A Comparison Of Tacitus's Germania Excerpt On The

The Roman Empire, The Han Empire, and Relations to Neighboring Groups: A Comparison of Tacitus’s Germania Excerpt and Sima Qian’s Excerpt on the Xiongnu by Alex Prindle The definition of civilization or whether a culture is considered civilized or not has been argued throughout the course of history. Groups such as the Mongols, the ethnic groups surrounding the Roman Empire, and just about every group of people not part of a large, unified, strong empire in ancient history especially, has been thought of by their “superior” empire peoples as barbaric and uncivilized. Through the comparison of Tacitus’s Germania, and Sima Qian’s Account of the Xiongnu, it has been established that Tacitus paints a the Germans as a simple, and barbaric uncivilized

Tacitus’s purpose seems to be to analyze life in Germany such as food, culture, military practices, and the way children are trained, while comparing and contrasting it to typical Roman Empire practices. He tends to ultimately criticize German practices but he also subtlety criticizes some Roman practices while showing the some German practices may be better than those in the Roman empire. To contrast with this, Sima Qian’s original purpose is to watch over the Xiongnu peoples so that the Han Empire could figure out and exploit Xiongnu weaknesses in battle. While it seems that the purpose of Sima Qian’s argument would be more critical in nature than the Roman’s argument, Sima Qian’s remains relatively unbiased when comparing the Xiongnu’s strengths and weaknesses. There still are some moments when Sima Qian definitely shows that he believes the Han Empire is much superior to the Xiongnu, but when compared to Sima Qian, he stays unbiased and while he does call the Xiongnu “barbarians”, he respects them at the same time for the fear they inflict on the Han. Tacitus’s description of the Germans begins with the outline of their physical features, stating that there isn’t anyone who looks like the Germans than he has ever seen before (Germania 2). This is because the Germans did not intermarry and stayed one, unified culture, and Tacitus praises this, while describing how he disagrees with intermarriages in his own Roman

This quote explains how the Germans did not see the value and importance in the resource, amber. This also proves that the Romans saw themselves as superior to the Germans as Tacitus actually calls the Germanic tribes barbaric. The Germans were also criticized for their religious practices of sacrificing a man as a religious holiday at a certain time of the year and torturing him (Germania 13). I agree that this holiday is barbaric and innocuous, but this is specifically highlighted as a barbaric practice, and the ancient Romans also had some practices that definitely seem to be barbaric, such as public executions of criminals. In comparison to Tacitus’s Germania excerpt, Sima Qian’s Account of the Xiongnu seems to be much more unbiased in nature. This, I believe is for two reasons: that the Han had respect for the Xiongnu, and that Qian tried to stay unbiased in his report to be accurate for military purposes. He reveals both the victories and defeats of the Hans. In regards to respect, there was enough respect for the Xiongnu that the Han had to pay them off in order to make sure that the Xiongnu didn’t attack because they feared their strength and military tactics (Xiongnu 11). The Han, although they still saw themselves as superior to the Xiongnu (Qian continually calls the Xiongnu barbarians), realized that they were