ITIUS PORTUS

This article appears in Volume V15, Page 86 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: INV-JED

ITIUS PORTUS , the name given by Caesar to the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

harbour which he used when embarking for his second expedition to Britain in 54 B.C. (De

bello

BELLO, ANDRES (1781–1865)

Gallico, v. 2). It was certainly near the uplands round Cape Grisnez (Promuntorium Ilium), but the exact site has been violently disputed ever since the renaissance of learning. Many critics have assumed that Caesar used the same port for his first expedition, but the name does not appear at all in that connexion (B. G. iv. 21-23). This fact, coupled with other considerations, makes it probable that the two expeditions started from different places. It is generally agreed that the first embarked at Boulogne. The same view was widely held about the second, but T.

Rice

Holmes in an article in the Classical

Review

REVIEW (Fr. revue, from revoir, to see again, Lat. re and videre)

(May 1909) gave strong reasons for preferring Wissant, 4 M.

east

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

of Grisnez. The

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

reason is that Caesar, having found he could not set sail from the small harbour of Boulogne with even 8o ships simultaneously, decided that he must take another point for the sailing of the " more than 800 " ships of the second expedition. Holmes argues that, allowing for

change

CHANGE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. cambium, cambiare, to barter; the ultimate derivation is probably from the root which appears in the Gr. «a urmu', to bend)

in the

foreshore

FORESHORE

since Caesar's time, 800 specially built ships could have been hauled above the highest

spring

SPRING (from " to spring," " to leap or jump up," " burst out," O. Eng., springau, a common Teut. word, cf. Ger.
springer
- SPRINGER (Fr. rein)
- SPRINGER, ANTON HEINRICH (1825–1891)
, possibly allied to Gr. QnrFpxecOac, to move rapidly)

-tide level, and afterwards launched simultaneously at Wissant, which would therefore have been " commodissimus
(v. 2) or opposed to " brevissimus traiectus " (iv. 21).
See T. R. Holmes in Classical

Review

REVIEW (Fr. revue, from revoir, to see again, Lat. re and videre)

(May 1909), in which he partially revises the conclusions at which he arrived in his Ancient Britain (1907), pp. 552-594; that the first expedition started from Boulogne is accepted, e.g. by H. Stuart Jones, in English Historical Review (1909), xxiv. I15; other authorities in Holmes's article.

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