Posted on 06/25/2008 5:22:56 PM PDT by blam
Redating Caesar’s invasion of Britain
TxSt astronomers come to bury long-accepted date, not to praise it
Julius Caesar landed an invasion fleet on the shores of Britain in 55 B.C., expanding the boundaries of the so-called “Known World” and inadvertently sparking a dispute between historians and scientists for centuries to come.
Now, astronomers from Texas State University have applied their unique brand of forensic astronomy to the enduring controversy surrounding the precise location of Caesar’s landfall, concluding that the historically accepted date for the event--Aug. 26-27, 55 B.C. – is incorrect.
The Texas State team’s proposed new date of Aug. 22-23, 55 B.C. reconciles all the conflicting evidence and offers both sides of the debate some measure of vindication in the process.
Texas State physics professors Donald Olson and Russell Doescher, along with University Honors students Kellie N. Beicker and Amanda F. Gregory, will publish their findings in the August 2008 edition of Sky & Telescope magazine, on newsstands now.
O Caesar, Where Art Thou?
“Most history books say Caesar’s landing date was Aug. 26-27 and he sailed to the northeast of Dover to land on an open beach near Walmer and Deal,” Olson said. “That cannot be correct. The afternoon tidal streams could not have carried his fleet to the northeast on that date.”
The origin of the debate, ironically, lies in the strongest historical evidence: Caesar’s first-hand account of the landing and ensuing campaign, which mentions the phase of the moon and chronicles in considerable detail information regarding time of day, landmarks and distances traveled once his fleet reached the famed white cliffs near present-day Dover. Caesar’s narrative describes how, once the winds and tides were favorable, the fleet sailed seven miles along the coast before finding a suitable beach to put ashore. Unfortunately, the actual direction the fleet sailed is one detail Caesar omitted, and in that single oversight lies the bone of contention.
Because of specific coastal and inland land formations referenced by Caesar, historians such as classics scholar Thomas Rice Holmes and archaeologist Charles Francis Christopher Hawkes have long maintained that the fleet sailed northeast along the British coast, coming ashore near the present-day town of Deal.
The terrain to the southwest, they argue, simply does not match Caesar’s descriptions. On the other hand, men of science such as Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy and Admiralty Manual of the Tides coauthor Harold Dreyer Warburg insisted a northeast voyage was impossible since at the historically accepted date and time of Caesar’s landing the tidal currents would be flowing strongly to the southwest – carrying the Roman fleet in the opposite direction from Deal.
Deal or No Deal?
The Texas State researchers traveled to Britain in August of 2007 to study the problem first-hand. In a fortuitous set of circumstances, the equinox and lunar cycle coincided to closely replicate the tidal conditions Caesar experienced – such an alignment wouldn’t occur again until 2140. Extensive on-site research including the collection of tide gauge data, GPS tracking in a freely-drifting boat and a host of other factors confirmed that the tidal currents indicated a landing site southwest of Dover, while the topographical evidence supported a Roman landing at Deal.
The first break in unraveling the mystery came via an obscure account of the landing by Valerius Maximus, a Roman writing in the 1st century A.D. In Valerius’ work Memorable Deeds and Sayings: Of Courage, he recounts one Roman soldier’s bravery as the tide was falling during the fleet’s landing. The tide, however, would be rising during the fleet’s landing if the date of Aug. 26-27, 55 B.C. were correct.
The second break came from historian Robin G. Collingwood, who in 1937 identified a probable transcription error in a sequence of dates relating to Caesar’s landing, essentially rendering one of the Roman numerals for four (IIII) instead of seven (VII) or even eight (VIII). Applying Collingwood’s revisions to Caesar’s landing changes the date to Aug. 22-23--and reconciles all the previously conflicting evidence.
“If that’s the case, then everything falls into place,” Olson said. “Three things fall into place: the topography matches the ancient descriptions; it matches with respect to the direction of the tidal streams; and it matches with respect to the water level.
“Our new result is, essentially, the old result – we’re taking the Roman fleet up to Deal and the open beach, but what you read in the history books, that it was Aug. 26-27, that cannot be correct,” he said. “The scientists were right about the tidal streams, and so were the historians about the landing site. With our new result, our new date, everything is reconciled.”
GGG Ping.
The supply boat with toothpaste went under before it hit the White Cliffs.
I can live with a four day error in two thousand years.
And it was around Tea Time (apologiest to MP’s Holy Grail).
4 days? When we can’t pin the birth of Christ to within a decade, I’m hardly gonna be rivited by a story about redating a battle by 4 whole days. For crying out loud, the date is skewed by the Gregorian-Julian caledar issue by at least twice that many days.
>> Deal <<
Oops, my bad... I guess it IS a big deal.
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Thanks Blam. |
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That’s OK... Those cliffs are made of what’s practically toothpaste. (and yet, they go unmined...)
Ah. His opponents were the original “Blue Man Crew”.
Well, I’m sure glad that’s settled. It’s been keeping me awake nights for decades/
It sure is a big deal! It means I have to move my birthday forward by 4 days.
Yeah, but those cliffs also include [sic] some of the world's finest (some BritSnobs claim "the only true") flint...
And stone age Britons did mine the flint (or at least, collected a whole lot of eroded-out flint nodules from the beach).
Wish I could get my hands on some more of it...
On that one, I'm gonna have a bowl of Blue Bell 'Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream'
These men are engaged in nothing but year splitting.
Did they factor in Global Warming?
“Known world in 55BC”? Hell, the Israelites beat them by a thousand years...and the Phoenicians were there even before the Israelites.
There are some venerable names in the article--T. Rice Holmes was a well-known ancient historian about 100 years ago (died in 1933). George Airy is perhaps best remembered for his failure to discover the planet Neptune after John Couch Adams sent him the information about its location.
I used to live in Walmer and there is a plaque just between Deal and Walmer commorating the landing.
Deal is the main town and Walmer is area on the outskirts of the town where actually the Marine Barracks and School of Music used to be.
I used to get woken each morning with a bugle being played and each evening you would hear the last post.
Deal is an ex fishing port we have 2 of Henry the eighth castles - Walmer Castle and Deal Castle plus the ruin of Sandown castle all within about 5 or 6 miles.
It is a pebble beach with a lovely grassy green in front in the Walmer area which is where I lived above a fish and chip shop that my parents owned.
Deal has many interesting parts linked with its fishing heritage it is also the shortage distance between France and England. Many people think it is Dover but actually Deal is slightly shorter.
There are no cliffs at Deal or Walmer they do not really start until St Margret’s Bay just outside Dover.
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