
Contents
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What Were the Wars of Byzantium and Persia? What Were the Wars of Byzantium and Persia?
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Why Examine Late Antiquity? Why Examine Late Antiquity?
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The Rise and Fall of Inter-Polity Order in Late Antiquity: Structure and Argument The Rise and Fall of Inter-Polity Order in Late Antiquity: Structure and Argument
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Cite
Extract
The East Romans of Byzantium and the Sasanian Persians competed as geopolitical rivals for over four centuries between 224 ad and 628 ad. Across this era of late antiquity, the rivalry between the Romans and the Persians developed from mutual recognition and stability, albeit with bouts of limited conflict, to all-out open warfare leading to the destruction of the Sasanian kingdom and a geopolitical vacuum from which the rise of Islam and the Arab conquests were born.1 This period of late antiquity is rarely considered within the discipline of international relations (IR), but the geopolitical struggle of Byzantium and Persia presents an under-examined case study of hegemonic order and imperial rivalry.2 In contrast to modern ideals of sovereign equality between nation states, late antiquity was defined by competing claims to universal rule over the known world. Both the Sasanian Persians and the Romans made universal claims to imperial greatness and professed a divine role in the maintenance of a stable order. As hegemonic empires, they sought to use their predominant power to order the relations of surrounding actors and through a series of intractable conflicts these two great empires would develop a dual hierarchy that sought to divide the world between them. 3 Defined by the Persian shah as the ‘Two Eyes’ of the Earth, these two imperial powers created a system of inter-polity order which aimed to hierarchically organize those considered as ‘barbarians’. 4 Through this competitive yet intertwined relationship, the Byzantine and Sasanian empires would have a role in the construction and maintenance of a hierarchical system as the two equal centres of the world.
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