Editing Multinational state (section)

=== Roman Empire ===
[[Ancient Rome | Early Romans]] assimilated neighbouring tribes in the Italian peninsula, including [[Etruscans]] and the Greeks of [[Magna Graecia]]. The rights of [[Roman citizenship]] extended to the Italic peoples from the 1st century BCE, and later more widely: Gauls, Iberians, Greeks, and the peoples of North Africa and of the Near East joined with Britons and Teutons in a multi-ethnic conglomeration, often headed by "provincial" [[Roman emperor | emperor]]s of non-Roman ethnic stock. The success of the Roman state in melding together various nations into a single putative whole shows in the nature and naming of its successor states: the [[Byzantine Empire]] officially styled itself as a "Roman Empire" (historians designate it the "Eastern Roman Empire"), and the [[Holy Roman Empire]] (the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation") maintained pretensions to control various nationalities in Central Europe from 800 to 1806.