And, as I seem to recall, Augustus ushered in 200 years of Pax Romana, Roman peace.
Rome was evil incarnate. But, like the Plantagenet period in English history, it did manage to establish some good, such as laws and building roads..etc.
To Romans, anyone who were not Roman were barbarians. Hannibal, was a barbarian to them. Yet Carthage was a far more advanced society than the Romans were for a time.