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Who were the Germani and where did they come from?

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But who were these Germanic tribes? Where did they come from? And what makes them unique? In the year 98 BC, the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus published a brief but comprehensive description of the contemporaneous Germanic peoples under the well-known name “Germania.” There Tacitus says: “The Germanic tribes themselves are indigenous and scarcely mixed with outside peoples, whether by migration or by invitation. This is because they originally arrived at their new homeland on ships and not by land. And also, ships from the Roman Empire rarely visit these people, since the ocean seems unending and must be traversed. Besides, who would want to brave the dangers of a terrible and unknown sea to leave Asia or Africa or Italy to search for this land of the German tribes? To all but those who call it their homeland, this is a monstrous land with a horrible climate, as barren to the eye as it is for cultivation.(1)


 (1) M. Hutton and W. Peterson (Loeb Classical Library) translate this passage: “As for the Germans themselves I should suppose them to be indigenous and very slightly blended with new arrivals from other races or alliances; for originally people who sought to migrate reached their destinations in fleets and not by land; while, in the second place, the leagues of ocean on the farther side of Germany, at the opposite end of the world, so to speak, from us, are rarely visited by ships from our world. Besides, who, to say nothing about the perils of an unknown sea, would have left Asia or Africa or Italy to look for Germany? With its wild scenery and harsh climate it is pleasant neither to live in nor to look upon unless it be one’ fatherland.”

 
 

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