The Roman Empire was traditionally willing to tolerate you if you were willing to worship the Emperor as a god.
This version of tolerance famously didn't work out very well for Jews and Christians. Particularly since they were OK with private human sacrifice and public executions for entertainment.
We owe a lot to the Roman Empire. But I wouldn't romanticize it too much.
In all seriousness, though, we tend to ignore how advanced the Roman civilization was compared to the "barbaric" ones outside of its borders.
For example, when the Romans invaded Dacia around year 106 they created a new capital, at Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulpia_Traiana_Sarmizegetusa), which became a proper Roman city, with an amphitheatre, a forum, several temples, Roman-built villas. The Romans evacuated Dacia and its capital around year 270, and then everything collapsed. Around Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa writing just vanished, for the next 800 years or so there are no archaeological finds involving written texts (either in stone or on the buildings' walls). Stone churches started to get built around year 1100-1200, many of them using stone from the Roman ruins. Theater as an art form would only return to the region around year 1600-1700, that's almost 1500 years after the Romans had left.
This version of tolerance famously didn't work out very well for Jews and Christians. Particularly since they were OK with private human sacrifice and public executions for entertainment.
We owe a lot to the Roman Empire. But I wouldn't romanticize it too much.