see that it was Caesar and Caesar alone to whom every victory
was due. The very training of the engineers, the very devices, such as
that of the Rhine bridge, by which such mighty results were achieved,
were all due to him. Never before had any Roman leader, not even
Pompey "the Great," awakened such devotion amongst his followers.

C. 3.--Caesar therefore experienced no such difficulty as we shall
find besetting the Roman commanders of the next century, in persuading
his men to follow him "beyond the world,"[74] and to dare the venture,
hitherto unheard of in the annals of Rome, of crossing the ocean
itself. We must remember that this crossing was looked upon by the
Romans as something very different from the transits hither and
thither upon the Mediterranean Sea with which they were familiar. The
Ocean to them was an object of mysterious horror. Untold possibilities
of destruction might lurk in its tides and billows. Whence those tides
came and how far those billows rolled was known to no man. To dare
its passage might well be to court Heaven knew what of supernatural
vengeance.

C. 4.--But Caesar's men were ready to brave all things while he led
them. So, after having despatched his German business, he determined
to employ the short remainder of the summer in a _reconnaissance
en force_ across the Channel, with a view to subsequent invasion
of Britain. He had already made inquiries of all whom he could find
connected with the Britanno-Gallic trade as to the size and military
resources of the island. But they proved unwilling witnesses, and
he could not even get out of them what they must perfectly well have
known, the position of the best harbours on the southern shores.

C. 5.--His first act, therefore, was to send out a galley under
Volusenus "to pry along the coast," and meanwhile to order the fleet
which he had built against the Veneti to rendezvous at Boulogne.
Besides these war-galleys (_naves longae_) he got together eighty
transports, enough for two legions, besides eighteen more for the
cavalry.[75] These last were detained by a contrary wind at "a further
harbour," eight miles distant--probably Ambleteuse at the mouth of the
Canche.[76]

C. 6.--All these preparations, though they seem to have been carried
out with extreme celerity, lasted long enough to alarm the Britons.
Several clans sent over envoys, to promise submission if only Caesar
would refrain from invading the country. This, however, did not