Talk:Tyrrhenika

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Bruxton (talk) 00:40, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

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• ... that Roman emperor Claudius was so proud of his work about the Etruscans that he had it regularly read to the public in the Library of Alexandria? Source: Briquel (1988), p. 218
  • ALT1: ... that marriage to Plautia Urgulanilla may have helped Claudius get first-hand information for his work about the Etruscans, Tyrrhenika? Source: Briquel (1988b), p. 448
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Castner Range National Monument

Created by Alessandro57 (talk). Self-nominated at 17:21, 25 March 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Tyrrhenika; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

I liked this article a lot. It is well-written, seemingly well-sourced, and rather exciting. I have taken the liberty of only slightly adjusting English in the proposed hooks. If you disagree, please revert. In any case, I am shocked that this is an entirely new article, considering the extent of coverage in reliable sources. It is big enough and I suspect there is room for further growth in the future. I do not see any copyright issues. I do have some questions:

1. Does the cited source really say that Claudius married Urgulanilla because of his interest in Etruscans? I do not see it in the one page that is visible to me. Her grandmother's distant descent from Etruscans seems like a very far-fetched reason to marry Urgulanilla.
2. Why would pedantry and erudition lead to a work of little value? This source is accessible and appears to say that one scholar, Momigliano, presumed Tyrrhenika to have been derivative because Claudius's interest were all over the place, and does not blame pedantry or erudition.
3. Should we not name Briquel as the person who disagrees with Momigliano's assessment? We seem to accept Briquel's judgement as superior to Momigliano's and I am not certain that we should.
4. One of the sources, the Etruscan Corner, seems to be markedly inferior in quality to the rest. Is it self-published? What is the name of the author?

I am looking forward to your reply! Surtsicna (talk) 18:16, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Hallo @Surtsicna:, I haven't heard from you in a long time! :-) Thank you for your kind words. Yes, it is strange that so far I have thought of writing an article on this subject. first of all a premise. The article started out as a translation of an Italian article, which was really pitiful. As soon as it was published, I started to improve it. So, I'll proceed in order.

1. Claudius married Urgulanilla by manoeuvres of his maternal grandmother, Urgulania, who was among Livia's best friends. She, the grandmother, is the Etruscan! The 'distant' word comes from the translation, I forgot to remove it, SOM! The gens Urgulania was of Etruscan origin, very conservative and endogamic, and Claudius was practically adopted by them (we know this from a letter from Augustus giving Claudius permission to go to a religious ceremony only if supervised by his brother-in-law). They introduced him to the Etruscan environment. Livy then encouraged him to devote himself to historical studies, and so he started his career as historian, and had (but later) the idea of writing an history of the Etruscans.
2. In fact, Claudius's pedantry and erudition are proverbial, just read the Tabula Claudiana, with senators getting impatient as he jumps from one detail to another. Pedantry and erudition led him to using secondary sources and reassembling them (a bit like we Wikipedians do :-) ), and this was the judgement given on his first work, a history of Rome from the Ides of March. Suetonius destroys him (magis inepte quam ineleganter), and even Seneca considers antiquarian studies like those undertaken by Claudius a 'disease of the Greeks'. But for Tyrrhenika the judgement is different, and depends on his introduction to the Etruscan environment. In the Lyon speech he speaks of 'Etruscan authors', whom he read. So he used Etruscan sources, and knew the language, and it is thanks to him that we know that Servius was called Mastarna in Etruscan (information resoundingly confirmed by the discovery of the Francois tomb).
3. Actually, it is not so much Briquel, but Heurgon (1953) who revolutionised the historical judgement on the Tyrrhenika. Briquel went after him. I was able to find his paper, it is online, and if you know French you can appreciate it. Heurgon is a great etruscologist, Pallottino (another great) thinks like him, so I would say that Momigliano's 'posterity' is all of the same opinion.
4. Yes, you are right, it is a blog mentioned twice, another relic of the Italian translation. I can replace the first quotation, I'm still looking for a source for the second, if I don't find it I'll remove the sentence.

P.S. Everything I have written above is not OR, but comes from Heurgon, Malitz and Briquel. The first Briquel paper I could only read once, then a paywall appeared. :-( That's all for now, I tried to address your points (unfortunately I did not have much time at the moment) if you want to know more or are not convinced write again! Cheers and thanks, Alex2006 (talk) 18:39, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Alex2006, I somehow missed your name entirely! Now I see why I enjoyed the article so much. Everything seems clearer now. Only a QPQ is missing now. Surtsicna (talk) 19:11, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh-oh, but I did the QPQ. I have just to find it... :-) Alex2006 (talk) 19:36, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Here it is!Alex2006 (talk) 19:39, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Seemingly abandoned by the previous reviewer, so I'm reviewing it. Approve ALT1. BorgQueen (talk) 16:47, 5 April 2023 (UTC)