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06520_Field_TCUM T85.txt
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1996-04-10
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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