Word: tacitus
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...widely forgotten that German history did not begin in 1933. Nor did it begin in 1871, when Bismarck created the autocratic Second Reich. German history goes back more than 2,000 years, to a murky era when a variety of Germanic tribes lived in a land that, according to Tacitus, "either bristles with forests or reeks with swamps." Even then, German tribesmen had a reputation as fearsome fighters, and it was immensely important to the future history of Europe that they annihilated three Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest in A.D. 9, leaving the Rhine as the frontier between...
...Bielefeldr is today, an army of German tribesmen lay in wait for three Roman legions advancing from the Rhine. Led by the chieftain Arminius, the Germans ambushed the veteran legionaries and massacred them. Rome never again tried to extend its empire far beyond the Rhine. The Roman historian Tacitus called Arminius' ferocious style of warfare the furor Teutonicus: given to drinking and fighting, the Germans, he wrote, were tough, hardened warriors "fanatically loyal to their leaders." Concluded Tacitus: "Rest is unwelcome to the race...