In his Study of History , Toynbee notes a great many 
reversals of form and dynamic, as when, in the middle of the 
fourth century A.D., the Germans in the Roman service began 
abruptly to be proud of their tribal names and to retain them. 
Such a moment marked new confidence born of saturation with 
Roman values, and it was a moment marked by the 
complementary Roman swing toward primitive values. (As 
Americans saturate with European values, especially since TV, 
they begin to insist upon American coach lamps, hitching 
posts, and colonial kitchenware as cultural objects.) Just as 
the barbarians got to the top of the Roman social ladder, the 
Romans themselves were disposed to assume the dress and 
manners of tribesmen out of the same frivolous and snobbish 
spirit that attached the French court of Louis XVI to the world 
of shepherds and shepherdesses. It would have seemed a 
natural moment for the intellectuals to have taken over while