I suspect this is a side effect of Christianity becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century.
You cannot keep an empire of that size together without quite a lot of violence, especially when enemies like Attila the Hun come plundering your territory, so you find all kinds of religious justifications for war and killing even against the original intent. The alternative is defeat and slavery.
You cannot keep an empire of that size together without quite a lot of violence, especially when enemies like Attila the Hun come plundering your territory, so you find all kinds of religious justifications for war and killing even against the original intent. The alternative is defeat and slavery.