You're adding a lot of presumptions in here and twisting what I said. I was not arguing that the Greeks were "saved" by the Romans at all. Nor were they necessarily better off being assimilated into the Roman Empire than if they were assimilated into the Persian Empire. I was not arguing that.
What is remarkable is that the Greeks were not conquered earlier by the Persians and assimilated into their Empire. It is exceptional that small states like that were able to exist for longer periods of time in that area. And Greeks were the exception! At least until the Romans came along...
So my point is that if a nation in the region doesn't tend toward being an Empire, then it is likely you're going to be swallowed up by another Empire. Being swallowed up by an Empire is a certainly a bad thing, and Empires in general as your rightly pointed out impoverish many. However, if your cultural seeks some permanence and control of its own destiny, it is wise to conquer other cultures and create an Empire in order to ensure survival. Otherwise, you risk being sucked in someone else's Empire, and then your people are exploited. In other words, it is better to do the exploiting, then be exploited. Obviously, we'd all prefer a world where people didn't exploit one another, but that isn't feasible given human nature.
That is the defense of Empires.
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