Arguably Jesus is the most well-known ancient figure in the western world (assuming he actually did exist) and pretty much all he did during his life was being nice to people

Devil's advocate: Plato is probably well-known for being Aristotle's master, and Aristotle is probably well-known because he was the mentor of fucking Alexander the Great. So one could argue that the basis of western philosophy was set by a murderous emperor

Do we really remember him, though? We have a name and a complaint, and nothing else. But what effcts of his rippled down through time?

The world at large remembers our actions, even if small. Imagine we never knew about how close we got to nuclear war way back when; would it be weird to say that our human experience still “remembers”?

And hey, I’d rather be forgotten as an individual than remembered for being horrible. Anybody who would choose otherwise should be likewise remembered for when they were strung up by an angry mob.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias"