Common Errors

Spijkers op laag water

In 2009, I published a little book (in Dutch) in which I discuss more than fifty common errors about ancient history, Spijkers op laag water. Below are some examples, a couple of which are absent from the book. The book ends with a postscript, in which I explain why the classics “attract” so many errors. I think this is the most important part of the book – read it.

1. The cradles of religion and rationalism;
2. The ancients believed that the Ark rested on a mountain named Ararat;
3. The alphabet was invented by the Phoenicians;
4. Those mysterious Etruscans;
5. There were “hanging gardens” in Babylon;
6. The Persians conquered Lydia in 547;
7. Ancient sculpture was white;
8. The Capitoline Wolf is an early Roman piece of art;
9. Pythagoras’ Theorem;
10. It’s 42 kilometer from Marathon to Athens;
11. The Persian Wars and the Origins of Western Civilization;
12. Herodotus visited Babylon;
13. Aspasia was a prostitute;
14. Pericles had prepared Athens for the Peloponnesian War;
15. The Sicilian Expedition caused the Fall of Athens;
16. Roman Chronology;
17. Alexander destroyed Persepolis;
18. Archimedes built a heat ray;
19. Caesar defeated the Nervians on the banks of the Sambre;
20. Caesar was defeated at Tongeren;
21. Caesar’s last words were “Tu quoque, Brute?”
22. Octavian called himself Octavian;
23. Cleopatra was killed by a viper;
24. Teutoburg Forest;
25. The Eye of the Needle;
26. Roman legionaries;
27. Via Belgica;
28. Pilate was procurator;
29. IIII or IV?;
30. Vespasian’s last words were that he feared becoming a god;
31. The Roman Empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan;
32. The Ninth Legion Hispana was destroyed in Scotland;
33. In the Colosseum, Christians were killed;
34. The conversion of Constantine;
35. Christians destroyed the Gnostic Gospels;
36. The Frisians lived in Friesland;
37. The barbarians crossed a frozen Rhine;
38. The Menorah is in the Vatican;
39. Lead Poisoning caused the Fall of the Roman Empire;
40. The ancients believed the earth was flat.

And some common methodological errors:

• Everest fallacy
• Positivist fallacy
• Testis unus, testis nullus

If you represent a publishing house and think that this book might be translated, you can contact me here.