Until about 400 AD, the borders of the Roman Empire were only about 300 km away from Scandinavia, and even closer to other German-speaking tribes. The Roman Empire was the dominant power of that time, both politically, economically and culturally in this part of the world. As the Roman Empire grew and made contact with different cultures across a vast area of Europe, local traditions eventually began borrowing cultural elements derived from the Romans; this also applies to the Germanic peoples. A telling example is that by 300 AD, the Germanic peoples began dividing the week into seven days, each day named after a particular deity.