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Title: Tacitus on Germany

Author: Tacitus

Translator: Thomas Gordon

Release Date: April 3, 2006 [EBook #2995]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TACITUS 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
these are the names truly genuine and original. For the rest, they
affirm Germany to be a recent word, lately bestowed: for that those
who first passed the Rhine and expulsed the Gauls, and are now named
Tungrians, were then called Germans: and thus by degrees the name of a
tribe prevailed, not that of the nation; so that by an appellation at
first occasioned by terror and conquest, they afterwards chose to be
distinguished, and assuming a name lately invented were universally
called _Germans_.

They have a tradition that Hercules also had been in their country, and
him above all other heroes they extol in their songs when they advance
to battle. Amongst them too are found that kind of verses by the recital
of which (by them called _Barding_) they inspire bravery; nay, by such
chanting itself they divine the success of the approaching fight.