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While they were in most respects stingy by modern standards, the fact that they had any form of naturalization at all was a radical break from all of their Mediterranean neighbors e.g. Athens where only people with two citizen parents were citizens themselves or Sparta with its permanent helot underclass, and this contributed to Roman military dominance as they were able to radically increase their available manpower over time. I also think the sort of mass granting of citizenship to allies as a reward for military service that Rome engaged in would be seen as radical even today, something akin to the US giving all inhabitants of Sonora citizenship in exchange for them suppressing the cartels (the closest modern equivalent might be the French Foreign Legion, which is relatively small).
If we're going by the standard chronology, where the zenith of Roman power is the death of Trajan in 117 AD, then I don't see how this is true. 2 of the 5 Good Emperors were Iberians and no one seems to have cared, not to mention the long string of Illyrian emperors who ended the third century crises and founded one, if not the greatest of Roman cities i.e. Constantinople. On that note, the fact that a bunch of Greeks went around for a thousand years calling themselves Romans seems evidence enough of the assimilatory power of Roman institutions (interestingly enough these Romans functioned more and more like a nation as they lost territory and became weaker, but it certainly wasn't the same as the original nation).
Assimilating elites and the masses are different things and changes in politics and technology matter here.
I don't think most Britons are worried about Asians who went to Harrow, which I suppose would be the equivalent to Greek and Gallic nobles fully buying into Rome.
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Good points all around. My person take is that Rome reached its zenith with the fall of Carthage. The territorial gains for the next 200 years were just the inevitable consolidation. But I recognize this might be a minority view.
And you are right to mention Sparta which largely died out because of sub replacement level fertility.
Sparta’s actual fertility rate is unknown; citizen oliganthropia in Sparta was caused by runaway inequality driving citizens below the property requirements for citizenship.
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