Page:The Antiquities of Hastings and the Battlefield.pdf/34

the sea as against a human enemy, of the existence of which in some parts of the coast we have contemporary evidence ; for Cicero, whose brother accompanied Caesar on his expedition to this island , and who was in constant correspondence with Caesar himself at the time, uses the following remarkable expression in a letter to Atticus, written while Caesar and his brother were in Britain , and which, I believe, has hitherto escaped the notice of those who have discussed the question of Caesar's landing. " Britannici belli exitus expectatur. Constat enim aditus esse munitos mirificis molibus." (Cic. Ep. ad Atticum . Lib. iv. Ep. 16.) " The end of the British war is expected . For it appears that the approaches to the island are fortified by wonderfully constructed embankments." The term " moles" which I have translated by " embankments" is rarely if ever used of any natural defences, such as our cliffs, of which Caesar himself speaks, but is commonly used in classical writers to designate a "digue" or sea-wall or pier, intended to check the encroachments of the sea , while the term "mirificis," " wonderfully constructed," also points to their artificial nature. I may add that the general tone of Cicero's letters is to the effect that Caesar met a more determined resistance than he had counted on , especially as the Britons would appear to have lost the first line of their defences, by the destruction of their fleets in the previous naval campaign on the coasts of Gaul; and that the results of the expedition were not so satisfactory as had generally been expected. Several dates are given of letters written by Caesar , and Q.