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.
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,[REF] due to the similar appearance of Slavs and Germans [REF].