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50Caesar, then, at this time was the first of the Romans to cross the Rhine, and later, in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus, he crossed over to Britain. 2This country is sixty miles distant, by the shortest way, from the Belgic mainland, where the Morini dwell, and extends alongside the rest of Gaul and nearly all of Spain, reaching out into the sea. 3To the very earliest of the Greeks and Romans it was not even known to exist, while to their descendants it was a matter of dispute whether it was a continent or an island; and accounts of it have been written from both points of view by many who knew nothing about it, because they had not seen it with their own eyes nor heard about it from the natives with their own ears, but indulged in surmises according to the scholarly sect or the branch of learning to which they severally belonged. 4In the lapse of time, however, it has been clearly proved to be an island, first under Agricola, the propraetor, and now under the emperor Severus.
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