When he wrote the _Agricola_, Tacitus was already planning a great history of his own times, for which he had at least begun to accumulate materials. [Sidenote: The Germania.] In the _Germania_ (_De Origine Situ Moribus ac Populis Germaniæ_) the material collected to serve as introductory to the account of the wars in Germany is published as a separate work. The little treatise is interesting as the earliest extant connected account of the country and inhabitants of northern Europe. A few of the statements contained in it are manifestly incorrect, but for the most part, what Tacitus tells us agrees with and supplements what we know from other sources. The essay is a compilation from various earlier works, among which Pliny’s _History of the German Wars_ was no doubt the most important, though Tacitus probably consulted the works of Cæsar, Velleius Paterculus, and others, besides obtaining information from some of the many Romans who had served in the army in Germany. There is no indication that Tacitus was ever in Germany himself. As a literary production the _Germania_ is far inferior to the _Agricola_, though written at about the same time. In the _Agricola_ Tacitus expresses his own feelings for his father-in-law, whom he evidently loved and respected, while in the _Germania_ there is little room for feeling of any sort, and none for emotion. Yet, with all the difference in literary merit, the two works show the style of Tacitus at the same stage. There are still some remnants of Ciceronian smoothness, but these are evidently survivals. The tendency to use concise, even abbreviated phrases, to add point to expressions by verbal antithesis or by inversion of order, and to make his sentences imply more than the words actually express, is characteristic of Tacitus’s mature style and is evident, though not yet fully developed, in the _Agricola_ and the _Germania_ alike.