Were the Germans physically superior?

[Lyceum]

Gladiolus lit means little sword and was actually used, esp in colloquial Latin, though it often meant...well...you can guess, if the word for scabbard came to mean lady bits...well

Wow! That's a very long list of "facts", Abe. Could you provide any documentation to support a few of those?

The Romans defeated most of their foes because of superior tactics, and because they did not seek towards individual glory in battle, but stayed together in their fighting units. Many of the tribal societies they fought(Germanics, Gauls, Britons, et al.) fought to show their "champion" was better than the other tribe's "champion". That didn't do much when the Romans refused to come out of ranks and do individual combat. It had nothing much to do with their "genetic freakism", just training and tactics, and keeping a cool head.

German historians, who were the main writers of the Roman history books that we have known.

I guess, then, Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Polybius were all Germans?

I agree about your comment on the "facts", however I wouldn't dismiss said posters comments automatically, even if I wouldn't agree either:

"genetic freakism" well no (though the differences between the Romans and modern populations is fact), but we know from osteoanalysis that they generally had much better diets and medical care, this is important. Also as for not breaking ranks, sure this is very important but so was individual fama think about the spolia opima (probs originally optuma), the various coronae for being first over a wall, saving a comrade etc. I'd say the Roman soldier was superior in every fashion, including one on one. Diet, training and gear make a LOT of difference. Plus they had swords in large numbers, frightening weapon...

German historians: Well obviously he's not talking about Tacitus etc but it is important to consider how these have been interpreted vs the original cultural tropes. German Historiography stinks of what Hans Gehrke calls "intentionale geschichte" and I'd bear this in mind, there have also been some studies precisely on the reception of Roman historiography in this area that are worth reading, the most famous are: Tacitus’s “Germania” From the Roman Empire to the Third Reich By Christopher B. Krebs and Herwig Wolfram's The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples.

I also came across an excellent volume published by OUP in the library once which touched on this sort of stuff, I can't remember the title and its really frustrating, Rome and the Germans? Rome and the Germanics? The Germanic Peoples and Rome?

Its a fascinating subject and well worth diving into, I don't think we should shoe horn this kind of stuff because it was articulated by an overly zealous first time poster without citations or logic.

EDIT: Also realised that besides the intellectual history viewpoint it might be handy to recommend something on the Roman ethnographic tradition itself, like Emma Dench's "Romulus' Asylum" which has a great chapter and and an extensive bibliography.