or anything. It can do whatever it wants. It doesn't have to take siege equipment with it. It can actually make its own siege equipment when it needs it. So therefore this suddenly becomes a very independent military formation, which can then be bolted together like Lego bricks by any military leader who wants them. And this is exactly what Caesar does. So you go through a range of great sort of late Republican Roman warlords, including Marius, including Sulla. And you end up with this sort of group of major military and political leaders in Rome who are vying for power. Sort of in the 60s and 50s BC, Caesar Pompey Crassus etc they're all wanting to

be the big man of Rome but Caesar is the guy who eventually alights on a really incredible means of doing it and that's military conquest the classic means of a political leader cementing his fortunes especially in the pre-modern age in fact even in the modern age so Caesar has an opportunity when he gets made the pro-consul of Gaul, which at that time was effectively the Mediterranean coast of modern France, to conquer the whole of Gaul. And this is how he chooses to make his name. So you have the Gallic Wars, which he writes about. It's worth remembering here that Caesar was also the greatest PR man of the ancient world

because nearly everything we know about him, he wrote. And as a PR man myself, I can actually look at exactly what he's doing and think this man clearly knows how to determine his own legacy. And so every year that he's campaigning in Gaul from 58 to 52 BC, not only is he creating new legions to help him do the conquest of Gaul, he's also writing back to the Roman public, to the Senate in Rome, to other military leaders saying what he'd done. So therefore, his legacy

is in print as well as physically there geographically on the landscape of what is now modern France. And in the middle of this incredible campaign to conquer the whole of Gaul, which by the way, isn't easy, and he's also not just fighting the Gauls, he's fighting the Germans as well, he decides to do something that's crazy. More Game of Thrones than Game of Thrones, more Tolkien than Tolkien. He decides to invade Britain. What possessed the man to choose to invade Britain? This terrifying island across Oceanus, which the Romans were scared of in its own right, the Northern Seas.

It's not the benign, as the Romans would have seen it, Mare Nostrum in the Mediterranean. This is terrifying Oceanus, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Atlantic approaches. And he decides to invade Britain. What a crazy thing to do. And so Simon, how much did the Romans know of Britain before Caesar arrives there with his expedition? Again, it's worth breaking this down actually, because the real answer, to cut to the chase and then I'll go into detail for you, is not much. So Britain was known in the Mediterranean through some early reference works. So the earliest one appears in the 6th century BC and it's called the Massiliate Periplus, which is a merchant's handbook, which is now lost but is

referenced in a number of later poems, including an important one called the Aura Maritime Poem, which dates to the late 4th century AD, Roman poet Avienus. So this takes us all the way back to the 6th century BC. And in this poem, the reference taken from the original 6th century BC work gives a name to the inhabitants of the islands of Britain for the first time. And it calls the Britons on the main island of Britain, the Albionese, and the inhabitants on the second main island of the British Isles, which is Modern Ireland, calls them the Scots-Irish, calls them the Iverni. So you have the Albionese and the Iverni. And then later we have Herodotus being the next to reference the islands, which he describes as the Cassidideras in his histories. Now this is often associated with

Britain given it references the Tin Islands. And of course what we do know is that in the prehistoric period, so in the period in British history before we have writing, there is widespread contact, in actual fact, from the continent with Britain through long-range trading networks, and these include the export of tin to the continent, so principally to France and to Spain. More clarity then comes with the 4th century BC Greek geographer Pythias, who's from Marseille. Now his definitive work is also lost to us, but key sections were later plagiarized heavily, sometimes word for word by the likes of Strabo, Pliny the Elder and Diodorus. And Pythéas was the first person to record a circumnavigation of Britain during his maritime explorations of the northwestern Europe. And he then gives his own name to the natives of Britain, having visited Britain, and he calls them the Bretagne, which is where the name Britain

comes from in actual fact, and it means the painted people and then we come more towards the period of Caesar and we have Strabo and Pliny etc who make extensive use of Pythais in their works and they give much more detail about the nature of Britain and then we have Caesar himself of course also talking about Britain and through all of these we get a picture of a fairly stable network of tribal territories. So in the area that we're going to talk about, we have the Cantiac in modern Kent, we have the Atrobaties in the Thames Valley, we have the Trinovantes in the sort of region of modern southern Essex, and then the Catavoloni in the larger region to the north of London.

And Caesar indicates himself the kinds of exports in his time that are coming to the Mediterranean world from Britain, which includes interesting things which you would expect, like agricultural produce and woolen goods. Britain's famous in the Roman world later for woolen goods, but also mastiff hunting dogs. And very interestingly, and I think as a military historian, this is very interesting, slaves. Now this indicates if slaves are being exported that there is friction between the British tribes. So the slaves are coming from conflict. Let's hypothesise between, say, the Atrobatis and the Catavelonia and so on. So by Caesar's time, a bit is known, but not much. And it is clearly given every time the Romans have a chance of referencing an invasion of Britain, whether it's Caesar I, II,

whether it's Claudius AD 43, whether it's later Constantius Chlorus, they reference it being a really terrifying prospect. So clearly the Romans were scared of the place. So a bit is known, but not much. And you can imagine British traders going through the camp of Caesar or going through Gaul at this time, crossing the channel, crossing this stretch of water. But at this time in 55 BC, Caesar, he's in Gaul, he's looking across to Britain. I mean, Simon, what is the purpose of his first expedition to Britain? Do you think he's going there for conquest or for some other reason, first of all? A number of reasons, Tristan. So firstly, let's contextualise it in terms of what's happening in his conquest of Gaul.

This isn't easy. Most of his later campaigns in the conquest of Gaul aren't actually conquering new territory, they're dealing with the revolts. And of course, when he finally defeats Vercingetorix at the Great Siege of Alesia in 52 BC, he's dealing with the Great Gallic Revolt. So from the sort of mid-50s season, more or less, he's not dealing with new conquests, he's dealing with revolts within Gaul. And you can imagine the tribal elites from the various Gallic nations he's previously defeated like for example the Belgae, the Helvetii etc. You can imagine their tribal leaders actually fleeing to territories where they're going to be safe and where are they going to be slave?

They're probably going to go to their late Iron Age neighbours who have the same Latene culture that they do and that's in Britain. So you can imagine firstly in Britain there's a lot of refugees from the Roman conquest of Gaul which is a very moving feast in the mid-1950s. And they're always causing trouble. You can imagine if you've got sort of a very stable tribal structure in modern Kent with the Kantiaki, all the time the refugees there are going to be whispering in the ear of the tribal leaders, come on, let's get rid of these Romans. You know you're next. You're going to be next. You're next for the chop.

So therefore, there's interference coming from Britain back into Caesar in his already problematic conquest of Gaul. Secondly, this is Julius Caesar. This is a man with an enormous sense of personal destiny. This is a man who at the age of 33, standing next to a statue of Alexander the Great, the great Alexander the Great, in Cadiz, weeps because he realises that at the age of 33, he's got nowhere near the achievements of Alexander the Great, and he thinks he's a failure. So this is a man with an enormous sense of self-destiny. He really, I believe, thinks he's going to be the greatest Roman. And if you're the greatest Roman, what are you going to do? Well, you're going to look around to find what's going to really make your name. And if you can do the Game of Thrones, Hail Mary,

and try and invade Britainain that's what you're going to do so therefore there's also this political imperative based on caesar's sense of self-destiny and also as i originally mentioned the romans are aware that there are economic reasons for engaging with britain more aggressively as well we know that the exports are detailed as an example so those three really all come into play. And then there's opportunity as well, because he finds himself in 55 BC campaigning in northwestern Gaul, where interestingly, he has been previously dealing with a revolt of the local tribes there, etc. And he's probably getting word at the time that, you know, you've got to be careful, Caesar,

because the land you're conquering here in northwestern Gaul, they're not going to be secure if you don't deal with Britain as well. So three key things, really. I mean, of course, Simon, and you mentioned the northwestern Gaul and Brittany. Brittany's renowned for its close connections with Britain in antiquity, too. So it seems very interesting that you highlight that at the end of that point there. Let's look at preparation for this first expedition now, because how does Caesar go about gathering intelligence for this expedition? now because how does Caesar go about gathering intelligence for this expedition? Right it's a fantastic question. Caesar's preparations for all of his military campaigns whether it's his early campaigns in Spain, whether it's in his campaigns in the Gallic conquest and then his later campaigns

at any phase of the civil wars whether it's in Macedonia and Greece, whether it's in Egypt, whether it's in North Africa, whether it's again towards the end of his life in Spain. His preparations are immaculate. I mean, I've just written a book actually comparing Alexander the Great and Caesar, looking at their campaigning styles, and Caesar is amazingly immaculate in his preparations, his logistics, planning, and everything. Except for one invasion. The 55 BC invasion of Britain is by a long way his worst military campaign, because the way it appears to us through the literary sources that we have

and through the archaeology, it almost appears as though he's done no planning whatsoever. He's got his two legions ready to do the invasion. It's almost like a last minute thing, isn't it? Towards the end of the campaigning season, which is dangerous in itself, because you're moving into the rougher waters in the sort of autumn and towards the winter. the campaigning season which is dangerous in itself because you're moving into the rougher waters in the sort of autumn and towards the winter nobody sails in the winter

he's got his two legions at the seventh which is a veteran legion then his own elite 10th legion which is probably the finest fighting force in the entire world actually it's a big statement to make acknowledging the rest of the world not just the med but I would argue that at this time the 10th legion is probably the elite fighting force in the whole world okay so he's got his men there he gets his vessels together he gathers 80 transports modifies 18 additional vessels to carry horses most of the vessels are war galleys in actual fact which he brings from the Mediterranean so these are things which have been fighting the civil wars there so not that suited to campaigning at sea in northwest European waters and then he does a couple of things he sends a legate over to scout the southeast coast of Britain and by the way let's just touch on one very quick point where did Caesar campaign I'm a

firm believer when he came to Britain it was on the south eastern coast of Britain almost certainly eastern Kent in actual fact which we can break down later so you've got Gaius Volusenus who's his legate a seasoned general from his campaigns in Gaul and he sticks him in a trireme so three banks of oars war galley ram on the front big sail for sale castle on the back three banks of oars a few marines and they come over the English Channel, probably take probably about 12 hours taking their time and they start scouting the what I believe is the east coast of Kent and they sail up and down in this one trireme with this one general and this legate who's an experienced general clearly hasn't been involved

in an amphibious assault before. Let's remember an amphibious assault is the most dangerous kind of military operation and he decides the best place to land is beneath the white cliffs of dover which to my mind is mental because you can imagine where are you going to defend if you're the native britons you're going to stand on top of the white cliffs of dover chucking boulders rocks javelins firing bows and arrows and everything basically it's like omaha beach in d-day right but the romans had landed there then the ending wouldn't have been beneficial to the romans at all but he goes back and tells caesar that's where we should land so caesar actually takes his word for it caesar then sends a military political leader from gaul who has very very close links in britain to announce his arrival but this individual lands then he's promptly arrested

by the Britons so that's completely fails as well. Nevertheless Caesar decides to go ahead sticks his men in the ships then something goes wrong so the thing that goes wrong is that he's separated out his mounted component his cavalry and his legionaries and it's important to remember here this is before the Roman Empire. So you don't have an indigenous cavalry component within the Roman military establishment. For the cavalry, what Caesar's doing is he's hiring Gallic and German cavalrymen, who are, by the way, very good, don't get me wrong, quite brutal headhunters. So they will do the job if they could arrive, but they don't because the 18 vessels modified to carry the cavalry horses with the cavalrymen slightly further away from Caesar's departure point, which is probably around Mont-Berlin, missed the tide. They're not available for the invasion.

neither foot component, which means, and he's a veteran general by this time, so he knows this, that when he starts campaigning, if he successfully lands, that he has no means of scouting ahead of his legionary spearheads. And if he is militarily successful, he has no means of exploiting any breakthroughs. He's almost blind. But let's keep on this then, Simon. Caesar, he crosses the channel with this part of his army. He gets to the point, which Volusenus suggests, that he lands for this amphibious assault. But almost immediately, if not immediately, the plan starts falling apart. Which is interesting, again, because you see something here.

Caesar, to this point, has failed in his military operation because he's failed in his planning. He's failed in his logistics. But you do then see the veteran military leader coming to the fore. So the vessels arrive, I argue, off the White Cliffs of Dover. And guess what? The Britons are there. We can imagine, can't we, the White Cliffs of Dover, like a scene from the end of Quadrophenia, with the chariots riding up and down. So instead of Phil Daniels on his moped, you've got the native Britons on there, sort of like two horse or two pony chariots the leaders riding up and down the white cliffs shouting

insults at the Romans the masked warriors of the native British army by the way it's worth reflecting what the nature was of the native British army you have a chariot riding elite and then you have part-time soldiers who are farmers who are called in an almost feudal system to the standard whenever there's an engagement. And this is what's happened here. These troops are usually armed with a shield and a spear, and if they're lucky, a dagger or a small axe or a sword.

So they're not a match one for one, at least in a symmetrical engagement for the Roman legions, by a long way, I would argue. But they are here because they're on top of the White Cliffs of Dover. So Caesar knows this. He real realizes that he's made a mistake so therefore he has a sort of at sea conference with his generals and bear in mind by the way that they set off on this journey at midnight the previous morning and so we're now around lunchtime the following day and Caesar's invasion fleet is now off the White Cliffs of Do. All these galleys etc all full of men

all probably not feeling particularly well or healthy having spent sort of like the past so many hours crossing the English Channel. We've got no idea what the sea conditions were but they wouldn't have been particularly good probably. So Caesar decides actually we're not going to land here this is too dangerous so what we're going to do is we're going to go up the coast. So he starts traveling up the coast with his fleet probably with the galleys now being road and waits until he can find a beach where he can put his troops ashore and i think the beach which he looks towards is that very broad expanse a very gentle accessible beach on the east kent coast between sort of deal walmart sandwich that kind of thing all the way into the wantson channel which separated out physically at that time the island

of Thanet from the mainland of Britain so here Caesar sees that he can land but hey guess what the Britons aren't stupid they can see all these galleys off the coast they've got all the refugees from Gaul whispering in their ear you know what's going to happen to you don't you you know you've got to get rid of them because if they get ashore you're in trouble so they follow so you can imagine this almost comical race to get to an invasion beach. So Caesar at sea, the roads rowing, rowing, rowing, the Britons in their chariots and any light cavalry, and then the running men. Who's going to get to a beach first? So Caesar gets to a beach first, but just at the point when he's going to land his troops, the Britons arrive as well.

So it does turn into that most dangerous of military operation an amphibious assault against the defended shore and here it's quite a close-run thing so we have this situation the legionaries are now ready in the galleys to come ashore these aren't perfect ships remember to unload troops onto the shore these are war galleys and also the literal coast here is fairly shallow as well so the galleys are actually struggling and it looks as though from what Caesar says himself that originally his legionaries including for the 10th legion refuse to get out of the galleys they can see that Britain's mast on the shore they've been at sea they're probably feeling seasick this is terrifying Britannia now remember

of course we're dealing with a primary source here in Caesar himself, who's clearly using poetic license. But nevertheless, what he's trying to tell us, if we can break it down, is that this wasn't easy. And the battle proves not to be easy. So it takes the Aquilifer, so the standard bearer with the eagle standard of the 10th Legion. This is almost a religious item within the legion the aquilifer eagle standard to jump in the shallows caesar puts words in his mouth that the aquilifer jumps in the shallows with the

britons sort of swarming towards him and he shouts out leap fellow soldiers unless you wish to betray your eagle to the enemy i for my part will perform my duty to the republic and to my general and i'll tell you what that put hairs on the back of my head up actually as well it's an amazing sort of quote to put in the mouth of this aquilifer and it works so the legionaries now come ashore and they fight a very close-run battle where what the britons are doing is they're trying to sort of isolate pockets of romans as they come ashore and kill them before weight of numbers tells but the roman training comes to the fore here i liken this actually using the d-Day analogy again to the parachute drops around D-Day where you're getting pockets of paratroopers dropped in all sorts of odd places but coming together in bespoke units

even if they're not in the same division etc just to try and do the job and this is what happens here so any legionary who comes ashore who can't find his own Vexilla standard or Signifer standard or see the eagle for the two legions landing, goes towards the nearest standard and coalesces into fighting forces. And eventually Caesar succeeds. But of course, what's not here, Tristan, there's no cavalry. So it proves to be a very short lived episode in actual fact. And it's actually, I would argue, probably a failure in that Caesar comes ashore and can't do any proper campaigning builds his marching camp which the Romans do at the end of every day is march in enemy territory you have a couple of engagements locally with the Britons but

Caesar again suffers here because then bad weather destroys many of his galleys and then he's forced to try and do lots of repairs and ultimately decides it's not worth the effort. He's been ashore. He can put the tick in the box. The PR exercise is done, writes back to Rome saying, I've done this amazing thing. And eventually you have the Romans returning to Gaul. So that's a sort of an ignominious end, really, to the 55 BC incursion. The key thing here is with no cavalry, even though he's got 12,000 legionaries, these elite warriors were far better one on one than the Britons. Without the cavalry, they've got no means really of campaigning properly because they're going to be too vulnerable. Simon, that was a great overview there. Just before we keep

going on, to really hammer home on this point, considering Caesar's objectives and the fact that he does leave for Britain late in the campaign, I know he's made all of these mistakes. But in your opinion, can we say that if we are looking at Caesar's objectives, was his first expedition making this mark? Was it a success or was it a failure? Right, it's a very difficult question to answer, right? So I'm going to answer it as a PR man in two ways. So politically, it was a success because he'd done it, right? Militarily, it was a failure, because no matter how much he dresses things up, and how much the later sources, who largely liked a big Caesar up in actual fact,

so it's worth remembering that to the Romans of the empire, the two greatest Romans were Augustus, the first emperor, and then Julius Caesar. But no matter how much anybody dresses it up militarily, it's got to be a failure, hasn't it? I'll use another Second World War analogy, which will hopefully provoke people to think and give you a bit of debate. There's almost a feeling like it's like Dieppe, isn't there? Because you've done the job, you've got ashore, but you've not really got off the beach. And you've also wound up the locals as well. Look at it from the British perspective. They may claim that they won the first half.

But in actual fact, they've now come up face to face with Roman legionaries, and they know that one for one, their warriors, even their elite warriors, are not going to be as good, which is what plays out later in the second invasion in 54, and then in the Claudian invasion as well, unless the Britons make use of terrain, et cetera. And also, they've had Romans ashore,

and they can be sure as hell that the Romansans having been there once are going to come back so from the britain's perspective it's a mixed bag you know short-term gain long-term question mark Welcome to Gone Medieval, the podcast that will dust off and polish up some of the medieval period's most fascinating characters and stories. So this is a really kind of funny way where medieval people differ from us immensely, because as far as they are concerned, sexual desire and interest in sex is a feminine trait. As far as they are concerned, sexual desire and interest in sex is a feminine trait. It's a very difficult one, isn't it? I mean, I think that Henry I did not probably intend to be buried under a school.

And he is one of the great kings of medieval history. We found that about 18% of our sample had evidence of bunions. So we think this change over time is directly related to the type of footwear that people were wearing. I'm Dr Kat Jarman. And I'm Matt Lewis. And Gone Medieval will tell you just why the so-called dark ages really weren't that dark after all. Subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. so when you predicted my line exactly halfway it's half time one nil britain but 54 bc caesar he decides to have another go. This is a completely different scale of operation. So Caesar, being a brilliant general,

has learned from his mistakes. And for him, the big man, although he's claimed back in Rome that he's done the amazing thing in Britain, he knows really that he's got to do better. So it's unfinished business. And you'll probably find that having been ashore in Britain he's proved to certainly his legionaries that it's not such a terrifying place after all it's just the

same as the continent certainly in terms of the culture in Kent so he decides to come back and again this is set in terms of campaigning in the wider Gallic wars so this is not a bespoke campaign that only takes place in 54 and nothing else it's one of a number that take place in 54 where he's campaigning against Germans and a campaign against the sort of northwestern gauls again but this time having learned his mistake he actually brings together five legions so five legions that's 30 000 men so to contextualize and also 2 000 allied cavalry so let's say 32 000 men contextualize that shall we for roman campaigning forces in Britain, in terms of scale and size, you've got Septimius Severus trying to conquer Scotland at the beginning of the 3rd century AD, with over 50,000 men, which is the largest campaigning force ever on British soil.

You've got the later AD 43 invasion with Aulus Plautius on behalf of Claudius, with four legions and with an equivalent number of by then auxiliaries so that's 40,000 men so that's 50 and then 40 and then you've got Caesar 54 BC with 32,000 men and then finally you've got Agricola trying to conquer the far north at the end of the first century AD with 30,000 men so on that scale this is the third largest campaigning force the Romans ever deployed in Britain it's a big deal but also he's learned from the mistakes with the transports as well. So this time he uses the skilled carpenters and shipwrights in northwestern Gaul to build 600 specially designed ships which are designed to disembark troops easily on the British coast. He then also chartered 200 local transports, gathers 80 ships from the

previous year's invasion and then 28 war galleys so this is a much bigger land force and a much bigger naval force such that the britons don't try and oppose the landing so caesar's got his force transports them over to britain i think using the same landing beaches again and this is a much more classic kind of military campaign in actual fact where although he didn't conquer he can probably claim a proper victory so he comes over he lands there's no immediate opposition forms his legions into legionary spearheads i think this campaign takes place on the north side of the north downs which is broadly the line of later wattling street the road sort of main road in trunk road in roman britain principally

because he's got this huge fleet and he can use it because he's on the coast. And I think then the line of advance is on this line of later Watling Street, where there are two or three minor engagements where the Britons do try and stop the Romans. And by this time, most of the tribes in the southeast have gathered to oppose the Romans although they're trying to avoid at least initially a set piece battle led by Cassavalonus who Caesar names who is probably the tribal leader of the Catabaloni so this is the big tribal area to the north of London and Caesar fights two or three engagements one or two are close from things but broadly he's successful it's much more traditional Roman military operation he's got cavalry now landed they're operating on the flanks covering the rear

he has to deal with bad weather again damaging his transports deploying troops back to fix them but then continuing the campaign and then he forces a crossing of the river Thames which he names which I think is the later line used by Plautius in the AD 43 invasion from the Hoot Peninsula across to where modern Tilbury is. Then Caesar forces his way through in a military campaign through to the heartlands of the Catecholone I think and finally brings the Britons to some kind of peace agreement because they know they're going to lose. In fact interestingly in the last engagements Catecholone gets rid of all his foot troops and only tries to stop Caesar using his chariots in hit and run tactics. So clearly they've learned not to take on the Romans. And there's an interesting debate about

where the area where the Catevilonian capital would have been. So it's described as a heavily fortified opida. It's effectively like a hill fort around sort of a settlement. So it's a defended settlement, a properly defended settlement, which features substantial surrounding ditches, earthen banks, palisades and defended gateways. The location's long been contested, but candidate sites include places like Gatesbury, Redbourne, Baldock, Ravensburg Castle and Warwick Camp, all in the region of places like modern Hertfordshire and things like that but the most likely location is actually in Hertfordshire and that's Wheat Hampstead in Lee Valley because here the late Iron Age defences were so impressive that some remain visible today particularly one called the Devil's Dyke which is 30 meters wide and 12 meters deep so that's

probably where Caesar brings the native Britons to heel now this is important in terms of the wider context of what's happening and later happens in terms of the Roman relations with the native Britons because this now puts Britain on the Roman map. So as part of the peace agreement the Britons agree to pay tribute which is important because non-payment of the tribute then from that time onwards all the way through to the Claudian invasion can be used and is used as a trigger for the Romans saying I'll come back if you don't pay the tribute to the invasions probably which Augustus planned himself were based I think around the Britain stopping paying the Caesarian tribute and they did so the invasion didn't take

place but also hostages so you're now having the elites sons of the British nobility going to Rome as hostages where they're finding out about the Roman Empire. They're learning about the pros and cons. So it's not all cons now, it's all pros as well. So now Britain is on the Roman map. And I think from this period until the Claudian invasion, the Romans start casing the joint. So they know when they come over in AD 4.3,

where all the resources are, like the iron in the wheel in Kent, for example, and they switch the tap on immediately so this is important caesar in 54 bc is important because it puts britain on the roman map and having done that he then decides the job's done so this is a classic armed incursion really let's call it an armed reconnaissance the job's done decides to go back to gaul has to go back in three waves of transports because of the number that were damaged in the bad weather, but gets back and now can truly write

to the Senate and the people of Rome that I've done the job, I've done the amazing thing. I've been to Mordor and I've defeated the bad guys. I've done something nobody else has done. And I think that this is something which is amazing and astonishing to the Romans. And it's this more than anything else, I think, that puts Caesar on this curve, steepening, steepening, steepening curve to be this truly great figure of the ancient world. And Simon, what's also so interesting there is you mentioned these sons of British rulers going to Rome. Well, one potential figure who could have therefore done that could have been that famous resistance leader who we see much later, Caratacus or Caratacus, who we know was the son of a British ruler. So I wanted to get that in there because that is really interesting in itself.

Just before we wrap up, Romans came to Kent three times. We know the Caesar I, Caesar II, first half, second half, an extra time with Claudius. We know that when the Romans are marching in enemy territory at the end of every day's marching, they don't just sit down, put the tent up and make their bread. They then spend three hours building a marching camp, which is a fort. It's got a ditch. It's got a bank, a palisade on the bank sometimes double triple ditches and then the inside is laid out exactly like a physical long-term permanent roman fort so this is a massive engineering exercise okay remembering the legions not only do you have the 1800 of the 6000 as the specialists but also every roman legionary by this time who are now known as Marius's mules

is a trained engineer and we know from their campaigns for example in Britain and Scotland and in Wales that you can use these marching camps in the archaeological data as dot to dots to track each campaign but of the three campaigns in Kent first half second, second half, extra time. We've never found any. It's really, really bizarre. They're there, but we haven't found any until 2017, when, hey presto, one gets located. And this first one, it's the only one still, but the first one is located. It's on the Isle of Thanet, which today's part of the mainland, but in the Roman period was the other side of the Wantsum Channel. Let's break that down. The Wantsum Channel was the waterway, full-flown waterway, half a mile wide which ran from the East Kent coast around Sandwich all the way through to the North Kent coast. It's vital because it

allowed the Romans to bypass the Goodwin Sands which were very dangerous to sail into the Thames Estuary and it was like a sort of a motorway in the Roman period you know ships going backwards and forwards all the time so this marching camp's on the wrong side of the Wantson channel now why is that well I think this marching camp is associated with the 54 BC campaign because of the archaeology that's been found which by the way includes a pilum head in the bottom of one of the ditches and I think actually this is part of caesar's learning experience from 55 bc because i think rather than it being a basic straightforward marching camp i think it's caesar's main logistics base because it's protected and defended from the marauding britons on the mainland because you have the wantson channel it's quite easy to clear than

out of any opposition and once it's cleared we've got no evidence at all by the way that there was any sort of anything like a navy amongst the late iron age britons which is unusual britain is an island but there's no evidence of it at all and we do know by the way the the roman writers talk frequently about the northwestern gauls being expert maritime operators and navigators but there is no mention at all of maritime operations by the native britons so for whatever reason it doesn't seem to have been present in any great form so once the romans had cleared the isle of thanath of any opposition they could then use it as a logistics base in the middle of which they then build this massive logistics marching camp and i think that's where the romans would

have stored all the grain etc and their weaponry and their horses and the timber to repair the ships which they knew they need to support this operation. So in actual fact, that's the first piece of hard evidence we've got to really show that this is really where Caesar landed. That's really interesting in itself and keeping on the archaeology a bit longer to one other site that I think we need to mention. Simon, tell us a bit about Big Bree Hillfort and also the work of your fellow Roman historian, Roman Kent amigo, Dr. Steve Willis, because Big Bree, this also seems to be, might have quite a significant link to this expedition too. So again, fantastic point. So what we'll do, let's go back a little bit to the beginning of

the 54 BC campaign. So the Romans have landed and they have a number of sort of military engagements. There's no set piece battle, but a number of military engagements and it looks like one of the places where the britons may have chosen to try and make a stand was in the fort at bigbury so nine age hill fort overlooking modern canterbury which was the opida so the tribal center of the local kantiaki so this is where the hill forts where the local Cantillachie there would logically choose to defend they probably had no experience at this point of the Romans besieging anywhere because of course the Romans wouldn't have found besieging a hill fort particularly difficult they're very used to sort of any siege operations given this is a Mediterranean army anyway and also they fought the Gauls now by this time for three years and they know all about

the Gallic sort of physical defenses in Gaul and so you can imagine the hill forts with its double triple ditches you can imagine its palisades on the earthen banks you can imagine its defended gateways etc well the Romans know exactly how to invest places like this what they do is they would use a barrage of slingshot usually to keep the heads of the defenders down on the parapets because remember a sling lead slingshot is like a low velocity revolver bullet so even if it doesn't penetrate your armor it's going to break an arm where it's going to concuss you and we know from the mediterranean world for example places like the wars of pompeii that this was the preferred method of the romans keeping the heads down of the defenders and then they would target a given

area and the defenses then storm it and in this case it seems as though you have the seventh legion building a ramp think of massada and titus's investments of massada in modern israel they build a ramp to enable the seventh legions formed in testudo tortoise formation sort of fully covered with the scutum shields with a bombardment on the parapet side the side the slingshots are smacking in the ballista bolts and the scorpio bolts are flying over etc there are britons falling down all over the place and the roman testudos on the ramp smashes over the parapets and then the britons give up the go straight away so as soon as the romans are in the britons know what's going to happen so they left one of their gateways undefended

so they can escape so it looks as though to my mind it's almost a half-hearted defence actually maybe even in using modern military terms sort of a delaying action because they don't die to the last man as they would have done in Masada they actually try and flee to fight another day

but ultimately the Romans are successful so you have two locations there if you're interested in Roman archaeology in modern Kent. There are two locations there where you can physically go on the Isle of Thanat. This is near Pegwell Bay for the marching camp on the far side of the Wantsum Channel or Bigbury Hill Fort above Canterbury.

Two physical locations you can go and stand today in the reasonable knowledge that Julius Caesar, this, to my mind, greatest of the Romans himself, physically stood. Well, there you go, Simon. That's a wonderful way to wrap it all up. You've already mentioned the significance. Now Britain is well and truly on the Roman map, paving the way for the future Claude invasion, one all at this time. Finally, I must ask about your book, All About This. Simon, you've done a book on these Roman invasions of Britain, which is called? I've got a book coming out at the end of July through the Great Pen of Sword.

Part of their very well-received and known series, Roman Conquests. This is Roman Conquests of Britain. I've been very fortunate. They've asked me to write the story of the various Roman campaigns of conquest of Britain, which actually is a story of Roman Britain, because, of course, the Romans never fully conquered the whole of Britain because they never conquered the region today called Scotland. But there's a whole chapter on pre-Roman, late Iron Age Britain

which goes into great detail about the nature of this part of northwestern Europe at the time. And there's another chapter on the Caesarian invasions and another chapter on the Claudian invasions. So that's out at the end of July. Brilliant. Simon, thanks so much for coming on the podcast at such short notice.

It's been a joy. Fantastic. Thank you for having me. I love talking to you guys.