asion with five legions
and 2000 cavalry. The forces of the Britons, assembled
this time also on the shore, retired before the mighty armada
without risking a battle; Caesar immediately set out on his march
into the interior, and after some successful conflicts crossed
the river Stour; but he was obliged to halt very much against his will,
because the fleet in the open roads had been again half destroyed
by the storms of the Channel. Before they got the ships drawn
up upon the beach and the extensive arrangements made
for their repair, precious time was lost, which the Celts wisely
turned to account.

Cassivellaunus

The brave and cautious prince Cassivellaunus, who ruled in what
is now Middlesex and the surrounding district--formerly the terror
of the Celts to the south of the Thames, but now the protector
and champion of the whole nation--had headed the defence of the land.
He soon saw that nothing at all could be done with the Celtic
infantry against the Roman, and that the mass of the general levy--
which it was difficult to feed and difficult to control--was only
a hindrance to the defence; he therefore dismissed it and retained
only the war-chariots, of which he collected 4000, and in which
the warriors, accustomed to leap down from their chariots and fight
on foot, could be employed in a twofold manner like the burgess-
cavalry of the earliest Rome. When Caesar was once more able
to continue his march, he met with no interruption to it;
but the British war-chariots moved always in front and alongside
of the Roman army, induced the evacuation of the country
(which from the absence of towns proved no great difficulty),
prevented the sending out of detachments, and threatened
the communications. The Thames was crossed--apparently
between Kingston and Brentford above London--by the Romans;
they moved forward, but made no real progress; the general achieved
no victory, the soldiers made no booty, and the only actual result,
the submission of the Trinobante in the modern Essex, was less
the effect of a dread of the Romans than of the deep hostility
between this canton and Cassivellaunus. The danger increased
with every onward step, and the attack, which the princes of Kent
by the orders of Cassivellaunus made on the Roman naval camp,
although it was repulsed, was an urgent warning to turn back.
The taking by storm of a great British tree-barricade,
in which a multitude of cattle fell into the hands of the Rom