Tacitus wrote Germania, a description of the peoples living beyond Rome’s Rhine frontier.
Tacitus composed Germania, also called De origine et situ Germanorum, around 98 CE. The work describes the geography, customs, social organization, warfare, and religious practices of peoples whom Roman writers grouped together as Germanic. It is one of the most important surviving Roman texts about northern Europe.
The book is not a neutral modern ethnographic survey. Tacitus used the peoples beyond the frontier to comment indirectly on Roman society, praising some perceived virtues while criticizing Roman luxury and moral decline. His information came from earlier writings, military reports, travelers, and possibly direct observations.
Readers should also distinguish Germania from Tacitus’s Annals, which narrates Roman history. Germania’s descriptions are valuable but sometimes difficult to verify, and the identity of several groups mentioned in it remains debated by modern historians.