This essay is twofold: firstly, a thorough historical background into the internal decline and external conquest of the Roman empire by "barbarian" Germanic, Hunnish, and Slavic peoples, and the shift of historical control and advancement of Europe from Italian to Germanic peoples. Secondly, a first-hand look at the ancient Roman and Germanic Gothic capital of Ravenna

Decline and Conquest of the Roman Empire, or the Germanic Political Annexation of Roman Western Europe:

By 100CE, the Romans had exerted authority over a domain stretching from the southern moors of Scotland to Iberia, from Dacia (Romania) to Jordan, and from the Greek city-states to Algeria. Despite ruling nearly all of the known world, the Romans were never able to conquer two enemies: the reborn Zoroastrian Iranian state under the Parthian and Sassanid dynasties, and the Germanic "barbarian tribes" and confederations to the north. The military invincibility of the Romans ended in embarrassing disaster in 9CE when several Roman legions marching into central Germania were butchered and sent back to Rome after the German cultural hero Hermann (in Latin "Arminius") united Germanic military confederated states and tribes into a cultural defensive front against the coming Romans. They never were able to press further. Other peoples outside of "barbarian Germania", however, quickly fell victim to the military, economic, and political supremacy of the Romans for the next several hundred years

The period of 200-500CE were a period of gradual decline, schism, internal dispute, pretending leaders, and perceived moral decay. The issue of immorality of the Roman people was allegedly so abhorrent that it encouraged the Roman historian Tacitus to travel to Germania in the late 1st century, where he portrayed the Germans in some way as a type of moral and political role model for the Romans. The Germans were portrayed as simple, honest, sexually and socially moral, not adulterous, religiously pious, well-disciplined, less advanced, and talented warriors. This may simply be the "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" phenomenon that was an attempt to explain a perceived political and moral decline in the Roman empire, or may be true. Nonetheless, a gradual political, social, and moral decline was detected by the Romans in their own lands even whilst military expansion of Rome was at its height of this most magnificent empire that built much of Europe practically from nothing into advancement.

In the early 4th century, a new and near mythified enemy emerged from the plains of the east. Whilst the Germans were deemed too unorganized to directly annex or assault the Romans (though they did both multiple times), this strange force was united under a common banner and leader wise with military and tactical advancement. These were the Hunnish tribes of Atli (or Attila). Their ethnic origin and linguistic roots are today debated. In reality, the steppes of Central Asia from Ukraine and eastern pre-Slavic Poland to the borders of modern China and down to today's Armenia were populated by Iranian peoples called Sarmatians and Scythians. From 400 onward, Turkic peoples began to appear whilst the Iranians of Central Asia declined to insignificance (most dying or returning southward to their ethnic homeland of Sassanid Iran), expelled by the superior and unified hordes of the Turkic peoples. As the Huns meet this timeframe, it is appropriate to imply that the Huns were a pre-Islamic Turkic people with a Turkic-based or isolated language. Mongol people like the Uzbeks and Kazakhs entered Central Asia much later. These Huns were military geniuses well-versed in equestrian tactics. They soon became the triumphal power of Eurasia. Whilst the Romans were unable to conquer the Germans, the Huns quickly succeeded. The military conquest by the Huns of Central and Southern Europe (all of which the Germanic Gothic peoples previously exerted almost universal authority) triggered a migration known as the Age of Migrations. This caused Germans (who were the buffer between the invincible Huns and the Romans to the south) to not only move westward, northward, and southward, but also to coalesce, advance, and culturally and politically unify in the face of foreign annihilation. The Slavic peoples of Russia also began to move westward, also attacking the Romans on occasion.

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