Hello, today we have the review of Tacito’s Germanics.
Tacitus is a Roman historian. The few details known about his life indicate that he developed a brilliant political career that took him to the Senate, as well as to the position of consul.
Also known is his wedding in the year 78 with a daughter of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, a Roman general who fought in Britain, of whom Tacitus wrote a biography: Agricola.
Another important work that must be highlighted is On the Origin and Country of the Germans, better known as Germania, in which he draws a vivid representation of the life and culture of the Germans.
However, his most famous works are the Annals, a history of the emperors of the Julius-Claudian dynasty beginning with Tiberius, and the Histories, about the Flavian dynasty.
Both works represent a grandiose effort to recreate a turbulent period in Roman history, and in them he offers an implacable portrait of the great characters of the time, highlighting their weaknesses. The author’s tone also reflects a certain nostalgia for the times of the Republic and Roman greatness.
Despite being probably the greatest Latin historian and one of the greatest stylists in Latin prose, hardly anything is known with certainty about Tacitus’ origins; It is possible that he was born in Italian territory, either in Cisalpine Gaul or in Narbonensis Gaul (present-day southeastern France). In his youth he was a renowned lawyer and orator.
He lived most of his life in Rome, where he was soon introduced into imperial society. He actively participated in political life while perfecting his oratory.
After having held various public positions (quaestor between 81-82, praetor in 86 and consul in 97) he abandoned his public career and oratory to dedicate himself to history.
The works of Tacitus have been preserved in fragmentary and rather incomplete form. However, although mutilated, they produce in those who read them a deep emotion aroused by the author’s powerful representation of men and events in a particular style, perhaps the most original in Latin literature, which manages to rework the teaching of the rhetorical in the use of metaphor and epigrammatic subtlety.
In the careful development of his own style, guided by an implicit analytical rigor in the use of the words he used to say precisely, Tacitus turns his prose into poetic creation.
Two short but important works, written in 1998 (the Life of Agricola, an encomiastic biography of his father-in-law Julius Agricola, former governor of Britain, and On the Origin and Country of the Germans), constituted an apprenticeship for the composition of his works. great historical works.
The first monograph contains, in addition to the tribute to Agricola, a victim of Domitian’s jealousy, a sketch of life at the imperial court and the barbaric world of the Britons.
The second, often known as Germania, shows the author’s interest in those peoples who for more than two centuries had constituted a threat to Rome, emphasizing the simple virtue and primitive vices of the Germanic tribes in contrast to the moral laxity of the Contemporary Rome.
It is known that the two great historical works of Tacitus, the Histories and the Annals, together comprised thirty books, which were to form a whole in a continuous narrative.
Of the fourteen books of Histories, only the first four and a large part of the fifth are preserved. Appearing in 109, the work must have been written five years earlier.
Although his original study would cover the chronological framework between January 1, 69 (beginning of the end of the government of Emperor Galba) and September 16, 96 (assassination of Emperor Domitian), that is, the access to power and reign of the Flavian dynasty, or Flavia, the material currently available only extends to the first months of 70.
Of the manuscripts corresponding to the sixteen books of the Annals, only the first four, a fragment of the fifth, part of the sixth and books XI to XVI are also preserved. In the Annals he dealt with Roman history from the rise to power of Tiberius in 14 AD. until the death of Nero in 68 AD, that is, from the period immediately before the Histories.
Tacitus aims to write the history of events with a moralistic and instructive purpose, and he does so with a peculiar and non-transferable literary style full of dramatic acuity and concision.
His great power as a historian lies in his psychological insight and in the brilliance of his character portraits. His style is an efficient combination of concise and picturesque expressions.
He exalted the ideals of the Roman Republic and provided very insightful critical descriptions of many of the Roman emperors. His great historiographic work, which sought to objectively narrate the history of imperial Rome in the 1st century, is still considered paradigmatic today.
He already left you the synopsis of the Germanics by the tacitus author.
One of the oldest documents and without dispute the most important and interesting, that have come to us relating to the life and customs of Germany in the transit of knowledge and colonization through Rome, is this one from the distinguished historian Gaius Cornelius Tacitus.
It is a living story about living sources. The author operates with direct materials: his observations, sprinkled with substantial comments, are full of virility and interest.
It is an incredible book documented about the history of the Germanic people, the way they were distributed, how war was part of their life and the equality between men and women. What was their lifestyle (more full of virtues and certainties in the way they saw life? Also, how women also knew how to handle weapons and what their lives were like.
It also explained the geographical distribution of the Germans and how the farther they moved from Italy they were much fiercer (he said that about the Germans of Belgian Gaul. And how in the border area (between France and Germany) there was more influence from the Gauls, who (the Germanic ones).
By detailing the Germanics so well, I give it a 5 out of 5 and why have I been reading a lot about this? Because in the war saga this mystery was revealed in one of my books.
escritora de acción, aventura y retrofuturismo 