2) You are mixing universality/universalism/imperialism with regionalism and the early nation-state. There was some sort of connection between Greece and Libya/Etruria, as also between China and Japan, because they were neighbors. It becomes really too stretched though when you get Isis in Britain or Zeus in Gaul. And actually, the main reason for such cults spreading far was the same reason the Roman Empire was made, i.e. the soldiery. If you think you can separate universalism from imperialism (it’s impossible), you’ll have a much more difficult task to separate universalism from cosmopolitanism/globalization. It’s no coincidence that the greatest universalists are also the most cosmopolitan and imperialistic—this was the case with the Roman mentality and the Hellenistic before it. The Assyrians very notably didn’t succeed to build a stable empire with brute force, and the Persian Empire was the first to adopt universalism and cosmopolitanism as we know it, two notions later used with much success by the Hellenistic and Roman Empires all the way to this day with the American Empire.