Isn't it sad that out of all the cultures of the past that we know of, only a few remain at all even remotely in the present?

I was wandering around the streets of Wiesbaden - the capital of a German federal state. 2000 years ago, this was the city of Aquae Mattiacorum, and when the Roman Empire collapsed, the Franks and their culture destroyed any semblance of Roman culture even existing here. Not even a whiff of the Aquae Mattiacorum culture remains. All that remains is the name. It's the same with the hundreds of cultures and empires that collapsed and were eaten up by others. <br><br>Looking at the likes of Egypt, India, China, and Japan, all of which are the only real extant cultures that you could say have been present continuously through all of human recorded history, it makes me sad. The modern world was built on the rubble of countless others.<br><br>Edit: I was talking about cultures and empires, not nationalities.