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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sallent, post: 2780646, member: 76194&quot;]Yes and no!&nbsp; The Rome of 300 BCE was quite different from the Rome of 100 BCE due to the influence of thr new Greek colonies it aquired. Roman culture, which was quite austere by nature, had mutated into a more refined and more culturally Hellenistic society, yet the essence of Rome and it&#039;s power survived and thrived. So new cultural influences do not necessarily bring decline or spell doom.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]643111[/ATTACH]</p><p>*A little Hellenism never hurt no one</p><p><br /></p><p>And even at Pompey we have found names in property boundaries that are quite foreign, suggesting a large foreign population. Yet the Pompey of the first Century CE was quite Roman in nature, despite the prevalence of foreign Gods and foreign religious and cultural influences, so obviously mass migration did not doom Roman society at that point either.</p><p><br /></p><p>Examining tomb inscriptions might shed some light. The new Romans, of foreign extraction, at heart wanted to be Romans too, and adapted quite easily to their new lives and to the duties expected of them in their new societies. The new culture and ideas they brought with them became Romanized and uniquely adapted to their new society. Which is not odd considering Rome was always an amalgamation of different cultures (Latin, Greek, Etruscan, Galic, etc).</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]643113[/ATTACH]</p><p>* He might have spoken with a funny accent, but he was quite an emperor.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even foreign Emperors from the provinces did not necessarily doom Rome. Trajan spoke Latin with such a heavy provincial accent that people poked fun at it, and he was a little rough by Roman high society standards, yet him and Hadrian (another outsider from the provinces) saw Rome at the height of it&#039;s glory, despite being foreigners by Roman standards.</p><p><br /></p><p>Again, these new Romans were quite Roman in character, and wanted to be part of Rome and benefit and fit into their new society in the same way the migrants and new Romans from years past had desired to do so. That trait more than compensated for their foreign names, accents, and somewhat foreign mannerisms and customs.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even in the late empire we find recent Romans of foreign barbarian stock rising&nbsp; to promimence and doing their best to protect, preserve, and ensure the well-being of their new Homeland, and trying to preserve and promote a Roman essence and spirit.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]643114[/ATTACH]</p><p>*This provincial peasant of barbarian stock did wonders for the Empire</p><p><br /></p><p>So no, foreigners did not just come in wanting to destroy the empire and change everything to the barbarian way. Many tried and adapted to Roman culture, and did their upmost to preserve Rome, even if they themselves were of lowly barbarian stock.</p><p><br /></p><p>What doomed the Empire (which was still relatively strong&nbsp; and stable in the 4rth century despite the chaos of the previous century) was the collapse of the army and the tax base in the wake of the disaster of 379 CE. I wrote a thread about it recently.&nbsp; No matter how much the new and old Romans might have wished to preserve the empire, you can&#039;t do so after failing to preserve the borders against opportunistic conquerors, and losing wealthy provinces (with the respective loss of manpower and tax revenue) to better organized barbarian groups that had learned from the Romans how to beat the Romans at their own game.</p><p><br /></p><p>You see, the Barbarians were not so primitive and disorganized anymore by the late 4rth century, and the new migrant Romans and old stock Romans failed to cope with that and address the threat in a timely and appropriate (effective) manner.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]643124[/ATTACH]</p><p>* This emperor learned that lesson the hard way.</p><p><br /></p><p>While history has modern parallels, one should be careful not to assume the world of ancient times and the problems they faced fit neatly to the modern world we live in, otherwise one can draw the wrong conclusions from history by failing to account for the differences. Yes, some of the problems we face today have many similarities, but there are also many uniquely different causes too.</p><p><br /></p><p>Keep in mind that culture, like language, is fluid and forever changing. Even in a somewhat close society, culture will change over time (just look at Japanese society from the 10th to 14th century). That in itself is not necessary degeneracy, but evolution. Cultural degeneracy is a far more complex topic, which I will not address here as my post is getting rather long.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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