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Cyclopes content dispute

There is a content dispute at Cyclopes. It is about whether the story of the Cyclops Polyphemus' love for the sea nymph Galatea, which is now covered in our article Polyphemus (see Polyphemus#Polyphemus and Galatea), should also be covered, in considerable detail, in our article on the Cyclopes. More editor's opinions would be welcome on that article's talk page: here. Paul August ☎ 17:16, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

What’s said above, by an editor who is a disputant in this case, misstates the dispute in a way that is prejudicial to the side he opposes. No editor is arguing that content that is in one article should "also be covered, in considerable detail in another article." Instead, the dispute is: What is this article titled "Cyclopes" about? Should it completely exclude notable and significant content of ancient Greek and Roman literature that regards Cyclops? The following important authors’ content regarding Cyclopes has either been completely deleted from the Cyclopes article, or the content is almost entirely deleted (and replaced with a passing reference): Aristotle (384–322 BC), Philoxenus of Cythera (c. 435/4 – 380/79 BC), Aristophanes (c. 446 – c. 386 BC), Theocritus (born c. 300 BC), and Ovid (20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD). The problem is that a student or reader of Wikipedia who has encountered Aristotle’s comment in the Poetics, for example, might expect to find some account of it in the article “Cyclopes” (and won’t know to go over to another article) — in fact that particular content, which recently existed — is completely gone from Wikipedia. To misstate the dispute on this page will mislead Wikipedia editors who then might go over and join the dispute on the other page, armed with an incorrect understanding, but eager to join forces with one side. (There is also a related “procedural dispute” on the Cyclopes talk page regarding how large-scale editing should be handled.) Bitwixen (talk) 13:05, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

There's no reason to carry on the discussion from the other page over here. This was merely a notice to project members that they might want to weigh in there, and that already occurred nearly two weeks ago. This isn't the place for the argument, and nobody who chose to participate in it is going to engage in relitigating the same issues on the project's talk page. P Aculeius (talk) 15:06, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Roman cursive

I happened to be browsing through the article Roman cursive the other day and it's clear that this article needs a complete re-write: almost no citations and things which are clearly the author's OR, such as As the above extract shows, Old Roman cursive was considered difficult to read and roundly mocked even in its heyday following a quote in which a Plautus character complains about another's handwriting (hardly the only or best conclusion that one could reach-or when someone complains about someone else's handwriting today does that mean that our entire script is bad?). I was hoping someone with more knowledge about Roman scripts could have a look at it.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, having looked at a fair number of manuscripts written in Roman cursive, I have to agree with the article: it is a difficult script to read, maybe even worse than hand-written Fraktur. One of the problems with it is that the Romans wrote their letters in a different way from how we are accustomed to. For example, a Roman cursive S was created from two strokes, & can look much like the Greek letter Gamma (Γ); this form evolved into the long s that was commonly used as late as 1800. The system of abbreviations also are foreign to anyone not up to speed with its practices, such as use of the Tironian symbol for "and" a (7); medical shorthand -- used in writing prescriptions -- is full of these abbreviations. And then there is the fact that most manuscripts from that period come to us in poor condition, which would make even reading something written in Rustic capitals a challenge. Lastly, there is also the fact that Latin is unfamiliar to most educated people, & it takes effort not to simply dismiss a sample of Roman cursive as mere scribbles. (Which brings up another issue: sometimes what appears to be a text in Roman Cursive is actually scribbling by someone in an effort to imitate writing; there are many examples of this in the literature.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

My point is not that Roman cursive is easy for a modern person to read. It's that we can't use a primary source to state that the Romans at the time thought that they had an inelligible script. I agree that I can't read it.--Ermenrich (talk) 00:19, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the Plautus quotation (good as it is) doesn't entitle us to say "Old Roman cursive was considered difficult to read and roundly mocked even in its heyday". Nor can we say without a source (as the article goes on to say) "it is hardly legible to modern readers". I can't read it any more than Emmerich can, but people did learn to read it and do today. We need to cite secondary sources. Andrew Dalby 09:38, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Thinking about it, even "heyday" is a dubious claim, isn't it? Do we know that "old Roman cursive" was in use in Plautus's time? ... and that's without even considering the time and place in which Plautus's characters are supposed to be living :) Andrew Dalby 12:19, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich:, you are right this is not about the ability of modern folk being able to read it. But I will point out that Old Roman cursive posed a problem even for contemporaries -- beyond the perennial matter of bad handwriting. For one thing, many of the letterforms look too much alike. One set of similar letters are E, P, R, & some versions of N; another set is S, T, & R; & then, as the article states, B & D often were identical. This fact was made quite clear when I looked at a couple of my books about Roman cursive, with actual surviving examples of Roman cursive. (This would be much more clear to any reader if the illustrative "sample of cursive letter shapes" had more accurate examples: it includes forms of New Roman cursive M & N that are not typical, & omits the most common form for E, which looks like a check mark.) But that point can be made by providing examples of the more common letter forms, not by the Plautus quotation.

As I thought about it after reading your comment, I suspect the motivation of Plautus' character complaining about his companion's handwriting lay in matters different than the nature of Roman cursive. For one thing, most literate Latin speakers had about a grade-school level ability with reading, & many probably had no exposure to Roman cursive. (I'm reminded of the stories about how contemporary children are unable to read a letter from their grandmother because she wrote it in cursive script -- which is not taught much in US schools now.) So while they could read a text written in capitals, cursive put them off. And while any Roman could overcome this with time & experience, literacy was not a central skill in the lives of people during the Republic or the Empire. I wouldn't be surprised if the average literate Roman probably only used that skill as seldom as once a week -- or even less often. (Yes, there were inscriptions all around that literate Roman, but he probably had memorized it & only used the text as a mnemonic crutch to help his memory.) But these two points -- education & infrequent use -- would be irrelevant to the article. -- llywrch (talk) 19:24, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Punics → Carthaginians?

When I unexpectedly encountered the word "Punics" a little while ago, I discovered that this title is used synonymously with and in place of "Carthaginians". Having never before heard about the Carthaginians being referred to as "Punics", I looked into the page history, and noted a discussion on the talk page about whether "Punics" was in fact a neologism, and whether the page shouldn't be moved to "Carthaginians". It looks as if that's how the discussion was going, but it died down without the page being moved. "Carthaginians" is currently a redirect to "Punics", and together with the adjective "Punic", referring specifically to the Carthaginians, it accounts for the overwhelming number of links there. Since "Carthaginians" is currently a redirect, I'd probably need admin assistance to move the article to that title—and for this reason I thought I'd bring the matter here to see if there wasn't consensus for doing so, the discussion on the article's talk page not having received much attention. P Aculeius (talk) 15:30, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I used Punic interchangeably with Carthaginian, but only as adjective. I didn't know it could be used as a noun and it does sound weird. I've checked the volumes of the Cambridge Ancient History on Carthage and none of the authors uses "Punics" (only the adjective "Punic"). Interestingly, Johnathan Prag says here that Punics is an archaic word seldom used; he also adds that scholars have begun saying "Western Phoenicians" for the Carthaginians, but it sounds a bit too technical for Wikipedia. Therefore I think Carthaginians is the common name. T8612 (talk) 00:53, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Agreed – "Punic" as an adjective synonymous with Carthaginian is perfectly good English, but I have never seen "Punics" used as a noun. The OED lists it, so it clearly is a word, but I don't think it's at all common. I would be inclined to say that the article should be at Carthaginians. (And, while we are at it, it's odd that while Carthaginians redirects to Punics, Carthaginian (people) redirects to Ancient Carthage. I would expect all three of Carthaginians, Punics, and Carthaginian (people) to point at the same target.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk • contribs) 09:34, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, I've only encountered the word "Punic" as an adjective, not as a noun. It feels weird using it as a noun, but that may be solely due to unfamiliarity. (I realized the other day that I've gone from thinking the spelling Accad/Accadian is preferable to Akkad/Akkadian to preferring Akkad/Akkadian over Accad/Accadian.) -- llywrch (talk) 00:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we're moving toward a consensus that while the terms are indeed synonymous, "Punics" is hardly ever used in the literature—maybe it's one of those old terms that could come back into use due to hair splitting about whether all of the people it could be applied to are technically Carthaginian—so the article would probably be better at "Carthaginians". Still, worth noting that it's apparently not a neologism and might be encountered with the same or a closely-related meaning. I hadn't seen "Accad" before you mentioned it, and didn't find it (at least as a headword) under any spelling in the DGRG or the DGRA, but there's a short entry in Harper's under "Akkad or Accad", in which "Akkad" is the preferred spelling—so it seems that was already established by the late 19th century. I think perhaps the difference is that little or nothing about it comes from Roman sources, so we don't regularly find the name rendered according to Latin rules, as we do for Greece and places known to the Greeks. Still, no harm noting other spellings found in the literature. P Aculeius (talk) 03:56, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Re: Akkad/Accad -- I think originally English usage was influenced the KJV Bible where "Accad" appears in Genesis 10:10, despite the fact it clashed with the usual sound a doubled C represents (e.g. accident), while "Akkad" was primarily the German spelling. As Assyriology gradually separated itself from Bible studies, the preference for C over K in this spelling weakened, & the German version gained acceptance due to the influence of German scholarship. After all, this is a transliteration of a word originally written in cuneiform, & cuneiform lacks any standardized rules of transliteration into English, so we are not really tied to either spelling; the choice of spelling comes down to an issue of subjective judgment. -- llywrch (talk) 16:48, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Agree with not proscribing either form. But I'll point out that the "c's" in accident aren't "hard" because they're followed by 'i'. I believe English, as well as most languages derived from Latin, allow "soft" 'c' only before 'i', 'e', 'ae' or 'y'. 'C' must be "hard" before 'a', 'o', or 'u'. Since French has a number of elided letters, the cedilla, 'ç', is used to indicate a "soft" 'c' where the normal rules of pronunciation would require a "hard" 'c'—usually because an following 'i' in an earlier spelling of the word has been dropped. So "Accad" would always have been pronounced the same as "Akkad" under English rules of pronunciation—English exceptions to this rule are very rare, except perhaps in neologisms. I think the roots of the rule lie in Old Latin, where 'K' was the normal letter preceding /a/, 'C' before /i/ and /e/, and 'Q' before /o/ and /u/. Gradually 'C' took over all occurrences before /o/, most of /a/, and some of /u/, with 'K' being retained only before /a/ and 'Q' only before /u/, but /a/, /o/, and /u/ still had to be preceded by a hard consonant (let's not get into when or how 'C' gained its "soft" pronunciation here!). Although all this isn't as much fun as this song from my childhood: Easy Reader & Valerie: "Soft C, Hard C"! P Aculeius (talk) 17:30, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Punics (or 'Punes') is an awkward term and not regularly used in current scholarship. However, 'Punic' and 'Carthaginian' are not synonymous. Carthage was a Punic city, but so were other communities in north Africa, Sardinia, Western Sicily, Southern Spain, Ibiza... It's like the difference between 'Athenian' and 'Greek'. Usually in English language scholarship, they are simply called 'Phoenicians' or 'Western Phoenicians' or things are phrased in order to employ the adjectival form (thus the title of the book which User:T8612 cited above is The Punic Mediterranean and a recent [2019] handbook is entitled The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean). Scholars focused on a single region will talk about Siculo-Punic, Sardo-Punic and Hispano-Punic (the first being much more common than the other two). We don't seem to have articles on any of these things and I've been meaning to rectify this for a while, since it is very close to my actual area of research. In the long-term, I've long been intending to convert Punics into an article on the western Phoenicians generally, with sub-sections on the main regional divisions and cultural commonalities (language and epigraphic practice, religious practices like tophets) which would lead off to more specific pages. This is much more useful than having it as an underwhelming duplicate of information at Ancient Carthage. Furius (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Di immortales! Punes! Sounds like something you would find in the health food aisle. My understanding is that the Phoenicians in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain were specifically Carthaginian colonies, or at least fell part of the Carthaginian empire, such as it was, by the time of the Punic Wars. Pretty much all Phoenicians outside of Phoenicia, proper, since its conquest by Persia, or at least all city states of Phoenician origin in the western Mediterranean (were there any independent Phoenician city states in the eastern Mediterranean after Phoenicia was conquered?). That said, I don't think anybody would object to having separate articles on each group that had its own distinctive history, geography, or cultural attributes within whatever sphere we assign it, and that needless duplication is unnecessary—although there's also no barrier to having separate articles on the Carthaginians as a people and the Carthaginian state, which is essentially how things stand now, albeit with the people listed under the title of "Punics". I raise a glass of Pune juice to Furius' project! P Aculeius (talk) 21:33, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

With a commendable attitude like that, we can be assured this matter will come out in the end. Maybe it won't come out clean, but things are never neat & tidy at Wikipedia.-- llywrch (talk) 23:25, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Splendid! Now to actually get around to doing the thing...

On your questions: the Phoenician cities in Phoenicia and on Cyprus had pretty extensive autonomy under the Persians and continued to be ruled by their own kings etc. In the Hellenistic period, most of them continued to have pretty extensive autonomy and their relationship to their Seleucid and Ptolemaic overlords is complicated in the same way that the relationship between Greek cities and Hellenistic kings is complicated. Aradus in particular could probably be described as "actually independent."

As for the western Phoenicians, a lot of the communities are reported as colonies of the Tyrians (e.g. Gades, Utica, and Leptis Magna) and for most of the others we don't have a clear attestation of who the founders were meant to be (e.g. Motya). Whether there was direct involvement of Carthage in any of these areas before the fifth century BC is disputed; currently the pendulum seems to be swinging towards no. They do almost all eventually end up under Carthaginian control, but some of them for very short periods (Phoenicians are present in Spain from the 7th C BC, but Carthaginian rule over them lasted barely thirty years from the mid-230s to 205 BC). At the other end, Punic people continue to be present in a lot of these places into the Roman imperial period; in North Africa into Late Antiquity. Furius (talk) 23:57, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Furius: So, to be clear, you think the article should be renamed Western Phoenicians? T8612 (talk) 01:01, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's my preferred option. I'd also be happy with some phrasing like Punic people. Furius (talk) 01:56, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Ok, so I got to work on this, because I thought that we were all quite happy with this plan. Now @M.Bitton: has swung in and reverted the stuff I'd already done, saying "Undiscussed in the article's talk and no consensus for such a move in the discussion held in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome". Is that right? I thought we had a pretty clear consensus here and am a bit miffed (irrationally, I know) to be reverted without discussion when I was halfway through the next section... Furius (talk) 00:08, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Furius: I don't know what plan you're referring to, but I see some editors, including the one who started this discussion, agreeing with renaming it to "Carthaginians" (which I have no issue with). M.Bitton (talk) 00:35, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Me: "I've long been intending to convert Punics into an article on the western Phoenicians generally, with sub-sections on the main regional divisions and cultural commonalities (language and epigraphic practice, religious practices like tophets) which would lead off to more specific pages." Followed by an endorsement, "I raise a glass of Pune juice to Furius' project" from P Aculeius, the editor who started the discussion. Furius (talk) 00:48, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I can see how the statement could be misconstrued as an endorsement, but only if taken out of context, i.e., by ignoring everything that was said before it. M.Bitton (talk) 23:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I was ambiguous in my response. The article as it currently stands probably should be "Carthaginians". Most of the "western Phoenicians" in some way fell under the influence or domination of Carthage for some or all of the period that they occur in history, and I think historical sources, whether Greek or Roman, will treat them synonymously. However, I do see that "Carthaginians" and "western Phoenicians" could legitimately be separate topics depending on their focus—and if Furius wants to develop the latter, I suggest that it be a separate article from this one, or else "Carthaginians" be split off from it and this one renamed "western Phoenicians". The topics clearly overlap, but I think there needs to be one on Carthaginians either way. And neither article should be called "Punics", although I have no objection to including the term in the lead as an alternative found in some literature. P Aculeius (talk) 00:43, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of interest at Tacitus on Christ

There is a discussion of interest to this project on rewriting the section historical value at Talk:Tacitus on Christ#Authenticity and historical value.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:24, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

With our friend Paul Siebert... T8612 (talk) 01:01, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Yep! It's sure to go well!--Ermenrich (talk) 01:10, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Paul Siebert's been banned from that article, but the section could still use some work and some more ideas about how to do it.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:04, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Aemilia, Licinia, and Marcia

On 12th January, an IP editor created three new articles, Aemilia (vestal), Licinia (died 113 BC) and Marcia (vestal) from redirects. These are the three vestals who were condemned in the famous trials of 114 and 113, and are clearly notable as a group. But the three articles as created are identical except for the second paragraphs, which give individual accounts of each vestal's family, and I can find no secondary source which treats them separately. So the three articles should, I suggest, be merged. The only trouble is, what target to merge them to? Trial of vestals for ''incestum'' in 114 and 113 BC isn't exactly snappy – anyone have any better suggestions? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:45, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose I oppose a merger. While the trial was arguably what they were all most known for, they are still three separate individuals. They have individual articles on other wikipedia language versions. Although they may not be much more about them online at present, there would certainly be more about them in books. Licinia, for example, is noted for the event of 123, which I am sure could be described in more detail. While accused for the same crime, there would be individual accusations and circumstances to each of their cases. Aemilia, Licinia and Marcia were all three put on trial in 115, and Licinia and Marcia were put on a second, separate, trial in 114. That is two separate trials, so that is a problem, because they would have to be redirected to two different trials, unless two separate trials are merged in to one article. Even if a separate article is created about the two separate court cases, they should still have individual articles. To merge them creates several problems (should there be one article about the two trials or two?), and they were individuals with important offices and should have their own articles regardless if an article is created about the two court cases. --Aciram (talk) 22:28, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we should create articles on every vestal. The office was not that important; it was only a priesthood, and we are not going to create an article for every Roman priest. The only priesthood that was important enough to compel us to create articles for all its holders is the pontifex maximus.

I also think it would be pernickety to consider that there were two trials; it was the same case, with several twists. T8612 (talk) 00:23, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion: what about creating a "prosopography" article in which short biographies of individual and groups of Vestals could be included, where warranted, and perhaps a list of other Vestals mentioned in history at the end? In a few cases individual Vestals might merit their own articles, but in this and doubtless other cases it makes sense to treat multiple Vestals together. And there's nothing wrong with hatnoting individual sections, with one or two short paragraphs, pointing to a longer article, when justified.  P Aculeius (talk) 22:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Isn't it what we've done with the gentes series? Each vestal is described in her gens article and in Vestal virgins. T8612 (talk) 00:28, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Was unaware that there was a list already. Could use some tweaks, but clearly makes my suggestion less useful than it would have been otherwise. Could still be split out later, but no need for that ATM. P Aculeius (talk) 01:12, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Support merge. I don't see the point of having three identical articles. Erich Gruen wrote an article on the trial, so I suggest we follow his title of Trial of the Vestal Virgins. The plural is important since to my knowledge it was the only trial involving several vestals. If there was another similar trial, we could just add a date. T8612 (talk) 00:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Would prefer a more specific title, simply because there were presumably trials each time Vestals were accused of misconduct. It's unlikely that this is the only example of which anything specific can be said. Unless of course we were to have an article designed to include all of them, which would make that unnecessary. I point out that a journal article, like a book or episode of a TV show, can treat its titles as if they were the only examples of whatever they involve; in an encyclopedia with potentially infinite volume and detail, we should be more circumspect about the implications of the title. P Aculeius (talk) 01:12, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately "trial of the Vestal Virgins" is not specific enough – there were at least two vestals accused of unchastity in 73 BC (in an affair which, inevitably, also implicated Catiline). We could have Trial of the Vestal Virgins (114–113 BC), I guess, but it's hardly snappy... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:18, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure there really is an intuitive title that people will think of looking under. Fortunately, it's not a general interest topic, so as long as it's linked in as many articles as seem relevant to it, I think it'll be fine. Anyone who runs across a reference to it will find the article, and of course we can have redirects with titles like "Marcia (Vestal)". Incidentally, I think that "Vestal" needs to be treated as a proper noun—after all, it's shorthand for a priestess of Vesta—which makes it akin to "Christian", "Lutheran", or "Buddhist". I won't argue that all sources that disagree with me are wrong, but it just seems more consistent with English rules of capitalization—and has more call to be capitalized than "consul" or even "senate", which could reasonably be treated as common nouns, IMO, even though Wikipedia articles routinely capitalize them. P Aculeius (talk) 23:17, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm fine with Trial of the Vestal Virgins (114–113 BC).

Support merge. It doesn't seem like there's enough info on each individual vestal. Trial of the Vestal Virgins (114-113 BC) sounds like a good solution.--Ermenrich (talk) 01:11, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

So just how much information is there on each woman? If there is no hope of increasing each of them beyond a stub (short of lots of gratuitous padding, e.g. adding every supposition about the Vestal Virgins to each article), there should only be one. One of my pet peeves is encountering what I call permanent stubs -- articles that will never be more than a few sentences -- how their existence effects Wikipedia's reliability; we already have enough stubs that we need to develop into usable articles, & not enough people to do that work. -- llywrch (talk) 20:31, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, I suggested a merge into Trial of the Vestal Virgins (114-113 BC). T8612 (talk) 20:46, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I think nearly all of us are prepared to back merging the three, and that the proposed title (with an n-dash, not a hyphen) will do (at least until we can think of a better title). If Llywrch agrees, that'll make five of us agreed on merging them, and I don't think anyone is strongly opposed to the proposed title, even if none of us is crazy about it. It describes the topic clearly, leaves room for similar articles on related trials, and can easily be linked to in related articles. It may not be a very intuitive title, but I don't think we're going to come up with a more intuitive one right away—and if we do, it can be moved later. P Aculeius (talk) 21:30, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I thought I clearly indicated I was in favor of a merge. ;-) About the only alternative title I can think of for this article would be Vestal Virgins trial (114/113 BC), but the proposed title works fine. (Although I worry that using an n-dash might prevent people from finding it; not too many keyboards are equipped with an n-dash.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:48, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that's a likely issue. Anyone who guesses the title should see it appear in the search window drop-down long before they reach the dash. Who insists on typing an article title long after it can be clicked on? And who gets lost if doing so doesn't work? But because the title isn't all that intuitive, and the topic is somewhat obscure, nearly everyone who reads the article will get there from a link in another article—making the ability to type it largely irrelevant. P Aculeius (talk) 19:36, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking more of when one links to it from another article: the editor might be surprised that the link was red. (Although most of us preview our edits before we save. Don't we?) -- llywrch (talk) 00:31, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I think the solution to that is a redirect marked as Template:R from alternative punctuation. WP:RPURPOSE specifically says that some titles containing dashes should have redirects using hyphens. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:41, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

This seems to have consensus, so  Done. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:38, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Technical question: alerts (1st-century BC Roman men)

For those of you who get CGR Article alerts, can anyone tell me why "1st-century BC Roman men" is still there, long after the discussion was closed, and it and all of the related topics were merged back into gender-neutral Roman categories? Is it possible to remove it from the list? I have no problem with stuff being there indefinitely when it hasn't been dealt with, but this has. P Aculeius (talk) 14:34, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Looking into it quickly, I think it's because Category:1st-century Roman men is still tagged with the merge template and hasn't actually been merged... (Presumably because it wasn't actually listed in the discussion, which skips from Category:1st-century BC Roman men to Category:2nd-century Roman men.) Nonetheless, I think consensus clearly applies to that cat too and anyone who has the time should feel free to go ahead and finish it up... Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:19, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Cleaned up & deleted. -- llywrch (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm none too confident when it comes to mergers! P Aculeius (talk) 22:45, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Common name of Historia Augusta

The article Augustan History does not use the common name of book, which is Historia Augusta. I don't think I've ever seen Augustan History in the sources. Apparently this was not seen during the GA review. The English WP uses principally the Latin titles for Roman books, such as Livy's Ab Urbe Condita Libri, Ennius' Annales, Valerius Maximus' Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX, or Cicero's works. However, some Latin works use an English title, such as the Pliny's Natural History. So, should we use the Latin title? T8612 (talk) 15:52, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I would move this article to Historia Augusta. However, I don't think we should have a blanket rule for Greek and Roman literature. I tend to use the Greek and Latin titles in citations, but give the English titles, where they're well-known, alongside them in the bibliographies. One glaring exception where I disagree with any title other than the English one is Livy: we have no evidence that his history was titled or referred to in antiquity as Ab Urbe Condita; if anything it was most likely called Annales, but we're not sure about that, and English language sources have no problems with calling it his History of Rome. Possibly confusion arose because the history was sometimes assigned a modern title in Latin, rather than—or in addition to—English, and that would have contained the words Ab Urbe Condita, or maybe because the words "ab urbe condita" could have been used in antiquity as a general description of any history of Rome from its founding, without intending to refer to a proper name of the work. But I guess that's a separate discussion! I think it's fine to refer to the "Augustan History" for variety or if it's what you're used to calling it—but Historia Augusta is the older title, and is reasonably transparent and familiar to English-speakers. P Aculeius (talk) 16:02, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Surely Historia Augusta is the most familiar name and we should move to that. It's not a perfect name for the book -- the unfamiliar reader wouldn't guess that it's not a history at all, it's a series of unreliable biographies of less-known emperors -- but, as far as that's concerned, Augustan History is no better. Andrew Dalby 19:23, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

@P Aculeius: I too don't like Ab Urbe Condita as title of Livy's work, but there is no obvious common name for it. T8612 (talk) 22:06, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I think there is. Pretty sure "History of Rome" is widely used. But even as a generic title, it's preferable to one for which there's no evidence. I think it should be at "History of Rome (Livy)" without any Latin words or number of books included in the title. P Aculeius (talk) 00:01, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia Britannica refers to it as the Augustan History, with Historia Augusta as an alternative title - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Augustan-History Oatley2112 (talk) 02:23, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

My vote is for the Latin version of all of the texts, e.g. Historia Augusta, Annales, Naturalis Historia, etc. These are amongst the more common forms of the names & are uniquely paired with them. But as long as there are redirects for all of the more common forms, I'm not going to make much of a fuss. FWIW, the Oxford Classical Dictionary has the article under the name Historia Augusta (which is the name Isaac Casaubon gave this collection), but uses the abbreviation SHA ("Scriptores Historiae Augustae") to refer to it. Methinks the staff of the OCD decides these things in much the same manner Wikipedia does! -- llywrch (talk) 05:18, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

• Historia Augusta for sure, but others vary - Pliny's Natural History. Usually just "Livy" works fine, but "Livy's History of Rome" is ok. Johnbod (talk) 05:28, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
• Move completed. T8612 (talk) 12:44, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

A Non-Wikipedia question for discussion

A thought experiment for all of you. A regular event in Classical studies is the recovery of a text from this period: if you had to pick what the next one could be, what would be your choice?

Would it be some documentary materials from a part of the world we know little about, say a trader's records in a chest lost during the 2nd century in the Rhine? Or maybe a copy of a work thought lost -- one of the Republican Roman historians, a Cyclic Poem, or the memoirs of a Hellenistic general? Maybe a text we never imagined existed, such as the poems of an unknown Gallo-Roman writer, or the letters of a North African provincial? Or maybe simply an older text of some existing text, such as Augustus' Res Gestae or Thucydides' History? I'm just throwing out examples here, but when you consider what texts have been discovered over the last century, any of these are possible. I figure people here are informed enough on this topic that we should be able to come up with some interesting choices.

One stipulation I'm going to impose here: no Christianity-related materials. The history of Early Christianity is controversial enough that we don't need to turn something that is meant for enjoyment to turn into a flame war. -- llywrch (talk) 00:18, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I’d have to pick Ennius. It seems a real shame we have so little of him given his importance for Latin poetry.

Barring that, maybe another satyr play? A friend of mine somehow wrote his whole dissertation on satyr plays, it would’ve been nice if he’d had some more material to work with ;-).-—Ermenrich (talk)

Probably the 107 books of Livy that we don't have. A similar work by a Carthaginian on his city would also be amazing, considering how little we know on Carthage. T8612 (talk) 17:40, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm not good at choosing, so I've got three: the history of Fabius Pictor, the lost books of Livy, or an unabridged version of Manetho.

• Fabius Pictor was the original Roman historian, and writing much earlier than Livy or his contemporaries, he not only would have had access to older records that Livy might not have—and been better able to interpret them in their context—but he might provide additional details about Rome under the kings or the early Republic, and perhaps preserve traditions that later writers did not, and in any case his interpretation of events might be vastly different from the Roman history that we know.
• Of course, Livy is the Roman historian par excellence, and if perhaps less scholarly than some of the others he imparts a distinctly Roman flavour to his work—there are many periods of Republican history that would be better elucidated through Livy than most of our surviving sources. I'm also tantalized by the potential of the lost books of Tacitus, or perhaps some second or third century historians who might verify or refute details in the Historia Augusta and perhaps add important new material.
• Manetho's monumental history of the Egyptian kings survives only in epitomes by Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius—the latter in two main versions, one the "Armenian"—and the differences between the names and dates reported in the three, as well as what's included in Africanus and largely omitted in Eusebius—hint at all of them being relatively poor copies, several generations removed from the original, and omitting perhaps the great majority of the detail.

Of course, while I would be thrilled beyond belief by the discovery of any of these, perhaps in some undiscovered vault, or recovered from the charred scrolls of Pompeii, there are other discoveries that would be as wonderful. The one dearest to my heart would be a monumental inscription of the Royal Annals of Egypt, such as the one from which the Palermo Stone was broken, elucidating the mysterious origins of Egypt's earliest kings, with lists of names of kings who may or may not have existed, placed in clear context. Besides these, the oldest fragments of the Capitoline Fasti would be fabulous, perhaps giving us more details about the Roman kings, and the consuls from the first four decades of the Republic. Even if we accept that these fasti were carved to suit the historians of the Augustan age, there's much that they knew (or thought they knew) about that period that we don't. Failing that, any fasti filling in the blank periods for which our knowledge of the great Roman magistrates is lacking.  P Aculeius (talk) 18:13, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't think Fabius Pictor would bring much additional details on the early history of Rome because his history was quite short. In fact, its discovery would allow us to find what is not historical in the later historians, as they added much to his work to improve the standing of their family and political party. Licinius Macer is known to have done that.  T8612 (talk) 19:57, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

The complete res gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus. It covers the 3rd century period for which our existing Roman sources are the poorest, and he was an excellent historian. Oatley2112 (talk) 03:40, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

• So far people have been throwing out mostly historical works -- which isn't bad, but is a bit limiting. I'll suggest one that is not a history: the writings of Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher whose thinking has a number of similarities to the Tao Te Ching, a work that had a great deal of influence in Chinese philosophy. It's interesting that the Chinese had a philosophical school that corresponded to the Western tradition of the Sophists/Socrates/Plato/Aristotle called "the School of Names", but which failed to be more than a curiosity for them as Heraclitus is in the West. -- llywrch (talk) 08:00, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
• It would be nice to have the complete poems of Sappho. Others' too, but hers more than any. Andrew Dalby 14:32, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• I would most like the discovery of the Titanomachy. Paul August ☎ 15:25, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Oh and also the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women Paul August ☎ 15:53, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, certainly. And the rest of Tacitus. Andrew Dalby 09:16, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
• Beyond the whole bodies of works whose discovery would be revolutionary, it would be nice to have certain lacunae. It always peeved me that somehow Plutarch's Parallel Lives were rescued for posterity yet the scribes somehow didn't transcribe the prologue of Caesar. Polybius' Book VI would be a tremendous take on the Roman Constitution if it was complete. Sleath56 (talk) 08:30, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

  Curiously, we're also missing the first sections of Suetonius's Caesar. To quote a phrase from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the file has been filleted. Andrew Dalby 09:45, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Fronto's name

There's a discussion on Talk:Marcus_Cornelius_Fronto#February_2020 regarding the encyclopedic relevance of how Fronto spelled his name (in Greek) in his letters (content that was recently added to his article).

Pinging all editors who were active on this project during this month (I hope you don't mind). @Andrew Dalby, Sleath56, T8612, Johnbod, Llywrch, Oatley2112, P Aculeius, Paul August, Ermenrich, Caeciliusinhorto-public, and Caeciliusinhorto: Your input would be highly appreciated. Thanks. M.Bitton (talk) 01:02, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Looks to me like the whole article needs work. It has a number of parts that suggest it was written by an early twentieth century Oxbridge aristocrat, i.e. his object in his teaching was to inculcate the exact use of the Latin language in place of the artificialities of such 1st-century authors as Seneca the Younger.I'll try weighing in on the name later, but I will not that there are unnecessary Greek transcriptions of a number of other people's names in the text.--Ermenrich (talk) 01:53, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

AFD: List of Latin names of rivers

It occurred to me that this discussion might be of concern to CGR. I only became aware of it through WikiProject Latin, but it strikes me as a matter of history and culture, not just language. My position may be totally wrong, but I'd like to see some opinions from CGR project members—especially as according to the discussion, two similar articles were deleted in the past. But I remember years ago wanting to draw up a map of the Roman world—or the world as known in antiquity—and it was difficult to find accurate information on the names of geographical features, because articles about them rarely mentioned their Greek or Roman names, and I had to search them one by one. It would have been even more difficult if I'd had to do the research in Latin. I never got anywhere with the original idea, but this is the kind of article that would have been very useful to me. P Aculeius (talk) 14:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I made a couple of comments in that discussion, without mentioning the fact that personally I hate list-of-names articles because they tend to be unreliable in detail. Yet I can see their use for the purpose you describe. I expect you already know that lists of geographical features in Latin -- from the Roman period only -- can be found on each of the map directory pages of the Barrington Atlas, and those pages are all accessible from here. Incidentally, I had in mind to check these, this year next year sometime never, against our existing articles on Vicipaedia. Andrew Dalby 16:18, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if you're aware of this, but most of the content of that list is already mentioned in the List of European rivers with alternative names article. M.Bitton (talk) 01:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I hadn't seen that list, which is rich indeed. Thank you. But even that list has the telltale template "not enough citations", and a very honest and helpful prefatory paragraph, from which, I would conclude, the reader can't normally know the origin or reliability of any single name. Andrew Dalby 09:45, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to say this, because someone will assume I am dropping all my other Wikipedia-related tasks & volunteering to complete this immediately, but there are reliable sources for these Latin names, beginning with Pliny the Elder, & moving down the years to the work of the English Place-Name Society -- & the equivalent authorities in other countries -- as well as Pauly-Wissowa & other scholarly compilations of geographical material. I know because I have some of these books. Unfortunately, this page seems to be something created near the beginning of Wikipedia's genesis (4 September 2002, to be precise), that never was attended to when reliable sources were added to many articles, slouched along under the radar all these years, & now that it has become buried in cruft, untrustworthy assertions, weird edit decisions, etc., & thus has been targeted by the newest cohort of editors for deletion on the basis content like this is not encyclopedic. (But who are likely to never have even seen an encyclopedia in real life, let alone used one. Because "real" encyclopedias do have articles like this.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:06, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Need help with sourcing for Troy

An editor over at Trojan War keeps deleting the assertion that Troy VIIa, the leading candidate for Homeric Troy, was destroyed by fire—surely an important detail. I know this is widely accepted, but I'm having a little trouble finding what I would consider a scholarly source for it. I don't have the entire Cambridge Ancient History—mostly just the Roman portions—and I'm not sure what else to consult, because our already-cited sources are a bit meagre, and of course public domain sources are too old to contain the results of recent archaeology. I'm hoping someone else in this project knows of a good source for this, because otherwise it's just going to be deleted again. P Aculeius (talk) 15:24, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

See Latacz, p. 286: "We delibertely take no position with regard to the old debate whether the two great cataclysms so far archaeologically recorded around 1200—an earthquake around 1250 (the end of Troy VI) and a great fire about 1180 or a little later (the end of Troy VIIa) ..." Paul August ☎ 16:58, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Barry Strauss, The Trojan War: A New History: "At that latter date [1180 BC] the city of Troy was destroyed by a raging fire." p. 10. T8612 (talk) 18:03, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! I've cited these and Wood—which it seems I have—in alphabetical order, and reworded the paragraph a little. Please feel free to improve on it if you think it needs more refinement! P Aculeius (talk) 18:40, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

@P Aculeius: I know that this is a late response, but I thought these two sources might prove helpful to you. M.Bitton (talk) 00:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Talkbox badge

Hey all, just visited this wikiproject and am anxious to join, I do have one comment, the talkpage badge is no where to be found, can you link it here or make it more obvious, I know people enjoy putting them on their profiles. Thanks MaximusEditor (talk) 20:43, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Try this. M.Bitton (talk) 00:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Templates for Discussion attention

I just noticed that at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 March 22 several pages have been listed for consideration: Template:Seneca the Younger's plays, Template:Milecastles, Template:Provinces of Roman Anatolia, Template:Ancient monuments in Rome, Template:Roman religion (festival), Template:Ancient Tiber bridges, Template:Roman bridges, Template:Late Anatolian Roman provinces, & Template:Epochs of Roman Emperors. One perennial problem with this process is a lack of input, so the more opinions the quicker the process can be completed. -- llywrch (talk) 05:15, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Request for discussion of a depiction on pottery..

Please follow this link and give an opinion on the nature of this depiction, thanks. ~ R.T.G 21:27, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Doubtful and confusing content in biography articles

I've come across several articles today with condradictory or confusing info.

• Gaius Claudius Marcellus (consul 50 BC)'s article claims he had a wife before Octavia the Younger with whom he had a daughter who married Sextus Quinctilius Varus who had the son Publius Quinctilius Varus and three daughters. But Publius Quinctilius Varus article mentions nothing of the sort. Only thing I could find possibly related to this is this speculation here which is hard to read due to the limited space.
• Then there is the mess that is the Claudia Marcella article which for some reason covers two women on the same page for seeminly no benefit. The article is filled with run on sentences that repeats themselves and seem to be arguing with each other. I edited it here to try to make it less biased in tone but it's still confusing to read.
• A related thing seems to have happened on the Appuleia Varilla which I also removed.

Not sure what more to do here.★Trekker (talk) 07:20, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't know who thought it was a good idea to make an article for two persons, but the Claudia Marcella article should be split in two. T8612 (talk) 14:39, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Here is a link to the version that introduced the dubious content into the Gaius Claudius Marcellus page back in 2013. It is referencing a dubious website that no longer exists, so the information about the first wife should perhaps be deleted. Oatley2112 (talk) 00:44, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I seem to recall that Anriz was heavily into descent from antiquity and the work of Christian Settipani. Which is not to say that it should automatically be discarded—apparently Settipani is a legitimate scholar, although some of his conclusions and methods are byzantine, with a small 'b', and I think they're written in French, which makes them a bit inaccessible to a lot of us—but not necessarily invalid. I would check out related articles in scholarly sources to make sure that this doesn't have support before deleting it. Have you checked the related articles in PW? At least that's easier to find and translate, even if you don't read German. It might be somewhat older than Settipani, or whatever Anriz' source was, so it may be that newer research was involved—but I wouldn't be surprised to find at least speculation on a previous wife if it's based on historical sources.

As for why an article would contain two or more people, those are called "prosopography pages", and they used to be the favoured way of collecting biographies on members of Roman gentes who shared the same or substantially similar names. That's why we have Lucius Julius Caesar, Sextus Julius Caesar, and Sempronia. They allow more detail than would go on a disambiguation page, but serve a similar function, particularly when the sum of information known about several persons isn't very much, or there's some uncertainty about which was which in some cases. The gens articles include a different approach to the same goal: each of them includes a list of all the members appearing in history, sometimes with others known only from inscriptions or similar sources, with more biographical detail than would go in a disambiguation page, but less than in even a short stand-alone article—or in most cases, a prosopography page. Personally I favour splitting prosopography pages into separate articles whenever there's enough material on the individuals to do so—but I haven't attempted to delete the existing pages, or, I think, to split them so that the title goes to the most important person with the name—which would probably be prudent, and consistent with our other biographical articles. P Aculeius (talk) 02:11, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I think maybe the Claudia Marcella page can be a disambiguation page and each of the sisters would have "Minor" and "Major" in their name, since I don't think either of them are really more notable than the other.★Trekker (talk) 05:53, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The problem with anything Anriz (which was IMHO a sock for a banned user I won't name) added was that he/she simply made a lot of it up. Then to hide that it was all fabricated, would claim it came from Settipani -- without adding the page number it allegedly appeared on. Where I've encountered his work, & can't easily confirm or disprove it, I've simply flagged as "citation needed". (All I need for my reputation is to delete something he didn't make up, & catch heck for it.)

As for articles on multiple people... There are a lot of them who are little more than a name (see for example Servius Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus -- one of the few families of the 2nd century who could trace their origins to the Roman Republic, yet almost nothing can be written about most individual members); best to collect these "perma-stubs" (as I call them) into one article, than to have stubs scattered all over, ripe targets for vandals or sleezebag marketeers. -- llywrch (talk) 21:07, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

That's interesting. Not living near libraries I am never able to verify Settipani's work directly. Based on the way it's used on Wikipedia I have often doubted its reliability, but this could explain some such cases. If so I've been unfair to Settipani. Andrew Dalby 15:37, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

You're not the only one who was wrong about that scholar. It didn't help that someone posted to my talk page pretending to be him. (And on the off chance it was actually Settipani, I wished he had looked at some of the material he had been cited as a source for before writing that.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:45, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I still think that Settipani's work, where it can be validated that it is actually his, shouldn't be used uncritically as a source. Much of his genealogical reconstructions for the Roman period are very hypothetical in nature, with little more than guesswork based on names and a conviction that noble lines must have continued down through the generations. That as far as I am concerned is not good enough for a encyclopedic article. If anyone is interested in a legitimate peer review of one of Settipani's medieval genealogical works, here is a Link. The reviewer is much kinder than me, but even he recognizes the large numbers of assumptions Settipani makes in his reconstructions. These assumptions are prevalent throughout his genealogical works, and are what make it unwise to base any familial details in Roman biographical articles using solely his works. Oatley2112 (talk) 10:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, from what I've read a lot of what's found in Settipani is still hypothetical or conjectural—which is not to say it's not valid, or correct, but it needs to be treated with caution. Simply saying something like "Settipani proposes that Bolonius Magnus was married twice, and that the senator Velvitius Quadratus, who boldly criticized Domitian, was his son by his second wife, Velvitia Prima" should be good enough. It allows the material in, since it's relevant and supported by scholarship, but qualifies it by identifying the source, and indicating that it's a hypothesis, not demonstrated fact. In time additional evidence may vindicate what today is conjecture, but it's best to be cautious in distinguishing scholarly opinion from certainty. P Aculeius (talk) 12:35, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@P Aculeius:, why do I have this feeling you were making a sandwich right before you wrote that? -- llywrch (talk) 16:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, there really was a man named "Gaius Bolonius Maximus", living at Emona in Pannonia Superior in the late second or early third century. His wife, Aurelia Bona, raised a monument in his memory. Now, if only I could remember whether I knew that before I plated the above example... P Aculeius (talk) 22:14, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@Llywrch:, so if the user Anriz just made stuff up and cited Settipani as his source, I think we may have discovered who the actual author of the Historia Augusta was... :) Oatley2112 (talk) 09:35, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Returning to *Treker's original post. Having banged my head against the problem of figuring out the relationships between people in Classical times, I need point out that there is surprisingly little certain data, & surprisingly much inference & surmise. Even authorities such as Ronald Syme (who has forgotten more about the subject than I know) often engages in handwaving to support a point. It would be nice to try to identify as much of this information as opinions over fact (e.g. certain, that is a reliable primary source attests to it; very likely; possible; speculative; & just plain wrong). This can be effected by instead of "X is the case" writing "According to A, X is the case". At least that way users can decide for themselves whether to trust the opinion of, say, Settpani or Syme, or treat it with some degree of skepticism. (I will admit that I see this problem of confusing expert opinion with certain fact is more common with new editors, & less with veteran ones.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:28, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

My main problem is that the text in the sentences in the articles seem to be arguing with each other like if it was a forum. If it was made clear who has claimed what and that that is their opinion that's not a problem. But right now I feel like the articles are filled with run on sentences that are hard to figure out.★Trekker (talk) 18:35, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Consider it a challenge to research the subject, untangle the mess & improve the article. That's what I find myself doing much of the time. ;-) llywrch (talk) 21:08, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

"Augustus of the Eastern Roman Empire"/"Augustus of the Western Roman Empire"

Infoboxes in articles, including FAs, about Late Roman emperors claim that "Augustus of the Eastern/Western Roman Empire" was their title (for instance: Maximian, Diocletian), Constantius III). I assume this is a WP-invetion, because it has not been verified. I would highly appreciate if members of this WikiProject share their views on the use of this "title" in the infoboxes. (I emphasize that I know that the use of the terms "Eastern/Western Roman Emperor/Byzantine Emperor" is itself problematic, but these terms can be verified by academic sources. So I would like to avoid discussing these terms now.) Borsoka (talk) 11:39, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

From a technical standpoint, Augustus was the distinguishing title of all Roman emperors. I'm not sure whether this changed at some point in the Byzantine period, i.e. some time between the sixth and eighth centuries. However, Augustus was treated as a cognomen, and out of context usually refers to Augustus, the first emperor—so in English we usually use the word "emperor" as a general term, and reserve "Augustus" for technical uses: "Unguentius was saluted Augustus by the troops at Castrorum Coronarum on the Kalends of September", or "for the next seven months there were two rival Augusti. The editor or editors writing this into the infoboxes may be trying to avoid a jarring repetition: "Emperor of the Blah Blah Empire", but in so doing they're avoiding the word that would normally be used in this context. Just one of the problems with infoboxes—they tend to prescribe formulas that become awkward, and don't work well with subtle distinctions. But the bottom line is, the normal way to describe a Roman emperor in English is just that: "emperor". "Augustus" should be used for variety or technical purposes within the bodies of articles—not at the head of an infobox. P Aculeius (talk) 13:02, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Augustus should be replaced by Emperor. I find "Augustus of the West" very awkward. As P_Aculeius pointed out Augustus and Caesar were also names. T8612 (talk) 13:15, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

• The usage of Augustus of the Roman Empire, and its two variations, has been established in some sources, [1], [2], [3][4],[5]. Even if not for each specific emperor, it certainly has been applied before. I personally think it works better as a title. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 21:42, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

• The first source in the above list is a tertiary source, not of the highest quality. The second source does not use the title "Augustus of the Eastern/Western Roman Empire". The third book is not dedicated to Roman history and it was published by a publishing house advertizing itself with the slogan "Do you have a story to tell? Publish it." ([6]) The fourth book is neither dedicated to Roman history and it was published by a publishing house with the motto "Natural medicine is our DNA" and with the following quote on its website: "The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine." ([7]) The fifth book contains the title "Augustus of the Roman Empire". We can conclude that the use of the title "Augustus of the Eastern/Western Roman Empire" cannot be verified. Borsoka (talk) 01:04, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm unclear which part of the title "Augustus of the Eastern/Western Roman Empire" is being objcted to, so excuse me while I discuss more elements of this title than I probably need to.

The element "Augustus" came into usage with Diocletian, & continued on to some point IIRC in the 6th century. (A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, pp. 322f) Prior to Diocletian, I find as I look more closely to the titulature & legalistic wording of the machinery of the Roman Empire, there really was never a clearly defined role, let alone title, of "Emperor". (Yes, the men we call "emperors" did have imperium, but that was a quality all Roman magistrates had.) Their official title was proconsul (speaking de jure, the emperors were proconsuls of a large share of the empire, which was divided into provinces governed by their assistants or legati), the Senate periodically voted them tribunicia potestas (which gave them the legal justification for many of their powers), they were commander-in-chief of practically all of the soldiers of the Empire (which gave them the practical justification for their powers), & they were the head of all of the major priesthoods of Rome (which gave gave them control of the only other center of power that the rich & powerful could use to oppose him). But until Diocletian made his reforms, there really wasn't one office invested with all of the powers we associate with the title of "emperor". This absence of a unified office was intentional, at least at the beginning: the Romans had a long aversion to kings, & men who acted like kings under another name, so running the government visibly indirectly -- much as the head of the Communist Party was the real leader of the Soviet Union -- managed to placate this dislike.

As for the elements "Western Empire" & "Eastern Empire", this is indeed a modern invention to describe the political situation from 395 onwards: in all practicality, two parallel governments functioned in the Roman Empire from that point on, one in the West based in Rome (when the emperor wasn't residing at Ravenna), & one in the West based in Constantinople. Nevertheless, the emperor in each part was recognized as emperor over the whole -- at least those emperors who were considered "legitimate" emperors. (Things got more than a little sketchy in the last half of the 5th century until the line of Western Emperors came to an end.) A legal edict or proclamation made by one was recognized throughout the entire Roman world as applying there. For example, after the promulgation of the Theodosian Code in 429, the two courts would periodically exchange copies of the laws each had issued for the others benefit.

The titulature "Augustus of the Eastern/Western Roman Empire" is something of a bastardization of two usages. There is an accepted modern practice of writing "Western Roman Empire" & "Eastern Roman Empire". There is also the ancient practice in the 4th century thru 6th century of calling the emperor the "Augustus". (Offhand, I can't say when "Augustus" was replaced with "autokrator", the usual Byzantine title, but that's not relevant to the current discussion.) When there were two emperors in the 5th century, I believe the contemporary style was to refer to them as "the Augustus at Rome/Ravenna" or "the Augustus at Constantinople". They were seen as members of a collegia, a group of two equals, until the last one in Italy was deposed in 476. (I'm side-stepping the issue of the titulature when there were Augusti & Caesares between 286 & 337: if you need guidance in that anomalous & confusing period, I'd go with what A.H.M. Jones writes in his book mentioned above.) -- llywrch (talk) 08:05, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Llywrch's discussion makes very good sense to me, but is it possible to cite sources for "the Augustus at Rome/Ravenna" and "the Augustus at Constantinople"? Or are they already cited, somewhere where I should already have looked :) I just feel doubtful whether it was normal to make the term "Augustus" (Sebastos in Greek) specific to a territory. Andrew Dalby 08:31, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I would not be opposed to mentione the title Augustus or Emperor of the Romans in the infobox: they styled themselves as such and a different line at the infobox makes it clear that they ruled only the Eastern/Western Roman Empire. I only want to create "wikipedisms" and spread them from article to article. Borsoka (talk) 08:45, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm beginning to answer my own question just above: one can see the gradual spread of the string "Augustus at Constantinople" via Google Books. I find it in 1835, and then used by J. B. Bury (1889), and quite often recently. But I haven't yet been able to see any text that distinguishes the Augustus at Constantinople from an Augustus elsewhere. Hence I find I'm in agreement with Borsoka's latest comment. Andrew Dalby 08:54, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't believe it's our goal to "create 'wikipedisms' and spread them from article to article". If the usual term for Roman emperors in English is "emperor", then that should be the default style, with others used for technical purposes or variety within articles—but not elevated to a degree of importance that suggests that general usage—in scholarly sources as well as everyday references—is somehow incorrect.

As for titles: every emperor from Augustus onward bore two names signifying his authority: Imperator, prefixed to his name like a praenomen, signifying his authority to command—and it's not clear to me that the historical legacy of being saluted as commander of troops was necessarily implied by it, because it was used without reference to soldiers in the field or at home, military victories won, or wars being waged—and Augustus, usually the final cognomen for all emperors, or anyone claiming the imperial throne (and yes, I know that's metaphorical; there was no actual throne). It was the title that defined an emperor, because in theory the title Imperator could be bestowed on others, as it had been historically before there were emperors; but Augustus was not conferred upon anyone until 27 BC, and was never conferred on anyone except those who were acclaimed emperors by the Roman (and later Byzantine) senate, or by troops in the field who intended to place their emperor on the (metaphorical) throne.

Nonetheless, in English we have always used "emperor", derived from "Imperator", as the normal way to refer to those who held these titles, even when the term "Augustus" was occasionally used alongside it. In fact "Imperator" is the source of the equivalent word in all European languages that don't use a word derived from "Caesar" or "Autocrator" instead. Using "Augustus" in place of "emperor" in article titles, leads, infoboxes, and so forth risks creating confusion amongst our readers: was he an emperor or something else? If he became Augustus in 416, when did he become "emperor"? I'm not objecting to all uses or references to the title—within appropriate context. I'm just saying that we shouldn't intentionally deviate from standard English usage in the places where it would be expected, and clarity is essential—such as an infobox. P Aculeius (talk) 13:06, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Having read the responses above, I want to admit that my basis for the title "Augustus at X" was based on the usage of "Western Court" & "Eastern Court". (And my point in my comment above was to emphasize that while there was parallel government structures, there weren't parallel offices of emperors: even when one formally referred to himself, he spoke as one of many emperors, not as a specific emperor, e.g. a "Western" or "Eastern".) If contemporaries never referred to the emperor that way, then it's not right. Considering what Jones writes in his Later Roman Empire -- & from what I've seen of contemporary practice -- I also must admit that the title "Augustus" is only significant when there was someone using the title "Caesar"; otherwise "Emperor" should work. At many times in the 4th & 5th centuries there were multiple emperors, & I can't think of an example when they were identified as an "Augustus of X". (Okay, there is one example: when the Codex Theodosius was presented to the Roman Senate in 429, at one point the senators cheered "Augustus of Augusti". But this only emphasizes the point others have made.) If one died, it was not seen as an office with a vacancy. In short, calling them "Augusti" is being needlessly over-precise -- which is an error we Wikipedians often fall into. -- llywrch (talk) 23:42, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Bleh, over the years I've learned not to disregard your opinions lightly. Even when we disagree, I always find wisdom to temper whatever I was thinking before. I only wish I could manage to express myself as clearly and dispassionately—and with a similar degree of scholarship! P Aculeius (talk) 12:23, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry. I clearly do not want to create and spread "wikipedisms". :) Borsoka (talk) 13:14, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I was assuming a negative had gone missing! Andrew Dalby 19:29, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

For an English encyclopedia, it should be "Emperor", not "Augustus" (although, as mentioned above, Augustus can be used as a synonym for Emperor, to avoid repetition). After all, we don't refer to Leonidas I in his infobox as Basileus; rather, we style him as King, which is the English equivalent. Also, when using the term Augustus, perhaps we should italicize Augustus, in much the same way we italicize other Latin words. Oatley2112 (talk) 08:50, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, Borsoka, didn't mean to come off as hostile! @Oatley, this seems like a borderline case for italicization—one of those words that might be thought familiar enough in English not to be treated as a foreign term. I'm not sure how I would treat it, but I probably wouldn't prescribe the answer for other editors—as long as it's done consistently within articles. P Aculeius (talk) 12:23, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

No prescription, I agree, but it would be a handy way to distinguish the individual named Augustus from those individuals who held the title of Augustus. Oatley2112 (talk) 22:24, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Have we reached a consensus here? That as far as it concerns Infoboxes, we should use "Emperor" & not "Augustus"? Perhaps even avoid using "Western Emperor" or "Eastern Emperor" in the Infoboxes? (We should consider usage in the article texts on a case-by-case basis. For example, at some points in history "Augustus" & "Caesar" were used together, & using those titles over "Emperor" might be more accurate. But that's a series of different discussions.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I believe we have, with respect to infoboxes—where "emperor" is a better fit—and probably also article text, where reasonable editorial discretion is appropriate, based on things such as technical correctness, verbal variety, and whether the meaning is reasonably clear in any given instance. P Aculeius (talk) 17:31, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Two proposed revisions to our article naming policies

I've posted these at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ancient Romans), in response to a number of recently renamed Roman biographical articles. The first proposal is to prefer the tria nomina, plus additional names as appropriate, to abbreviated forms of Roman names in the majority of cases. This would not apply to articles about the most famous Romans, who are frequently known by one or two names, sometimes anglicized, and generally already under those titles; the purpose of the proposal is to prevent articles from being moved to the shortest possible titles per WP:CONCISE, which I think is being misapplied throughout our project. For instance, Lucius Junius Brutus Damasippus is likely to be moved to Brutus Damasippus, even though that doesn't seem like an especially likely search title. I don't think that WP:CONCISE requires this, and that if we have consensus that the present title represents the way we should usually title Roman biographical articles, then it would be a good idea to revise our policy to say so.

The second proposal also arises out of WP:CONCISE, which has been used to remove the years of office from article titles that are disambiguated on the basis of magistracies or other official appointments. For instance, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus (consul 178 BC) might be moved to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus (consul), if none of the other men named "Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus" held the consulship, even though a number of other Calpurnii—perhaps including Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus—were consul in different years. I think as a general matter, it's preferable to include the year when an office is used as a disambiguator, particularly as many Roman families filled important magistracies for decades or even centuries. I hope that these proposals seem reasonable and sensible to the other members of this project—but the only way to know is to discuss them in on that talk page! Thanks in advance to those who find the time to weigh in. P Aculeius (talk) 02:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, I was precisely thinking of making a post like this. :) So I agree with both. Regarding the second point, many people during the Empire had very weird names (with sometimes dozens of names) and the year is very useful to disambiguate between them. Moreover, there are also many uncertainties on some magistracies or praenomina, and a year is also useful as an additional mean of identification. WP:consise makes it confusing.

I would also remove all the distinctions "the elder/the younger", unless there are clear mentions of such names in sources, like for the two Catos or Plinys. There were quite a lot of articles with these fantasy names created in the 2000s.

Another thing I would like to suggest is to keep the consulship as the highest magistracy to feature in the title. So if the man was consul, censor, and dictator, only the first consulship would be mentioned. Exemple: Titus Manlius Torquatus (consul 235 BC). The main reason is that the consulship is the magistracy for which we have the most information, while several censorships and even more dictatorships are dubious or unknown. We don't even know the censors for 64 and 61 BC, despite the abundant sources on the period. That would not stand for the rare early cases of men who were censor or dictator, but not consul. T8612 (talk) 03:09, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I know, I saw your post concerning the years, and decided to get the ball rolling as the topic related to the other thing that was bothering me, and frankly I've thought that the years were useful for as long as I've been writing and editing Roman biographical articles—about ten years now, I think. I might be a bit more open to keeping "the Elder" and "the Younger" where those distinctions are made in decent modern sources—I still think we should have Marcus Junius Brutus the Elder instead of Marcus Junius Brutus (father of Brutus), which to me is irritatingly tautological—but nobody has weighed in on that proposal on his page yet. I agree with you with respect to the consulship being the better-attested and more useful magistracy to use for article disambiguation, although there might need to be exceptions where the subjects are known primarily because of the dictatorship or censorship—although the examples that come first to mind (Marcus Furius Camillus, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Appius Claudius Caecus) don't really need disambiguation in the first place, others might. P Aculeius (talk) 05:45, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Being Brutus the assassins father is what he's actually known for, no one calls him "Marcus Junius Brutus the Elder".★Trekker (talk) 12:26, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

"Brutus, father of Brutus" is kinda weird. We could call him Marcus Junius Brutus (Tribune of the Plebs 83 BC). T8612 (talk) 12:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Verifiability of information on the Adrestia article

The article for the Greek goddess Adrestia doesn’t appear to have any accurate information. My review of academic sources (JSTOR, Google Scholar, Ancient Greek Cults, Who’s Who in Classical Mythology, A Companion to Greek Mythology, and The Routledge Handbook to Greek Mythology) turned up no references to any of the information in the article besides that Adrestia was used as an epithet for the goddess Nemesis, but it does not appear that an independent cult was ever formed.

The article on the similarly named Adrasteia contains well sourced information on the name being used as an epithet for Nemesis. Would it be a good idea to remove the Adrestia article and redirect searches to Adrasteia? --Elgallow (talk) 05:31, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

You're right, Adrestia should be redirected to Adrasteia.

The two images at Adrestia are simply modern paintings of Nemesis. There's no strong reason to illustrate an Adrasteia article with them, but I suppose if there's an urge to illustrate the Adrasteia article, one of these, properly labelled, could be used. Andrew Dalby 07:38, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Opinions needed on proposal to move "Battle of the Guadalquivir (206 BC)"

While working on another article, I ran across this incongruously named battle, which in the article lead says it's really the "Battle of Carteia", as it took place at that ancient city. However, that article title is taken by a much smaller naval engagement that evidently took place shortly afterwards. Since "Guadalquivir" is the Spanish version of the name of a nearby river—which was first applied after the Arab conquest of Spain in the eighth century; it was called the Baetis in Roman times, but there's already a "Battle of the Baetis River" that occurred during the Sertorian War—it seems utterly inappropriate to apply it to a battle of the Second Punic War (although it seems to be the name of the battle in Spanish). Neither name, I note, shows up in an ngram search of English-language books from 1800 onwards. But if there's a choice between a name that accurately describes the battle in English, and one that is appallingly anachronistic, I think the choice is clear. I proposed moving this article to "Battle of Carteia", and moving the existing "Battle of Carteia" to "Battle of Carteia (naval)". Perhaps there's a better choice? So far the only other person to weigh in says that it shouldn't be moved unless I can show that it was called the "Battle of Carteia" in antiquity—which I think makes no sense, since even if no name can be found, it certainly wasn't called the "Battle of the Guadalquivir" in antiquity. But whether you share my opinion or not—or if you can think of a better name for one or both battles—more feedback is needed at Talk:Battle of the Guadalquivir (206 BC). Thanks for anyone who can help resolve this! P Aculeius (talk) 13:21, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

We also have an article named Battle of the Upper Baetis for the 211 BC battle, in addition to the Battle of the Baetis River of 80 BC. I cannot find a modern English source naming the battle. Broughton (vol. I p. 300) speaks of "an expedition to Gades". Lazenby (Hannibal's War, p. 153) doesn't name it: "Marcius [...] had reached the Baetis on his way to Gades, and had dispersed a force raised by one of Mago's officier." The expedition was ordered by Scipio Africanus who sent two of his officers, one by sea (Gaius Laelius) and the other by land (Lucius Marcius Septimus) to Gades, the last Punic town in Spain. Hence the two battles. It was however cancelled and Gades later surrendered. Perhaps we can merge the two articles and call the new one "Expedition to Gades (206 BC)" or something similar? Unless there is a modern source calling the operations differently. T8612 (talk) 14:54, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

What about "Battle of the Baetis (206 BC)", either leaving the Sertorian battle where it is, or moving it to "Battle of the Baetis (80 BC)"? Although we still have the statement in the lead that the battle in 206 was the "Battle of Carteia". Clearly many more people were involved than in the naval engagement currently under that title, and it was far more significant than what was really a minor naval skirmish that saw a combined three ships sunk on both sides. I feel now as if I'd have been better off just moving the first two articles instead of starting the discussion... P Aculeius (talk) 15:19, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure it was a proper battle though. And even if it was, there were two engagements (one naval and one on land). I've been struggling finding good modern sources for the Punic War in Spain for a while. T8612 (talk) 15:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, what else would it be called? "Skirmish of the Baetis"? It seems that several thousand men were involved, and Hanno lost most of his men. The article exists, and has to have a name—preferably an intuitive one, if there's not a definitive answer in the sources. I note that the description in Livy does place it more at the river than near the town, so I'm dropping my original suggestion—"Battle of Carteia" doesn't seem to be accurate, despite what the lead says. But "Guadalquivir" doesn't work at all. Replace "Guadalquivir" with "Baetis", and I think the problem is solved. P Aculeius (talk) 16:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

T8612, I definitely understand your struggle for good modern sources: I've been struggling for good secondary sources published within the last 20 years. (Yes, we all know some facts will never change, for example the date Caesar was assassinated will always be 44 BC. However, new inscriptions, new manuscripts, new archeological findings, & new insights develop all of the time, & it takes time to figure out whether the disagreement between an old source & a new one is due to new discoveries, or that the new source is simply someone with a fringe opinion.) I suspect the primary cause of the absence of recent good secondary sources is due to Classics departments being closed in the English-speaking world -- both in the US & the UK. One reason I've been forced to work on my German to learn what the latest research actually is. (And I find my ignorance of French & Italian often handicaps me.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:30, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Whether this is a battle or a skirmish, the more I look into it, the more convinced I become that it's not notable enough to warrant its own article. Perhaps a merge is the way to go, salvaging what we can from the article and including it in the prelude section of the Battle_of_Ilipa. The article itself is confusing at best. I could be mistaken, but the details of the battle seem to be clearly taken from this source, overlooking the wrong date and the attribution of Hanno's capture to Marcius, instead of Silanus. M.Bitton (talk) 23:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@P Aculeius: So if I understand correctly, you want to merge both articles into Battle of the Baetis (206 BC)? I'm not against this, but do we have a source calling it like that? T8612 (talk) 12:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

No, I'm not proposing that we merge them. Marcus Bittonius suggested that, and I haven't given much thought to the proposal, although my first impression is that there might be too much information to fold it neatly into another article. I just want to get the incongruous and obviously wrong "Guadalquivir" out of the title—if we don't know what the Romans called it, or if they called it anything, the article still needs a title, but we know for certain that they didn't call it the "Battle of the Guadalquivir". I suspect we have quite a lot of battle articles with titles that the Romans didn't bestow on them, which is potentially problematic—but given the choice between the Roman name for a battle site, and a modern name, the "Battle of the Vicus Piperonius" is still preferable to the "Battle of Luigi's Tuscan Pizzeria". P Aculeius (talk) 12:25, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Use of Byzantine or Roman to describe events around the fall of the Roman Empire

There's a discussion about the proper application of the terms Byzantine vs. Roman in Late Antiquity just after the Fall of the Western Empire at Talk:Theodoric the Great#Roman Empire vs. Byzantine Empire in lead that may be of interest to members of this project. It specifically related to whether Theodoric the Great can be called "a Patrician of the Byzantine Empire" or to what "Roman Empire" should link if not, and how to deal with the term in the rest of the article.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:53, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: I think the discussion goes beyond the scope of Theodoric the Great. I have noticed the difficulties/discrepancies related to how we call the Eastern/Byzantine Empire, and how to deal with the "end" of the Eastern Empire (the moment when the Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire). I think there should be a policy on that like we did with WP:ROMANS, but I'm wondering whether it is possible to find a consensus. I have no opinion on this point yet, but I do think there should be some consistency over Wikipedia.

Note: there is another discussion above ""Augustus of the Eastern Roman Empire"/"Augustus of the Western Roman Empire"", so it seems this subject is an important source of disagreement. T8612 (talk) 12:39, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

T8612, indeed, it does seem like something that perhaps could/should be addressed by a policy. I'd note also that the article Byzantine Empire is fairly fuzzy on when it's subject begins.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:54, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Since usage by WP:RS is pretty variable in just the same way, I don't think a policy would be appropriate. Johnbod (talk) 22:03, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Consensus may be impossible to obtain, given that there is no consensus in the scholarly world about which date the Eastern Roman Empire transformed into the Byzantine Empire (which makes sense, as the transformation took decades if not centuries to achieve). That being said, it shouldn't stop us from trying to see if one can be achieved for the purpose of consistency in articles. After all, it would be confusing to the casual reader if the article on Justin I referred to his realm as the Byzantine Empire, but the article on his successor Justinian I referred to his realm as the Eastern Roman Empire. For what it's worth, I've always felt the most sensible dividing line between the 2 labels is the end of the reign of Heraclius (641 CE). The permanent loss of over half of the remaining Roman territory to the Arabs at the close of his reign, his extensive military and administrative reorganization away from the previous Roman model, and the formal use of Greek replacing Latin in the military (leaving only the Law as the single area where Latin endured in the East for another century), all point to a new entity emerging from the old Eastern Roman Empire. It's an argument made by a number of scholars and historians, and I think it's quite defensible. Oatley2112 (talk) 01:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you about the year 641, but I'm pretty sure that recent sources, if one took a majority, would not fall that way.

An argument could even be made for retaining the term Eastern Roman Empire in infoboxes all the way to 1453, and with linguistic support (a) because it called itself Roman all that time, (b) because the Roman Empire was in some official senses bilingual, Latin in the west, Greek in the east. Andrew Dalby 09:22, 20 April 2020 (UTC)