Were the Germans physically superior?

[Robert Vermaat]

I have always felt that Tacitus was reliable and not a writer of unfounded rumor. He may not have actually visited Germania but his father-in-law did, and that's how Tacitus got his info. As for Polybius? :?: We can better look to Vegetius, "What could the short Roman soldier dare to do against the tall German." (Veg. Epitome, I,i) Or perhaps we can ask Caesar who knew the Germans first-hand and up close-- "... owing the nature of the food, the regular exercise, and the freedom of life, nurses their strength and makes men of immense bodily stature." (Caes. de Bello Gallico, IV, 2)
I don't think these Roman authors were forming stereotypes, but rather they knew-- by looking with their own eyes-- that Germans were physically larger than they were. Also, I'm sure that archaeological comparisons have been made, but my personal library has mostly "the really old guys."

ALL classic authors used stereotype. Jona wrote a nice article about that, and Halsall also mentions it - it was that they meant to fool the audience, but it was what the audience axpected of the author. That why elephants were always smelly, and foreign lands always mountainous and heavily wooded (even if they were not and Romans knew that). I think that the savage large German is part of the same stereotype, which made humans less and less human the further they were from Roman territory.

Tacitus is not different. He described the Fenni as

"astonishingly wild and horribly poor. They have no arms, no horses, no homes. They eat grass, dress in skins, and sleep on the ground. Their only hope is in their arrows, which, for lack of iron, they tip with bone. The same hunt provides food for men and women alike; for the women go everywhere with the men and claim a share in securing the prey. The only way they can protect their babies against wild beasts or foul weather is to hide them under a makeshift network of branches. This is the hovel to which the young men come back, this is where the old must lie. Yet they count their lot happier than that of others who groan over field labour, sweat over house-building, or hazard their own or other men's fortunes in the wild lottery of hope and fear. They care for nobody, man or god, and have gained the ultimate release: they have nothing to pray for. What comes after them is the stuff of fables—Hellusii and Oxiones with the faces and features of men, but the bodies and limbs of animals." (Germania, 46).