Byzantium accepted and assimilated elements from many traditions (Armenian, Slavic, Eastern Roman among others), but what characterizes its cultural substance is the foundation on which it was based and the historical continuity in which it is recorded. It is now unquestionably known, regardless of national intentions, that the Byzantine state is the organic continuation of the Roman Empire, that its art owes much to the Hellenistic achievement and the Eastern experience of those times, but as a cultural continuity (and not just linguistic), Byzantium is recorded only as an experience of Hellenism.