Germania (book)

Map of the Roman Empire and Germania Magna in the early 2nd century, with the location of some tribes described by Tacitus as Germanic.

The Germania (Latin: De Origine et situ Germanorum, literally Concerning the Origin and Situation of the Germanics),^[1] written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.

Contents

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.

Tacitus says (Ch. 2) that physically, the Germans appeared to be a distinct nation, not an admixture of their neighbors, as nobody would desire to migrate to a climate as horrid as Germany's. They are divided into three large branches, the Ingaevones, the Herminones and the Istaevones, deriving their ancestry from three sons of Mannus, son of Tuisto, their common forefather. In Chapter 4, he mentions that they all have common physical characteristics, blue eyes (truces et caerulei oculi = "sky-coloured, azure, dark blue, dark green), reddish hair ( rutilae comae = "red, golden-red, reddish yellow") and large bodies, vigorous at the first onset but not tolerant of exhausting labour, tolerant of hunger and cold but not of heat.^[2]

In Chapter 7, Tacitus describes their government and leadership as somewhat merit-based and egalitarian, with leadership by example rather than authority and that punishments are carried out by the priests. He mentions (Ch. 8) that the opinions of women are given respect. In Chapter 9, Tacitus describes a form of folk assembly rather similar to the public Things recorded in later Germanic sources: in these public deliberations, the final decision rests with the men of the tribe as a whole.

Tacitus further discusses the role of women in Chapters 7 and 8, mentioning that they often accompany the men to battle and offer encouragement. He says that the men are often motivated to fight for the women because of an extreme fear of their being taken captive. Tacitus says (Ch. 18) that the Germans are mainly content with one wife, except for a few political marriages, and specifically and explicitly compares this practice favorably to other barbarian cultures, perhaps since monogamy was a shared value between Roman and Germanic cultures. He also records (Ch. 19) that adultery is very rare, and that an adulterous woman is shunned afterward by the community regardless of her beauty.

The latter chapters of the books describe the various Germanic tribes, their relative locations and some of their characteristics. Many of the tribes named correspond with other (and later) historical records and traditions, while the fate of others is less clear.^{[citation needed]}

His description of the Germanic goddess Nerthus has led to a substantial amount of speculation among researchers of Norse mythology and older Germanic and Indo-European mythology, as it is the only written source of Scandinavian mythology before the Eddas a thousand years later, and because it only poorly resembles the religion described there.^[3]

Purpose and sources

Tacitus

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 work can appear moralizing at points, perhaps implicitly comparing the values of Germanic tribes and those of his Roman contemporaries, although any direct comparison between Rome and Germania is not explicitly presented in the text. In writing the work, Tacitus might have wanted to stress the dangers that the Germanic tribes posed to 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 perhaps because of their similarity to idealized Roman virtues. One should not, however, think that Tacitus' portrayal of Germanic customs is entirely favorable; he notes a tendency in the Germanic people for what he saw as their habitual drunkenness, laziness, and barbarism, among other traits.

The ethnonym Germanii as used by Tacitus does not necessarily coincide with the modern linguistic definition of Germanic peoples as any people speaking a Germanic language, and the details of the classification Germanii have been debated in scholarship, e.g. the possibility that the Batavians may therefore have been Celtic-speaking.^{[citation needed]} Tacitus nevertheless shows no lack of precision in stating that the Nervii are not actually Germanic as they claim to be. (Ch. 28) He also notes in Chapter 43 that a certain tribe called the Cotini actually speaks a Gallic tongue, and likewise the Osi speak a Pannonian dialect.

Tacitus himself had never travelled in the Germanic lands; all his information is second-hand at best.^[4] 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: presumably based on interviews with traders and soldiers who had ventured beyond the Rhine and Danube borders, and Germanic mercenaries in Rome.

Reception

Germaniae veteris typus (Old Germany.) Edited by Willem and Joan Blaeu), 1645, based on information from Tacitus and Pliny.

All copies of Germania were lost during the Middle Ages and the work was forgotten until a single manuscript as found in Hersfeld Abbey, in present-day Germany, in 1455. It was then brought to Italy, where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, first examined and analyzed the book. This sparked interest among German humanists, including Conrad Celtes, Johannes Aventinus, and Ulrich von Hutten.

In medieval Germany (the Holy Roman Empire), a self-designation of "Germanii" was virtually never used. The name was only revived in 1471, inspired by the rediscovered text of Germania, to invoke the warlike qualities of the ancient Germans in a crusade against the Turks. Ever since its discovery, treatment of the text regarding the culture of the early Germanic peoples in ancient Germany remains strong especially in German history, philology, and ethnology studies, and to a lesser degree in Scandinavian countries as well. Beginning in 16th-century German humanism, German interest in Germanic antiquity remained acute throughout the period of Romanticism and nationalism. A scientific angle was introduced with the development of Germanic philology by Jacob Grimm in the 19th century.

Because of its influence on the ideologies of Pan-Germanism and Nordicism, Italian historian Arnaldo Momigliano in 1956 described Germania as "among the most dangerous books ever written".^[5]

See also

• Ancient Germanic peoples
• Germanic paganism
• Germanic peoples
• Noble savage
• Regnator omnium deus

Editions and translations

• Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (trans.), 1876.
• Henry Furneaux (ed.), 1900.
• Thomas Gordon (trans.), 1910.
• Anderson, J.G.C. (ed.) (1938). Germania. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
• Ronald Syme, Tacitus, vol. 1 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1958)
• Alf Önnerfors (ed.): De origine et situ Germanorum liber. Teubner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-519-01838-1 (P. Cornelii Taciti libri qui supersunt, T. 2,2)
• J. B. Rives (trans.): Tacitus: Germania. Oxford 1999

Notes

1. ^ Some sources translate it as Concerning the Origin and Situation of the Germans, but the Germanic peoples are intended in general rather than Germans in the modern sense.
2. ^ unde habitus quoque corporum, tamquam in tanto hominum numero, idem omnibus: truces et caerulei oculi, rutilae comae, magna corpora et tantum ad impetum valida. [3] laboris atque operum non eadem patientia, minimeque sitim aestumque tolerare, frigora atque inediam caelo solove adsueverunt.
3. ^ George S. Williamson. The longing for myth in Germany: religion and aesthetic culture from romanticism to Nietzsche. University of Chicago Press, 2004. Page 99.
4. ^ Alfred Gudeman (1900). "The Sources of the Germania of Tacitus". Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 31: 93–111. doi:10.2307/282642. JSTOR 282642. 
5. ^ Anthony Birley, ‘Introduction’, in Tacitus, Agricola and Germany (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. xxxviii.

References

• 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
• Christopher B. Krebs, Negotiatio Germaniae. Tacitus' Germania und Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Giannantonio Campano, Conrad Celtis und Heinrich Bebel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005). ISBN 3-525-25257-9.
• Simon Schama, 1995. Landscape and Memory 2.i "The hunt for Germania"

Further reading

• 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)
• Christopher B. Krebs, 2011. A Most Dangerous Book (New York), ISBN 978-0393062656

External links

• Germania, trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (1868)
• Germania, ed. Henry Furneaux 1900; trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb 1876, reprint 1942) at Project Perseus
• Germania, trans. Thomas Gordon (1910) at the Medieval Sourcebook
• Germania, trans. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876) at the Medieval Sourcebook
• Germania, Oxford translation (ed. E. Brooks) at Project Gutenberg
• Germania, trans. Thomas Gordon (1910) at Project Gutenberg
• Roger Pearse, "Tacitus and his manuscripts"