Hellenistic imperialism and the ideal of world unity

Abstract

In late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the rulers of the Christian Romano-Byzantine Empire and Islamic Arab empires cherished the ideal of a united world under one god and one ruler. Pagan imperialist ideology profoundly influenced the evolution of this imperialist ideal of the world as a unity. The conception of the whole (civilized) world as a single empire was continually propagated by Middle Eastern monarchies from the third millennium bce. Undoubtedly it appealed to some common belief. People living in the Achaemenid, Seleucid, or Sasanian Middle East adhered to a certain kind of belief in a legitimate Great King whose existence was in some way connected with the divinely ordained order of the world. The presence of a world ruler at the center of civilization was believed to be an essential condition for peace, order, and prosperity. Essentially a religious concept already in pagan times, the ideal of world unity became extremely forceful when imperialism and monotheism joined hands. After Constantine, the Roman imperator, Byzantine basileus, or Arab caliph could claim to be the exclusive earthly representative of a sole universal deity. Thus, what had formerly been a somewhat indei nite distinction between a civilized, ordered world and a chaotic, barbaric periphery now became a clear-cut dualism of believers and unbelievers.