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The Roman world is often seen in modern popular opinion as an evil empire - but this is a reflection of more recent experience such as the vast scale of the ideological conflicts of the last century which more or less started in 1914 and haven't completely yet tailed off. The Roman Empire is a title one needs to be cautious of - they were not a unified society in terms of culture (many don't realise this - common perception is everyone got 'romanised' after being conquered, but that just isn't true, and the image of latin culture we get introduced to at school is incredibly misleading). Nor was their empire a coherent centrally controlled nation state - it was a patchwork of loyal territories with varying status. Mainland Italy for instance never achieved provincial status until the reign of Diocletian. Evil? Well, the Romans certainly got up to things we see as morally or ethically wrong. Politically they toy with tyranny to suit themselves. Their political system was not gentlemanly and often involved murder. Their justice system was very harsh and often partisan, their military functionally independent of state control and for that matter often barely under control, their entertainment heavily skewed in favour of violence and risk of death. Their Caesars were often power hungry, domineering, dangerous men. One or two genuinely flakey. That's accepted. In actual fact the Roman Empire was relatively benign, nothing like as cruel and overbearing to its own citizens as say the Sassanid Persian Empire. There was a genuine chance of social mobility, opportunities to prosper, ways of making your mark upon the world. The simple fact is, regardless of circumstance, the desire of former territories to look back upon the Roman Empire as a sort of 'golden age' is very expressive of the lingering attachment the bonds of latin dominance have left us - we still bear those marks today and it colours modern politics.