What are some "well known facts" about the Ancient World that are complete rubbish? How did they come about and what's the truth behind them?

by RobWithOneB
Searocksandtrees

This post has been removed for trivia-seeking, which is the essence of the throughout history rule, i.e. "tell me random stuff about x". These tend to produce threads which are collections of trivia, not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your question and submit it again. Alternatively, questions of this type can be directed to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory.