Similarly, if his art or architecture embodies native fashions or displays a local style, if special types of houses or of tombstones or sculpture occur in special districts, that does not mar the result.

These are not efforts to regain an earlier native life.

They are not the enemies of Roman culture, but its children--sometimes, indeed, its adopted children--and they signify the birth of new Roman fashions.
It remains true, of course, that, till a language or a custom is wholly dead and gone, it can always revive under special conditions.

The rustic poor of a country seldom affect the trend of its history.

But they have a curious persistent force.