So imagine you're standing on the white chalk
cliffs of Dover. Yeah, right on the edge of the
water. Exactly. The year is 55 BC. You're a member
of a Celtic tribe, like maybe the Canty. Right.
And the wind is just whipping off the English
Channel. And as you look out over the gray water,
you see something that is, frankly, terrifying
oh absolutely horrifying slowly appearing over
the horizon is this massive fleet of what 80
ships yeah about 80 transport ships 80 ships
carrying two entire legions of the deadliest
military machine on earth the Roman Empire and
right for you coming right for you but here's
the truly crazy part about this scenario right
The man leading that fleet, Julius Caesar himself.
The guy who literally just conquered all of Gaul.
Right. He has absolutely no idea who you are.
I mean, he doesn't know your language. He doesn't
understand your politics. And he he barely even
knows where he's going to land his boats. It's
actually a profound historical blind thought.
I mean, we are so used to viewing history through
the, you know, the meticulously documented records
of the victors. All right. The guys who win write
the books. Exactly. We have Caesar's own commentaries,
his letters to the Senate, all his justifications
for war but when we look at that moment of contact
from the cliffs like looking out at the water
rather than from the Roman boats looking in the
historical record suddenly goes incredibly quiet
it's completely silent and that's exactly what
we're getting into today welcome to another deep
dive I am I am so thrilled you're joining us
today because we are going to completely shift
the way you think about ancient history and really
shift how we think about the voices that just.
you know, get lost to time. Yes. So our mission
today is based on a really monumental piece of
scholarship from the early 20th century called
Ancient Britain and the invasions of Julius Caesar
by T. Rice Holmes, which is an incredible text.
It really is. And it's currently preserved on
the Project Gutenberg archive free for anyone
to read. And our specific focus for this deep
dive is to try and reconstruct that impending
Roman conquest entirely from the viewpoint of
an ancient British tribe member. rather than
just defaulting to that traditional lens of the
Roman conqueror. Right. Which, I mean, that presents
a massive hurdle for us, doesn't it? Oh, a massive
hurdle. For us as researchers today, and definitely
for Holmes as a historian back in the early 1900s,
the primary conflict at the heart of this source
material is that we're trying to reconstruct
the daily life the prehistoric culture, the development
of early British society. But so is a catch.
There's a huge catch. We are facing the severe,
almost echoing lack of written records from the
Britons themselves. They just didn't write things
down. No, they didn't. The Celtic tribes of Britain
in the Iron Age had this incredibly rich oral
tradition, right? It was maintained by the Druidic
class. The Druids, yeah. But they committed almost
nothing of their history or their poetry or their
political alliances to writing. memorized. Okay
let's unpack this for a second because how do
you tell the story of your people when the only
person writing anything down is the general actively
trying to conquer you? Yeah that is the ultimate
methodological challenge. It's a paradox. It
is and the source material emphasizes the sheer
complexity of reconstructing Britain's prehistory
precisely because of this silence. I mean without
a British archive their internal thoughts the
the complex diplomacy between tribes like the
Trinovantes and the Cattavallani, that's all
on. All those political rivalries. Completely
hidden. Their daily fears, as this Roman juggernaut
loomed across the water in Gaul, all of that
remains hidden from the traditional literary
historian's view. So what do we do? Well, it
forces a complete shift in how we uncover the
truth. Like if you cannot read the texts, you
have to read the earth. Read the earth. I love
that. You know, it reminds me of a scenario.
It's like trying to figure out the plot of a
massively complex, multi -layered movie. But
you don't have the script. No script at all.
You don't have the director's notes. You don't
even have the audio track. All you have is unrestricted
access to the prop department. That's a great
way to put it. You have to guess the entire story,
the motivations, and the culture based entirely
on the physical object left behind in the warehouse.
That analogy actually cuts right to the core
of Holmes's methodology in the book. He relies
heavily on what he calls, quote, rich archaeological
evidence. The props. The props, exactly. But
reading that prop department isn't just about
cataloging objects and putting them on a shelf.
It requires an entirely different scientific
language. Like what? Well, Holmes leans into
the emerging sciences of his time. Things like
stratigraphy. Oh, right. The layers of the dirt.
Exactly. The idea that the depper you dig into
the soil, the further back in time you go, layer
by layer. So you're reading time as a physical
depth. Yes. And he also jives deep into ethnology,
which is essentially mapping out the cultural
and genetic family tree of these tribes. So you're
sure they weren't just one big, identical group
of people? Right. They weren't a monolith. They
were a diverse landscape of totally different
peoples with distinct customs. So when we look
at the prop department of ancient Britain, we
aren't just looking at like a rusty sword and
moving on. We're reading the evolution of their
culture through time. Because if you are that
ancient British tribe member, you know, the one
standing on the cliff. These artifacts aren't
antiquities to be put behind glass in a museum.
No, they're your daily reality. They're your
life. So what kind of objects are we talking
about here? Give me some examples of what Holmes
is looking at. OK, consider the artifacts found
at places like the Glastonbury Lake Village.
Holmes incorporates this heavily into his understanding
of Celtic antiquity. Glastonbury Lake Village.
What did they find there? We are talking about
intricately carved weaving combs. really beautically
decorated pottery and glass beads that actually
had to be imported from the continent. Wait,
imported? From mainland Europe? Yes. These physical
objects prove that the Britons were engaging
in complex manufacturing and international trade
long before Caesar ever even thought about crossing
the channel. Oh, wow. So they were already tied
into the global economy, basically. They absolutely
were. And these objects, they serve as the only
true unbiased witnesses to early British life.
Unbiased, right, because a pot doesn't have an
agenda. Exactly. A Roman senator's speech has
a huge political agenda. But a Celtic stater,
which is a type of gold coin minted by British
tribes, has no political motivation. A Celtic
stater. Did they come up with that design on
their own? Well, they mimicked Greek and Macedonian
designs, actually. No way. Greek designs in Britain.
Yeah. And the existence of this coinage simply
proves that the local economy was sophisticated
enough to require high value currency. You don't
mint gold coins unless you have a complex trade
system. Right, and that completely shatters the
idea that British society was just sitting around
in the mud, completely static, just waiting for
Rome to arrive so civilization could officially
begin. That's the myth, and it's totally false.
The artifacts prove they were a developing, evolving
people. They were undergoing their own massive
social and cultural transition. Yeah, they were
mining tin and cornwall, they were exporting
hunting dogs. Hunting dogs, that's so specific.
And grain, lots of grain. And they were forging
iron weapons with beautiful enamel inlays that
actually rivaled anything being produced in the
Mediterranean at the time. So the physical evidence
establishes this incredibly vibrant evolving
world. The Britons had a deeply rooted framework
of existence. A very rich culture. And establishing
that reality is essential for our deep dive today.
because we have to contrast that rich physical
truth with how the Romans actually viewed them
right before the invasion. Right. The view from
across the water. Which brings us to a detail
in the text that is just, it's wild when you
think about the military logistics involved.
Ah, it's baffling. T. Rice Holmes notes that
Julius Caesar made, quote, initial inquiries
into Britain. but he acquired only scant knowledge
about its peoples, its tribes, and its customs.
Scant knowledge. It is a staggering admission
of ignorance from one of antiquity's greatest
tacticians. Wait, if we connect this to the bigger
picture, how does one of history's greatest military
minds plan an amphibious invasion of an entirely
new landmass with only scant knowledge of the
people he's invading? It makes no sense, right?
None. How do you feed two legions if you don't
know the agricultural capacity of the land? How
do you even land your ships if you don't know
where the harbors are? The short answer is that
he planned it very poorly and it nearly cost
him everything. So why didn't he know more? To
understand why his knowledge was so scared we
have to look at how he gathered his intelligence
in the first place. Okay. Caesar summoned the
merchants from Gaul who traded with Britain and
he interrogated them. Make sense. Talk to the
guys making the trip. Right, but think about
the incentives there. These merchants held a
highly lucrative monopoly on the cross channel
trade in tin and grain. Oh, I see where this
is going. Yeah. The absolute last thing they
wanted was the Roman military taking over their
trade routes. So they lied to him. They essentially
feigned total ignorance. They told Caesar they
didn't know how big the island was. They didn't
know what tribes live there. They didn't know
what their military tactics were. That is incredible.
They stonewalled the most powerful man in Europe
just to protect their profit margins. They absolutely
did. But let's put ourselves back in the shoes
of that British tribe member for a second. OK.
You belong to a society with those complex trade
networks we just talked about. You are minting
your own gold coins. You have a deep spiritual
connection to the land overseen by the Druids.
Right. And there is a massive militaristic empire
looking across the water at you, and they send
a scout ship. Commanded by a guy named Volusinus.
Right, Volusinus. And this guy just sails up
and down the coast for, what, five days? Yeah,
five days. And he never even lands the boat.
He never even lands. And based on that Caesar
decides to invade. The arrogance of it is just
palpable. It really is. I mean to be invaded
is a horrific trauma for any society. But to
be invaded by an entity that possesses only scant
knowledge of your customs, that views you not
as a complex network of nations, but merely as
a barbarian blank space on a map, it highlights
a really unique kind of vulnerability. Because
they aren't treating you like human beings with
a culture. Exactly. The Romans didn't understand
the political rivalries between the British tribes.
Rivalries that they could have easily exploited,
by the way. Which they did everywhere else. Exactly.
They didn't understand the landscape. They didn't
even understand the tides of the English Channel.
Oh, right. The tides. Yeah, the tides in the
channel are vastly different from the tideless
Mediterranean Sea that the Romans were used to
sailing in. The danger of that asymmetry is massive.
Huge. Because on one hand, you have the profound
deeply rooted social structures of the Britons,
which is backed up by undeniable archaeological
evidence. The props in the warehouse. The props.
And on the other hand, you have a foreign conqueror
operating completely in the dark, relying on
superficial inquiries and faulty intelligence
from merchants who are lying to him. And that
asymmetry directly led to chaos when the two
forces finally collided. So let's talk about
that collision. We have to. We have this rich
culture of the Britons, you know, whispered through
their artifacts and earthworks. And we have the
blind spots of Caesar documented in his own writings.
So we must examine what actually happens when
prehistory violently meets Roman influence during
these expeditions of 55 and 54 BC. Here's where
it gets really interesting. because the source
explicitly focuses on the period, quote, leading
up to Roman influence. Which is a very specific
framing. It is. It paints a picture of early
British society right on the brink. This invasion
wasn't just a sudden clean military event where
Roman troops landed, planted a flag and left.
Not at all. It was a distinct, highly stressful
twilight period for these tribes. The text uses
an archaeological framework to understand the
influence of these early invasions. It was a
massive cultural shock. And that shockwave was
both physical and psychological. I mean, when
Caesar finally attempted to land his forces on
the beaches of Kent, his scant knowledge immediately
betrayed him. How so? What happened? Well, his
heavy transport ships couldn't get close enough
to the shore. He didn't understand the shallow
shelving of the British beaches. Oh, so the boats
are getting stuck out in the water. Exactly.
So his heavily armored legionaries had to jump
into deep water. In full armor. In full armor,
wading toward the beach, struggling just to keep
their heads above water, while the Britons, who
obviously knew exactly how to fight on their
own terrain, rode their chariots right to the
water's edge. Just raining down weapons on them.
Raining down javelins. It terrified the Roman
troops. Let's talk about those chariots for a
second, because the text makes a big deal about
Celtic antiquity and ethnology, and chariotry
is a huge part of that, right? Oh, it's central
to their warfare. Because the Romans had largely
abandoned the war chariot centuries prior, but
the Britons had perfected it. They had turned
it into a highly mobile psychological weapon.
Holmes details how the British charioteers would
drive furiously across the battlefield. Just
the noise of the wheels alone caused panic among
the Roman ranks. I can imagine. And then the
warriors would actually run out onto the pole
of the chariot. Wait, while it's moving? While
it's moving at full speed. They run out, throw
their weapons, and then retreat back into the
cart. That is insane. It's like an ancient drive
-by. It was a sophisticated, highly trained military
tactic. And it completely caught Caesar's legions
off guard. Because, again, his initial inquiries
failed to reveal the true nature of British warfare.
So let me ask you this. If the written records...
which we know are largely from Caesar's own commentaries
on the Gallic War, are fundamentally based on
this scant knowledge and his need to, you know,
look good for the politicians back in Rome. Right.
It's basically propaganda. Does that mean our
archaeological framework actively contradicts
the Roman story? Like if the props in the warehouse
don't match the script Caesar wrote, how do we
synthesize the truth? That's the perfect question.
We look at where the dirt proves the ink wrong.
I like that. Where the dirt proves the ink wrong.
Yeah. And Holmes's great contribution is that
he doesn't just throw out Caesar's writings completely,
but he refuses to take them as absolute truth.
Give me an example. OK. Caesar famously wrote
that the Britons living in the interior of the
island did not sow corn. He said they lived on
milk and flesh and clothed themselves in skins.
So he painted them as absolute savages. Entirely
to justify the difficulty of his campaign. Like,
look how wild and barbaric these people are.
No wonder it took me so long. Department says
otherwise. Radically otherwise. Modern archaeology
building on the framework Holmes utilized has
uncovered massive Iron Age hillforts, places
like Dainbury. Dainbury. What's there? Danebury
contains hundreds of deep pits dug specifically
for the storage of massive agricultural surpluses
of grain. Wait, massive surpluses. So they were
farming a lot. A ton. And the artifacts, like
the iron plowshares, the rotary corns they used
for grinding the grain, they prove beyond a shadow
of a doubt that the inland Britons were heavily
engaged in widespread organized agriculture.
So Caesar was just completely wrong. He was simply
wrong. Either through ignorance or more likely
deliberate propaganda. So P. Rice Holmes is essentially
fact checking the Roman Empire. That's exactly
what he's doing. By forcing Caesar's flawed politically
motivated written accounts to sit side by side
with the undeniable physical truths of Celtic
antiquities, Holmes achieves a much closer approximation
of what that British tribe member actually experienced.
We can see where Caesar misunderstood a custom.
because the archaeological record shows us the
reality of that custom. Exactly. The artifacts
provide the rich complex context that Caesar
entirely missed while he was just, you know,
trying to salvage his wrecked ships on the beaches
of Kent. Wow. Okay, so what does this all mean
for us today? That's a big question. It is. We've
explored this ancient conflict, the silence of
the Britons, the tactical ignorance of the Romans,
and the collision of those two worlds. But I
want to shift gears for a second and talk about
how this specific history, this synthesis by
T. Rice Holmes, has been preserved and delivered
to you, the modern listener. Right. The medium
is just as interesting as the message here. Because
the text we are referencing isn't exactly a new
release. No, the metadata surrounding the source
is actually a fascinating reflection on the endurance
of knowledge. T. Rice Holmes lived from 1855
to 1933. Oh, wow. OK. Yeah. And this historical
account was published in the early 1900s. Yet
it remains highly relevant and actively sought
after today. It really does. When you look at
the Project Gutenberg archive, this highly specific
text about Celtic antiquities and Roman military
strategy had over 4000 downloads in just a 30
day period. 4000 downloads for a century old
academic text. That's pretty remarkable. It is.
And what stands out even more is it reading ease
score. Oh yeah the metadata on that is really
interesting. The metadata lists a score of 69
.9 which equates to an eighth and ninth grade
reading level. It explicitly notes it is, quote,
neither easy nor difficult to read. And that
score highlights exactly why Holmes' work has
survived the century. How so? Well, he took an
incredibly dense, multidisciplinary subject.
I mean, he's combining classical philology, military
history, ethnology, and the emerging science
of archaeology. That's a lot of etiologies. It
is, but he synthesized it so cleanly that a modern
reader, someone without a PhD in ancient history,
can actually grasp the profound cultural transitions
of early British society. He's basically doing
what we try to do on this deep dive. Exactly.
He took the impenetrable academic jargon and
distilled it into the story of people. And if
we connect this to the bigger picture, the role
of archives like Project Gutenberg is essentially
doing for Holmes what Holmes did for the ancient
Britons. That's a great point. We are digitizing
and distributing this work for free. across multiple
formats, like EPUB, Kindle, HTML, ensuring it
doesn't just decay in some locked university
vault. There is a really beautiful symmetry there.
The preservation of this early 20th century text
mirrors the preservation of the prehistoric artifacts
themselves. Yes. Just as the surviving iron tools,
the gold stators, and the grain pits at Danebury
allow us to access those voiceless ancient Britons,
digital archives allow modern learners free access
to foundational historical texts. Both the physical
artifacts in the earth and the digital files
on a server. are just vehicles for preserving
the story of our past against the erosion of
time. They're both ways of fighting back against
the silence. Okay, as we wrap up today's journey,
let's just recap what we've unpacked here. We've
covered a lot of ground. We really have. We started
with the silent landscape on the cliffs of Dover,
facing a historical record entirely dominated
by the conqueror holding the pen. Right, the
Roman perspective. But using T. Rice Holmes'
framework, we learned how to peer past those
missing written records. We push back against
Julius Caesar's scant knowledge and his profound,
almost arrogant misunderstanding of the complex
Celtic society he was invading. We replaced his
Roman propaganda with the rich archaeological
evidence. The whisper of the artifact. Exactly.
The coinage, the chariots, the agricultural infrastructure.
This allowed us to feel the cultural transitions
of early British society, not just as a footnote
in Roman history, but as a vibrant world experiencing
a stressful, world -altering cultural shockwave.
From the viewpoint of the tribes themselves.
Exactly. We fact -checked the conquerors with
the prop department of history. The prop department
never lies. It really doesn't. History is rarely
as clean or as one -sided as the official written
records suggest. Seeking out multiple perspectives
and combining literary texts with the hard truths
of archaeology is absolutely essential to finding
anything resembling the truth of the human experience.
Which brings us to the end of our deep dive today.
But before you go, I want to leave you with a
final lingering thought. Something to ponder.
Yeah, something to chew on long after you finish
listening. We spent this time talking about how
Caesar fundamentally misunderstood the ancient
Britons based on his scant knowledge and how
historians had to rely on the physical artifacts
they left behind. You know, their tools, their
homes, their trash to know the true complexity
of their culture. Right. So think about your
own life right now. Think about your daily routines,
your apartment, your car, the objects you use
and discard every single day. The physical stuff
of your life. Exactly. If an invading force with
scant knowledge of our modern world were to arrive
centuries from now and they can only look at
the physical artifacts you leave behind. What
completely inaccurate, totally wild story would
they tell about your tribe, your customs, and
your culture? It's a humbling and really fascinating
question to ask ourselves. It really is. Thank
you so much for exploring the lost voices of
ancient Britain with us today. Keep questioning
the official record, keep looking for the artifacts
in the dirt, and we'll see you on the next Deep
Dive.