ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the roots of cosmopolitanism far beyond its traditional Western ontologies, reconstructing a thick layer of protocosmopolitanism related to the wider historical, political, and cultural transformations in ancient Afro-Eurasia.
It hypothesises that the climactic point of ancient globalisation, occurring in the Hellenistic period, and closely connected to the decentralisation of the universal imperial model, created a shared cultural and political horizon, that can be categorised as “cosmopolitan oikumene”.
In that context, a new model that explores the elements of heritage of the holy grail of the Western “uniqueness”, the Classical “Greco-Roman” world, is proposed. Utilising the comparative framework of the extending oikumene of ancient Afro-Eurasia and the Waters’ triparted theorem of globalisation as a primary matrix, the chapter synthesises a sharper picture of the elements of localism, glocalisation, and cosmopolitanism of Rome and its heritage.
Finally, arguing that Rome, as other Western historical topoi, presents only one of the many diverse successors or transmitters of the resilient elements of the ancient cosmopolitan ideology, the chapter suggests that the glocalised heritage of this protocosmopolitanism, embedded in different local cultures around the world, should be utilised in the constant reconceptualisations of the dialectically imagined rooted cosmopolitanism.
