I'm not saying that Ancient Rome is Nazi Germany, but the Romans elected tyrants and emperors, some of them were indeed dictators or madmen. Didn't Rome rely its economic growth on slaves and plebs, compared to Nazi Germany where somehow the people got jobs and some amount of wealth ? Didn't the Romans invaded the whole Mediterranean region, exterminating, enslaving and converting all barbarian tribes and other cultures from Eastern Europe?
I guess my question is this: what makes Rome so great compared to any other nation that is similar to Rome ?
Thank you in advance for your answers.
This isn't a historical comment exactly, but I think part of the problem here is the linguistic history of the word "great" Much like "awesome" and "awful", "great" used to mean something neutral like "supremely powerful" or "having an enormous impact." For example, people sometimes referred to Adam and Eve's banishment from Eden as "the great fall." Gradually "great" took on the meaning of "supremely powerful and good", much like "awful" became "overwhelming and bad."
The Romans were much older than the Nazis, so English based historians started writing about the Romans a long time before the word "great" shifted to have strong positive connotations. By the time the word had swung around to a new meaning, it had become convention to refer to Romans as having achieved "great things" and produced "great men." It is my understanding that the modern historical community does not hold ancient Roman society to be totally "great" in the modern sense of "good," but rather uses the word in its old sense out of habit.