Germania

Germania was the name proposed for Berlin had Nazi Germany won WWII. More on Welthauptstadt Germania

Germania was in the Roman era a geographical area that stretched from the west bank of the Rhine to the east bank of the Elbe, and that was inhabited by different tribes, most of which probably spoke Proto-Germanic languages. It was divided into two areas: 'the inner Germania', west and south of the Rhine, occupied by the Romans, and 'the free Germania' east of the Rhine. The occupied Germania was divided into two provinces: Germania Inferior (approximately corresponding to the southern part of the present-day Low Countries) and Germania Superior (approximately corresponding to present-day Switzerland and Alsace).

Germania is a work by Tacitus that describes the nature and location of the diverse set of Germanic tribes around 100 CE.

In the Germania, Tacitus surveys the lands, customs, and governments of the Germanic peoples. His treatment of the tribes outside the empire is of mixed value to historians: he uses what he reports of the German character as a kind of 'noble savage' as a comparison to contemporary Romans and their (in his eyes) 'degeneracy'. Thanks to this portrayal, the work was popular in Germany -- especially among German nationalists and German Romantics -- from the sixteenth century on.

Despite this bias, he does supply us with many names for tribes with which Rome had come into contact. Tacitus' information was not, in general, based on first-hand knowledge, and more recent research has shown that many of his assumptions were incorrect. In fact, contemporary historians debate whether all these tribes were really Germanic in the sense that they spoke a Germanic language - some of them, like the Batavii, may have been Celts. He is also to blame for the misnaming of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, which did not quite take place in the saltus Teutoburgiensis, as he claimed in the Germania.

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