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Chapter 11 - Lost in Germania

The Absence of History in Tacitus’ Ethnography

from Part II - Absence in Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2021

By
James McNamara
Edited by
Tom Geue  and
Elena Giusti
Tom Geue
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Elena Giusti
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

Tacitus’ Germania is notable for its absences: lacking a preface and programmatic statements, and being the only ethnographic monograph to have survived from Greco-Roman antiquity, readers have often leapt to fill in its perceived blanks. This chapter aims at redressing the effects of overdetermined readings by interpreting the text’s absences as significant in their own right.

Keywords

TacitusGermaniaJulius CaesarAgricolaethnographygeographyhistoriographynarrativedescription
Type
Chapter
Information
Unspoken Rome
Absence in Latin Literature and its Reception
 , pp. 201 - 218
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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