Half of history is full of lie and garbage. Wishfull thinking by all interested groups (mostly males and female interest groups, with there offspring in seperate more radical groups) deforms it. The history of roman emeperors, is a never ceasing account of vile men ursurping one another- not because they where all good or evil, but because everyone denounced the old emperor. So you do not know. You can guess, by the sideffects (city expansion, wealth and lack of starvation deaths). History is detective work- and most of the time the case goes unsolved.

Regarding heroes- if you open the hatch and look on the lives of the indivdual, its always greyish. Nobodys perfect. But if you run into the wrong direction. Be it because bowl cancer is eating away at you, because you have a psychatric condition, are a adrenaline junkie or whatever - and you do attempt to help one person- you are a hero. And all passive-agressive microanalyzing as downsizing by those who would not do that- cant take that away.