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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 239350" data-attributes="member: 1645">Chapter V -- Invading Britain (continued)While Caesar spent the winter on business in northern Italy and the Balkans...That seems entirely too modern, doesn't it?  He's able to spend the winter in temperate northern Italy.The previous year the Britons had seen little more than 80 Roman vessels of their shores.  Now they were staggered to see 800....The Spanish Armada of 1588 would comprise only a paltry 130 vessels, carrying little more than 19,000 troops.The Romans show up on British shores with 50,000 troops.  Wow.Locking their shields over their heads in the testudo, or "tortoise" formation, the 7th went forward against British stones and javelins, and under cover of the testudos heaped earth against the walls of the stockade to form ramps, an activity that took several hours.  They then surged up the ramps in formation and dropped into the stockade.Insane.  Their shields provided enough cover, at least locked together in formation, that they were able to work for hours piling dirt into ramps just outside the stockade walls without casualties.  If this was fiction, I'd dismiss it as completely unbelievable.</blockquote>