>Not really. What I had in mind was that ANE produced all three
>(Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and the Romans did their best to
>suppress or get rid of the first two for a few centuries, but
>caved in to the second and were too worn out and over extended to
>manage much against the last one, bummer. That is a bad omen, since
>neither Rome nor Byzantium were shy about their methods.
Actually, Chuck, the Romans weren't as thorough as I seem to be reading you. Official persecution of Christians was an "on-again, off-again" kind of thing, probably their version of "wagging the dog". Read Pliny the Younger's letter to Emperor (??? Ackk! Forgot his name!! No time to search!! Carrol, HELP!) on the treatment of Christians. Suppresion of Judaism per se never happened, only when you got those pesky zealots demanding independence from Roman authority (so they could impose a brand of Judaism less cosmopolitan than Herod's? nOt sure); this is assuming that one doesn't count the Byzantines as "Romans".
Ah, this remark of yours along the lines of "too bad the Romans didn't get them" isn't some polite equivalent to "too bad Hitler didn't finish the job", is it? I'd hate to think that of you.
Todd