Kwan Ting Chan wrote:
p.s. Still trying to work out which work the 1849 was
referring to.
That one was William Smith's [[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography
and Mythology]], which accounts for 500+ of our biographies of figures
from classical antiquity (and most of that only in the 'A's!), many of
them unedited. The original articles are a good summary of consensus
opinion at the time, but a lot has been revised since then, sometimes
pretty radically---perhaps surprising given that the people were already
dead nearly 2000 years, but there have been discoveries of new
manuscripts are archaeological sites, new readings and cross-referencing
of existing manuscripts, changing opinion on authenticity and dating,
etc. Most of this is relatively harmless, but it does result in us
repeating a number of traditional histories that are now considered
incorrect, not to mention placing people in the wrong century or location.
-Mark