124 ROMAN WAREHAM AND THE CLAUDIAN INVASION. 



harbour shielded by the Isle of Wight, which would be the nearest 

 from the mouth of the Seine. That ports as far west as Falmouth 

 and Mounts' Bay were used is shown by the testimony of Diodorus 

 Siculus, and by the discovery in Falmouth harbour of one of the 

 peculiar blocks of tin described by that writer. Given the 

 condition of invading Britain at a period when it possessed no 

 navy, the best base for it by far would be the Isle of Wight, for 

 reasons which shall presently be detailed ; and in the narrative that 

 Dion Cassius gives of the expedition, as well as in Suetonius' life of 

 Vespasian, we find all the facts mentioned tally with the supposition 

 that the Isle of Wight was taken as the starting point. The three 

 legions that were on the Rhine, and which we find employed in the 

 invasion of Britain, were the II., XIV., and XX. Vespasian 

 commanded the II. Suetonius says that when he was a young 

 man he served in Germany, from whence he was ordered to Britain, 

 where he subdued two powerful nations .... and the Isle 

 of Wight. Now compare this with a remark made by Dion 

 Cassius, that the Romans were checked by contrary winds, but 

 " encouraged by a good omen, the flight of a meteor from east to 

 west, the point towards which they were sailing." A fleet leaving 

 the Rhine and keeping down Channel would be sailing west : 

 so that the notion that they started, as Julius Csesar had 

 done, from Boulogne or thereabouts, for the coast of Kent, is 

 not tenable. They had a fleet of say a thousand ships to shelter, 

 and incomparably the best harbourage for them would be afforded 

 by the Isle of Wight and the harbours of Portsmouth and South- 

 ampton. Dr. Hiibner suggests that even the name of the latter, 

 Clausentum, may be a mis-transcription for Claudientum, in honour 

 of the Emperor himself ; but be that as it may, there is no question 

 of the existence of Roman stations and roads from these points : and 

 a few years ago the Queen presented to the British Museum a large 

 brass coin of Tiberius that was dredged up between Ryde and 

 Portsmouth harbour. 



There is another line of argument also which points to the Isle of 

 Wight having been the base taken by Vespasian in the Claudian 



