Tiny Kingdoms of Prophetic Ideals. The Impact of the Melting Pot of Roman-dependent South-Eastern Anatolia on the Ideological and Political Concepts of the Roman and Early Byzantine World

Tevdovski1AbstractThis chapter reassesses the pre–Roman and Roman history of Cappadocia, Cilicia and Commagene, promoting South–Eastern Anatolia into a revealing case–study for the importance and interplay of perceptions and identities in theclassical past and in its modern study. It experiments with the longue–durée perspective and the decentring of the‘West’ in discourse on ‘globalization’ and imperialism, with the aim of contributing new perspectives regarding theidentities, position, and role of this region. Refraining from the fruitless efforts of adding ethnic or cultural coloursthat augment the stereotyped grouping of these elites as ‘odd Orientals’ and ‘primitive Natives’, the chapter buildsa new argument that they might be perceived instead as important agents of the ‘globalization’ process in antiquity.It proposes the bold hypothesis that the elites of the tiny kingdoms of South–Eastern Anatolia played a central rolein conserving, preserving, reimagining, and reinvigorating the ideals and concepts of the united oikoumene of theHellenistic period, and their utilization in the transformation of Roman identities and the creation of a new ‘RomanWorld’. Thus, I suggest that their prophetic ideals overpowered the geopolitical forces and transformed this regionfrom a central area in the Hellenistic oikoumene into a central area of the new post–Hellenistic or neo–HellenisticRome that we frequently refer to as Byzantium.