Book Description

In this landmark study, an amateur historian tackles the unanswered questions surrounding Julius Caesar’s time in Britain. Two thousand years ago, Julius Caesar came, saw, and conquered southern Britain, but exactly where he landed and the precise routes his army marched through the south of the country have never been firmly established. Numerous sites have been suggested for the Roman landings of 55 B.C. and 54 B.C., yet remarkably, the exact locations of the first major events in recorded British history remain undiscovered—until now. After years of careful analysis, Roger Nolan has painstakingly traced not only the places where the Romans landed, but he has also discovered four temporary marching camps Caesar’s army built as it drove up from the south coast in pursuit of the British tribal leader, Cassivellaunus. This advance took Caesar across the Thames to Cassivellaunus’s stronghold at Wheathampstead in present-day Hertfordshire. These marching camps are placed almost equidistant from each other and, most importantly, are in a straight line between the coast and Wheathampstead. Roger Nolan’s research has also enabled him to identify the place mentioned in Caesar’s Commentaries, where the Roman legions were ambushed by the British while foraging and where a large battle then ensued—the first known land battle in Britain. Without doubt, this groundbreaking study is certain to prompt much discussion and reappraisal of this fascinating subject.