Because they didn't know better, they called it "civilization," when it was part of their slavery.

Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.

Original text (Latin)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Book 1, paragraph 21 | As translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

Variants

Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Tacitus (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.