ABSTRACT
Western and Eastern Rome were the principal Occidental focal points of political attraction and international organization when the new tribal peoples from the north began to press their northern frontiers. Rome was vulnerable not only to the military attacks of the barbarians but also to their political maneuvers. Between the fourth and the tenth centuries A.D. a number of the Germanic nations beyond the Alps were romanized, converted to Christianity, and accepted as political partners in the Latin Roman Empire. The transfer of strength within the Muslim ranks was paralleled by a drastic change in the balance of power throughout the Mediterranean world. After the elimination of Christian Eastern Rome, Islam was supreme in the entire Near Eastern and Central Asian realm, and Christendom gradually became centered in the West. The impact of the revealed religions upon the course of world affairs was as ambivalent as the religious themes to which these creeds bore witness.
