Laudator Temporis Acti

Tacitus, Germania 4.1 (tr. Anthony R. Birley):

I myself accept the view of those who judge that the peoples of Germany have never been contaminated by intermarriage with other nations and that the race remains unique, pure, and unlike any other.

ipse eorum opinionibus accedo, qui Germaniae populos nullis aliis aliarum nationum conubiis infectos propriam et sinceram et tantum sui similem gentem exstitisse arbitrantur.

J.B. Rives ad loc.:

The idea that the intermixture of peoples entailed degeneration was not unknown to the Romans: see the negative comments in Livy about the Galatians or, as the Romans called them, the Gallo-Greeks (38.17.9-13 and 46.1), or the emperor Claudius' remarks on the 'polluted blood' of Tarquinius Priscus, born from a Greek father and an Etruscan mother (ILS 212.i.12). Tacitus takes up this notion again at 46.1, in connection with the Peucini.

"38.17.9-13 and 46.1," i.e. Livy 38.17.9-13 and 38.46.1.

Herbert W. Benario ad loc.:

The first sentence of this chapter has perhaps had more effect upon the history of a modern people than any other from classical literature.

See Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (2004; rpt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 137-148.

Related posts on intermarriage:

• Birds of a Feather Flock Together
• Mixed Marriages
• Nothing in Common