who were the Romans? modern day Italy?
Thank you.
Michelle Zirkle
MyReply
Dear Michelle,
You raise an interesting question. I’ve devoted so much of my time to researching the history and migrations of the ten tribes of Israel that I have not had time to do any exhaustive studies of the original Latin origins of the Romans.
As my books document, the original Latin population of the Roman Empire dwindled greatly in the later years of the empire. Warfare and widespread pestilences greatly reduced their population. In the latter period of the Western Roman Empire, for instance, the “Roman army” was dominated by Romanized Germans, Goths, Vandals, etc. who fought under the aegis of Rome for money, citizenship or other considerations. These non-Roman populations increasingly settled larger and larger sections of the old Roman territory. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1943 Edition, Vol. 19, p. 396) records: “…the empire…enlisted barbarians to fight barbarians and added freely to the non-Roman elements of the army…The importance of the legions dwindled; the chief soldiers were the mercenaries, mostly Germans…” The reason the decaying Roman Empire had to enlist non-Romans in the army is because there were increasingly fewer “Latin” Romans left. The modern people of Italy likely include some of the original Latin element, but most Italians are descended from the various tribes and groups which inhabited various portions of Italy after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Steve
