Tacitus Beliefs Of The Germanic People In Germania

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The Germanic people are portrayed as a community. Their livelihood centred around morality. When Tacitus writes about them in his treatise he writes them favourably. They have an organized social structure of equality. It is not very hierarchical but everybody has their own role. The women manage the dwellings, the Chiefs look after the tribes and the Warriors battle. In Germania, the author Tacitus writes about a society that is moral and un-imperialistic. What Tacitus sees is warriors that do not fight for a state, but for their tribes. When they do battle it is not out of want to conquer as much as it is out of necessity. It is an equal society. Tacitus, the author of this document, wrote it in 98 AD. He was a roman historian, born in Gaul and sent to study in …show more content…

He lived from 56-120 AD. This source is a treatise, not as long as some of Tacitus’ other work but very important as it is one of the few descriptions of the Germanic people in history. The Germanic people did not live in Roman rule, they lived in their own communities. Not cities though, Tacitus points out that the Germans live in smaller group dwellings. The whole population is dispersed from each other, though they still came together as one. It is likely that Tacitus found them intriguing because of this. At the time he wrote this, Tacitus was discomforted by the Roman Empires imperialistic ways. This may have also influenced his interest. He wrote about a society he believed to be much different from the one he lived in. Unlike, the Romans who ruled and worked by militarism and politics. Tacitus saw Germans as doing things out of necessity not out of greed and