I have a lot of reasons for liking , nae loving roman history, the people, the politics, the battles, the reasons that are given for invasions and attrocities that were committed. I am intregued by charactors like ceasar and sulla. men would on one hand brutaly kill someone and then do something like reform the republic or feed the poor, or instigate laws that protected certain 'moral' standards. the politics were amazing, on the one hand politicians like crassus would take unprecedented steps to protect his massive income by teaming up with his greatest rival, pompey, while at the same time bankrolling Ceasars dream of being the most powerful man in the fats growing empire.
Then there was the man himself who on one hand would ethnically cleanse entire cities one day and 'pardon' whole cities the next for pretty much the same transgressions. And he wasnt the only one, i love reading about how the both the state and individuals were so contrary in there everyday lives, the way they treated the vanquished could be so different from one day to the next depending on what they wanted from them.
On the one hand they differ so much from modern society with there morals and values, and on the other they morror modern politics and reasons for war it's scary.