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    Tacitus on Germany
    Tacitus on Germany
    Tacitus on Germany
    Ebook63 pages51 minutes

    Tacitus on Germany

    By Thomas Gordon and Cornelius Tacitus

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJun 1, 2004
    Tacitus on Germany

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      Book preview

      Tacitus on Germany - Thomas Gordon

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tacitus on Germany, by Tacitus

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Tacitus on Germany

      Author: Tacitus

      Translator: Thomas Gordon

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

      Last Updated: February 7, 2013

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TACITUS ON GERMANY ***

      Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger

      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.

      Contents

      INTRODUCTORY NOTE

      TACITUS ON GERMANY

      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

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