reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. His minor works, besides the
life of Agricola, already mentioned, are a "Dialogue on Orators" and the
account of Germany, its situation, its inhabitants, their character and
customs, which is here printed.

Tacitus stands in the front rank of the historians of antiquity for the
accuracy of his learning, the fairness of his judgments, the richness,
concentration, and precision of his style. His great successor, Gibbon,
called him a "philosophical historian, whose writings will instruct the
last generations of mankind"; and Montaigne knew no author "who, in a
work of history, has taken so broad a view of human events or given a
more just analysis of particular characters."

The "Germany" is a document of the greatest interest and importance,
since it gives us by far the most detailed account of the state of
culture among the tribes that are the ancestors of the modern Teutonic
nations, at the time when they first came into account with the
civilization of the Mediterranean.





TACITUS ON GERMANY


The whole of Germany is thus bounded; separated from Gaul, from Rhoetia
and Pannonia, by the rivers Rhine and Danube; from Sarmatia and Dacia by
mutual fear, or by high mountains: the rest is encompassed by the ocean,
which forms huge bays, and comprehends a tract of islands immense in