I'm jumping ahead on the timeline, yes. Early Roman Empire had a polytheistic religions in common. It expanded its power after monotheism.
Obviously it's possible to have a large, shared polytheistic religion. We still have those today. The religion being a common denominator is more in the spirit of the point I was trying to make. Using a single God as a means to unite people was more palpable to some leaders. Muhammad understood this. The Arabs hadn't scriptures, nor institutions, and he saw the unifying power of Judaism and Christianity. When you have pagans worshiping separate sets of gods, it's less effective to try to politicize "all these are valid", "some of these are valid" and have them follow along.
From the wikipedia entry on religion in ancient Rome - "Even the most skeptical among Rome's intellectual elite such as Cicero, who was an augur, saw religion as a source of social order. As the Roman Empire expanded, migrants to the capital brought their local cults, many of which became popular among Italians. Christianity was in the end the most successful of these, and in 380 became the official state religion. "
> Early Roman Empire had a polytheistic religions in common. It expanded its power after monotheism.
No, it didn’t “expand its power after monotheism”. The Roman Empire didn’t even begin its official flirtation with Christianity until well into the 4th century CE. However, most historians consider the Roman Empire to have been in its waning days then, as it never fully recovered from all the shocks of the 3rd century. The full extent of Rome’s power happened under paganism and well before Christianity was anything more than a small, persecuted sect.
I suppose you could possibly argue for the Eastern Empire? Maybe? But then that's still built upon the core of the original polytheistic structure, and I don't think it's a strong argument that Christianity played into it.
If anything Christianity seems to cause a problem for organized military - after Rome we don't see an organized, professional military for another thousand years. People may think of "the crusades", but let's be honest, the majority of that was really more a rag-tag rabble causing trouble, rather than any sort of organized and united fighting force.
Obviously it's possible to have a large, shared polytheistic religion. We still have those today. The religion being a common denominator is more in the spirit of the point I was trying to make. Using a single God as a means to unite people was more palpable to some leaders. Muhammad understood this. The Arabs hadn't scriptures, nor institutions, and he saw the unifying power of Judaism and Christianity. When you have pagans worshiping separate sets of gods, it's less effective to try to politicize "all these are valid", "some of these are valid" and have them follow along.
From the wikipedia entry on religion in ancient Rome - "Even the most skeptical among Rome's intellectual elite such as Cicero, who was an augur, saw religion as a source of social order. As the Roman Empire expanded, migrants to the capital brought their local cults, many of which became popular among Italians. Christianity was in the end the most successful of these, and in 380 became the official state religion. "