Tacitus (54-119),[6] who is sometimes credited with being the greatest of Roman historians, published his treatise on the _Origin, Location, Manners, and Inhabitants of Germany_ in the year 98. This was about a century and a half after Caesar wrote his _Commentaries_. During this long interval we have almost no information as to how the Germans were living or what they were doing. There is much uncertainty as to the means by which Tacitus got his knowledge of them. We may be reasonably sure that he did not travel extensively through the country north of the Rhine; there is, in fact, not a shred of evidence that he ever visited it at all. He tells us that he made use of Caesar's account, but this was very meager and could not have been of much service. We are left to surmise that he drew most of his information from books then existing but since lost, such as the writings of Posidonius of Rhodes (136-51 B.C.) and Pliny the Elder (23-79). These sources were doubtless supplemented by the stories of officials and traders who had been among the Germans and were afterwards interviewed by the historian. Tacitus's essay, therefore, while written with a desire to tell the truth, was apparently not based on first-hand information. The author nowhere says that he had _seen_ this or that feature of German life. We may suppose that what he really did was to gather up all the stories and reports regarding the German barbarians which were already known to Roman traders, travelers, and soldiers, sift the true from the false as well as he could, and write out in first class Latin the little book which we know as the _Germania_. The theory that the work was intended as a satire, or sermon in morals, for the benefit of a corrupt Roman people has been quite generally abandoned, and this for the very good reason that there is nothing in either the treatise's contents or style to warrant such a belief. Tacitus wrote the book because of his general interest in historical and geographical subjects, and also, perhaps, because it afforded him an excellent opportunity to display a literary skill in which he took no small degree of pride. That it was published separately instead of in one of his larger histories may have been due to public interest in the subject during Trajan's wars in the Rhine country in the years 98 and 99. The first twenty-seven chapters, from which the selections below are taken, treat of the Germans in general--their origin, religion, family life, occupations, military tactics, amusements, land system, government, and social classes; the last nineteen deal with individual tribes and are not so accurate or so valuable. It will be found interesting to compare what Tacitus says with what Caesar says when both touch upon the same topic. In doing so it should be borne in mind that there was a difference in time of a century and a half between the two writers, and also that while Tacitus probably did not