Seems fair to infer that there were multiple moments when Roman elites could signal their social virtue by conspicuously sympathizing with the barbarians with trendy a neoplatonist-ish religion (Christianity).
It's funny to imagine how virtue signalling would work in a political order that Nietzsche would tell us was unaffected by Christian slave morality.
The sincere answer is that stoicism introduced a slave morality in Roman society that was highly regarded among elites, but which sat VERY uncomfortably with the tendency of Roman elites to violently suppress slave revolts and populist movements.
Sympathizing w/ Christians probably let Roman elites signal slave morality in spite of this tension.
"I'm not saying I'm a Gracchist. I'm just saying that if the logos structures the entirety of the Empire, it has to be entirely pervasive, and that means that the servile classes also have the potential to be internally governed by logos. So when I see these silly little barbarians trying to talk about the logos, an inner spirit that surpasses their bizarre ritual laws, I think 'Good for them! More power to you!'"
