Skip to main content

ETHNOS_APP

Home • Search • Journals • List 0

Zur interpretatio Romana in der ,Germania' des Tacitus

Bibliographic Data

ID20320431
AuthorsAllan A Lund (corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume59
Issue4
Pages289-310
Publication date2007-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueZeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0044-3441 • E-ISSN: 1570-0739
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/157007307781787570
OpenAlexW2019754539
LanguageIT
Citations received3

This article demonstrates that Tacitus, who coined the term interpretatio Romana, used this concept differently than today's historians of religion. Tacitus differentiated between universal and local gods. It is also shown that this differentiation fits the author's structuring of "Germania", which he divides into a general and a specific part. This carries far-reaching consequences because for instance the cult of the Semnones is a local superstitio in tacitean terms, and the common identification of Roman with ”Germanic“ gods since J. Grimm must be abandoned. Finally, the article establishes that G. Wissowa's seminal work on interpretatio Romana, which assumes the deity cults of Germania superior and inferior, fails to take into account that Tacitus, as a historian of religion, merely dealt with "authentic" and "original" Germania

Art · Cult · Identification (biology) · Literature · Theology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Philosophy

  • Gods and Humans in Medieval Scandinavia

    Jonas Wellendorf•Gods and Humans in Medieval…•2018

  • Moving the North

    Nikolas O Hoel•Viking and Medieval Scandinavia•2021

  • Traces of the Gods

    Jonas Richter•Numen•2012

Citations per year0.21
Citation span2012 - 2021 (10)
Highly citedNo

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub
Ethnos_APP • Open Source Project • MIT License • Frontend v2.0.0 • Privacy and Cookies • API Documentation: api.ethnos.app/docs • API Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17049435 • Frontend Source Code: GitHub • DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17050053 • cruz.rio.br • Expectantes Misericordiae