Why Cornelius Tacitus described "Venedi" as Germanic people?

[Vlatko Vukovic]

"The most exhaustive Roman treatment of the Veneti comes in Germania by Tacitus, who, writing in AD 98, locates the Veneti among the peoples on the eastern fringe of Germania. He was uncertain of their ethnic identity, classifying them as Germans based on their way of life but not based on their language (in comparison to, for example, the Peucini (Bastarnae).

Despite this rather "functional" accounting of the Veneti as belonging amongst the Germanic tribes, slavists such as Pavel Josef Šafařík have criticized Tacitus for identifying the Venethi as Germanic,[7] due to the similar appearance of Slavs and Germans."

Any opinions?

[Drusilla]

Tacitus hesitates how to classify the Peucini, the Veneti and the Fenni, whether as Germas or Sarmatians. Each in different ways seems to combine German and Sarmatian traits of appearance, language, habit and custom.

[Linebacker]

Because they were not any different in basic appearance from the Germanic tribesmen.They were light colored big and scary barbarians.

Ancient Slavic paganism also does not differ much from Germanic and Norse.They might have confused their rituals for Germanic also.

[Vlatko Vukovic]

Tacitus hesitates how to classify the Peucini, the Veneti and the Fenni, whether as Germas or Sarmatians. Each in different ways seems to combine German and Sarmatian traits of appearance, language, habit and custom.

Yes.. But we don't know how sounded language which used Sarmatian tribes.. but they had heavy nomadic life as well which was very different from early mentioned Slavs (descedants of Veneti) ; Antes and Sclavenians
One more interesting thing is that remains of Sarmatians, who were tested was almost all haplogroup R1b , but modern Slavic nations have mostly R1a-Z280, also M458, but I2 as well. R1b is alive in Poland mostly. This descriptions of Tacitus are very confusing...

[Ülev]

lol, picture with "оружие славян" was made recently and who knows how much true it is?

[Vlatko Vukovic]

Because they were not any different in basic appearance from the Germanic tribesmen.They were light colored big and scary barbarians.

Ancient Slavic paganism also does not differ much from Germanic and Norse.They might have confused their rituals for Germanic also.

I agree, but i don't understand how he didn't realize that those tribes speak 2 totally different branches of languages. Centum (Germanics) and Satem (Slavics).

[Drusilla]

He was uncertain of their ethnic identity, classifying them as Germans based on their way of life.

[Vlatko Vukovic]

lol, picture with "оружие славян" was made recently and who knows how much true it is?

Yes.. but i already said here: Germanic tribesmen always spoke Centum branch of languages, but Slavs (in this time Venedi) - Satem.

[Linebacker]

lol, picture with "оружие славян" was made recently and who knows how much true it is?

Its early medieval which is a little later in time,but except the heavy mail not much has changed.

[Mingle]

From your text:

classifying them as Germans based on their way of life but not based on their language