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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY
his view of the first century A.D. generally. To understand Tacitus we must
pay special attention to the Agricola. Later he effectively conceals what he
would not have us know. Here his protective mask is still uncemented.
For the speeches at 30-4 Tacitus is much beholden to Sallust and Livy, for
his powerful and moving conclusion to Cicero. As yet he had not formed his
historical style, controlled, incisive, only intentionally ambiguous. In the
Agricola we find infelicities and obscurities, not all imputable to textual corruption,
and some padding. One may contrast the Dialogus. Here an appropriate
style was already available and Tacitus employed it with complete mastery.
For the Agricola no such guidance offered itself, and in style, as in structure,
this first essay is imperfect.
The Germarua has been subjected to microscopic study, and, where content
is concerned, survived the test tolerably well. Independent evidence tends to
confirm the information which Tacitus provides. He probably obtained it
from Book 104 of Livy, Pliny's lost Bella Germaniae, and (through them or
directly) certain Greek authorities, but seems to use considerable judgement
in selection. He may call on first-hand experience, his own or others', to
supplement and control his sources.
In 1—27 Tacitus deals with country and people generally, in 28—46 with the
individual tribes. The title De origine et situ Germanorum, 'On the origins
and homeland of the Germans', is well attested and probably genuine, but he is
just as interested in their character and way of life, mores and instituta (27.2).
No model for his work survives, unless we consider Herodotus as such, but
Livy's approach in Book 104 may have been similar, as may Seneca's in his
lost writings on Egypt and India. Tacitus may also have been influenced by
Sallust's excursus on the Black Sea in Histories 3, and by geographical digressions
in other historians. This affiliation to history helps to explain why the
Germarua is not purely descriptive, but full of comment and evaluation.
Tacitus wants to explain an alien people in terms which Romans can readily
understand. He shows that the Germans retain virtues which Rome once
possessed, but does not idealize them or hide their weaknesses. There is no
sustained contrast here, no consistent sermonizing. But Tacitus saw, as Seneca
had seen (ZPe ira 1.11.4), that the Germans posed a real, perhaps imminent,
threat to the empire, and plainly indicates as much (33.2 and 37.3—5). Insofar
as it embodies this message, the Germarua is a 'tract for the times', though
not intended to prompt or justify a specific policy. It is best described as an
ethnographical treatise written from a historical viewpoint.
Stylistically this is Tacitus' least happy work. A starkly scientific approach
was for such a writer inconceivable, but simple subject matter deserved simple
treatment. Instead we find an excess of crude rhetoric and verbal dexterity.
By repeated self-obtrusion Tacitus gives the unpleasant impression of seeking to
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