[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

You are overlooking at a few facts: Rome was not founded upon a one only people. Other than the Italic Latins, the non Indo-European (Middle Eastern) Etruscan element was central to the construction of Roman Culture and Civilization, as well as other Italic and Celtic (Gaulish) elements.

If anyone, the Indo-Europeans were Middle Eastern, that we can say with relative certainty. The Etruscans origin is unknown, but they were likely a people ultimately from either Asia or the Middle East, just as the Indo-Europeans, and all the migratory groups with European destination before them. An option is that they were a native paleo-European group, who had developed a unique language and culture. Therefore, we dont have reason to assume they were a people dissimilar to other European peoples. Celts/Gauls were not central to the creation of Roman culture, but the Italic descending peoples indeed were - and the foundation of Rome was indeed Etruscan, but Rome is mainly a Helleno-Italic legacy, not an Etruscan. I do not deny the Etruscan foundation, though, but that is as the Graeco-Roman foundation of most European cultures today, with the difference that I would say the majority of what we know as Graeco-Roman was created by the Graeco-Romans themselves.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

But most important, the time period of the clash between Rome and the Gauls coincides with the medium to late stages of a Celtic culture known as the Civilization of La Tène.

I am familiar with La Tène Celts.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

I'm afraid that you are confusing the concept of aristocratic here, strangely enough with the concept of democratic. You should look into the adoption figures of adoptio and adrogatio in the Roman society, which were common in the Senatorial class and which crossed the borders not only between patricians and plebeians, but also with libertos (freed slaves).

I dont know where you get that idea, but I am pretty certain what aristocratic means.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Actually, out of consistency as you can figure from my response farther above.

These clashes between Rome and the Celts (and Carthage) belong to a momentum of civilizational change, or releave.

They are wars, nothing more or less. I dont believe the Gallic invasions were particularly constructive, not more so than the Terror Cimbricus, and Romans certainly did not see Gauls as being central in any way to their culture. Before the Gallic kingdoms became part of the Roman Empire, they were seen as barbarians, and this view never quite disappeared, all though of their progress. The barbarians was first and foremost a designation for anyone non-Graeco-Roman.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

This is indeed my prerogative. Please, allow me to explain.

For a start, germanicness is too vast and too generic a concept to be truly meaningful when referring to the identity of peoples of solid and ancient heritages. Often used as a meta-linguistic and meta-cultural concept, its impact over those peoples is the contrary to the impact over other peoples which are today considered as Germanic.

The Germanic meta-ethnicity is not more fallacious than any other meta-ethnicity. The Celtic meta-ethnicity, by your analogy, becomes meaningless when we consider the progress of the Gauls in the Roman Empire, by parallel to the Franks, and thus by this logic Gauls by becoming civilized are no longer Celts, and Franks vice versa.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

But most important, with the particular case of the Goths and Spain, one must take into account a number of important details. One such is that the Goths (and, in general, all or most other tribes of an East Germanic origin) had forged their character and their identity through a long and legendary wandering that set them apart enough from their primitive (in the sense of primigenial, but not assuming it as an absolute primigenial origin) Germanic character and identity.

But they still kept their cultural and folkloric traditions, even some language and idiosyncrasies as influences on their unique version of Romanitas. The same can be said of the Gauls.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Indeed they had evolved away from what it is the Germanic Urheimat, for a time enough to mark a character and an identity of their own. A Gothic one.

The same can be said of the Jutes of the British Isles, who were very Roman influenced, but still kept their name and ancestry in Jutland, and unique cultural version of Romanitas. The Goths are of Balto-Scandinavian origin, and this fact does not compromise just because they had cultural progress in their migratory destinations. They were still Goths, after all, and they still had their unique Gothic styled Roman influenced culture.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Which I admit, providing that you admit the differences between the Goths and the bulk of the Germanic peoples.

They are part of what we call the Germanic peoples, whether we like it or not. Cultural changes do not disqualify them as Germanic, it simply represents a part of the larger picture of Romanicization of Germanic peoples, and of all European peoples. Whether we find the Germanic meta-ethnicity relevant after this, is a question which cannot be asked if you dont also ask the same concerning the Celts and any other European people which has undergone cultural changes towards civilization and now modernity, after its primitive stages.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

But before you jump to conclusions, let me tell you that I assume that as part of our heritage (the Gothic part) and that I do not make responsible for it to a wide and generic supposed Germanic character. And less so to the largely unrelated modern Germanic peoples.

Well, you certainly attempt to make a case for not being the slightest bit Germanic. But you can only fail, because the Goths were indeed a Germanic people, with a Germanic origin, who assimilated to Romanitas, just as so many other peoples, Gaulish and Celtic did.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

They were a dynamic part of what came to be Romanitas.

So were any people who ever encountered Romans. That does not make them central in any way to Romanitas, such as the Hellenic, the Italic and the Etruscans were.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

The Roman Empire was not a homogenous as you might think. There was, always, an underlying feeling of what was called provincial identity apart from the central Roman administration. Further, this identity resurged after the fall of Rome in the less romanicized areas.

The Italians and the Greek indeed did not identify with Franks or the Gauls just because they were part of the Roman Empire.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

I have never denied that the northern populations assimilated Romanitas. I believe that I've pointed to that as a fact, several times.

So perhaps we are no longer Germanic?

I would say in a modern context, no meta-ethnicity is absolutely meaningful. That is why notions such as pan-Germanism, pan-Celticism, pan-Slavism, and so on, are destructive, to what has come to be, long after the formation of respective Indo-European branches. They are only meaningful to have a minimal understanding of the genesis of the modern peoples that today make up Europe. No one is a true Celt any longer, as no one is a true "Slav" nor a true "Germanic". And that is not to speak of all the paradoxes within the meta-ethnicities and in their formations. But there is not one meta-ethnicity with which it is more so than others - you will find paradoxes in all of them. The only fact we can know is that the majority of what is now our cultures (in all of Europe) has been created after the primitive barbaric state everyone has gone through at one point or the other. The Graeco-Roman legacy, Romanitas, is specifically central to the majority of modern European cultures, more so than i.e. the ways of our ancestors before post-barbarism or post-primitivism.