It's a symptom of postmodernism that nowhere in this text is it even suggested that Tacitus is maybe just, you know, relating the facts about Germancius as accurately as he can.
Instead we're sitting here quibbling over what literary fiction trope "Tacitus's Germanicus" fulfills in his "story"
Instead we're sitting here quibbling over what literary fiction trope "Tacitus's Germanicus" fulfills in his "story"