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List(s) of Roman consuls, update 2

One more update. I've tweaked the Republican part of the list pretty close to how I envision it: as much as possible only one pair of names for each year in the body of the list, removing all of the "T. or Sp. or L. Veturius Crassus Cicurinus", & hoping to push that information into the articles. (In some cases, the ambiguity is entirely over the praenomen, & if you are familiar with Old Roman cursive, it's no surprise if there was a disagreement whether the initial praenomen was C. or L., or T. or P.; those letter forms could look a lot alike.) My aim is to indicate which individuals were consuls in a given year, & if there is any controversy over what their name was this fact should properly be in the article. (And if there is no article, one could park the information as a footnote in the list if needed.) Although a lot of information is being moved to footnotes, I'm trying to limit their use as much as possible, mostly to indicate alternative office-holders (some alternatives more plausible than the main list, some -- especially those recorded by Diodorus Siculus -- far less plausible). I've included a few scholarly speculations on how the lists were revised or tampered, more as illustrations that this list is not 100% reliable. Yet except for the insertion of the four dictatorial years & the length of the Sextian-Licinian anarchy (which is generally accepted as not only a likely unhistorical alteration, but the latest one made), these scholarly speculations remain speculations. And so far, the scholarly consensus appears to be to use the Varronian dates, so they need to be kept in.

As for the Imperial part... This is posing a different set of problems. The one I foresaw was compiling a list of suffect consuls, which will not be complete. (The sources for suffect consuls attenuate as time progresses to the point -- around AD 206 -- where any known suffects are best listed under the list of undated consuls.) What I'm wondering about is whether to show pairs where neither office-holder is known, or let the reader intuit it from the dates. Yes this is mostly cosmetic, but I'd like some input -- or a better solution. The other issue is that for the first decades of the 4th century, when the Tetrarchy fell apart, that each of the Emperors began to appoint their own consuls which results in a tangle of consulships. This issue is not a difficult one to resolve, but I wasn't expecting to deal with it. (Which means there are likely other issues I didn't foresee.)

But from my work so far I see that each part needs its own introductory remarks: a section about Varronian chronology has as little relevance to the Imperial consuls as a section on how Augustus (& later emperors) adapted the suffect consulate to meet different needs. And much of the information that would help explain these lists -- about the office of Consul & how it evolved, about Consular Tribunes, the consuls of the Year of Four Emperors (who they were & how they were elected -- some of whom we don't know more about than their names), & the 25 consuls of the Year 190 (I swear I've seen a reference to an article where someone tried to compile a list of them), how the consuls reflect the changes in Roman society (there are a lot of scholarly papers on this topic: just the names alone reveal a lot of changes in the nature of the ruling classes), & the end of the consulate -- are likely best handled in separate articles. Wow, looking at all that in print reveals just how much work there is to be done. :-/ llywrch (talk) 21:26, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Good to hear you're still plugging away at it. I agree that it's best not to include alternative praenomina in the list; those can always be discussed on the consuls' individual pages, or if necessary in a footnote (but it's not necessary to footnote every possible alternative). In general, I suggest you go by the ones Broughton has chosen first, or the ones in the DGRBM (the articles as well as the chronological table at the end). It might also be instructive to look at the names typically used by each gens, in the articles I've been writing. I've paid a lot of attention to praenomina, since they're what initially got me interested in Roman families and then the chronology; and as a result, I have some observations that might or might not help you:
  • If choosing between a common praenomen (Lucius, Publius, Gaius) and an uncommon one that's well-attested for a gens (Caeso, Agrippa, Vopiscus), go with the uncommon one. Ancient authors and their copyists frequently emended names they didn't recognize as praenomina or weren't sure about into ones they thought more likely. Uncommon praenomina are also less likely to appear in ancient authors unless they were found in their sources; i.e. if they were guessing, they wouldn't usually guess these. Note, this mainly applies if neither alternative is clearly preferable.
  • There's a tendency for certain things to happen with particular praenomina. Agrippa, Postumus, and Proculus get treated as cognomina; Gnaeus, Manius, and Numerius get emended to Gaius and Marcus; Spurius and Servius get amended to Sextus. Prefer Latinized Lars to the irregular Graecicized Lar/Laros. Note that in the Gaius–Gnaeus matter, you can't be too sure without looking at the gens; Gnaeus was a common praenomen, too, even though it often gets changed into Gaius. But in a few cases the reverse seems to have happened; Coriolanus was probably Gaius, not Gnaeus; there are many men named Gaius among the Marcii, but no others named Gnaeus. Some sources seem to have more emendations of this sort than others; Broughton mentions many "bland" praenomina found in Livy assigned to magistrates with more colourful names in Dionysius or the Fasti.
  • I can't be of much help with Imperial data, but I can offer these observations with respect to the republican chronology: Broughton reports the scholarly doubts about the "dictator years," but doesn't cut them out. The same with the nine years during which Licinius and Sextius are supposed to have prevented the election of annual magistrates. It's possible that these are errors or interpolations, but nobody has satisfactorily accounted for them yet. No alternative consuls appear in any ancient sources for these gaps, even though there seem to have been a number of ancient sources to draw upon. Not every author mentions the "dictator years", but in order to make sense of the chronology without them, the most logical solution seems to be to push all earlier events forward by four years, which disrupts the rest of the chronology. My copy of Livy i–v (De Sélincourt) indeed places the Gallic sack of Rome in 386, which a few other scholars seem to have adopted; but the majority still cling to 390, and the years from 509 to 390 seem to be fairly hard to assail. As for the years with no magistrates from 375 to 367, surely it would have been easy to invent consuls for them had anyone been so inclined; according to the scholars most likely to reject them, the Romans did this all the time. If there had been consuls during those years, surely at least one source would mention them; and no scholars seem to propose dropping nine years from the chronology. So as unlikely as the gap may appear at first, no other, likelier solution has been proposed. So, as Broughton does, I would state that tradition says one thing very clearly, that it is doubted by many scholars, but that there is also no strong evidence that it is untrue, and no entirely satisfactory alternative (i.e. one acceptable to a consensus of scholarly opinion). The most neutral thing to do is simply to state what the most respected scholars say, without attempting to resolve the issue.
Well, I don't know if this helped at all. But thanks for putting in all your hard work, anyway! P Aculeius (talk) 13:56, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
As for the praenomena, my first choice would be to use whatever one is used in an existing article. If that's the wrong choice, then the usual process (e.g., debate at WP:RfC, or WP:BRD) will fix that. Otherwise, I'll most likely follow what you set forth. (My inclination is to follow the principle of lectio difficilior potior -- favor the more unusual or difficult form as the primary.) As for "dictator years" & the Lincinian-Sextian anarchy, since they are part of the Varronian chronology, there's no question that they should be left in; removing them & altering the accepted dates would be original research. Nevertheless, both the dictator years & the anarchy will be flagged with footnotes, much as they are now. (Although I need to make them more concise. If that doesn't work, then more articles need to be written.) FWIW, I'm confident that the Battle of the Allia/Sack of Rome was in 386 BC (all of the primary sources point to that year), but due to mistakes in composing the Fasti Capitolini it was redated to 390 BC, which subsequently became the accepted date. (But this is all better set forth in the relevant article, where one & all can argue about it on the Talk page. :-) -- llywrch (talk) 20:28, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
Ordinarily I'd be bold and do this myself! But as I know you're working hard on it, I'd like to recommend changing "Gnaeus" to "Numerius" for the consul of 421 BC. Even though Gnaeus is the preferred of the two alternatives in Broughton under that year, he does mention the unlikeliness of this name in the notes; and under 415 and 407, when he clearly indicates the same person is intended, Numerius is preferred both times, once to Marcus and once to Gnaeus. We know that the Fabii used Numerius; we know they didn't use Gnaeus; and Numerius is one of the alternatives in all three years in which he appears, being preferred by Broughton in two of them. There are many doubtful cases, but this really isn't one of them! P Aculeius (talk) 01:01, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
The problem with that change is that the consul of 421 BC (Cn. Fabius Vibulanus) is possibly a different person than the consul of 415 & 407 (N. Fabius Vibulanus). Which is just one of the numerous problems with the consular list for entries before 300 BC. (Another example, which I only stumbled across last week, involves Opiter Verginius Tricostus Esquilinus (consul 478 BC): one source offers him as an alternative for the year 478 BC, while another lists him as an alternative for 473 BC. From this it's clear that there was a tradition that Opit. Verginius was consul at some point in that decade, although the year is uncertain.) My intent is to simply point at the problems, while allowing the reader as much latitude to make her/his own decisions about the problems. And in any case, I'd be more willing to go along with your request if there was an existing article about N. Fabius Vibulanus which discussed this issue. -- llywrch (talk) 17:30, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
I just wanted to make two points. The first is to thank you for this tremendous work and for making such sustained efforts to keep the project in the loop. The second point is to suggest that it might be good to have an article or several on some of the chronological issues that you've been mentioning. I was rather surprised to discover that there is no article on the Varronian Chronology, for instance. I know it is rude of me to add to your labours, but you and P Aculeius do seem excellently placed to write something of this sort, and it might help to give the chronological issues the full treatment that they deserve while also keeping the list page within a reasonable length. Furius (talk) 23:12, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
I agree with you Furius, & I am actually am working an such an article. (There are a lot of ancillary pages that need to be written to properly support this list page.) The challenge I've been facing in completing it is collecting enough material to both make the page useful, & to avoid problems of original research. You can see my rough draft on my sandbox page. -- llywrch (talk) 18:20, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
Saw tonight's revision to the note on the significance of the lex Licinia Sextia, and thought that the language both before and after the revision seemed unduly skeptical. Not your fault; this seems to be what the source (Forsythe) says. But after looking through some of what Forsythe says about this and other issues, I became very concerned about relying on him as a source. Found a review of his book, which seemed to bear out what I was seeing: the review, by Michael P. Fronda of McGill University for the Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science, contrasts Forsythe with another recent work on the topic, by T. J. Cornell.
This review suggests that while Forsythe presents a number of worthwhile arguments that are internally consistent, his basic hypothesis seems to be that virtually nothing in the Roman literary tradition can be accepted at face value. He essentially dismisses traditional accounts and explanations with little discussion, and replaces them with his own "reconstruction" of Roman history; and while his reconstruction is consistent and plausible, most of it can neither be proved nor disproved. In other words, Forsythe represents the speculative fringe of Roman history, standing squarely with what have been termed the "hypercritics".
I suggest that readers would be better served by a more neutral treatment than Forsythe is able to produce. Thoughts? P Aculeius (talk) 04:13, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
Well, to start with I've been far reluctant than it might appear to use Forsythe's book for the reason that it is the first modern discussion of the Early Republic that I've read. While I've found his book insightful, & it seems he does present the consensus fairly, until I've read a few more books I'm likely to be restrained in citing him. And even when I'm citing him (or any writer) beyond presenting his work as a summary of various points of view, my habit is to present the information as the opinion of a specific person, not consensus.

Considering the section you're concerned with, P Aculeius, there are a few points I need to comment on. First, the citation I made was not to the part of his book that discusses the dates of vacatio (or solitudo magistratuum, as Broughton calls it) & the lex Licinia Sextia, but to an appendix which discusses the issues of the consular list as received. What he writes there is actually not much different than what Broughton wrote about chronology in vol. 2 pp. 637-9, only where Broughton emphasizes the vagarities of the pre-Julian calendar & the numerous interreges as being responsible for a mismatch between the number of years & sets of consuls & consular tribunes, Forsythe places the responsibility on the Annalists who were concerned with "improving" the consular list as they received it. Anyway, I'm going to need to find the passage where Forsythe presents his deconstruction of this event & make sure I'm citing that part of the book, & repeat his account of the arguments about this period.

This leads to a second point. As I reconsider the words that I wrote -- & which I was not happy with, I'm thinking I misquoted him: IIRC Forsythe wrote that the Tribunes blocking the election of consuls probably did not happen, & this block for several years was definitely unlikely. (Note that our primary sources all differ over just how long the vacatio took place: Diodorus Siculus says one year, Livy 6, & the Fasti Capitolini probably 5; that inscription is damaged at this point.) And there is a bit of practically here: if the two Tribunes somehow managed to successfully block all government functions for even a year, eventually someone would stoop to the expediency of doing away with these troublesome meddlers. So the issue comes down to just how long was this vacatio? Forsythe, again IIRC, proposes that Livy made use of this vacatio to adjust a chronological discrepancy: there weren't enough sets of consuls & consular tribunes to make Roman history conform to where it synchronized with Greek history. (See my comment about the Battle of the Allia above.) But to return to my point, I'm going to need to rewrite that paragraph further & confine the comment to the vacatio, & not about the historicity of the lex Licinia Sextia.

As for being a "hypercritic", I don't think he's that far nor, having read his review, do I think Fronda believes he is. Forsythe is obviously skeptical about the traditional stories about Romulus, the Battle of the Cremera, Cincinnatus, & Camillus, but Forsythe also admits to the basic reliability of the consular list & bases his narrative of the Early Republic on it & not the traditional stories. A "hypercritic" would be someone like one German scholar of the earl 1950s, who tossed out a third of the names on the consular list & proposed a chronology based on a passage in Pliny's Natural History (33.18) where a "true" chronology is established by the number of nails driven in the Capitoline temple as counted in 303 BC. (Yeah, I have a little trouble stomaching that theory, despite a favorable review in the Journal of Roman Studies. I'm still pondering just how to use that passage in Pliny -- or if I should at all.) Nevertheless, since I'm working on an article about the consular list & not articles on those personages & events, I don't think his deconstruction of the traditional stories matter. About the only other citation of Forsythe I plan on adding here is a footnote mentioning his theory that, after the encrustion of the Annalists is removed, the only two consuls of 509 BC were Brutus & Collatinus, the other three being added for various reasons. I'm saving further use of Forsythe for the ancilliary articles, such as one about how this list came into being, & another collecting together various expert studies of the list & what they tell us of Roman history. (I have a couple of quotations from Ronald Syme which justify examination of the consular list for this purpose, so that article would not, prima facie, be considered original research.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:43, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Cornell dismisses the dictator years and then writes on the length of the anarchy "... Diodorus, more plausibly, has only one year without magistrates. the five-year anarchy is obviously unlikely to be historical, and is best seen as device, similar to the dictator-years, for extending the chronology". Oakley takes a similar view in his commentary to Livy. So there seems to be an agreement that the dictator years have been entirely invented (rather late), and that the five year anarchy is likewise unhistorical. Where opinion seems to differ is whether the anarchy is also entirely invented (Forsythe) or possibly lasted only one year (Cornell & Oakley). (A one year anarchy allows a certain neatness to the whole issue: Roman historians knew the Allia was supposed to take place in 386 but found their consular lists to be 4 years short, so some added 4 dictator years and others added 4 more anarchy years.) Fornadan (t) 21:55, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
There's a considerable difference between indicating scholarly skepticism about certain traditional events, for which plausible alternatives might be mentioned, and labeling A, B, C, D, E, and F "fictional", which Forsythe does, repeatedly, throughout the history of the Republic, most of which he seems to regard as a deliberate invention to fill an unknown gap that only he can correctly interpret, although none of his theories seem to be subject to proof of any sort. Forsythe doesn't regard most of the annual magistrates as historical persons; he denies that the patricians and plebeians were social classes, or that the entire "struggle of the orders" which occupies much of the history from 495 to 340 BC even occurred; he doesn't think that the secessions occurred, or that the tribunes of the plebs were introduced in order to give the plebeians a share in the government. Forsythe's view of the history of the Republic shares little in common with traditional histories, up to and including those most widely read and taught today. As such, it's rather a poor source for information or commentary on an article like this one.
I don't know if phrases like "the encrustation of the annalists" is yours or Forsythe's, but it's clearly non-neutral and assumes things that can't be proven. Especially in the context proposed: the supposition that there were no consuls suffecti even though one was immediately forced into exile, and the other one killed on the battlefield. In order for that to be true, Brutus would, on the one hand, have forced Collatinus to resign and go into exile on the ground that the people would regard him as the successor of the kings, but then prevented the election of a successor, leaving himself, the king's nephew, as the sole authority, in apparent contradiction of the very principle of dual collegiality that he himself had just established. That version of events makes it sound like Brutus forced Collatinus into exile with the goal of placing himself on the throne; rather than trying to safeguard the liberty of the Romans he was attempting to subvert it, and his plan was only foiled when he fell in battle. And then we have to assume that the Romans sat around twiddling their thumbs until the time for the next elections rolled around; something they didn't do on any other occasion. But here, we've ventured into the realm of "alternative history", which is why Forsythe's interpretations really need to be treated very, very cautiously, and not used as the basis for interpreting this or other, related articles. P Aculeius (talk) 12:57, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
(Outdenting) @Fornadan:, I like your explanation of the issue. As far as this article is concerned, the matter is about the length of the solitudo magistratuum & not if it happened. I'll change the citations for that passage to Cornell & Oakley as soon as I can access their works -- unless you'd like to contribute the information.
@P Aculeius: I'm beginning to suspect that you are criticizing a book you haven't read. Forsythe explicitly states he believes that the consular list is for the most part reliable, at one point noting that the problems with its earliest part (& the appearance of gentes which died out before "historical times" like the Lartii & Horatii) proving its truth. While he does present an interpretation of the pre-367 BC conflict between the patricians & the plebians that is different than traditional histories (depending on your definition of "traditional histories"), as Smith notes in his review of Forsythe's book for the Journal of Roman Studies, Forsythe's chief weakness is that he tends to vacillate between a "traditional" account of the Early Republic & a "critical" one, sometimes failing to persuade the reader. But none of that has an effect on this list. So far I've cited him once on that list, & I plan on removing that citation; I plan on adding a reference to him in the footnotes about the consular college of 509 BC, but I also plan on adding Livy's comment that Sp. Lucretius Tricipitinus isn't mentioned in some of the early annals & Polybius' puzzling statement that the first two Roman consuls were Junius Brutus & M. Horatius.

As for the phrase "the encrustation of the annalists", it is mine & I used it to denote the process of editorial changes the Annalists performed to "correct" the consular record. I suspect Forsythe would object to it as much as you have. Maybe it's an unfortunate choice of words (I was thinking of how layers of varnish over an old painting can be thought as an encrustation over the original surface) but if you look at the other authorities I added to this list -- Alan Samuels, B.W. Frier, R.M. Ogilvie, A. Drummond, & even Broughton -- they all indicate that the consular list as we have it does not accurately reflect 100% all of the magistrates. In most cases, all we have to go on is suspicion that there is a problem (primarily where the sources all contradict each other, such as for 458 BC & 328 BC, the last being an unsolvable mess no matter how you look at it); the only place where any of the layers of revisions can be successfully removed are the latest layers, which include the four "dictator years", & possibly Livy's use of the length of the solitudo magistratuum to make the recorded date of the Battle of the Allia match the college of consular tribunes it's supposed to synchronize with. But all of that is not taken from Forsythe, but from other authorities you haven't mentioned.

I have to say, though, I'm puzzled at your ranting over Forsythe's book. You've gotten your point across: I've agreed to make the changes you wanted, & except for one footnote (where information is presented as his opinion) his name doesn't otherwise appear in the article. And I'm sincerely glad you helped me spot a mistake in this list -- although I might have been more glad had you also pointed out that I added the same footnote to the years 387 & 388 BC. (I have fixed that.) Your concern about Forsythe's attitude towards the traditional stories of ancient Rome is noted, but these narratives don't concern the article unless the personage was a consul or consular tribune -- & the information needs to be parked in a footnote until the relevant article is written. Simply put, discussing his handling of traditional stories is not relevant to this thread. If you still want to argue about Forsythe, let's take this to our talk pages. -- llywrch (talk) 19:32, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Clothing in ancient Rome

I'd like some advice on the best course for this article. Much of it appears to be copied from this: http://www.crystalinks.com/romeclothing.html , but the article should be kept around as an important subject, and there are some good sources that could be used for rebuilding. Chickadee46 (talk|contribs) (WP:MCW) 19:31, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

It's possible, even probable, that the crystalinks article copied theirs from Wiki. Regardless, you might take a look at the sources I'm using at Toga. All of them are relevant to your own projected rewrite, though some far more than others. Haploidavey (talk) 19:42, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Checking the Wayback Machine appears to show that the crystaliks article was copied from Wikipedia without attribution, but the sources at Toga may come in handy. Chickadee46 (talk|contribs) (WP:MCW) 19:46, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
That's a truly challenging project, and I'd be happy to help. The clothing article as it stands contains some outstanding errors and ommissions. Haploidavey (talk) 19:53, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. I'd very much appreciate some help with it. Chickadee46 (talk|contribs) (WP:MCW) 22:01, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Ajax (play)

Opinions are requested at Talk: Ajax (play) § Meaning of "immature work": Should the page Ajax (play) describe its subject as "not at all an immature work"? To me the phrase reads like a statement of opinion in Wikipedia's voice. —Coconutporkpie (talk) 18:21, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

User:Rjdeadly recategorisation

User:Rjdeadly has taken it upon themselves to redo a whole bunch of categories relating to Roman forts and the like, apparently without consensus. It's not my area at all, but since categories like Category:Roman legionary fortresses have existed for 10 years but are now threatened with deletion as they are now empty, I thought this project ought to take a look and see what damage limitation is appropriate. Le Deluge (talk) 18:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Anyone with immediate access to the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire?

I've encountered an article that I suspect is garbage, to put it mildly, but first want to verify my suspicions. My suspicions are based on two tell-tale clues: (1) creation by a now-banned contributor (I won't name names here due to WP:BEANS, although I'll happily discuss the individual in private message), & (2) citation of one of Christian Settipani's books without page number.

As I've been reading more recent works, I've found that Settipani is not quite the fringe writer I first thought he was -- his work gets cited a little, & in a respectful manner -- but this banned contributor has misused him to insert a lot of questionable material (mostly genealogical in nature) into Wikipedia. Fortunately, the questionable material is in low-importance articles, so a casual user will probably not see it, & gives us time to check whether or not it's reliable.

If no one can look up a name for me in the next few days, I need to carve out some time to visit a nearby college library where there is a copy I can consult. -- llywrch (talk) 23:12, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Notice to participants at this page about adminship

Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Macrinus

Macrinus, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:54, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

List(s) of Roman consuls, update 3

Providing another update, now that I’ve completed the Imperial consuls of the 1st century, AD. This is one of the two most difficult stretches I’ve worked on -- I expect the second century will be as difficult -- & is likely to be the first that will lead to some hurt feelings. Let me explain what I did & how I did it. (And apologies for writing such a long comment!)

My primary goal has always been to have a reliable source for every name in this list, both so editors after me can evaluate if they have more recent or (hopefully) better information to add, & to aid the reader. (As well as conform to Wikipedia best practices.) A secondary, yet still important goal has been to provide a list that is reliable enough & complete enough that it will serve almost anyone as a starting place for further research: a complete, up-to-date list of all the Roman consuls does not exist anywhere. Broughton’s magistral three volumes covers the Republic; the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire & Consuls of the Later Roman Empire cover the Empire from the mid-3rd century to the end of the consulate; but there is no one source that lists all the names – both consuls ordinary & consuls suffecti -- for more than short sections from AD 1 to AD 210. (The latter year is when practically all materials for assigning a date to a given suffect consul cease.) Attilo Degrassi’s authoritative work covers up to 541, but he published it in the early 1950s, & archeology has since uncovered many more primary sources (such as the wax tablets of Herculaeum & Pompei) while scholarship has added or corrected more identifications.

So a lot of my time & attention has been spent quilting together a patchwork of sources, then checking for mistakes & double entries. For the 1st century, Paul Gallivan in the late 1970s published a series of papers which cover the Principate from Caligula’s reign thru Domitian’s, but that leaves over three decades at the beginning of the century & four years at the end untouched –- as well as the chaotic year AD 69. Fortunately, G.B. Townend covers the Year of Four Emperors quite reliably, & I was able to use the work of an Italian scholar, Fausto Zevi, for the year 97. But for AD 1 thru 36, had to scramble, & in the end I was forced to rely on a publication from 1955 for much of the reign of Tiberius; for the last three years of the century, I also had to rely on another older work (published in 1966), but for various reasons those years don’t concern me as much as the ones depending on the older book.

As an aside, there were times where I probably crossed the line into performing Original Research here, despite my best efforts not to. I made an effort to verify scholarly readings against the primary sources where possible, because that allowed me to better understand which expert was more likely correct when they disagreed. (There were several instances.) Sometimes it was hard not to give into temptation & provide my own opinion based on original sources. However, every time I was tempted I was reminded of just how messy the primary sources usually are, & ended up gladly accepting the judgments of Gallivan, Townend, Zevi & others. (In a few cases the primary sources were clear enough that I could cite them directly, & have indicated where I did that.) Having worked on just one section of this list, I have a greater appreciation for the accomplishment Broughton achieved in his three volumes of the Magistrates of the Roman Republic -- & very happy I could simply follow the road he paved, needing to only fix a rare pothole.

This led to two types of changes to this section of the list. The first was removing a lot of unneeded footnotes: there were many footnotes citing books published since 2000 as reliable sources for entries that were actually proposed as early as the 1970s. Where a more recent source duplicated the older one, I removed it. However, where an existing footnote either supported a person different than the one I had found in Gallivan, etc., I left it; it may contain more accurate information.

The second change reflected following existing Wikipedia policy: if my research found a name different than what was there when I started my work, but the existing name had no source, I replaced it. I understand doing this removed work others may have taken pride in, & so I apologize. (We Wikipedians often forget to acknowledge that our colleague’s pride in their contributions, which is probably the cause of more friction & editor burnout than people are aware of.) Admittedly, this may mean I have removed the most up-to-date information, but if it is better, then I welcome anyone to revert that change as long as you can provide a reliable source for it. (And there are a few years that I am still not entirely happy with: apparently there is no information about the suffect consuls for AD 22; a few years like 86 & 93 still need more work; there are a couple of sources I’d like to investigate further & perhaps add information from therm; & I have probably forgotten to insert information I have in a couple of other spots.)

But despite these potential mistakes, I still believe these changes are an improvement. As I mentioned above, this list is a resource no other reference work -- electronic or print -- has: a (reasonably) up-to-date & complete list of all the ordinary & suffect consuls for Rome. (I note that the equivalent page in the German Wikipedia is a "Featured article", & lacks much of the citations this one has.) And where it is wrong, this list is now far easier to correct & build on.

Now on to the 2nd century, which I know will be a similar challenge! -- llywrch (talk) 18:44, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Everything here sounds reasonable; if different names are found in other sources they can be added back in with appropriate information explaining them (or in some cases as footnotes, but unless there's reason to doubt a name, such as a mere difference of opinion in nomenclature for someone already listed, or a different year assigned, it would be better if they appeared in the list). It's very hard to distinguish between technical Wikipedia policy and original research on a project like this. As long as everything is based on a scholarly source, and if necessary the reason for preferring source A to source B, I think we shouldn't strain too hard over this point. If specific examples need to be addressed, they can be dealt with as they're discovered. Thanks again for all your hard work! P Aculeius (talk) 23:28, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
New data has now been taken back. And Iulius to Julius does not look so beautiful. --Μίκυθος (talk) 15:10, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Athenian democracy

Hi. I'm writing about this page:

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Athenian_democracy

The fifth paragraph under History/Development says:

Not long afterwards, the nascent democracy was overthrown by the tyrant Peisistratos, but was reinstated after the expulsion of the son of Peisistratos in 510.

Why not just say: after the expulsion of his son Hippias? 73.88.206.225 (talk) 19:14, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I can't see any good reason for this, so I have changed it. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 09:18, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Undiscussed split of significant article

Most of Pottery of ancient Greece has been moved off to a new Ancient Greek vase painting (formerly a redirect to the other). I've made my views on this clear at this talk page section. Comments from others are invited. Johnbod (talk) 12:27, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Help with Romulus and Remus article

This article has had a somewhat tortured past and it shows. There have been some really good editors who have done some good work, but, and I think this is partly due to the topic itself, it's confusing and stumbles back and forth between the details of the story and the myriad sources and accounts they contain.

My initial idea was to create a section for each source and then limit it to the legend as they describe it. I've now taken that apart and created a section for each episode of the legend and subsections for each source. No matter, it just keeps sprawling and sprawling. The problem is that in order to do the topic justice, you can't just tell part of the story. I've ended up moving some of what I had written to other articles that could benefit from it, like Battle of the Lacus Curtius and Amulius. That has definitely helped. The proposed new article is located here: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:InformationvsInjustice/sandbox2.

The "Romulus" article is here:http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:InformationvsInjustice/sandbox3 (Updated Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 04:16, 28 November 2016 (UTC))

The R & R page has a redirect from Romulus and Remus. So one idea I have is to limit the R & R page to the myth upto the death of Remus and creating an article entitled Romulus (King) or Romulus Rex or Romulus (King of Rome). Frankly, I think the only reason that the stories of him as king are there anyway is because of the redirect. The story of Romulus and Remus ends with the fratricide and I think the article should as well. I would love some input, help, whatever feedback you'd like to give. I have no ego to bruise. Also, I'm really trying to be a better editor and that means trying to make changes/revisions with the engagement of the community. So please, stop by and leave a comment. Thanks. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 04:34, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Splitting "Romulus and Remus" into two articles is a good idea. However, Romulus should be primary for its topic, so I would base the new article on the existing redirect page. There's no need for a disambiguator, since neither Romulus Augustus or a fictional planet are likely to be mistaken for it. Romulus Rex would be inconsistent with other articles about Roman kings, and inappropriate since he's never called this in English. Everything from the foundation of Rome onward should go in the Romulus article, with a brief summary of his legendary origin and youth with Remus hatnoted to the "main" article. P Aculeius (talk) 13:34, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks so much for contributing! And thanks for making me feel a little better about the work I've been doing. Please take a moment to look over the revised R & R page. Also, here: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User:InformationvsInjustice/sandbox3 you can find the beginnings of the Romulus page. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 10:37, 26 November 2016 (UTC)


It's a good start. Just a quick look suggests a few issues I would address. On Romulus and Remus, the lead section is about four times as long as it needs to be. Part of this is because it gives too much detail for the lead, and part is because it contains material that would be better placed elsewhere in the article. Paragraph three, for instance, is more of an analysis of Romulus' significance in Roman culture as an individual, and should go in the new Romulus article, or a section of this article. Paragraph four is also a detailed analysis of mythology that would be better discussed in the body of the article. The first two paragraphs should be combined and simplified, with details shifted to relevant parts of the article. If possible, the lead should be no longer than the first paragraph is now, or split into two shorter paragraphs with a combined length not much greater than the first one has now.
The entire "Founding of Rome" section and the "Romulus–Quirinus" section would go in the new "Romulus" article you're working on, with only a brief summary (2-3 paragraphs at most) in the existing "Romulus and Remus" article, and a hatnote at the top of the section leading to the "main" article on Romulus.
The new article you're developing for "Romulus" could use a few fixes as well, although I'm sure you already are aware of this. The hatnote at the top could be a lot simpler. The "Overview" section probably needs to be split into separate topics; even the title is a bit overly broad. I would probably delete the first paragraph of this section entirely; there's no need to discuss "Proto-Indo-Europeans" or second millennium BC human habitation of Italy at all in an article about Romulus. Also don't forget to convert your level-1 section headers to level-2 and soforth. I would be careful to avoid letting sections on Evander and Aeneas get out of hand; both are substantial topics and don't require more than a brief summary in this article.
On language, I would try to avoid using the "vivid present" to describe the events ascribed to Romulus and Remus in both articles. There may be instances where this is reasonable, but normally historical events are described in the past tense (even if there's significant doubt as to whether they really occurred). Currently both articles seem to use the present tense extensively, and will need to be revised to fix this.
I also suggest being very cautious in the treatment of historical skepticism, which may be overemphasized at this time. It's technically correct to say that there is no historical evidence of Romulus as an individual. But the manner in which you decide to say this, and its placement in the article, can give a false impression. There's very little historical evidence for any of the legendary figures of early Roman history, including those of the early Republic; most of what was written about them was written centuries later. Written well, a section on historicity would imply that we don't know anything for certain about the predecessor or predecessors of Numa Pompilius as King of Rome, but that the Romans referred to his predecessor as Romulus, and ascribed a number of actions to him, including the foundation of the city. Written badly, it would imply that nobody preceded Numa, and that none of the actions ascribed to Romulus ever occurred. So be very careful to give this discussion the most neutral treatment you can! P Aculeius (talk) 16:09, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
Update: it looks like a pretty good start for the Romulus article. I'm sure lots of minor improvements in wording and expansions will follow eventually, but I only saw a few that seemed important:
  1. I think it would make sense to mention the "miraculous" circumstances of the birth of Romulus and Remus in the paragraph heading the "Overview" section. I might change "Albans" to "Alban followers", "settlers", or "colonists", as "Albans" looks odd to me. Perhaps change "with a group of Albans in tow" to "with a group of Alban followers" and drop the "in tow", which seems informal.
  2. In the following paragraph, Romulus received good omens, not good augurs. Augurs were priests who interpreted omens.
  3. Under "Rape of the Sabine Women" (I suggest this as the subsection header, as it's an established phrase), change "several wars" to "war with several cities" or something similar; "several wars" makes it sound like a series of unconnected conflicts occurring over a long period of time, rather than a relatively short period of conflict with several sides pursuing their own aims.
  4. Under "Union with the Sabines", the description of Tatius' death is a bit confusing; it's implied but not stated that he was killed, with no indication of how or by whom, which seems like a necessary detail given that the occasion is mentioned.
  5. Two things in the section on later rule and death: first, "aggression by the Fidenae" needs to be "by the Fidenates", the people of Fidenae. I would also mention Livy's story about Romulus being taken by a whirlwind, and Proculus Julius claiming that he had witnessed the king's apotheosis. One of the pictures' captions mentions this, but it's not in the body of the article.
  6. Under "Historicity", I think you've misunderstood Cornell's use of the word "shameful." He's not describing his own view of the myths, but Strasburger's characterization of them, which as your footnote correctly describes, Cornell finds implausible. Cornell treats the myths as myths, compares them to similar myths from elsewhere, and mentions when there were conflicting traditions or where archaeological evidence contradicts them; but at no point (at least in the preview I was able to see) does he suggest that Romulus himself did not exist in some form, or that there's something wrong with the myths themselves.
  7. The gallery would probably look better if all of the thumbnails had the same height; as it is the section takes up too much space (I'm not objecting to the number of pictures, just their size on the page).
Addressing these, I think the article is ready to be moved to the current redirect. P Aculeius (talk) 15:00, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
How do I move it. b/c I am not being allowed to simply do so. Thanks again. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 19:19, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
If you have to, create the page like you would normally, and copy/paste your sandbox into it. Psychotic Spartan 123 19:22, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I looked into it: blank the page Romulus without saving and paste the new page into it. Don't forget to add categories and stuff. Psychotic Spartan 123 19:29, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Greetings WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Archive 24 Members!

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Proposed deletion of Thesis (goddess)

The article Thesis (goddess) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

I can find no reliable source that mentions "Thesis" as the name of a Greek goddess.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Paul August ☎ 20:53, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Hydros (mythology)

The article Hydros (mythology) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

I can find no reliable source that mentions "Hydros" (or "Hydrus") as a Greek god.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Paul August ☎ 20:54, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Removal of Olive Byrne from articles of interests

She was the inspiration for Wonder Woman, and by all appearances a very interesting person. Not sure her article is of interest to this project.--InformationvsInjustice (talk • contribs) 08:01, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I've removed that article, thanks. Paul August ☎ 15:25, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Anyone notice these resources?

Over at de.wikisource, there are links to online copies of a couple of significant resources for Classical studies. While they are from the 19th century, IMHO if you need to use resources from that century, the German scholars are the ones to use.

  • Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (start here) -- although it requires a bit of trickery to get to the material you want. The first step is to identity the article you want: one drawback is that biographies are arranged under the same gentilium then assigned a number. In other words, if you want to find the article on Fabius Maximus, a.k.a. Cunctator, you need a lot of patience to find that it is No. 116 -- or hope someone has identified the article for you. The next step is to then find the article, because not all of them have been transcribed from the image file to Wiki format. Fortunately, there are ways to get to the image files themselves. One is from the Register category page.
  • Prosopographia Imperii Romani (start here), which will take you to files on archive.org. Since the archive.org files are in pdf format, finding the specific articles is far easier. And while a second edition began in 1915, for many years that edition was bogged down in the middle of the alphabet -- meaning from P on, the first edition was the latest available comprehensive article available.

Of course, there is the matter that many of you lack adequate skill with the German language. (Which you should remedy as soon as possible: IMHO, more secondary literature on Classical topics is written in German than English, & until WWII usually of better quality.) Fortunately, Bablefish, Google Translator & Bing Translate all are available, & can get you 60-90% of the material in the original piece. Enough to understand the author's conclusions, if not her/his argument for reaching those conclusions. -- llywrch (talk) 22:05, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, handy information. So far as I can gather, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft is not all there at de:wikisource -- not even in the form of image files -- for the good reason that some of it is still under copyright. This makes using the indexes a bit frustrating. But a lot of useful material is there, certainly.
There is a category containing, in alphabetical order, all the articles that have so far been converted to text from image files: s:de:Kategorie:Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. This is a good approach if one already has a reference to the exact title of an RE article. Andrew Dalby 09:25, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Hmm. I hadn't dug deep enough into the links at de.wikisource, but you are right, Andrew. It appears that the cut-off is around 1960. As for the problem of the exact title, some reference works -- such as Broughton's Magistrates of the Roman Republic, & the 2nd edition of the OCD -- provide that index number for the person. (Never realized before just how useful adding that info actually is.) And when I've seen the RE cited, it is by volume & column number. So there are helps. (So a possible desiderata for Wikipedia articles on Classical subjects is to include a link to the relevant article from RE on Wikisource.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:45, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I find that French is just as valuable a second language in this regard. Here are a couple resources:
  • L'Année épigraphique ([1]): Similar to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, and often overlaps. It's importance is in the finds included in the AE, but not in the CIL (if it's not in one it might be in the other). The AE is published annually.
  • Mélanges de l'Ecole Française de Rome (MEFRA here): MEFRA has multiple publications that release annually (sometimes biannually). Includes finds from dig sites, epigraphs, translations of historic works, and publishes small essays from historians and archaeologists.
As far as a good second language in this field I'd say any French, German, Italian, or Greek would be valuable. Of course, Latin goes without saying. While I'm on the subject of language, considering a quarter of the empire was in the Middle East, why is Arabic never a language of choice? Obviously people of the time spoke Greek predominantly, but you'd think there would be some value in Arabic; however, it just never seems to come up. Maybe the Arabic community is just not interested in the subject, or they have real problems. Psychotic Spartan 123 19:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
It's an interesting question. Naturally there are historians and archaeologists in Middle Eastern countries who are Hellenistic and Roman specialists ... and some have had problems, as you say, including Khaled al-Asaad, chief of antiquities at Palmyra, who was beheaded in 2015. Their work is often published in French or English, making it more accessible to scholars elsewhere: several well-established archaeological journals of the region have always had French or English as their main language and still have. But, finally, how much Hellenistic and Roman archaeology is published in Arabic I don't know. There is some in Hebrew that I have wanted to read and can't.
In rather the same way, I guess a fair proportion of ancient history and archaeology written by scholars from the Balkans is published in English, French or German (rather than Albanian, Romanian and the Slavic languages of the Balkans). But I know there is some in Romanian, and clearly there is some in those other languages too. Andrew Dalby 13:36, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
I suspect the lack of Classical scholarship in Arabic is a prestige matter: academics in the Arabic-speaking world believe they won't be taken as seriously by their immediate peers if they publish in Arabic instead of, say, French or English. Due to Egyptian pride in their own ancient heritage, for example, I'd expect there'd be someone publishing about ancient Egypt in Arabic, but that's a genre that appears to be non-existent too. But unless we hear from someone who is familiar with what is available in Arabic, it's all supposition.

One matter I am aware of is a rather perverse development. Although there are exceptions, the commentary in editions of classical texts is traditionally written in Latin; however, there is a growing dissatisfaction with using that language for commentary, due to declining fluency in that language. (FWIW, I first learned about this controversy in a German-language article, so this is not something championed by notoriously monoglot Americans.) On one hand, I'm not surprised at the loss of competency in Latin; it appears to be taught in fewer schools each year. On the other hand, the fact of declining literacy in Latin leads to this question: if its audience is so endangered that the textual commentary can't be competently written in Latin, who is left to read, understand, & expound on the Latin texts themselves? -- llywrch (talk) 08:10, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

re. Latin commentaries of classical texts. Though Latin teaching in general is very much in decline, there is also much less emphasis on Latin composition than there used to be, so I can well believe that there exist authors capable of commenting on ancient texts but for whom writing a commentary in Latin would not be possible or would be prohibitively difficult. Even scholars who are capable of writing commentaries in Latin presumably find it easier to do so in their native language; additionally, finding editors and copy-editors to work on even abstruse scholarly texts written in English or German must be significantly easier than those capable of copy-editing Latin. Too, one would hope that these commentaries are written for the use of those other than the authors; for classics students still learning the language (and students of literature or history who might not even have teaching provision to learn an ancient language) it is useful for commentaries to be accessible to them, even if some of the minuitae are beyond their grasp. So even if those writing critical commentaries of ancient texts are capable of doing so in Latin, it is much easier for everyone else concerned if they do not. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:43, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Latin to the modern student:
In my personal experience I have every reason that I should have learned better Latin, and have yet to do so. I'm an American studying in French Quebec, and so I have learned a fair amount of French. Often, I find myself in rooms of students that speak other European languages, like Spanish, Italian, and German. I imagine later in life when I'm in Europe there will be more difficulty sharing notes with people speaking these languages, because like me nearly none of them know good Latin. If we wind the clock back to, say, 1600 we find that the aristocracy of Western Europe was comprised of people writing in Latin, and there was only need to write your ideas down once, because you could rest assured everyone else interested in the subject knew Latin. Although no longer necessary as a language of trade, perhaps, it would still only necessitate that we write our finds down once as opposed to something like: first English, then French, then German, then Italian, and still the other half of the Classical field can't read it. I'm sure most know one of the aforementioned languages, but if they just knew Latin we could all write once and go home. Psychotic Spartan 123 18:14, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
If this discussion suggests to anyone what a good idea it might be to improve one's active Latin skills while working on Vicipaedia, don't hesitate :) Andrew Dalby 17:11, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
I'll try... *hides in the back of Vicipaedia using Google Translate* They'll never know. Psychotic Spartan 123 17:27, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
Hmm, they might ... I have a feeling that Google Translate's attempts at Latin include some choice phrases from "Lorem ipsum". Andrew Dalby 13:33, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
Google Translate (& Bing Translate) can be useful in specific instances, as long as one remembers it will rarely do the entire job itself. I often use one or the other to translate from French or Italian -- neither language I know beyond a few trivial phrases -- & always end up having to fix countless errors. (For example, machine translation from French always treats the word after a noun as the adjective, producing some obvious mistakes, sometimes uses the wrong meaning of a word in translating, as well as making other guesses based on syntax.) I'm sometimes reduced to sending individual words or phrases thru it in order to figure out just what is being expressed; I know enough grammar to correct a bad translation from there. You can't blindly accept the results of machine translation any more than you can blindly trust a GPS to give you the correct route. But without those tools, whenever I found I needed material in one of the many foreign languages I do not know, I would have nothing. -- llywrch (talk) 23:39, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Good Article reassessment for Pontius Pilate's wife

G'day ladies and gentlemen, the article on Pontius Pilate's wife has been nominated for a Good Article reassessment. Any editor who is interested in taking part in the review, is invited to join the discussion here: Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Pontius Pilate's wife/1. Thank you for your time. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:04, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Request for information

It appears that Tiberius Avidius Quietus was accidentally created in a mistake for Titus Avidius Quietus; the person's praenomen should be Titus, not Tiberius, which is an understandable mistake. However, I'm trying to determine if there was a Tiberius Avidius Quietus, supposed brother of Titus, & finding nothing. (I've consulted Eck's list of Senatoral legates for 96-138, the first edition of PIR & the relevant portion of Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft -- the latter two are available on line.) This is a sanity check before I have the article on Tiberius merged into the one on Titus (to save the edit history for copyright reasons), & the article on Tiberius deleted. -- llywrch (talk) 07:57, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

This is a mess. In the online Oxford Classical Dictionary(4th ed), there is an entry for "Titus Avidius Quietus" that, among other things, references his Brother Gaius Avidius Nigrinus. In that WP article, the lead says that Titus was his brother and his uncle was Tiberius. In the Oxford article about Gaius, it says he was "Nephew of Avidius Quietus" and there is a link to "Avidius Quietus" (no praenomen given): It's the "Titus" article. The one that says they were brothers. sigh... There are references in the WP Gaius article you might want to chase down. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 21:49, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed importance reassessments: Geography, Meditations, Oedipus, the Republic, Odes (Horace)

Looking through some of the importance assessments and sampling a few, I propose the following reassessments for these articles (first number is user views calendar 2016):

Talk:Geography (Ptolemy) (Currently Low)

Propose: Mid or High

Talk:Meditations (Currently Low)

  • 304,000 95 watchers, 250-500 links. Subject is of interest to scholars and to a general audience. Numbers are higher than any High-importance writings sampled. Would be on the low end of Top-importance writings sampled.

Propose: High or Top

Talk:Odes (Horace) (Currently High)

  • 50,000 <30 watchers 100-250 links. Subject is substantially below the other High-importance works sampled. Not of significant interest to a general audience.

Propose: Mid

Talk:Oedipus (Euripides) (Currently Low)

  • 3000 <30 watchers 100-250 links. Lower numbers, it's overshadowed by Sophocles but the subject is still of significant interest.

Propose: Mid

Talk:Republic (Plato) (Currently Mid)

  • 437000 247 watchers 250-500 links. Higher numbers than Metamorphoses, Aesop's Fables and Aenid (all Top-Importance). Topic is a core topic in the classics and also universally known of.

Propose: Top

Interesting results. Thing is, some of these pages (maybe all of them) are of interest to more than one project, and not necessarily the same level of interest to each of them. The raw page view figures can't make that distinction for us. "Meditations" for example is already Top interest to philosophers: that doesn't mean it has to be Top interest to classicists. As for me, I'd go with your "Top" for "Republic (Plato)"; I'd move "Meditations" and "Geography (Ptolemy)" to Mid; I don't see a strong reason to change the others. Horace's Odes are his most important collection, very frequently quoted and cited in the real world, and really should be High importance whatever the current page view figures. Well, that's what I think :) Andrew Dalby 13:06, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
IMHO, importance ratings ought to be allotted in proportion. The rule of thumb I use is 50% Low, 35% Mid, 10% High, & 5% (or less) Top. If we follow that guideline, we have too many articles rated as "low" -- 9,600 vs. 8,000. Upgrading articles from Low to Mid ought not to be controversial -- anyone can do it on their own initiative -- although assigning "high" & "top" needs some debate. -- llywrch (talk) 19:26, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
The problem with using number of pageviews as the only/most significant factor in importance rankings is you get odd situations where e.g. the article on Alexander Hamilton gets steadily more important as Hamilton (musical) becomes better and better known. This makes sense in a way (it's certainly true that the more viewed an article is, the more important I think it is that wikipedia's coverage of it is adequate) but I don't think it necessarily is true that it is substantially more important to the Columbia University task force of wikiproject:New York than it was in 2014. This doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Likewise, and more relevantly to WP:CGR, if there is a spike in interest in the article on Hippolyta (currently mid-importance and averaging around 400 views per day) when the Wonder Woman film is released in 2017, then I don't think the article's importance to WP:CGR should immediately be increased to reflect that.
re. the specific suggestions here: I don't think that Euripides' Oedipus is of particular interest to non-specialists, and don't think that it needs "promoting" to mid-importance. I don't think that Meditations is sufficiently crucial a topic to be top importance, though I do not object to raising it above low importance. Like Llywrch, I think that (especially moving from low to mid importance or vice versa) unless you think some change is likely to be particularly controversial, you should just be bold and make the change yourself. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
@Caeciliusinhorto: I agree there are limitations to using user views as a sole indicator. That's why I also included watchers. That number shouldn't change as much over time. Also, pages linked to it won't change as much. You can use them together as an indicator of interest (in a very crude way). Again, as a metric it must be taken with a pinch (handful?) of salt, but it is what it is. And, of course, that's why I posted this, asking for input.
If I understand the criteria, the general audience for a topic is to be given weight (equal? greater?) in determining its importance. It seems like Hamilton the musical's popularity should result in an increase in Alexander Hamilton's article's importance. But if you're saying that it should do so only after some reasonable time period, I can totally agree with that.
In each ranking, I looked at 5 pseudo-randomly-selected titles (I would click a letter in the alphabet and then scan for a written work on the page. I don't pretend it was a scientific sample, but I have no horse in this race and when I was done, there were both titles I was familiar with and some that I was not) and there was definitely a pattern between of common numbers. Those that didn't fit it ended up in this post.
The reason I proposed Meditations for high as opposed to mid, is that the number of views, and watchers, and links are substantially higher than the other literature I looked at in the mid range. I mean, for instance, Ad Urbe. Meditations was viewed 7 times more than Ad Urbe. Also, the former's prominence in popular culture is substantial. Off hand, I can think of two contemporary references to it (one in a TV program and one in a just released novel). Likewise with Oedipus, albeit not Euripides' version.
Regarding boldness, the old me paid little or no attention to expectations and community standards. The new me is trying to do things the right way.:-) Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 20:20, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
I wonder whether the high number of links to Euripides' Oedipus are a result of its inclusion in the widely used Template:Theban Kings? I struggle to believe that it's of much importance to non-classical scholars. Furius (talk) 21:13, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
@Furius:But surely you don't think that Oedipus himself, Oedipus the figure or character is not of much importance to non-classical scholars. Or do you? Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 22:01, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
But isn't that why Oedipus is ranked as "High Importance"? Furius (talk) 23:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, now I see :-) Thanks. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 00:13, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Reassessments made
Talk:Geography (Ptolemy) (Formerly Low)

  • Changed to Mid.

Talk:Meditations (Formerly Low)

  • Changed to High.

Talk:Odes (Horace) (Currently High)

  • Unchanged.

Talk:Oedipus (Euripides) (Currently Low)

  • Unchanged.

Talk:Republic (Plato) (Formerly Mid)

That seems fine to me. These questions were certainly worth raising. Andrew Dalby 13:11, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Request for comment on Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

There is a RfC here, if you are interested in the subject please feel free to participate. Macedonian (talk) 18:32, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Missing topics list

My list of missing topics about Rome is updated - Skysmith (talk) 13:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Grouping events by decades

Ave, Greek and Roman experts! In the process of implementing the outcome of Talk:AD 1 RfCs (renaming articles 1…100 to AD 1…AD 100), I have opened a discussion at Portal talk:Ancient Rome#Grouping events by decades and would appreciate any insightful comments there. — JFG talk 13:14, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Laodicea in Syria

An article that you have been involved in editing—Laodicea in Syria—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Yazan (talk) 20:55, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Anyone know anything about the Encyclopedia Romana?

I noticed in our article on hetaira a link to the Encyclopedia Romana. As it is not a site I know, I went to have a look and am dubious about whether or not we should be linking it. Its article on hetairai specifically, whilst not great is not entirely terrible, but it's certainly doesn't contain anything useful which couldn't just as well be included in the wikipedia article itself, and so in this instance violates WP:ELNO criterion 1. However, I'm more interested about whether the site is any good generally, and specifically about ELNO#11. It's hosted on the University of Chicago servers, but certainly some universities provide webhosting for students as well as staff, and I can't find anything about James Grout and how qualified he actually is to write about the ancient world. Does anyone know anything further?

(In a sense it's all academic (hah!) as I'm removing the external link from the article in question due to ELNO#1, but I'm still interested if anyone knows anything which my google-fu is failing to dig up...) Caeciliusinhorto (talk)

I know nothing beyond what his introductory page provides; he's an MA, a (retired?) member of faculty and history enthusiast: he seems to have a background in education [2] and happily admits that his work in history is sometimes idiosyncratic. I sometimes use the site as a sort of narrowly focussed quick-search - in much the same way as I might use (but never cite) a decently written Wikipedia article. As far as I know, his essays would count as self-published; they aren't peer reviewed - not formally, at any rate - so WP:ELNO#11 likely applies. Sorry, none of this is much help, but I'm glad you brought the matter up, because I've removed ELs to his essays on several occasions (usually per WP:ELNO#1), and have sometimes been reverted. Haploidavey (talk) 00:34, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
I can't find any scholarly source that cites Grout Grout seems to have one published work in Education - I'm only assuming it's him because certain details fit his website biography - but only two scholarly sources cite his history website - surely that says something? The more I think on it, the better it seems to thoroughly thrash this one out. We've so many articles that rely, at least in part, on similar web-sources with no oversight; theoi is another. Haploidavey (talk) 00:46, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Ah, well found. An MA in English and access to a good university library makes him no more qualified to write about ancient history than many of us in WP:CGR, and it sounds like he relies heavily on ancient sources, not even in the original text but in translation. I think that at best it should be treated with caution, although frankly I doubt there are many if any situations where a link here adds anything to an article...
Just looking at the article on hetairai, it seems to be outdated – no mention is made of any of the recentish debate surrounding to what extent "hetaira" and "porne" make sense as separate categories of prostitute, for instance. There are also parts which are at best misleading ("red-figure vases of the archaic period": red-figure developed only at the end of the archaic period, and continued into the classical period; symposium scenes continue to be depicted on red-figure vases well into the classical period, as in this krater from c. 420 BC), and parts which are just plain wrong ("when he discovered that she [Neaera] had been with other men, including several slaves, at a symposium, she was obliged to leave, taking her clothes, jewelry, and two maid servants with her." is not at all what Dem. 59.33–5 says. Neaera left Phrynion because she was "being insolently abused" by him; Apollodoros says absolutely nothing to suggest that this was because she had sex with (in fact was raped by) other men: on the contrary he implies that this rape was part of Phrynion's lack of care for Neaera, as he was the one who took her to the party in the first place.)
Some of the articles might be just fine, but between the lack of expertise of the author and the problems I see in just the first of his articles I looked at, I don't think that as a general rule we should be linking to the Encyclopedia Romana.
As for Theoi, it says that it's copyright Aaron J. Atsma, but he doesn't appear to have any googleable qualifications; it's a very useful reference for finding ancient art and literature which is relevant to a mythological character, which can then be used to illustrate an article, but again I am unconvinced of its reliability and its use as a citation or external link. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:27, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
I would disagree on that, because references to primary sources are themselves useful as external links. Dimadick (talk) 15:47, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
I've found that some sources are useful for further research, yet are not useful to cite directly, while others are useful for both. There is a clear difference between the two, & it is important to observe it. -- llywrch (talk) 22:32, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Let's observe that WP:ELNO sounds unintentionally like "hell no", as in "Hell no don't use that link". Also, I notice when researching a topic that most books just repeat the same common information, but will sometimes include different sources that the other ones don't and so are often useful for the citations alone. Glancing through Encyclopedia Romana's articles I see a good bit of primary sources that could be used regardless of the ER's reliability. Psychotic Spartan 123 23:40, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Requested move concerning Alcaeus of Mytilene and Alcaeus

There is a move discussion in progress concerning Alcaeus of Mytilene and Alcaeus which is primarily of interest to this wikiproject. Comments are requested at talk:Alcaeus of Mytilene. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Requested move of Fabius Maximus

I've proposed moving Fabius Maximus to Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, to bring it in line with how he's usually referred to in secondary sources, and with other Wikipedia articles on members of his family (I counted eleven or twelve, all of which give the full name except this one). Notably we have an article titled Quintus Fabius Maximus without any disambiguation, but it's for the consul of 45 BC, which I think is a rather unexpected result. Comments are requested at Talk:Fabius Maximus. P Aculeius (talk) 16:31, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Cyclops in legends of the Caucasus

There is a discussion at talk:Cyclops#Cyclops in legends of the Caucasus concerning whether this section belongs in the article. or not Any thoughts would be welcome. Paul August ☎ 18:27, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Eutresis (city)

I just changed a several links which used to go to Eutresis, a butterfly genus, to a redlink for Eutresis (city). If anyone's interested in creating that article, there are versions in Spanish, German, Greek and Russian Wikipedias. Thanks,  SchreiberBike | ⌨  22:30, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Rewrite of "Roman tribe"

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article on the history and significance of Roman tribes, and I've helped improve and maintain the article since that time as an active member of this project. It wasn't exhaustive of every possible aspect of the subject, but I like to think it was concise, readable, and covered the subject nicely. Yesterday, and without warning, the entire article was replaced by 020amonra, under the edit summary, "Expanded the article, resolved inaccuracies and wrong info. Deleted comitia curiata & tributa sections as pertained to other articles + contained wrong info or very outdated views. Incorporated some of their info into the relevant articles." The new article is three times as long, and strikes me as a wall of text, or more accurately, a long series of walls of text, much of which is, in my opinion, confusingly written and very repetitive.

The editor in question has made no prior edits to this article and is not a member of this project, although he or she shows a keen interest in the area judging by other edits. There are many more citations, although there are long and important passages without any clear authority, some of which appear to be the editor's own deductions stated as clear and inarguable fact, rather than the statements of other sources. Some citations were retained from the article I wrote, although it is no longer clear what they pertain to. The lead section now contains nearly nine hundred words, beginning with a paragraph longer than the entire lead was yesterday morning, and is full of minute details that would be better dealt with in the body of the article. However, numerous paragraphs in the article as rewritten display a similar tendency to run off on tangents, providing more information than is necessary to understand the subject thoroughly.

The language of the article is quite repetitive, with the same phrases and wording given over and over. For example, twenty-eight sentences begin with "______ wrote" or a slight variation thereof, including "Livy wrote" five times (plus four slight variations), "Festus wrote" four times, "Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote" four times (with four additional variations), and "Varro wrote" three times. The phrase "Dionysius of Halicarnassus" is repeated seventeen times in the body of the article, occasionally in consecutive sentences, and often in consecutive paragraphs.

I understand very well that we are all editors, curators, of articles, not their owners, and anybody may edit anything. That's Wikipedia's way. But in my opinion the contribution as a whole has made a formerly accessible article a vast wall of detail, much of which consists of arguments for or against various views, confusing and repetitive passages, and opinion posing as fact. Out of respect for the amount of work that obviously went into 020amonra's version of the article, and more importantly, out of respect for the collaborative process, I've resisted the temptation to revert the article to its previous state, and slowly incorporate the usable and relevant information. However, I would like a third opinion, or perhaps multiple opinions, on the current state of the article, compared with what it was before.

I'm aware that it's much more exhaustive now, but I disagree with 020amonra's contention that the information it previously contained or how it was arranged was incorrect or irrelevant; indeed similar and lengthier sections on some of the same topics was added later in the article, while other portions were simply deleted without being incorporated into other articles, and much of what replaced it seems to have a very strong point of view. I think that much of what was added is salvageable, but in need of extensive revision, and I think it would be better to add what's salvageable to the former version of the article, than to attempt reforming the massive structure that replaced it bit by bit. But someone who hasn't worked extensively on the article would be a fairer judge. I'd really appreciate some input on this from other members of this project. P Aculeius (talk) 14:48, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Most of what he added is sourced, but nonetheless there are clear signs of original research (a + b = c variety - some of which is reasonable, but still violates WP:OR. Also, the wall of text, lack of conformity with MoS as the page was, and poor prose, etc are good reasons to revert, so I suggest a reversion of his edit as you have said. Anyone can go through the page history later and properly assimilate portions of it into the article if they want. Psychotic Spartan 123 15:23, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I've never edited the article, and agree to the proposed reversion. I don't doubt the editor's knowledge and good faith, but this is an encyclopedia article, developed collaboratively. The complete overwriting - or perhaps the drowning - of accurate, sourced existing text is seldom, if ever necessary; on this scale, it amounts to a mass deletion of well-sourced text. Problems (whether perceived or actual) with article content and sources are best approached one item at a time, ideally brought up at talk-pages and subjected to meaningful critique and source-based discussion before such drastic rewriting. In this case, no such discussion has been attempted; the result has been largely negative. Prior to the mass additions, the article was very much to the point, completely on topic, lucid and readable. The current, overwritten (in both senses) version drowns the reader in discursive detail, off-topic tangents and argumentation of sources. "Exhaustive" easily becomes exhausting - a summary style benefits our readership. As for the walls of text, I find them close to unreadable. And btw, the editor has overwritten other articles within the G&R ambit, with similar disregard for MOS. Haploidavey (talk) 16:03, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Just a further observation - reversion to basics and subsequent careful addition is a damn site easier than whittling back an inately difficult or impenetrable text. I've tried the latter at times past, with various articles. It can be done, of course, but it's a hellish slow, hard way to go. Haploidavey (talk) 23:12, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
@P Aculeius: Thanks for taking the time. I've deeply appreciated your contributions and the assistance you've given me. I agree with Spartan and Haploidavey. Can someone explain why the user has been editing since Nov. 2015 and has no user/talk page? I'm willing to lend a hand to incorporating the usable portions of the revisions after a revert.Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 19:43, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
As usual, I'm coming late to this conversation. (I just noticed it last night.) I'm not going to address the issue of Wikiquette, although it is an important one. What I want to address is the issue of inaccurate & out of date information in Classical Studies, & how to go about fixing it.

It's not an overstatement to say that the facts of Classical History -- Rome & Greece between 500 BC & AD 550 -- have not changed that much in the last 150 years. Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caligula was accused of engaging in some pretty kinky sex. Rome & Greece were slave-owning societies. Christianity went from a minority religion in AD 300 to the predominant one by 400. And so forth. Much of this is based on the fact that, except for inscriptions & non-literary documents like letters, few if any new important texts have been recovered in the last 50 years: the last one I can think of was a scrap from Livy's History comprising 20 words from his book 11. However, what has changed in that time is the interpretation of those facts. I'll limit myself to a couple different examples. One is that the majority of inscriptions are fragmentary, with many missing words that need to be restored; fortunately, most inscriptions are very formulaic, so it is possible to recover an entire inscription from as few as a dozen words, or parts of words. However, as experts find more inscriptions & compile more comprehensive prosopographies, these restorations are liable to be corrected, revised, & improved; so relying on how a given inscription was read in 1890 may result in a mistake. A second example is in how wars are reported; about 100 years ago, an account of a war would be limited to the events of the actual combat, the battles fought, who did what to whom. More contemporary accounts will include the social & economic effects of the war: how supporting an army effected the rest of the polity, how it disrupted the lives of the people, how the victory (or defeat) effected people. This allows us to investigate, & hopefully answer, questions such as why did the Roman Republic recover from severe defeats such as the early battles of the Second Punic War, yet the Roman Empire fall apart in the 5th century? I could offer more examples, but I hope my point is clear: often what we think of as being undeniably facts are often opinions instead.

Now this distinction is often forgotten even by experts: for example, all of the primary sources say that Caligula was a sexual degenerate, so the consensus amongst Classical historians is that he was a sexual degenerate, despite that it was a literary trope to accuse one's enemy of being one, & Caligula had managed to make himself the enemy of the Senate, whose members wrote the historical literature. Thus I find it important to not just accept the opinions of experts, but to try to understand how they came to those opinions, as well as to make myself familiar with the primary sources. (I've been surprised sometimes at how quickly some respected experts arrive at their conclusions; thus there are parts of the List of Roman Consuls where I am more conservative about identifications than the experts.) Thus, it is not safe to assume that the latest publications -- or the ones authored by the most respected expert -- are always correct; people make mistakes. Sometimes a 19th century reference has the best interpretation; sometimes experts like Mommsen or Syme are wrong. We can only know if this is the case by carefully reviewing the secondary literature & understanding the primary sources.

I have one more point to make on this: sometimes the major difference between what an older authority & one more contemporary is a subtle one. Maybe one simply of emphasis. It is easy for an amateur like us to get the nuance wrong, & in effect misquote our reliable source. On the other hand, in a very complex article like the one P Aculeius brought up at the beginning of this thread while there may be errors of some sort in it, fixing them without enough care results in making the article worse. By "enough care", I'm not just talking about research, but also of presentation. I've worked on a couple of articles recently where I am not happy with how the content is organized, but I'm leaving alone for the moment because I consider them "good enough". They're "good enough" for the time being while I spend the few hours I can devote to Wikipedia to other matters that I can fix with less effort or are either more important. I suspect this is an attitude a lot of veteran Wikipedia editors have: if an article is "good enough", no need to spend hours of research that may end up doing no more than changing a sentence or two, & maybe replacing one source with another. And this is something any editor needs to consider before taking on a complex article, just because the editor believes the article "contained wrong info or very outdated views"; after all, unless someone has an advanced degree in the Classics & has been published, that person may be wrong in that judgment. It is up to that editor to explain the problem, & convince us they have done the research to make it better. -- llywrch (talk) 19:52, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Ah, well, thank you for adding your two sestertii's worth, Llywrch! It's very much appreciated, as are the other comments above. After taking some time to think of a suitable reply to 020amonra based on the earlier comments, I finally took the step of reverting the article and explaining why, in detail, on his talk page. His even more detailed reply showed up on my talk page, making it even more difficult to follow the discussion, and then I replied to that, while he wrote another essay on the talk page of Roman tribe. After going through his suggestions in detail, and reviewing my sources, I decided that a few adjustments to wording were necessary and made the changes; I also found the missing source for one of the more interesting but less-well documented points, which had been tagged for a while. And then I replied on the article's talk page. So far, nothing dramatic has appeared to replace anything, but I expect it will sooner or later. I just hope that whatever it is will be added in a thoughtful and reasonably concise manner, and without carving up or dissecting the existing article again. I don't suppose I could convince any of you to keep the article on your watch lists? I may need help to keep things in perspective. P Aculeius (talk) 20:36, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Atana, a.k.a. (Athena) move request

I'm requesting Atana be moved to Atana (raga) because it's currently an article on music of India, when Atana as known in the West is an alternate spelling of Athena, or a ‘proto-Athena,’ and there are also two or more other languages with the word having different meanings. The main page should be a disambiguation. If any page had the main article, I'd have preferred it be Athena. I've opened a move request discussion you can join.--dchmelik (t|c) 05:31, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

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