I don’t consider that an exaggerated respect for antiquity-it is just history, and if we don’t preserve history, we will not learn from it. Whether good or evil, every deed in the past was done by humans, not the structures or landscape it happened in/on, and it needs to be remembered-preserving those locations is a part of that. If you are uncomfortable with the unvarnished truth about history-and those involved in it, you can subscribe to the kumbaya and untrue alternatives that are out there for snowflakes and such, leaving those of us who are into reality to learn about history as it is/was...
Clearly all historical artifacts don’t get preserved, so it’s a matter of judgement which ones should be. I defer to the Italian government’s judgement to keep the Colosseum; it’s their artifact on their land, and from what has been posted on this thread it was apparently a contested decision.