Tacitus on Germany

Tacitus on Germany, by Tacitus

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Title: Tacitus on Germany
Author: Tacitus
Translator: Thomas Gordon
Release Date: April 3, 2006 [EBook #2995]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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ON GERMANY ***

Produced by Dagny; John Bickers

TACITUS ON GERMANY
Translated by Thomas Gordon

PREPARER'S NOTE
This text was prepared from a 1910 edition, published by P. F. Collier
& Son Company, New York.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The dates of the birth and death of Tacitus are uncertain, but it is
probable that he was born about 54 A. D. and died after 117. He was a
contemporary and friend of the younger Pliny, who addressed to him
some of his most famous epistles. Tacitus was apparently of the
equestrian class, was an advocate by training, and had a reputation as
an orator, though none of his speeches has survived. He held a number
of important public offices, and married the daughter of Agricola, the
conqueror of Britain, whose life he wrote.
The two chief works of Tacitus, the "Annals" and the "Histories,"
covered the history of Rome from the death of Augustus to A. D. 96;
but the greater part of the "Histories" is lost, and the fragment that
remains deals only with the year 69 and part of 70. In the "Annals"
there are several gaps, but what survives describes a large part of the
reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. His minor works, besides the
life of Agricola, already mentioned, are a "Dialogue on Orators" and
the account of Germany, its situation, its inhabitants, their character
and customs, which is here printed.
Tacitus stands in the front rank of the historians of antiquity for the
accuracy of his learning, the fairness of his judgments, the richness,
concentration, and precision of his style. His great successor, Gibbon,
called him a "philosophical historian, whose writings will instruct the
last generations of mankind"; and Montaigne knew no author "who, in
a work of history, has taken so broad a view of human events or given a
more just analysis of particular characters."
The "Germany" is a document of the greatest interest and importance,
since it gives us by far the most detailed account of the state of culture

among the tribes that are the ancestors of the modern Teutonic nations,
at the time when they first came into account with the civilization of
the Mediterranean.

TACITUS ON GERMANY
The whole of Germany is thus bounded; separated from Gaul, from
Rhoetia and Pannonia, by the rivers Rhine and Danube; from Sarmatia
and Dacia by mutual fear, or by high mountains: the rest is
encompassed by the ocean, which forms huge bays, and comprehends a
tract of islands immense in extent: for we have lately known certain
nations and kingdoms there, such as the war discovered. The Rhine
rising in the Rhoetian Alps from a summit altogether rocky and
perpendicular, after a small winding towards the west, is lost in the
Northern Ocean. The Danube issues out of the mountain Abnoba, one
very high but very easy of ascent, and traversing several nations, falls
by six streams into the Euxine Sea; for its seventh channel is absorbed
in the Fenns.
The Germans, I am apt to believe, derive their original from no other
people; and are nowise mixed with different nations arriving amongst
them: since anciently those who went in search of new dwellings,
travelled not by land, but were carried in fleets; and into that mighty
ocean so boundless, and, as I may call it, so repugnant and forbidding,
ships from our world rarely enter. Moreover, besides the dangers from
a sea tempestuous, horrid and unknown, who would relinquish Asia, or
Africa, or Italy, to repair to Germany, a region hideous and rude, under
a rigorous climate, dismal to behold or to manure [to cultivate] unless
the same were his native country? In their old ballads (which amongst
them are the only sort of registers and history) they celebrate Tuisto, a
God sprung from the earth, and Mannus his son, as the fathers and
founders of the nation. To Mannus they assign three sons, after whose
names so many people are called; the Ingaevones, dwelling next the
ocean; the Herminones, in the middle country; and all the rest,
Instaevones. Some, borrowing a warrant from the darkness of antiquity,
maintain that the God had more sons, that thence came more

denominations of people, the Marsians, Gambrians, Suevians, and
Vandalians, and that