These dichotomies have been always a thing.
Westerners (Greeks, Romans, Celts, Iberians, Britons, Slavs) alwayd have had moral standards of war.
Even Ancient Greeks and Romans recorded this in their works about Germans, Gauls and Iberians.
But not Orientals.
The trophe of violent barbarian tyrannical East vs the civilized humanitarian West has been always be a thing.