Was Caesar's invasion of Britain a disaster?

Today, we trace Julius Caesar’s dramatic invasions into Britain - two bold expeditions that tested Rome’s reach at the very edge of the known world. Ships were battered by storms, soldiers struggled with unfamiliar tides, and British warriors offered fierce resistance. Caesar never secured a lasting conquest of the island - so what drove him to try? Military necessity, retribution or a calculated move in his rivalry with figures like Pompey? Joining us is historian and author Simon Elliott to unpack the politics, ambition and spectacle behind these campaigns, and to explore how these risky ventures helped shape the larger-than-life reputation that still defines Caesar today. Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore. We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6 Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcast Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  When Julius Caesar, arguably the greatest warlord in history, set his sights on a misty island at the very edge of the known world, he had no way of knowing what waited for him beyond those towering white cliffs of Dover. It was a mysterious island that his contemporaries called Britannia. In this episode, we're going to follow Caesar on those two military expeditions across the English Channel. We'll see how rough seas and shifting tides and very determined British opposition nearly destroyed the first invasion, and how determination and clever logistics and cavalry skirmishes and a bold strike across the Thames helped to make the Second.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  For Caesar, Britannia was less a new province to conquer than it was a political performance. It was a chance to show that even this territory beyond the edge of the known world should tremble, should bend the knee before the might of Rome. And in fact, it showed that the people of Rome should bend the knee to him. Joining us is Simon Elliott, Dr. Simon Elliott, bestselling historian, archaeologist, author, broadcaster, great friend of History Hit, and expert on all things Rome. We're going to talk Caesar across the seas. Enjoy.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Simon, thanks for coming back on the podcast.

• 2:59Speaker 03

  Absolute pleasure.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  What are these mysterious islands, Britain and Ireland, they're beyond the ocean? What do the Greek and Romans, before Caesar ever sets foot in it, what do they know about this place?

• 3:09Speaker 03

  The reality is, Dan, I think the Romans knew very little about Britain. So from their perspective, it's a fantastical place. You're looking at something that's akin to Mordor or something similar to that in Lord of the Rings or anywhere in Game of Thrones. It's basically a place of difference of which they knew little.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  But they do know there's valuable stuff there.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  They do, but it's important to contextualize why Caesar's invasions are so important, which we'll come to. Caesar's invasions are so important because they put Britain properly onto the Roman map. Before that, the Romans knew that their exports onto the continent are various metals, agricultural produce, so arable, wool, hunting dogs, interestingly, and also, very interestingly, Britain in the pre-Roman period is a great place to go and get slaves. So that means that most of the major tribal groupings and confederations in Britain are fighting each other all the time.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Okay, and then merchants from the Roman world, from the range, can arrive at the beach and trade, pick up these slaves, pick up this tin, copper, hunting dogs, and then they take them back to the Roman world. So merchants were doing trade before the Roman legions ever set foot?

• 4:19Speaker 03

  Absolutely, and I actually think you probably find that actually merchants were embedded within sort of late Iron Age Britain. I think actually the trade side of thing was something the Romans had got covered, but what they didn't really know is any detail about the place. So it really, really was a place of difference and a place of fantasy.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Julius Caesar, people have heard of him. People can go back and check out that excellent YouTube we made about Julius Caesar being the greatest Roman commander, question mark, you think he was? Julius Caesar conquers what is now France and Belgium.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  An astonishing campaign of conquest. Incredibly bloody, incredibly brutal, but incredibly effective. And is that what then, well, he can, he stands at Calais and he looks across, think, what's that place? I mean, is that basically what happens?

• 5:01Speaker 03

  So firstly, Dan, that's a really, really important point. Caesar's two incursions to Britain in 55 and 54 are not isolated events. They're both part of his wider Gallic conquests. So let's contextualize what's going off here. Caesar's been consul 59 B.C. He gets given the governorship of the province of Cisalpine Gaul, which is northern Italy, north of the river Po, where Gallic people are living, but by that point, not the enemies of Rome.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  It's been conquered.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  It's been conquered. He also gets given control of Transalpine Gaul, which are the Roman territories north and west of the Alps. That includes Nobenensis, which is the Roman province which runs along the Maginot Ocean. So for example, Marseille's in.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  Right, so southern, what we call southern France. So Caesar's in charge of this important sort of chunk of territory from northern Italy right the way across southern France.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Yes, but randomly, he also gets given the governorship of Illyricum, which is Darmatia, which is a bit random, but think about what's happening at the time. It's 59 B.C., so this is the beginning of the first triumvirate with Crassus and Pompey.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  So they divided up the Roman world between these three super rich warlords.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Absolutely, yeah. And the key thing there is they agreed that they want to pose each other's legislation in the Senate. So you have a degree of political peace descending between the Optimatists, in this case Pompey and Crassus, these are the pro senatorial reactionaries.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Sort of aristocratic.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  Absolutely, yeah. And then Caesar, who is a populari, so he's more of a radical.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  Man of the people.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  Self-styled.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  But Caesar, Caesar is driven by two things all the time throughout his entire life. The lust for glory. He's got a sense of destiny which drives him, I think.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  Very related.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  But also is very avaricious. So he's after wealth. His family are senatorial, but they're not that rich. His father died young, so he's always after wealth. And so he gets given the governorship of southern Gaul, basically, and the north of Italy, and what could go wrong?

• 6:57Speaker 00

  This is a man driven by lust for wealth and power.

• 7:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  It's a unique story.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  And straight away, he doesn't muck about.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. You've never heard this one before. Okay, go.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  This is one of the most brutal examples of it. So he doesn't muck about. In 58 B.C., he invades Gaul, and he doesn't just invade Gaul, he's looking for an opportunity.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  Just by himself? The Senate doesn't go, you must invade Gaul? He just?

• 7:18Speaker 03

  Absolutely. So he's been given four legions. He wants to keep them busy. So he fights in 58 B.C. the Helveti, who are a Transalpine Gallic confederation. And then he travels over the Rhine, north and east, and he fights the Germanic Suebi. And he's not just fighting small tribal groupings, he's fighting hundreds of thousands of people, but he's winning. Okay? So now he's got a taste for this. And all the time, by the way, he's writing back to Rome, he's narrative, saying, look what I've done, I've done this, I've done that. Julius Caesar, I've said it before, Dan, the greatest PR man in the ancient world. Everything we know about him, he wrote. Genius. And then you go into 57 B.C., and then he targets the most dangerous of the Gauls, who are in Galia, Belgica, to the north.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  So this is in the Rhine Delta and in Belgium and in northern France. And he fights some really difficult campaigns there. He almost loses the Battle of the Sabbath, but he's ultimately successful. 56 B.C., then on the Channel coast. So he's fighting the Veneti, and the Veneti are the main maritime nation in Gaul.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  He's just on a massive tear across Western Europe.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  And he keeps going and going and going. Basically, this is a man, he's got a taste for it, right? He's getting glory back in Rome because he's winning, and also he's actually accruing wealth as he's doing it. And you can get a sense of the character of Julius Caesar when he's fighting the Veneti, because he fights a maritime battle against them and he wins. Then he invites the Veneti's main elders from their council to come and meet him and have a peace agreement, and he murders them all, right? Very Roman, very gritty, very gritty. And that brings us to 55 B.C. So he's defeated the Veneti. There are a couple of confederations still on the coast which haven't submitted yet, but you know, he wants a bit more glory. And he just looks across the channel and there's Britain.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  And he thinks, right, I can take Roman arms to places which to most Romans would be a fantasy land.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  I think there are three real reasons why Caesar decides. The risk involved here. Is high level, okay? This is a land of which the Romans know little apart from the trade. They certainly don't know the people, as we're about to find out. You're crossing not mere Nostrum in the Mediterranean, you're crossing the English Channel. So the Romans called it Oceana, so it's not their sea. It's a very dangerous ocean to cross.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, tides, currents, shocking weather.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Which the Romans didn't understand at all, as we'll see. And it's also quite late in the campaigning season that he chooses to do it as well. So there's a huge amount of risk. I have to say Julius Caesar is very, very canny for most of his career as a political and military leader. This is his worst campaign in fifty five B.C. And it's one that he could easily have lost, it could have cost him his life, as we'll see.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Because he could have been, apart from anything else, he could have just been cut off in what is now Kent for months on end.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Well, he almost was.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Right, okay, well, come on to that, okay.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  He almost was. But the reasons why, Dan, he chooses to come across are, number one, wealth. So he knows that there's all these various goods there that he can make money from. Number two, glory. So he knows that this will be so astonishing that no one will believe it in Rome if he manages to do this. And number three is because where have all the refugees been going from the conquered Gallic nations? Been going to Britain. So it's become a thorn in his side where all these people are egging on the Britons. Go on, go on, get Caesar.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  Because the people of northern, what is now northern France and Belgium have got kinship with the people of Britain. Same language, religion, all that sort of stuff.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  They're tribes with the same names. So they've got the Parise in East Yorkshire, they've got the Parise in Gaul. Got the Atrebartes in the Thames Valley, got the Atrebartes in Gaul. You've got the Belga along the south coast, you've got the Belga in Gaul. These are people who've got kinships between each other. So they're the three reasons why Caesar makes this astonishing decision to do what I call an armed incursion to Britain.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Okay, so he's done an armed incursion to, he's gone across the Rhine, fought some campaigns and then withdrawn. So it's not unusual for him to sort of go in, smash some people up, check out the lie of the land and then come back. That's his plan.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Absolutely, he's also built a big bridge when he crossed the Rhine as well. So he's showing his expertise as an engineer as well. But now he's looking across the channel.

• 11:15Speaker 00

  Does he have to build a fleet?

• 11:16Speaker 03

  In actual fact, he orders ships to be sent to him from the Mediterranean.

• 11:22Speaker 00

  Wow, they go all the way around.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  So these ships aren't particularly suitable for operating in channel water, which has an impact later on.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Okay, so he succeeds where Philippa, Spain fails in fifteen eighty eight and gets a fleet round from Iberia, right the way around to the coast of northern France. Where are we talking, roughly speaking?

• 11:41Speaker 03

  What about Boulogne?

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Boulogne, okay. And he embarks.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  He does, so he's got eighty ships for his legions. Who are the legions? He's only taking two this time. He's probably got by this point in the middle of his Gallic campaigns, he's probably got about eight legions, but he only takes two. That's seven and his own pet legion, the Tenth Legion. And then he's also got some cavalry, who are Gallic mercenary cavalry to come with him as well. So he's got eighty ships for the foot troops and he's got eighteen ships for the cavalry. And they set sail around midnight on the given day, late in the campaigning season. But before that, there's an issue, even before the sail, there's an issue. Because he's not done his reconnaissance properly, very unlike Caesar, very unlike Caesar.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  So firstly, he talks to the local Veneti nobles, the ones who he didn't murder, to say, can you tell us anything about Britain? And guess what? They say, not really. Can we go home now, please? And then he sends one of his leading legates, who's a very good land general, who's got no expertise at all at sea, with one galley to scout the coast of the south east of Britain. He spends four days looking at all the various landing places. And he alights on the worst landing place you could think of landing an army, the beaches below the White Cliffs of Dover. Which is like the easiest defendable place in northwestern Europe, probably. So that's where Caesar's going to. And then thirdly, he sends an Atrebarian king from Gaul called Commius,

• 13:09Speaker 03

  who's got people in the Thames Valley who are also Atrebartes, so he thinks that the Britons will know them, to try and broker a peaceful landing. And of course, as soon as he lands, he gets arrested, doesn't appear again for the rest of the campaign. So it's all gone wrong. But Caesar still does it anyway, he throws his Hail Mary, so the ships sail across.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  He does sail into the unknown, doesn't he?

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Totally, this is proper, proper Tolkien or Game of Thrones. They arrive off the coast of the White Cliffs of Dover and guess what? The native Britons all know what's happening because they've captured Commius. They're all lined up, you can imagine the sort of airfix, sort of ancient Britons in the chariots and with all the foot troops and everything, all lined up going up and down, going up and down the White Cliffs of Dover. Caesar goes, oh, that's not going to work, is it?

• 13:50Speaker 00

  And can I interrupt you, sir? Because I find this so interesting. This is the first time that someone has written down their experiences of being in Britain that we have preserved. It's the first invasion that we know about of Britain. And it is the only invasion in British history, and there have been dozens, that is opposed on the beach. So Saving Private Ryan style, where guys are on the beach waiting for that invasion force. Usually people just land, march inland, you know, Henry the Seventh or William the Conqueror. So this is an opposed invasion, it's very rare.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  It's one of the most difficult military battles to fight, an opposed invasion. Because there are so many variables involved that you can't control. So Caesar does wisely now determine that I'm not going to land in Dover. So basically, it's like the wacky race, he hot foots it along the coast going north. And he gets to that wide expanse of beaches from the want some channel where Richborough is today, down through Sandwich and Walmer and Deal. They're the beaches where he starts landing his troops, but the Britons have arrived as well. So that's why you have this really, really risky battle taking place with the Romans.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  On the beach, basically.

• 14:46Speaker 03

  On the beach, and the Romans don't have invasion barges, et cetera, they're just people jumping out of galleys, et cetera. So if you look at the strategy that Caesar used for the battle, it was an effective one in that he got galleys with ballista either end of the invasion beaches firing in, et cetera. But it still wasn't working and a lot of the Roman troops didn't want to come. Roman troops historically didn't want to come to Britain. You go later, Caligula had to give up an invasion of Britain because his legions refused. You go to Claudius with the successful invasion in AD forty three. One of his freed men, Narcissus, had to shame the legionaries into boarding the ships. So the Romans didn't really want to do it. But here, there's an even more extreme example. Because a lot of the Roman legionaries refused to leave the ships.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  And allegedly Caesar tells us it takes the aquilifer carrying the legionary aquila standard, the eagle, of the Tenth Legion to jump into the shallows and say, follow me, I'm willing to fight for my emperor and the glory of Rome, quote unquote. And they'll pile in and there's a battle and it goes one way and the other, one way and the other, and eventually the Romans win.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Fighting in the shallows.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  In the shallows, wearing lorca hamata, chain mail, with coolest helmets on, with this huge scootum body shield, et cetera. If you go under, you're going under, right? And you're not coming back. So this is a really risky battle, but the Romans eventually win.

• 16:04Speaker 00

  What does Caesar have to work, what do these legions look like?

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Dan, I think the Roman legionary of this period, the Caesarian period, is the elite warrior of the ancient world. His legions are six thousand men.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 16:18Speaker 03

  And they are legions which have been founded in this form by the great general and popularist leader Marius.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  So about, oh, a few decades before.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  About a few decades before, yeah. But when Marius reformed the legions, he reformed all the legions. So instead of having various troops, some with spears, some with pillums, doing this, that and the other, every single legionary now in those six thousand is exactly, exactly the same, okay? They're armed with two pillums and a gladius Hispaniensis.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Javelin, pillums jab for throwing.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  It's the lead weight of javelin, yeah.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Lead weight javelin.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  Armor piercing javelin.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  Armor piercing, short stabbing sword.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  Absolutely, yeah, brutally efficient. Remember the Roman fencing technique is all about stabbing, as you rightly say. So you've got your scootum shield.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Those big famous shields that we're familiar with.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  And then your legionary is carrying his gladius on his right hand side. So when he draws it, he takes the blow from the opponent and then he can kill him straight away because his thorax is exposed and.

• 17:13Speaker 00

  So you're not doing all the fancy sword fighting, it's butchery.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  It's an industrial scale killing machine, right? Six thousand men. And those six thousand men as well, and they've got their helmets and the chain mail, et cetera as well. These six thousand men are all engineers, trained engineers. And within the six thousand, twelve hundred have a speciality as well. So they could be stonemasons, they could be tar makers, they could be fletchers making arrows and everything. So this six thousand men in the legion can do everything itself, it doesn't need a supply train.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  Oh, and all the sort of craft people that went along with it. So they've actually internalized that in the legion.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Absolutely, and remember, well, remember, the Roman legion of this period, all the way through into the empire, towards the end of the empire, at the end of every day's marching enemy territory, they build a marching camp, which is a single or double six metre wide, six metre deep ditch. You've been marching, Dan, for six hours.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  And then you spend three hours building your marching camp. And then you make.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Every night, every night.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  Every night. So you're building huge ditches, you're building a bank with the earth from the ditch, you're building a palisade on top of it. And then you're laying out a fort, temporary fort, in exactly the same form as you have in a Roman stone built fort, every single night. And you can do that because every legionary is an engineer. Every legionary is carrying two.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, they carry the stakes with them, yeah. So you just go, there you go, dun, dun, right, let's go.

• 18:33Speaker 03

  In addition to carrying all their kit. So I mean, I often talk of Roman legionaries as being like sort of a middleweight Olympic weightlifter. All square and all muscle. Because they're carrying everything and they're doing all the building themselves.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Then it's up sticks and then off to the next one.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Absolutely, yeah, days march, three hours building a marching camp. It's great for archaeologists, though, because we can do a dot to dot tracing where all these campaigns took place. Especially if you go to modern.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Isn't that amazing that you can still see in the landscape? And some of them might have only been used for one night.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Extraordinary.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And that's why, if you look at, say, the native Britons fighting against Caesar in certainly fifty five, they find it so difficult to engage with the Romans in set piece battle. Because if you've got thirty thousand legionaries with your five legions, that's going to be devastating. If you try and attack them at night, they're in a marching camp, you're not going to get into it because you've got no siege equipment. So that's devastating as well. Providing Caesar gets his logistics right and gets a little bit of luck on his side, which he does, then is almost unstoppable. Once he mounts the fifty four campaign, which he does properly.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  We're going to come on to those in a second, but quickly on the British. Would I be right in thinking if they're fighting in a less disciplined fashion? They are relying on sort of longer edged weapons, a little bit more heroic way of fighting. Looks fancy, but it means you need more space between you. So these legionaries packed in, they're always going to be at advantage, you get more men per metre on that front line.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  Absolutely, and also the Romans themselves can form various formations as well. So they can form a coenus, so wedge formation. And if you have a multiple coenus, it's almost like sort of a buzzsaw, isn't it? It's going straight through your opponents. Bang, stab, bang, stab, bang, industrial scale killing machine. You can't stop me, everyone's dead. Woo, sorry, Dan.

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• 22:33Speaker 00

  So the Romans establish themselves, they get a bridgehead, at which point, because you're in the Channel and because it's late summer, which can be quite hard to differentiate from winter, a storm smashes the fleet.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  The first thing Caesar does is the thing that every Roman military leader does when they're in enemy territory. He builds a marching camp.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  I bet he does.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  And that's for the two legions, right? So that's 12,000 men, that's a big marching camp.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  Ditches, stockade, a safe base.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Dan, I reckon you're talking about a double ditch.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Double ditch.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  I think you've got a double, I think this is, I think we're double ditching, we're double ditching. I think we've got cowtrops in there as well, I think we've got stakes.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  Cowtrops, these little spiky things that can get into horses' hooves.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Absolutely, yeah. And then I think you've got the bank with the palisade on top for 12,000 men, so it's big.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  And do you think that might be where Roman rich birth is today, if people have been down there?

• 23:22Speaker 03

  More or less, more or less, yeah. I think so. But then, as you absolutely rightly say, a storm comes in and he's not actually put his ships into a protected anchorage, which is nearby in the Wantham Channel, by the way, and they're on the beach and a lot of his ships get badly damaged. So he knows from that point that he's going to be restricted in what he can do, but also something else has happened as well. His cavalry hadn't arrived.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  Because they missed the tide and they continue to miss the tide. So I don't know who's actually in charge of those ships. And I bet they didn't last long when Caesar got back. So Caesar is left with far too few boats and also he's got no ability to scout ahead or to pursue a broken enemy. So he's very limited in what he can do. So he sends the Seventh Legion out to go and forage and then he sends the Tenth Legion to the beach to repair the ships. But of course, the Britons are watching and as soon as the Seventh Legion go out and start foraging, they get ambushed. And Caesar has to physically, showing great personal bravery, lead the Tenth out, his own pet legion, and then they save the day and the day is saved. And they go back to the marching camp. The Britons say, well, sign a peace deal. A bit later, they turn up with a bigger army.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  Caesar puts both legions outside the marching camp, another set piece battle takes place. The Romans win, peace deal's agreed, hostages, Caesar goes home.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  So the Romans win, but realise that they ain't going any further inland?

• 24:43Speaker 03

  No, because they can't, because they've got no cavalry and also a lot of the ships have been destroyed as well. Remember the way that the Romans campaigned with the fleets? They often campaign along the coast and always down river systems because they can use the fleet to keep supplying them. So without the cavalry and the fleet, they just can't go very far at all. And you can make the case, this certainly isn't the way it's portrayed in the Ladybird Book of Julius Caesar and Roman Britain, but you can make the case that Caesar just fled back to Gaul with his tail between his legs.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  Because his option would have been to overwinter in a marching camp in enemy territory. It's not going to work.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  No, winter in England.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  So my point earlier, that is Caesar's worst campaign.

• 25:20Speaker 00

  And we take his word for it that he won that battle outside the walls of the camp. I mean, I guess they fought themselves to draw in a way because they can defeat the enemy in the field, but they're still surrounded by bandit country, they still can't break out of this camp.

• 25:31Speaker 03

  We're almost certainly missing 90% of the narrative of the whole campaign. Caesar's certainly spinning every single thing that comes his way and there's a desperate amount of spinning taking place here, by the way, because effectively he lost.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, there must have been some dark nights there. He's alone in this hostile foreign land, further from Rome than ever before, with uncertain route back to Europe and surrounded by enemies.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  And you can imagine the legion who's in the camp saying, you know, what's wrong with the old man?

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  As he lost, as he lost his touch, as he lost his touch. And by the way, the interesting thing to remember here as well is, in terms of the Gallic conquests, we're in the middle of it.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Right? So Gaul hasn't been conquered. He's still got a lot of his legions back in Gaul, keeping the place locked down where he conquered it, with other places to conquer. So if it begins unraveling in Britain, they could go all the way through into Gaul and the whole thing could unravel. And remember, the last two years of the Gallic campaigns in 53 and 52, there, he's fighting revolts, right? So it could all really badly unravel.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, for all he knows, it's all going completely tits up on the continent. If the Brits do sign a deal and let Caesar go, disembark his troops and leave, that was a catastrophic mistake because getting on ships on a beach with a determined enemy all around you is very, very difficult indeed.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  Absolutely right, and they paid the price.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  Because the following year. So to be fair to Caesar, so he has this shocker, but to be fair to Caesar, it comes about the following year. I mean, that, as you say, that's Caesar, isn't it? To have that experience and think, I'm going back.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Dan, that's Roman.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  Right? True grit, this trait that you will never give up, you'll always come back and win, you'll only agree to a peace on your own terms, that's very Roman. And if Caesar hadn't done that, that would have broken the back of his reputation, I think, in Rome.

• 27:13Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  So I think actually he's made a rod for his own back, he's got to go back to Britain. But this time, the other trait the Romans have, of course, is learning from your mistakes, nicking other people's ideas. So this time, he really does it well.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  So 54 B.C.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  What's he do differently?

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Firstly, he takes 30,000 men.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  Holy Moses.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Not 12,000 men.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  So if you look at the various narratives of the big Roman campaigning forces in Britain where this fits, Caesar II, 30,000 men, Agricola in Scotland, 30,000 men, the Claudian invasion of Aulus Plautus in AD 43, 40,000 men, Severus in Scotland, 50,000 men. So that's in the top four. And that's a huge force for a start. Secondly, he realises one of his weaknesses, he's got his invasion beaches, but one of his weaknesses was the ships. So he copies ship designs from the Veneti and actually builds proper landing ships, which can get the troops shore properly.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  And builds ships that are suitable for the English Channel.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  And makes sure that he uses the right time of year as well. So he's actually in the campaigning season now, not towards the end of it. And then they come over, they land at the same invasion beaches, but this time, the Britons don't oppose it because they realise the Roman forces are too big.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Okay, interesting. So they let them get ashore.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  And you've got the whole summer ahead of you now.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  And then Caesar decides he's going to head inland immediately and he keeps his whole force together. Remember, building a marching camp at the end of the day and then moving on. Moves 20 kilometres, he fights his first battle near the River Stour, which is near Canterbury. And here, the Britons have actually only deployed chariots and light cavalry, the idea being to sort of slow the Romans down. But Caesar's own cavalry, who are Germans and Gauls, actually smashed straight through them. It's worth remembering, people forget actually with these Germans and Gallic allied cavalry, that they're ferocious, they're headhunters. So if you look at a lot of the tombstones of later Roman auxiliary cavalrymen in Britain, they're carrying a head or there's a headless corpse near them, they're all German or Gallic,

• 29:08Speaker 03

  but later in the Roman Empire. So it's a native thing, being headhunters. So they smash through and Caesar carries on, building marching camps. And then he comes to very near to modern Canterbury, Bigbury Hillfort, which he has to besiege and he only uses the Seventh Legion and they build a ramp up to the ramparts and they eventually get in there, butcher everybody, first phase of the invasion, job done.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  So he's being very methodical, he's got the tools, he's got the men he needs, things going well.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  If you've got 30,000 men and you keep them together, it doesn't matter how many troops the Britons can put in the field, these are the elite warriors of the ancient world and they're going to eviscerate anything that comes in front of them. And I think the British know this as well. At this point, incidentally, it's worth reflecting who the Britons were. So the various confederations in the battle space we're talking about, the strategic battle space, are the Cantiaci in modern Kent, the Trinavanti's in eastern Essex, the largest of the confederations, the Cattibelloni, who are across sort of the north of London through to the region of St Albans, the Attribates in the Thames Valley, they're the main people. Then you might get people from the Iceni, North Norfolk coming in, or the Corioltae from the Midlands, or from the Belga, from the south coast.

• 30:18Speaker 03

  But broadly, we're talking about, I think, the Cantiaci, the Trinavanti's, the Cattibelloni and the Attribates. And by this point, they have one leader, and I think it's the leader of the Cattibelloni. Now Caesar doesn't tell us who this individual is the leader of, but he does give his name, just Cassivalonus. And Cassivalonus is the leader of opposition and so he tries to oppose. The Romans in a set piece battle and it fails.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  He then flees across the Thames.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  And the set piece battle is on the Medway? Where is it?

• 30:52Speaker 03

  I think this set piece battle is near the Thames, actually.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  You do have the famous river crossing battle from the Claudian invasion, but this, I think, is nearer the Thames.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  So it's on the south, they're marching up the south bank of the Thames.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  They've got their ships supporting them, bringing supplies.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Blisters and everything, absolutely.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  Providing fire support, right?

• 31:10Speaker 03

  And then they need to do another amphibious assault. So the question is, where does Caesar choose to pursue the native Britons back across the Thames? And I think it's probably near New Tilbury. So I don't think it's anywhere near modern London. I think it's actually much further down river. I think it's near modern Tilbury. Gets them into Essex and then that gets you pursuing the native Britons. And eventually they go all the way through to their capital, which is thought to be what later became Roman Verulamium, which is St Albans.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  And there's another siege, the Romans win, and this time Caesar has a proper victory. And eventually the native Britons then sue for peace. And this is a much better peace for the Romans because it involves tribute being paid and also a lot of hostages. And that tribute may well have continued to have been paid to the Romans all the way through to the reign of Claudius. So it was actually probably quite a big victory for Caesar.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  So he's got, he's captured enemy bases, he has defeated them, he has got cash, he can go home.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  And he can tell everybody that he's done the job.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  I did a good job the first time. Spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin. But this time I've really done the job and I've got the hostages and I've got the tribute to prove it.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  And you can send the hostages, what, he sends them back to Rome, so everyone can have a look at them and?

• 32:23Speaker 03

  But then he goes back to Gaul and the Gallic Wars continue. So that's the point I was making earlier about this is just an integral part of the Gallic Wars. Britain might be a fantastical place of difference, but nevertheless, the campaign is not a separate campaign. It's all part of his Gallic Wars campaigns.

• 32:38Speaker 00

  This is the first ancient text we have describing Britain. What are some of the details it gives us about, about life? The Brits, don't tell me he says they're always drunk all the time or something.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  No, he, he's, he's got some, there are some salacious comments about the mating habits where a British woman would mate with 12 British men. There are some mentions of the British diet where he says they don't eat meat, they drink a lot of milk, that kind of thing. But in actual fact, I think Caesar's totally, utterly focused on the military campaign here. And I think in actual fact, all the details that he gives you are actually the kind of details that you would get in a political history of a military campaign. So we moved on now from the hearsay because now Britain is on the Roman map.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  He doesn't stay, they didn't leave a garrison?

• 33:26Speaker 03

  No, but I do think that the Romans leave behind small mercantile settlements here and there. So I think actually Roman London, as an example, Londinium, as it later became, I think that was founded as a mercantile settlement sometime after Caesar II, probably around Cornwall.

• 33:41Speaker 00

  And they've got a deal with the locals saying, look, let these Romans trade here, otherwise we'll be back.

• 33:45Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And they're paying tribute.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  You know, the native British tribal leader is paying tribute to the Romans.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  And was this, because this is something I find really interesting about the Roman world and the British imperial world as well. Sometimes it's not about the red on the map, it's actually about what's going on beyond those borders. It's, you might march into what is now parts of Ukraine or the Caucasus, knock a few heads together, not establish your own province, but they become part of your kind of wider Roman world, right? And that's what's happening in Britain.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  It's a really interesting point there actually, Dan, because the territory we've been talking about is in the South East. So it'd be really intriguing to know what the impact of Caesar's incursions, especially if he's getting to St Albans, has on the confederations and the tribes further away, like the Brigantes in the north, for example, or even further north into the region of modern Scotland. And we literally don't know. And it's intriguing that when Claudius comes back for the invasion, which works in AD 43, he targets the South East, he uses the same invasion beaches. And he basically recreates Caesar II with his own invasion, but stays.

• 34:42Speaker 00

  Why doesn't he leave a garrison, start another Roman province like he done in Gaul? Is it, was it just a bridge too far? Just too difficult?

• 34:48Speaker 03

  I think he may have been planning to come back later.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  So there's evidence of a very large marching camp on the Isle of Thanats.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  Which is on, on the Thames estuary, sort of north Kent as you're heading in towards London.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  It's a very odd place to put a marching camp because it's on the Isle of Thanats, which then was an island separated from mainland Britain by the Wencesian Channel. The theory there is that that might have been a, a major logistics base which the Romans were planning to use to support a longer stay. And it's just that Caesar chose to go home, but he may have been planning to come back, but he didn't get the chance.

• 35:20Speaker 00

  And he, he extracted what he needed, he was getting cash, he had some general promises of obedience, he had what he needed for his, his Roman audience.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Dan, fame and money.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  Fortune and glory, kid. And then, well, France, as we now call it Gaul, was harder to conquer, as you said, there were rebellions. And then he gets involved in a massive battle for the whole future of the Roman world. He gets involved in a civil war in, in, in Italy itself and beyond.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  If you think about it, so he's dead in 44 B.C. So we're going to take it through to 52 B.C. when he's finally defeated Vercingetorix and won the Battle of Elycia or the Siege of Elycia.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  So he's finally defeated any Gallic uprisings.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  And by the way, that campaign, the overall Gallic campaign was so brutal that the Romans found it much easier to incorporate Gaul into the Roman world than they did with Britain. So it took Caesar six years, it took the Romans 40 years in Britain to establish a northern frontier on the Sylwefth timeline. So that's how brutal Caesar's campaign was. I mean, we're told by the primary sources, he killed a million and he enslaved a million. That's probably in a population of about eight million.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  So that's a quarter of the population disappearing. So the Gallic world becomes part of the Roman world very, very, very quickly. So that campaign is a big win. It's such a big win that of course, all the political classes in Rome from the Ottomati side start turning against them. Ultimately, he's faced with crossing the Rubicon River, which is near Ravenna on the north eastern Adriatic coast, and taking military troops into the Roman peninsula, which is what begins the civil war round of battles, which ultimately sees him, the victor, the last man standing before he's assassinated.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Dictator and then assassinated.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  So he's busy, he's busy, he can't get back to Britain.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Fame and money.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  That's what it's all about.

• 36:58Speaker 03

  Fame and money.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Well, thank you very much, Simon, for coming on the podcast and telling me all about that.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Julius Caesar, Dan, one of my heroes.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I can tell.

• 37:07Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's History Hit. You know, you could have watched this episode and others on YouTube. That's right. You can peek behind the curtain of how we record this podcast on our YouTube channel. Very exciting new development here. Just click the link in the show notes and head over to subscribe. New YouTube releases every Friday, friends. Don't miss it.

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