Rome was said to have been a melting pot from the very start. The historian Livy claimed the city's original population was comprised of immigrants flooding in from all directions, attracted by Romulus's deliberate policy of nondiscrimination. It was this initial openness, Livy asserts, that laid the foundations for the later strength and success of the city. Romans described their city as multicultural in the generations after its foundation. Tradition held that only a minority of the city's legendary kings were Roman-born, with the others all arriving as immigrants before being chosen for the throne for their virtues and merits. As the empire expanded across three continents, Rome eagerly adopted new cultural influences and absorbed incoming groups ― perhaps a little too eagerly for some, who, like the poet Juvenal, complained about the rapid rate of cultural change.