Note 1059 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN (continued 2)

It is generally suggested that the constant immigration of barbarians and their wholesale collocation in the army must have gradually undermined the civilization of the Empire. But a great state is able to digest an enormous quantity of such accretions; and in the pride of their recent elevation such new citizens would have become more Roman than the Romans themselves. The great Transatlantic Republic has been built up during three centuries by the immigration of alien barbarians. For a good summary of the peaceful settlement of barbarians in the Roman territories see Bury, op. cit., i, p. 31.