keep France pacified so long as Britain remained a safe place of refuge for the more stubborn of his enemies and a starting-point for new attempts to recover the independence of their country. Next he wished, for political reasons, to gain some remarkable military glory to balance his colleague Pompey's victories. His victories in Spain and France had been an answer to Pompey's in Syria and Palestine, and a campaign in distant Britain could be set off against Pompey's feats among the remote nations of the Caucasus. Lastly, he needed money. The Loire traders and the Channel traders seemed to do very well out of Britain, and Julius wanted to have the market for himself, first exacting a heavy tribute from the islanders. He knew that there was gold in Britain, for gold pieces from there were circulating freely in France. (It was, by the way, an interesting coinage: the original model was the gold stater of Philip of Macedon, which had. come to Britain by way of the Danube and Rhine, but the design had become so, debased in course of time that of the two horses of the chariot only one remained, the. charioteer and chariot having become a mere pattern; of Apollo's laurelled head only the laurel, was left..) Britain is not, as a matter of fact, particularly rich in gold, and though the tin mines of the south-west were once of importance the Carthaginians traded there - and are still worked, the chief supply of tin for Rome now comes from the tin islands off the coast of Galicia. There is some silver in Britain, and copper and lead, and there are important iron-workings on the south-east coast, and fresh-water pearls of a good quality, though small and not to be compared with the Oriental variety. There is no amber, except for tidewashed pieces - it comes from the Baltic - but very fine jet, and other valuable exports,, including slaves,-skins, wool, flax, domestic animals, enamelled bronze, blue dye, wickerwork baskets, and corn. Julius was most interested in gold and slaves; although he knew that the slaves that he, would get from the island would not be of particularly high quality - the women are by no means seductive and have fierce tempers, and the men, except those of the upper classes who make excellent coachmen, only fitted for the roughest sort of farm-labour. He could not expect to find among them cooks, goldsmiths, musicians, barbers, secretaries, or accomplished courtesans. The average price they would fetch at Rome would not exceed forty gold pieces.
He twice invaded Britain by way of the south-east, as the Goidels, Brythons, and Belgians had all done in their turn. On the first occasion the Britons hotly disputed his landing and gave a good account of themselves: so that apart from some hostages which he took from the men of Kent he accomplished little, only advancing ten miles inland. On the second occasion, however, profiting from his experiences, he landed with a strong force - 20,000 men; before, only 10,000. He marched from Sandwich, a point close to the French coast, along the southern bank of the Thames estuary, forcing first the passage of the River Stour and then that of the Thames near London. He was making for the territory of the Catuvellaunians, a Belgic tribe whose king bad become the overlord of several petty kings in the south and east of the island: his capital city was - Wheathampstead, some, twenty-five miles north-east of London. By `city I do not of course mean a city in the Graeco-Roman sense, but a big settlement of wattle-and-daub huts and a few huts of undressed stone. It was this king Cassivellaunus, who organized the resistance against Julius; but he found that while his cavalry and chariotry were superior to the French cavalry that Julius had brought with, him, his infantry could not compete with the Roman infantry. He decided that his best tactics were to dispense with infantry altogether and with his cavalry and chariots prevent the Roman army from deploying. Julius found that he could not safely send foraging parties out except in compact bodies with cavalry supports; the British chariot-fighters had perfected the technique of surprising and cutting off stragglers and small groups. So long as the Roman army remained in column of march the damage that it could inflict by the burning of cornfields and hamlets was of no great importance; and the Britons always had plenty of time to get their women and children and cattle to a safe place. Once across the Thames, however, Julius had the support of some tribesmen who had recently been defeated by their enemies, the Catuvellaunians. , These were the Trinovants who lived north-west of London, with Colchester as their capital. An exiled prince of the Trinovants, whose father had been killed by Cassivellaunus, had fled to Julius in France just before the expedition started and undertaken, if Julius invaded the territory of the Catuvellaunians,, to raise the whole east coast in his support. He fulfilled his undertaking, and Julius now had a secure, base in Trinovant country. After revictualling there he resumed his march on Wheathampstead.
Cassivellaunus knew that he had little hope of victory now, unless Julius could be forced by some diversion to retrace his steps. He sent an urgent message to his subject allies, the men of Kent, begging them to rise in force and attack Julius's base-camp. Julius had already once been checked, shortly after landing, by the news that a storm had wrecked some of his transports, which he had neglected to draw up on the beach and had left riding at anchor. He had been forced to return all the way from the Stour and it had taken him ten days to repair the damage; which gave the Britons the opportunity of reoccupying and strengthening the positions that he had already with some difficulty captured. If the men of Kent consented to attack the base-camp, which was manned by only 2,000 men and 300 cavalry, and contrived to, capture it and to seize the fleet, then Julius would be trapped and the whole island would rise against the Romans - even the Trinovants would desert their new allies. The men of Kent did make a mass attack - on the base-camp but were repulsed with heavy loss. On hearing the news of this defeat all the allies of Cassivellaunus who had not already done so sent peace embassies to Julius. But he was now marching on Wheathampstead, which he stormed by a simultaneous attack on two of its fronts. This fortress was a great earthwork ring protected by woods and deep ditches and stockades and was considered impregnable. It served as a place of refuge for all members of the tribe who were too old or too young to fight. In it were captured immense quantities of cattle and hundreds of prisoners. Cassivellaunus, though his army had not yet been beaten, was forced to sue for peace., Julius gave him easy terms, because not much of the summer remained and he was anxious to get back . to France; a rebellion threatened there. The Catuvellaunians were merely asked to hand over certain principal men and women as hostages, to pay an annual tribute in gold to the Roman people, and to promise not to molest the Trinovants. So Cassivellaunus paid Julius an instalment of tribute and handed over his hostages, as did the kings of all the other tribes except the Trinovants and their east-coast allies, who had voluntarily offered Julius assistance. Julius went back to France with his prisoners and as many of the cattle as he had not sold cheap to the Trinovants to save himself the trouble of getting them safely across the Channel.
The rebellion broke out in France two years later and Julius was so busy crushing it that he could not spare men for a third expedition to Britain; though Cassivellaunus had stopped paying tribute as soon as the news of the rebellion reached him and had sent help, to the insurgents in France. Soon after this the Civil Wars started and though, when these had ended, the question of an invasion of Britain was from time to time raised, there was always a good reason for postponing it, usually trouble on the Rhine frontier. Sufficient troops could never be spared. Augustus eventually decided against extending the bounds of the Empire beyond the Channel. He concentrated instead on civilizing France and the Rhine provinces and those parts of Germany across the Rhine captured by my father. When he lost Germany after Hermann's revolt he was still less prepared to add Britain to his j anxieties. He had recorded his opinion in a letter to my grandmother Livia, dated the year of my birth, that not until the French were ripe for the Roman citizenship and could be trusted not to rebel in the absence of part of the Roman army of defence, could an invasion of Britain be politically justified: