And we must not forget Caligula


                                                                                                                                    "Travel over the channel was closed to ship traffic until March and considered unsafe until May, so it is unlikely an expedition could have been completed (Cal. 49.1; Vegestius 4.39). Caligula was no lover of travel by sea and would hardly want to risk a storm on the channel (Cal. 45.2). Suetonius also reports that Caligula constructed a lighthouse as a monument to his victory at Gesoriacum (Boulogne) which was intended to aid ships in ferrying men and supplies to Britain. If this sequence is correct, then Suetonius implies the invasion was meant for a later date (Cal. 46). So, what happened on the English Channel?

There are various scenarios put forward by scholars. One suggests there may have been military action against the Canninefactes. However, the victory over Oceanus that was claimed by Caligula is hardly explained by a land victory. Another idea is that there was no military campaign but only maneuvers along the channel coast. This does not explain why shells were collected, since they had no value as missiles. Another explanation suggests substituting the word musculi for concha, so that the soldiers were collecting sapper’s huts and not shells. Yet, another view places this event not on the English Channel but on the Rhine in lower Germany. [7]

The word Caligula used was concha, which has various meanings in Latin: a type of shellfish, parts of mollusk or shellfish or an object with a shell-like cavity. Concha has been used as a slang word for female genitalia, from which the conclusion arose that Caligula might be inviting his soldiers to a brothel! What Caligula was possibly referring to with the word concha was a small, fragile boat, which is sometimes called a "cockle." (For example, in Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw, Apollodorus (Act 3) refers to his boat as a "poor little cockleshell") The emperor, therefore, was ordering his soldiers to collect some British boats that had been captured in the English Channel. In line with this conclusion, the ballistas and other artillery that was arrayed on the shore were not siege engines but catapults and other devices that were also used in naval warfare. [8] Troops would not be in battle line formation if there were about to board ships for an invasion. The Roman fleet had been pulled over the tidal line for safekeeping, so the equipment on board would have been removed to facilitate hauling the triremes on shore. Suetonius mentions that Caligula had the triremes carried overland to Rome (Cal. 47). The purpose in this was to parade the ships in the emperor’s triumph. If the victorious ship were to be displayed, why not some of the captured British boats? In the end, Caligula canceled his triumph since this minor action was a merely a prelude to his true invasion of Britain. [9]"

Found at:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/7094/cal4.html

TONI

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