cf I think the speech he gives to Boudicca in Annals XIV, where she puts her case in a far more cogent and classically-rhetorical way than could possibly have been realistic. Here, and in the account of the Britons' grievances, we see Tacitus 'imaginatively projecting aspects of old-style Romanitas.'
>It is generally agreed that Tacitus idealized the Germanic barbarians to >some extent, in order to make the point that his fellow Romans couldn't >afford to fall into slackness and decadence. Whenever a writer belonging >to an imperialistic people praises certain virtues that the conquered have >and the conquerors lack, it should probably be viewed as a rhetorical >trope--i.e., "If THEY can live a moral life, then WE, who are really their >superiors, ought to be able to do so _a fortiori_." In other words, the >writer doesn't really believe deep down that the Others are better than >his own people, but he wants to shame his own people into living up to >higher standards. Aphra Behn does this sort of thing in _Oroonoko_, a >work written just when the English were on the cusp of empire; no doubt >many other British writers of the last three hundred years have done >likewise. So, you see, it's not that Tacitus wants to abandon Romanitas >and "go native"; rather, he is imaginatively projecting onto the >Germanic peoples some aspects of old-style Romanitas that the Romans >themselves have, to his regret, been neglecting. _Germania_ therefore is >not an altogether reliable source of factual information about the >Germanic peoples; it is more a wake-up call for the Roman people. >Randi Eldevik >Oklahoma State University ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
