This kind of moral absolutism heavily breaks down the ability to form a reasoned historical analysis, or give consideration to context. By the standards of its

This kind of moral absolutism heavily breaks down the ability to form a reasoned historical analysis, or give consideration to context. By the standards of its time, the classical period Roman state often showed a remarkable degree of humane consideration to its subjects. If it was also often despotic and cruel, this stands out partly because the more sophisticated elements of that society made it so. Your average nation during classical antiquity on the other hand, could be much worse. For example, by any modern ethical standards, an emperor like Marcus Aurelius, or his mentor Antoninus Pious would be considered slaving, war-making monsters, but in the context of Rome and most rulers of Rome's time, they were remarkable paragons of forbearance and ethical nuance, and given the context of their upbringing, this makes them remarkable leaders, not just something so simplistic as cruel war mongers. By the implicit logic you use, we should disregard the vast majority of major figures, systems and philosophies that have ever existed because they lacked the magical foresight of first having also developed our exact modern ethics (which in any case are often broken today by many respected leaders). Also, please, there's no comparing the truly deliberate monstrosity of the Nazis to the practices of the Romans. Rome never developed intentional industrial extermination of human lives as a deliberate state policy. The Nazis did, and worse still, did so despite millennia of philosophical moral development being available to guide them otherwise.