[Antoninus]

Culturally, the Goths that settled in Italy were more Roman than Belisarius. While the Eastern Empire had long forgotten many of the customs of Rome (always being more Greek), the Goths practiced them meticulously as best they were able.

Now, of course, you're going to give me a list examples of specifically what customs you're talking about, right? Militarily, you may have a point. Beyond that, I don't think so.

You also conspicuously leave out the Arab copyists from your list of the saviors of civilization. However, that wouldn't fit your Christian agenda too well, would it?

I'm all together willing to credit certain Muslim sources for preserving some of Greco-Roman culture for posterity. (Of course, this is not to mention the legendary stories of Mohammed's successor Omar burning both the Alexandrian library and the Persian royal library in the 7th century.) I don't see how this weakens the case for plaudits going to the Christians in Rome, Ireland, Constantinople, and other places for their centuries of yeoman efforts to preserve works that would otherwise be lost forever.

And let's not forget to evaluate the results of such preservation. In the West, it led to rational scholarship, science, and exploration which the Church supported and encouraged and still does. In the Arab East, there were occasional bursts of activity in the sciences, but these were most often in spite of the Islamic authorities as opposed to encouraged by them. And of course, many of our Islamic friends today are still living in conditions that the Romans and Greeks would consider "barbaric."

[TheAngryClam]

The Goths, for example, were adamant on wearing the toga, a practice long abandoned in the East.

It's the little practices that make a culture, not the grand ones.

[TheAngryClam]

The Alexandrian library being destroyed by Muslims is a myth. If anyone destroyed the library, it was likely Caesar during the Alexandrine Wars, or the Christian Patriarch Theophilius in the late 4th Century.

These people (who, incidentally, are big on Christian apologetics, and in my opinion go a little soft on Theophilius- I didn't read through everything, but I believe they gloss over the fact that the pagan keepers of the Serapeum were flayed and burned by the Christian mob) summarize everything nicely.

[ffusco]

Romanized Goths in Germany and France still have the Roman eagle in their national symbology. As well as the 3 course meal, the daily bath, the alphabet and about a zillion other things as common as the celebration of Mother's day in May, wearing a wedding ring and the Roman naming practice. Even King Arthur MIGHT have been a descendent of the Artorius clan, prominent in England around 400 AD.