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Sunday, November 19, 2006
Caesar’s Gallic Waves
A brief note, this. I recently picked up a copy of the Loeb Caesar’s Gallic War in a second-hand bookstore. Naturally, I did that ‘I’m rifling through my friend’s private diary but I’m actually only interested in what they have to say about me’ thing: I turned straight to his account of invading Britain. And invade us he did. The dirty dog.
But his account of Britain contains some puzzling details. For instance, Caesar builds ships that lie ‘somewhat lower’ (‘paulo humiliores’) in the water than the usual Roman ship. He did this ‘for speed of loading and for purposes of beaching’, and
-- the more so because he had learnt that by reason of the frequent turns of the tides the waves of Gaul were generally smaller than in ‘nostro mare’ [‘our own sea’]. [V:1]
But this is screwy: the waters of the English channel, open to the ocean and stirred by frequent westerlies, can mount up very high indeed. Certainly the water is considerably rougher than the land-surrounded, almost tideless Mediterranean. According to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica (not the most up-to-date source I know, but then, hey, neither is Caesar):
...winds are most prevalent in the Channel. The total number of gales recorded in the period 1871-1885 was 190, of which 104 were south-westerly … It appears that gales are generally more violent and prolonged when coincident with spring tides than with neaps. The winds have naturally a powerful effect on the tidal streams and currents.
This is a guy who travelled across the channel in person several times. Why does he think the waters are calmer than in his own Med?
Comments
Oh no, this is going to turn into some terrible flamewar about waves. Someone’s going to write a post about how ‘at the Valve, Adam Roberts is writing idiotic stuff about tides’ and we’re lost.
I’d be happy to help if that’s what you really want, John. (Not because I want to condemn Adam’s understanding of waves, but because I care about you.)
Nietzsche: “But someone or other has to be the sinner, if it is impossible and no longer permissible to accuse and to judge the individual, the poor wave in the necessary wave-play of becoming—very well: then let the wave-play itself, becoming, be the sinner.”
If it is not possible to blame the wave-play itself, then, conversely, Adam - poor waving Adam - must be accused and judged and found wanting.
So, in answer to your question, Ben: I hardly know what I want. It is such a deep question.
Wait: I’m becoming itself? How wonderfully Deleuzian.
But, yes, you’re both right, I’m clearly asking for trouble. I curious, that’s the thing. But maybe I’m curious like Curious George, which is to say, foolishly curious. And, of course, a couple of possible answers are likely to occur anybody who gives it half a thought.
(a) Caesar’s just wrong, who knows why.
(b) Caesar was just guessing; he never crossed the channel, never invaded Britain, it was all a conspiracy by the same people who set the explosives inside the twin towers etc etc.
(c) Caesar was right, because the tides and waves were different in 55BC for the following reason ... (climate does change, after all; Greenland used to be green and pleasant; there was a mini ice-age in the middle ages and so on.)
(d) I’m just wrong, a fucking idiot etc. (Let’s not forget that I once claimed in public that infinity was on the number line.) It’s just that I grew up within spitting distance of the English channel; I’d say I know it well. And I’ve been to the Med many times, and would say I know that pretty well too. Caesar’s account here doesn’t ring true to me. But maybe my personal experiences have distorted my understanding of the Caesarian observation.
The real explanation is that Caesar set the bombs inside the twin towers while thinking he was invading Britain, thus simultaneously causing 9/11 and confusing him about the waves on the channel. There are only mild waves in Manhattan Harbor, owing to its being mostly landlocked, and it was these that Caesar was writing about.
Trying to explain how Caesar ended up 2056 years in the future would risk involving math again, which is obviously not what any of us want.
I hope this comment has been helpful. :-)
Perhaps (e) Caesar is lying. See 5.5 and esp. 5.10 for subsequent problems with his ships due to storms ("storms"?) and cf. the defensive spin at 5.23.
Thanks Gavin, that’s very interesting. And to the point. Of course maybe he wasn’t so much lying as geniunely confused about the nature of the waters. But on the other hand, bearing in mind that he was writing his memoirs to puff up his achievements, then perhaps ‘lying’ is the word. We can imagine him ordering building low-lying ships for ease of embark- and disembarkation. But then any subsequent difficulties with them in choppy waters would be almost bound to be explained in terms of ‘of course everybody knows that, on account of the tides, the Channel is much smoother than the Med.’