“auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium atque ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant”

“They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace.” - Calgacus as reported in Tacitus, Agricola.

It’s important first to know a bit about who Tacitus was. He was a Senator who lived during the latter half of the first century AD and wrote during the early second century AD. His most famous work is the masterpiece the Annals but he also wrote an ethnographic study of the Germans, Germania and an account of his father-in-laws’ exploits in Britain, Agricola. We are not sure where he originally is from but scholars assume Gallia Narbonensis (modern day Southern France). Yes he is a senator and had close associations with many of his contemporary senators but you might consider him a bit of an “outsider” in this regard, and of course may explain his sympathetic portrayal of barbarian peoples.

As an historian his intention was not only to record the past in an accurate manner, but also to act almost as a moraliser. You mentioned he tends to favour those in power, in fact most historians consider him to be against the power of the emperors, and he wishes to highlight the loss of libertas when the Republic died and the rule of the emperors took hold. But not only this, he wishes to show that the reason why the emperors gained power was because of the tacit enabling from the senatorial class. In his view the Senate traded a dangerous liberty under the Republic for indentured safety under the emperors i.e at the beginning of the Annals he says “those surviving senators enjoyed a wealth and status in proportion to their servility, and having profited from the revolution they now enjoy the present safety to the insecurity of the past”. In another of his work the Histories he also says that the period “was not without its virtue” and that there were a handful of Romans left who still adhered to old Roman virtues despite the depravity and degradation of the imperial age.

So to sum up: he is against power and the rule of the emperors, and sees the principate (rule of the emperors) as an extension of unchecked and corrupted power enabled by an increasingly morally bankrupt society.

With this in mind let’s turn to view of the barbarians. In all of Tacitus’ works there is a tendency to portray the “savage” enemies of Rome as having a rustic virtue that contrasts with the increasing depravity of the empire. So you have Calgacus in Agricola, but there’s also Caratacus in the Annals who also reflects a similar notion i.e his speech to the emperor Claudius following the conquest of Britain:

“If the degree of my nobility and fortune had been matched by moderation in success, I would have come to this City as a friend rather than a captive, nor would you have disdained to receive with a treaty of peace one sprung from brilliant ancestors and commanding a great many nations. But my present lot, disfiguring as it is for me, is magnificent for you. I had horses, men, arms, and wealth: what wonder if I was unwilling to lose them? If you wish to command everyone, does it really follow that everyone should accept your slavery? If I were now being handed over as one who had surrendered immediately, neither my fortune nor your glory would have achieved brilliance. It is also true that in my case any reprisal will be followed by oblivion. On the other hand, if you preserve me safe and sound, I shall be an eternal example of your clemency” Annals 12.37

As with Calgacus there is a simple, rustic yet proud tone to his speech - contrasting a virtuous barbarian to the corrupted Romans (in particular here Claudius’ wife Agrippina).

In the Germania the German tribes he describes appear almost as the polar opposite of the Romans. The Germans are fierce in battle, simple in their tastes, their women are chaste and virtuous and their chiefs rule by consent and lead by example. Contrast this with the unquestioned autocracy and subsequent depravity of the Romans. The Germans in Tacitus account cannot show guile (Germania 22) whilst the Roman court under the Julio-Claudians is full of intrigue.

In this sense we can therefore look at Tacitus as “romancing the noble savage” in that he is patronisingly describing the barbarians in his works as virtuous and noble only in the sense that they live outside the “civilising” but ultimately corruptible sphere of Roman dominance. Focusing on the resistance then on Calgacus and Caratacus make them martyrs to this cause. He is not alone in this, for example Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars opens with him saying the Belgic tribes are the most fierce, because they live the furthest away from Rome.

But there is a bit more complexity to Tacitus’ use of the Noble Savage trope. Yes Tacitus does seem to have a patronising view of the barbarian peoples, but he is looking at them through a Roman lens and in a sense holding up a mirror for his Roman audience. This ties into his role as moralising-historian - the barbarians are more “noble” than the civilised Romans but there is also a message that the Romans used to hold these simple notions of virtue too, but that they traded these in for wealth and status under the growing autocracy of the emperors. The barbarians resisting Roman rule is seen as virtuous in the sense that any resistance to the rule of the emperors or the prevailing decline of Roman morality would also be virtuous. As with all cases of the noble savage it says more about the “civilised” culture (in this case Rome) than it ever does about the barbarian.

Books: “Oxford Companion to Tacitus” with articles on this notion https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KBcxJk4LPkAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=tacitus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi5h8-yuJ3pAhXH2KQKHWNxBc4Q6wEIbDAJ#v=onepage&q=tacitus&f=false

Or

“A companion to Tacitus” which has good articles on this too: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AYnEqnyFOTMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=tacitus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwimn8LUuJ3pAhVEyaQKHecyB104ChDoATADegQIARAY#v=onepage&q=Noble%20savage&f=false