Common errors about Antiquity

[sonic]

Here is a thread about the "frozen" Rhine issue and here I'm trying to defend "poor old Gibbon" for taking the blame. :wink:

Interesting subject.

I would never blame Gibbon in any way shape or form. After all, he only suggested it as a possibility, probably based on evidence that the Rhine does sometimes freeze. It is later writers who have accepted it as a given that are in the wrong as they should have noted that this was only a possibility.

In fact, I have read recently somewhere (I can't remember where: d&%n my terrible memory! :oops: ) that Stilicho couldn't send troops over the Alps to help defend Gaul because the winter was so severe that the Rhine froze over and so resulted in the Alpine passes being blocked for longer than usual! hock: