Early Britain—Roman BritainConybeare, John William Edward
History
Early Britain—Roman Britain
Conybeare, John William Edward
Great Britain -- History -- Roman period, 55 B.C.-449 A.D.
C. 10.--Thus did invaders and defenders move on, for some seven miles,
passing, as Dio Cassius notes, beneath the lofty cliffs of the South
Foreland,[80] till these died down into the flat shore and open beach
of Deal. By this time it must have been nearly five o'clock, and if
Caesar was to land at all that day it must be done at once. Anchor was
again cast; but so flat was the shore that the transports, which drew
at least four feet of water, could not come within some distance
of it. Between the legionaries and the land stretched yards of
sea, shoulder-deep to begin with, and concealing who could say what
treacherous holes and quicksands beneath its surface. And their wading
had to be done under heavy fire; for the British cavalry and chariots
had already come up, and occupied every yard of the beach, greeting
with a shower of missiles every motion of the Romans to disembark.
This was more than even Caesar's soldiers were quite prepared to face.
The men, small shame to them, hesitated, and did not spring overboard
with the desired alacrity. Caesar's galleys, however, were of lighter
draught, and with them he made a demonstration on the right flank (the
_latus apertum_ of ancient warfare, the shield being on every man's
_left_ arm) of the British; who, under a severe fire of slings,
arrows, and catapults, drew back, though only a little, to take up a
new formation, and their fire, in turn, was for the moment silenced.
And that moment was seized for a gallant feat of arms which shows how
every rank of Caesar's army was animated by Caesar's spirit.
C. 11.--The ensign of every Roman legion was the Roman Eagle, perched
upon the head of the standard-pole, and regarded with all, and
more than all, the feeling which our own regiments have for their
regimental colours. As with them, the staff which bore the Eagle
of the Legion also bore inscriptions commemorating the honours and
victories the legion had won, and to lose it to the foe was an even
greater disgrace than with us. For a Roman legion was a much larger
unit than a modern regiment, and corresponded rather to a Division;
indeed, in the completeness of its separate organization, it might
almost be called an Army Corps. Six thousand was its normal force in
infantry, and it had its own squadrons of cavalry attached, its
own engineer corps, its own baggage train, and its own artillery of
catapults and balistae.[81] There was thus even more legionary feeling
in the Roman army than there is regimental feeling in our own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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