Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:48:20.096Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The Germania as literary text

from Part II - Texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2010

A. J. Woodman
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Get access

Summary

Scholars in the early decades of the twentieth century were responsible for ethnographically oriented studies that invalidated much of the preceding, mostly nineteenth-century, scholarship. Tacitus, particularly in the first half of the Germania, is guided as much by ethnographical commonplaces and generalisations as by any individual or empirically derived autopsy. As Syme succinctly put it, 'If Cornelius Tacitus was ever on the Rhine, he discloses no sign of it in the Germania'. Sources were available, from Posidonius to Caesar, to Pliny's Bella Germaniae (and the Naturalis Historia as well), to Aufidius Bassus' Bellum Germanicum. Information could have been had from returning merchants and soldiers, as was the case with Pliny. But Tacitus does not tell us much on any of this. Rives, following Lund, is surely right: 'although the work does contain a few verifiable observations, it is so shaped by ethnographic preconceptions as to be virtually unusable as a historical source'. Hence the somewhat hostile reaction of Syme. Rives himself mitigates Lund's historiographically bleak assessment, looking in particular to archaeological and other records, and suggesting that use of Tacitus involves 'careful evaluation and a willingness to acknowledge uncertainty'. But the fact remains that the Germania is far from reliable as a historical, anthropological or sociological work, however important it has been in the realm of reception. So the question remains as to what precisely the Germania is trying to be or do. There is also the question of how we are to read it.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×