Tacitus ( AD 56 - 120 ) was a Roman historian. He described the Germanic tribes in his work:"The Germania" ( "De origine et situ Germanorum"). He criticized the degeneracy and immorality of Roman society. In this work the Germans symbolized an agrarian culture with martial virtues. He thought that the taint of foreign decadence led the Romans into moral decay. Tacitus used the Germanic peoples as a cultural mirror.