I just read this thread about a documentary on the Dark ages and it got me thinking about the misconceptions on this time period. I had a great history teacher in high school who taught me about some of the misconceptions and the professor who lectured the Middle ages at my university explored these misconceptions in depth with us. So I know that the documentary depicts a sensational and popular view on this period which is historically wrong in many ways.
I already found some interesting threads on this subreddit explaining misconceptions about the Middle ages so I wanted to come up with a more specific question. This got me thinking about the role of the Classical age.
I know that the general public holds favorable views on the Classical age, but I learned at my university that this age has its own misconceptions (e.g. Athenian democracy wasn't really democratic, Romans spoke Vulgar Latin and not the Classical Latin we know)
Therefore I'm interested in the misconceptions about the Classical age that historians think contributed to misconceptions about the "Dark ages".
edit - I'm a young historian myself, but I'm specialized in modern economic and financial history so my knowledge of the Classical and Medieval time periods is relatively small compared to other redditors in this subreddit.
The modern study of the ancient world began in a time when that world (and especially Classical Greece and Late Republican Rome) was upheld as an ideal. Many people in the upper echelons of Western society saw the art, literature, philosophy and politics of the Greeks and Romans as the pinnacle of human achievement. Inevitably, later developments away from the hallmarks of that period were regarded as a descent into darkness.
While it is true that the Classical age saw many noteworthy developments in societal organisation, art, and thought, we now know that it was hardly a pristine world of marble and togas. The vast majority of people did not share the wealth, power or intellectual advances that existed. Poverty was widespread, diseases common, slavery ubiquitous. Greek democracy excluded women, foreigners and slaves from the franchise; most other political systems denied political influence to the poor. In most places, women could not inherit or own property. In terms of legal rights, a great many ancient people would have been better off living in the Middle Ages.
It has often been argued that the Greeks deliberately limited the destructive effect of their wars, and had tacit rules against attacking civilians or killing prisoners. However, modern scholarship has shown that this is a complete fantasy. Ancient warfare is rife with rape, murder and outright genocide. The best fate an inhabitant of a captured city could hope for was to be sold into slavery. Both Greek and Roman warfare are characterised by a remarkable level of brutality as these peoples tried to subjugate and dominate their neighbours.
The Greeks are often upheld as the paragons of reason and rational deliberation. Again, modern scholarship has turned this on its head. Entire books are devoted to showing that the Greeks were a superstitious, violent, proud, greedy lot who didn't care much more for the teachings of Aristotle than the average modern teenager does.
The list goes on. The point is that to see the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages we have to focus on a few very specific parts of the age before it, and then focus on a few very different parts of the age that followed.