[ellius]

I took Latin a long time ago, but one passage supporting your point sticks in my brain. Virgil is recounting the many steps that led to the Empire, and he says something like, "Of such great difficulty was it to found the nation of Rome." To me it read like he recognized the awesome power and accomplishments of his civilization, but at the same time he saw the amount of blood that it cost to achieve that greatness. The two were not separable, and the theme was not about one or the other, but both as one.

[cycrutchfield]

That is literally from the first few lines of the Aeneid...