Tacitus’s Germania

A short ethnographic treatise by the Roman historian Tacitus (circa 98 CE) describing the Germanic peoples and their lands. It is significant as a heavily debated source that later European intellectuals drew on to construct racial origin myths and national identities, though it is now recognized as projecting a polemical or partly fantastical view onto real peoples.

Claims that use this term

• Tacitus’s Germania projected a polemical fantasy onto real peoples
• European intellectuals built racial origin myths on Tacitus’s Germania contrast