_Mistake in Gibbon_ (No. 21. p. 341.).--The passage in Gibbon has an
error more interesting than the mere mistake of the author. That a
senator should make a motion to be repeated and chanted by the rest,
would be rather a strange thing; but the tumultuous acclamations
chanted by the senators as parodies of those in praise of Commodus,
which had been usual at the Theatres (Dio), were one thing; the vote
or decree itself, which follows, is another.
There are many errors, no doubt, to be found in Gibbon. I will mention
one which may be entertaining, though I dare say Mr. Milman has found
it out. In chap. 47. (and _see_ note 26.), Gibbon was too happy to
make the most of the murder of the female philosopher Hypatia, by a
Christian mob at Alexandria. But the account which he gives is more
shocking than the fact. He seems not to have been familiar enough with
Greek to recollect that [Greek: haneilon] means _killed_. Her throat
was cut with an oyster-shell, because, for a reason which he has very
acutely pointed out, oyster-shells were at hand; but she was clearly
not "cut in pieces," nor, "her flesh scraped off the bones," till
after she was dead. Indeed, there was no scraping from the bones at
all. That they used oyster-shells is a proof that the act was not
premeditated. Neither did she deserve the title of modest which
Gibbon gives her. Her way of rejecting suitors is disgusting enough
in Suidas.