@juergen_hubert I think Guy Gabriel Kay does this very well in his fantasy novels loosely based on Mediterranean Europe (and bordering regions) in antiquity. You can tell clearly where his inspiration comes from, but it's also clear that any individual historical fact can't be assumed to apply to the real world cultures because the real world is only used as scaffolding and none of the cultures are "evil" or bad, except perhaps in the eyes of bigoted characters.
@juergen_hubert I think Guy Gabriel Kay does this very well in his fantasy novels loosely based on Mediterranean Europe (and bordering regions) in antiquity. You can tell clearly where his inspiration comes from, but it's also clear that any individual historical fact can't be assumed to apply to the real world cultures because the real world is only used as scaffolding and none of the cultures are "evil" or bad, except perhaps in the eyes of bigoted characters.