Why did Roman Historian Tacitus Praise the Enemy and Criticise the Roman Empire?
By: Ioannis Dedes
Tags: Culture, History, Politics, Government, Education

Appraisal for Germania

The work of Germania was written around 98 AD and it’s the ethnographic representation of the origin and the life of the Germanic tribes that existed outside the Roman Empire and consisted of a great threat for the latter. Tacitus begins with the aspects of Germanic life and the laws of the society continues with a short description of the army and the contact with the Roman military and end with the description of particular tribes around the empire, mainly in the Baltic Sea.

Map of the Roman Empire and Germania (116 AD), originally by Jani Niemenmaa

Throughout his writing, one can clearly understand that there’s an appraisal of the people in Germania and an evaluation of the contrast of their aspects of living to the Roman ones. To begin with, Tacitus praises them for being able to not involve themselves in intermarriage and remain unique and race distinctive. At the same part of chapter 4 and in the next one, chapter 5, he admires their work and their endurance in the unfavorable weather conditions that they had to adapt to while they were also considered as unfortunate, stating that “The Gods have denied them gold and silver”.

Then, in chapters 6 and 7, Tacitus shows respect for the men in the army, who not only fight with their heart and they do not make an appeal to the authority for more effective weapons (“The horseman asks for no more than his shield and spear”), but they are warriors who do everything in the battlefield for their wife and children. Additionally, in chapter 7, Tacitus shows how the power of kings isn’t absolute, and leaders are admired by the Germanic people by their energy, the fighting spirit, and not their authority; the presentation of a more egalitarian and less authoritative government is valuable in the contradiction with the Roman empire.

A minor but still significant point is the praise that Tacitus gives for the German houses and the designs of their homes while stating that the “ some parts of their houses… smear with an earth so pure and brilliant that it looks like a painting or a color design”. Furthermore, the most important aspect of their society that needs the greatest praise was the marriage and the strictness of respect in gender roles. In Chapter 18, Tacitus recognizes and admires the Germanic faith in the women, the loyalty that men show, and the encouragement that the latter get from their wives. In the next chapter, Tacitus makes it clear that adultery was rare and every woman that committed such a serious mistake would never be respected by society.

Any case of adultery and restriction of children is considered a crime and Tacitus makes it clear that in Germania “good morality is more effective there than good laws are elsewhere”, possibly referring to the Roman empire.

The remaining notion of praise refers to specific Germanic tribes, for the people in the Suebian territory, who occupied more than half of Germania. Tacitus shows that he respects their peaceful intentions and their trading relations with the Roman empire, which in the trading with any other Germanic tribe had to be armed but with the Suebi, Romans were sure that was goodwill (“To other nations, we show our arms and our camps; to them we open our houses and our villas — and they do not covet them”). Overall, it’s obvious that Tacitus might be one of the few historians of Roman origin that present a strong enemy in a respectful and praising way.