Talk:Battle of Antioch (218)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: FunkMonk (talk · contribs) 23:01, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I'll review this article. FunkMonk (talk) 23:01, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

• "_______. Historia Augusta." What is the line for? I'm sure there must be more standardised ways of doing this.
• "This conclusion is likely erroneous, caused by confusion due to a previous battle that is believed to have taken place at the border.[citation needed]" As you can see a citation is needed there...

The first issue is easily dealt with, I must have left that in so that I could fix it later after I finished updating the references. Since the Historia Augusta has no known writer I'm not sure entirely whether to put Anonymous or just remove that blank space entirely. I'll make the move of removing it for the time being.

The second issue is more complex so I'll try to summarise it succinctly. 1. Three sources suggest that the battle took place at Antioch (Dio, the Historia Augusta and Scott Andrew), one source suggests at the border of Syria Coele and Syria Phoenice (Herodian). 2. Dio suggests that Macrinus sent Ulpinus Julianus with a cavalry force to quell the rebels but not where, Herodian also mentions Ulpinus Julianus but only in that his head was cut off. 3. One source (Glanville) actually suggests that both battles took place at separate times (I couldn't find an explanation for this conclusion, it seems to be just accepting both Herodian and Dio's accounts as factual).

Simply put there is no valid reference that can be placed in the article (about Herodian's conclusion being unliekly), just that the sources are in direct conflict with each other (4 to 1 that the battle occurred at Antioch). Should I leave that section out altogether since it is a tangled mess or rewrite it to the effect of "the sources disagree as to the exact location of the battle"?

I will note that I disagree with rewriting it this way since it is accepted by 4 of the 5 sources that the battle being dealt with specifically in the article took place at or near Antioch.

I'll come back to that issue tomorrow, I need to go through the references and see if I can dig up anything that might help make a conclusion possible, if not I'll most likely remove it entirely or rewrite it if someone has a suggestion as to how that would be most appropriate. And thank you for taking the time to review the article Mr rnddude (talk) 09:36, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

For the first issue, removing the line seems fine. As for the second issue, I'd just state that sources are in conflict, and then place all these sources at the end of the sentence. FunkMonk (talk) 19:13, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I think I've dealt with the second issue as well, I mentioned that the sources fall into one of three camps, the battle took place at Antioch, there were two battles, and no claim (Historia Augusta, there's a claim in the translation that does not exist in the original Latin one I didn't realize this so I fixed it).

• "may have been because of fear for his life." Maybe "because he feared for his life" sounds better"

Will implement this.

• "hailing him Augustus" Link to title?

Done.

• There are many unlinked names under background. No articles for any of these?

Materianus, Adventus, Ulpinus Julianus don't. Gannys does (but it's a stub.) Diadumenian and Marius Maximus have been added. Tell me if I missed anyone.

• "unfavourable to Rome, Dio quotes that" Semicolon instead of comma?

Fixed

• "The army then set their eyes" Not sure, but is army really be plural here?

I'll replace it with its eyes.

• "Parthians, with whom Rome was currently at war" Were?

Will implement this as well.

• "Senatorial Response" "Death of Caracalla and Rise of Macrinus" Titles should not have such capitalisations.

Fixed.

• The various cities and regions mentioned throughout could be linked.

Some of those links were removed for being unnecessary, not by me. Several of them also have no links, since no articles.

• Why did so many soldiers defect?

Because they felt that Elagabalus was Augustus (an honorific used by Emperor's of Rome). Also, and probably more importantly, they were paid to do so. Macrinus being a coward couldn't hold onto the forces remaining so they left as well.

• "as such the emperor of Rome was decided by" Elected by? Seems like something is missing here.

There was no election, the army just made a proclamation. The Senate was powerless to do anything about it.

• "while relatively disregarding the opinion" Relatively disregarding sounds odd to me...

Relatively isn't the right word, I agree. But I don't know what to put. They didn't completely ignore the Senate, just paid some minor attention to it. (I'll replace it with generally.)

• "Had time been available Marius Maximus, prefect of Rome," I think there should be a comma after available.

Missed that, will implement.

• "Macrinus now in dire circumstances would have" I think there should be comma after Macrinus and circumstances.

Agreed.

• I think the latter part of the article has some comma issues, something to look into, but I'm no expert.

I will check into that, would not surprise me.

• "Dio concludes that the man, Macrinus" Why not just "concluders that Macrinus"?

Because he (Dio) says man. I'll change it anyway though.

• "Further, he, concludes" Looks odd, why not just "He further concludes?"

Fixed.

• "He, shaving off his beard and hair" Name would be better here than "he".

Fixed.

• "however envy caused further problems culminating in the death of Elagabalus" Death by what?

Praetorian guard murdered him, I will add that in though.

• "by the death of Caracalla, rise of Macrinus " The rise?

Fixed.

• I think the intro could be a tad longer.

If you have anything you'd want added specifically then maybe. I don't think there's anything of value missing, but I may have missed something.

Side note, could you drop in and add the four tildes (~) so that I know who did the review? And thanks for giving up the time to do so.

Mr rnddude (talk) 02:51, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Fixes look good to me. Reviewer tildes aren't needed for the individual points (but for later replies, yes), since the name of the reviewer is automatically linked at the beginning of the review. Anyhow, I can see it would be hard to add more to the intro, since the summary is very compact. So I'll pass this now. FunkMonk (talk) 23:16, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't expect each individual point to have a reviewer name, was thinking for the overall. But fair enough, I just wanted to know who to thank. I just though somebody else came in and dropped their points in as well. Mr rnddude (talk) 01:54, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah, ok. In that case, they would likely note their presence. Also, you can see all contributors in the edit history. FunkMonk (talk) 08:42, 7 March 2016 (UTC)