A Comm for Historymemes

I admire Rome in the sense of holding it in wonder and esteem, but I don't think it was good, and if you'll indulge me I'd like to explain more.

tl;dr

I'd say I admire Rome for having such a sophisticated apparatus of state that was, at the time, found in only a couple other places in the world; and for having a really fascinating culture and absurdly robust cultural identity. It's almost unique in that period for having its cultural identity repeatedly survive truly horrific amounts of senseless bloodshed and turmoil (though I'd personally argue Rome's real fall began at the end of the Republic). The First Punic War, for example, saw Rome throwing away its entire treasury and 17% of its adult male population in an effort to crush Carthage, and the state didn't collapse. Romans waged endless civil wars and insurrections, and yet Rome remained Rome through centuries of that.

However, as fascinating as that is, I don't understand the mind of any person who can come away from Roman history without being appalled by it. Rome was dissolute, degenerate, and disgusting. Everything it accomplished actually fell far short of what could have been, because Rome was repeatedly mired in prioritizing shameless greed and sadistic cruelty above effective governance—like when the reformer Pertinax was executed by his own men, who then sold the title of Imperator at auction. But even though this obliterated any remaining illusions among the populace about the due processes of the Roman state, Rome still held together for centuries, and its dissolution was stubborn and slow. I think if you were to sum up everything about Rome in one word, it'd have to be Proud. I guess there's just something darkly admirable about that.