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ITIUS PORTUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 86 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ITIUS See also:

PORTUS , the name given by See also:Caesar to the See also:chief See also:harbour which he used when embarking for his second expedition to See also:Britain in 54 B.C. (De See also:bello Gallico, v. 2). It was certainly near the uplands See also:round Cape Grisnez (Promuntorium Ilium), but the exact site has been violently disputed ever since the See also:renaissance of learning. Many critics have assumed that Caesar used the same See also:port for his first expedition, but the name does not appear at all in that connexion (B. G. iv. 21-23). This fact, coupled with other considerations, makes it probable that the two expeditions started from different places. It is generally agreed that the first embarked at See also:Boulogne. The same view was widely held about the second, but T. See also:Rice See also:Holmes in an See also:article in the Classical See also:Review (May 1909) gave strong reasons for preferring Wissant, 4 M. See also:east of Grisnez. The chief See also:reason is that Caesar, having found he could not set See also:sail from the small harbour of Boulogne with even 8o See also:ships simultaneously, decided that he must take another point for the sailing of the " more than 800 " ships of the second expedition.

Holmes argues that, allowing for See also:

change in the See also:foreshore since Caesar's See also:time, 800 specially built ships could have been hauled above the highest See also:spring-See also:tide level, and afterwards launched simultaneously at Wissant, which would therefore have been " commodissimus (v. 2) or opposed to " brevissimus traiectus " (iv. 21). See T. R. Holmes in Classical Review (May 1909), in which he partially revises the conclusions at which he arrived in his See also:Ancient Britain (1907), pp. 552-594; that the first expedition started from Boulogne is accepted, e.g. by H. See also:Stuart See also:Jones, in See also:English See also:Historical Review (1909), See also:xxiv. I15; other authorities in Holmes's article.

End of Article: ITIUS PORTUS

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