Germania (book)
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Map of the Roman Empire and Germania Magna in the early 2nd century, with the location of some Germanic tribes as described by Tacitus. |
The
Germania (
Latin title:
De Origine et situ Germanorum), written by
Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around
98, is an
ethnographic work on the diverse set of
Germanic tribes outside the
Roman Empire.
Ethnography had a long and distinguished heritage in
classical literature, and the
Germania fits squarely within the tradition established by authors from
Herodotus to
Julius Caesar. Tacitus himself had already written a similar—albeit shorter—essay on the lands and tribes of
Britannia in his
Agricola (chapters 10–13).
The
Germania begins with a description of the lands, laws, and customs of the Germanic people chapters 1–27); it then segues into descriptions of individual tribes, beginning with those dwelling closest to Roman lands and ending on the uttermost shores of the Baltic, among the amber gathering
Aesti, the primitive and savage
Fenni, and the unknown tribes beyond them. The work contains elements of both the moralising tract and the political pamphlet, characterizing Germania as the "not-Rome"; these are not, however, its primary purposes. Tacitus probably wanted to stress the dangers that the barbarians posed to the Empire. He has a particular interest for the borderwith the Germanic people, both because he was persuaded that the people of the north were dangerous to the Empire and because the region offered the possibility to expand the empire.
Tacitus' descriptions of the Germanic
character are at times favorable in contrast to the opinions of the Romans of his day. He holds the strict
monogamy and
chastity of Germanic
marriage customs worthy of the highest praise, in contrast to what he saw as the vice and immorality rampant in Roman society of his day (ch. 18), and he admires their open hospitality, their simplicity, and their bravery in battle. All of these traits were highlighted because of their similarity to idealized
Roman virtues. These glowing portrayals made the work popular in Germany—especially among German
nationalists and
German Romantics—from the
sixteenth century on. One should not, however, think that Tacitus' portrayal of Germanic customs is entirely favorable; he castigates the Germanic people for what he saw as their habitual drunkenness, laziness, and barbarism, among other traits.
Despite this bias, he does supply us with many names for
tribes with which Rome had come into contact, although his information was not, in general, based on first-hand knowledge, and more recent research has shown that many of his assumptions were incorrect. In fact, contemporary historians debate whether all these tribes were really Germanic in the sense that they spoke a
Germanic language - some of them, like the
Batavians, may have been
Celts.
His description of the
Scandinavian goddess
Nerthus has lead to a substantial amount of speculation among researchers of
Norse mythology and older
Germanic and
Indo-European mythology, as it is our only written source of Scandinavian mythology before the
Eddas a thousand years later, and because it only poorly resembles the religion described there.
Tacitus himself had never travelled in the
Germanic lands; all his information is second-hand at best.
Ronald Syme supposed that Tacitus closely copied the lost
Bella Germaniae of
Pliny the Elder, since the
Germania is in some places outdated: in its description of the Danubian tribes, says Syme, "they are loyal clients of the Empire. . . . Which is peculiar. The defection of these peoples in the year 89 during Domitian's war against the
Dacians modified the whole frontier policy of the Empire." (p. 128). While Pliny may have been the primary source, scholars have identified others; among them are
Caesar's
Gallic Wars,
Strabo,
Diodorus Siculus,
Posidonius,
Aufidius Bassus, and numerous non-literary sources: interviews with traders and soldiers who had ventured beyond the
Rhine and
Danube borders.
*J.G.C. Anderson (ed.),
Germania; (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1938)
*T.A. Dorey,
'Agricola' and 'Germania', in
Tacitus (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) (Studies in Latin Literature series)
*Alfred Gudeman,
The Sources of the Germania of Tacitus, in
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 31. (1900), pp. 93-111
*
Simon Schama, 1995.
Landscape and Memory 2.i "The hunt for Germania"
*Ronald Syme,
Tacitus, vol. 1 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1958)
*Rodney Potter Robinson, 1935.
The Germania of Tacitus (Middletown, Connecticut; American Philological Association) (textual and manuscript analysis)
*Kenneth C. Schellhase, 1976.
Tacitus in Renaissance Political Thought (Chicago)
*
Germanic peoples*
Germanic paganism*
Regnator omnium deus*
:Category:Ancient Germanic peoples*
Roman empire: Germania*
A copy of Germania online at Fordham.edu*
Germania, continued*
Germania*
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook*
Tacitus' Germania at Northvegr*
Perseus text
