ROMAN WAREHAM AND THE CLAUDIAN INVASION. 123 



ledge of the island is plain from Strabo's own description 

 of its traffic. He says that four routes were commonly 

 used from the Continent to Britain from the mouths of the 

 Garonne, the Loire, the Seine, and the Rhine; and that 

 the Rhine was the nearest. The conquest of Northern Germany had 

 placed the entire course of this river in the hands of the Romans : 

 and in a speech which Tiberius made to the Senate in the year 

 23, as reported by Tacitus, a summary is given of the stations of 

 all the Roman legions, from which we learn that the main body 

 of the army was placed on the Rhine, four legions on the Upper 

 Rhine, i.e., at and above Mainz; and four legions at Bonn and 

 below. In the interval of peace that elapsed after Germanicus had 

 won his victories, it had become possible to spare three legions 

 out of these eight for the invasion of Britain ; the Second, the 

 Fourteenth, and the Twentieth, which were afterwards joined by the 

 Ninth from another part of the Empire. This moreover provided, 

 ready to hand, the enormous flotilla of vessels that were needed 

 for the expedition, and ensured their being manned by soldiers 

 fully accustomed to the water ; and, what was of vital importance, 

 all the preparations could be made with a greater approach to 

 secrecy than if the ships were manned at Calais or Boulogne. 

 They would ostensibly be for war in Germany. Many people have 

 an idea that the state of navigation was about the same at this 

 period as it had been nearly a hundred years before. Nothing 

 could be more erroneous. Whether from the absorption into the 

 Roman Empire of so many seafaring peoples Gauls, North Ger- 

 mans, and Syrians (Phoenicians), or from other causes, it is certain 

 that navigation had made a great advance by the middle of the 

 period in question, i.e., the beginning of the Christian era : for at 

 that time a hundred and twenty liners were running every year 

 between the Red Sea and India, very much as the Cunard and 

 other lines of steamers are now running between Liverpool and 

 New York. A commonly-used transit from the Garonne, the 

 Loire, and the Seine, to Britain implies of course a corresponding 

 use of several ports on our own south coast : especially of the great 



