Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Archive 34

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Talasius

Could use an expert eye - rather iffy-looking ref doesn't support text, which is at variance with the de.wiki text (god or citizen?), etc. PamD 15:08, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

"Talasio" (spelt with T- or Th-, -s- or -ss-, and -io or -ius) was a wedding cry and therefore equivalent to "Hymen," whose name was called out at Greek weddings.Plutarch's story (actually Life of Romulus 15) that the Sabine women agreed to go only if they were being married to Talasius (a particularly attractive Roman man) is also in Livy 1.9.12 (as "Thalassius"), Plut. Pomp. 4, and Plut. Roman Questions 31 (where the parallel with hymen as a wedding cry is noted). In the Romulus passage Plutarch cites other conjectures: that it was a watchword for the rapists of the Sabine women, that it is a corruption of the Greek ταλασία, talasia (wool-spinning) and thus a guarantee to the women that they would not be required to do other servile tasks for their husband. L.C. Watson Mnemosyne 61 (2008) 253-4 says the word could be used as a metonym for heterosexual intercourse, when discussing its use in Catullus 61.134 "to serve Talasius" (doesn't seem to have much ancient evidence...). These seem to be the only ancient sources, so it seems the Greeks and Romans weren't sure what it meant. Several scholars, including Lewis and Short sv. think that Talasius was "probably the name of the god of marriage", but there seems to be no ancient evidence for that and on a preliminary search I don't find any current scholar claiming it. Furius (talk) 18:42, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I do. See:

Fordyce, C. J., ed. (1961). Catullus: A Commentary. Oxford University Press. pp. 35, n. 127. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198721475.book.1. ISBN 978-0-19-872147-5. Talasio or Talassio was a ritual cry at the deductio, of unknown origin. The ancients knew two accounts of it, an historical one explaining it as the dative of a proper noun and connecting it with the rape of the Sabine women (Livy i. 9, Plut. Q.R. 31, Rom.' 15), and an etymological one connecting it with τάλαρος‎, and interpreting it as an indication that the bride was passing to the duty of lanificium in her husband's house (Varro ap. Fest. 478 L.). Whatever its origin, a marriage-god was made out of it—Talas(s)ius (or Talassus, Mart. xii. 42. 4), a Roman counterpart of Hymenaeus. Here Talasio must be dative: 'your master now chooses to take Talasius as his master'.
Panoussi, Vassiliki (2007), Skinner, Marilyn B. (ed.), "Sexuality and Ritual: Catullus' Wedding Poems", A Companion to Catullus, Malden, MA, USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, pp. 276–292, doi:10.1002/9780470751565.ch15, ISBN 978-0-470-75156-5, retrieved 2020-10-10, The husband's attachment to the concubinus is the main theme of this portion of the poem; he must give up his male partner in order to effect a successful transition to married life. The chorus also calls on the concubinus himself to accept this event, asking him to recognize the marriage god (Talasius) as his master (126–7). Like the husband, the concubinus needs to enter the world of adulthood, his transition ritually symbolized in the giving of the nuts to the chorus and the cutting of his hair.
Lorenz, Sven (2007), Skinner, Marilyn B. (ed.), "Catullus and Martial", A Companion to Catullus, Malden, MA, USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, pp. 418–438, doi:10.1002/9780470751565.ch22, ISBN 978-0-470-75156-5, retrieved 2020-10-10, In fact, Martial may even criticize Catullus' longer poems (2.86.4–5). However, in 1.35, Martial does mention thalassiones ("wedding-songs") and may thus allude to Catullus' long and learned wedding-songs, where the term Talasius is actually used …
Wasdin, Katherine (2009). "The reluctant bride: Greek and Roman wedding poems -". ProQuest. Ann Arbor: Yale University. p. 23. Retrieved 2020-10-10. Roman literary sources comfortably use the Greek word hymen in wedding songs, refer to the god to whom it gave birth as Hymenaeus, and in later periods also adopt the Greek term epithalamium. Roman authors also mention a uniquely Latin wedding cry, talassio, sometimes also spelled talasio. Livy explains the cry by identifying Talasius as an early Roman, the winner of one of the Sabine women, a story that conveniently ties together two Roman themes: the snatching of women, and the traditional wedding cry. The existence of a parallel, Latin expression shows that the use of hymen by Roman poets is a Hellenizing, literary feature, and serves as a salutary reminder that many of our sources are permeated with erudite Greek features not necessarily representative of the native Roman ceremony{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Still, the most note-worthy thing seems to be that the Romans had a wedding-invocation separate from but equivalent to hymen, at least in Hellenizing literature. Perhaps that should be the focus of the article, with aetiological speculation and mythologizing following from what we know. GPinkerton (talk) 19:36, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bust of Hadrian

Does this project have a deletion-sorting page? Couldn't see one. Anyway this one raises important issues for classical art, & any expertise would be welcome. Johnbod (talk) 00:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

RM for Antinous

Please see Talk:Antinous#Requested_move_13_October_2020 for a request move on Antinous(/Antinoös). GPinkerton (talk) 18:55, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Gelae (Scythian tribe)

This might be making a mountain out of a molehill. The article is clearly written by someone with limited familiarity with certain conventions of English scholarly writing, and perhaps insufficient care and attention to citation formatting—but articles don't have to be created perfectly, and we don't have to have immediate access to the sources. Verifiability means that there are either sources that we could consult (whether or not we're able to access them—sources don't have to be available on-line in order to be valid), or that reliable sources could be located with reasonable diligence (i.e. they don't technically have to be in the article already in order for the article to survive deletion, so long as it appears likely that such sources exist, and might be identified at some point—even if they're presently not). I see Strabo cited, although in Greek, and an older printing (really, we don't care which edition is consulted unless there are significant differences in the manuscripts, or a particular translation is being quoted; what we want is the citation to book and chapter—not necessary to give the line, really, if the chapter is only a few paragraphs—so that the relevant passage can easily be located), but presumptively valid. It should be easy enough to reformat the other sources into a more comprehensible format, just by Googling them. Nothing urgent about this article that can't be fixed in a few minutes, from the looks of it. If it's a hoax, that should be pretty easy to determine. I'll see if I can clean it up a bit, and we can go from there. P Aculeius (talk) 01:52, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I've had a crack at it, and it looks more like a decent article now, but I could use some help with some of the sources. Specifically, "Onomastics and Epigraphy of Medieval Eastern Europe and Byzantium" and "Naturkunde: Lateinisch-Deutsch, Buch VI". Are these articles in journals, or volumes of something? Who wrote them? And what were they meant to be cited for? The only thing left in the article that isn't clearly attributed are the writings of Vasily Bartold and E.A. Grantovsky, but I can't tell what this should be cited to. Do they match up with these mysterious sources somehow? Can anyone help me figure this out? Everything else I think is good—although I don't know which edition of Strabo the pagination in DGRG refers to, and it would be useful to add to the bibliography. Presumably an old one. P Aculeius (talk) 03:33, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Massive duplication in Late Antiquity

We have two articles with apparently identical subjects but diverging contents. There is Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire and Anti-paganism policies of the early Byzantine Empire. There's also Decline of Graeco-Roman polytheism. (Oddly, there's no article on Graeco-Roman polytheism itself, which oddly redirects to Hellenistic religion.) GPinkerton (talk) 22:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Presumably you mean Decline of Greco-Roman polytheism rather than "Decline of Graeco-Roman polytheism": the latter (which you listed above) confusingly redirects to the persecution-of-pagans article. Anyway, yes, I've noticed that problem too. The Late-Empire-persecution article's contents seem more in line with the subject of Decline of Greco-Roman polytheism, which itself is currently heavily reliant on primary sources. There's an abeyant suggestion from one year ago to merge the late Empire and early Byzantine persecution articles, which I agree with.

As the articles currently stand, I think a good idea would be to merge the two Persecutions and the Decline of Greco-Roman polytheism into one Decline of paganism in the Roman Empire (well, looks like someone has already claimed this as a redirect), or perhaps Decline and persecution of paganism in the Roman Empire. Greco-Roman polytheism definitely sounds like it should have its own article, but I haven't really been involved in the subject. Avis11 (talk) 23:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, a merger is long overdue. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:59, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Everything said on the main issue seems reasonable. I'm not in favour of having a Graeco-Roman polytheism article, because I think it would be awkward to write and would end up duplicating much of Ancient Greek religion and Religion in ancient Rome. Some scholars do use Hellenistic religion as a term for Graeco-Roman religion from the 300s BC through to the rise of Christianity - e.g. L. H. Martin, Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction (1987) - which might be the reason for the redirect. This terminology is deprecated in A. Tripolitis, Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age (2002) p. 11 (explaining her book's title). Furius (talk) 18:19, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Coin inscriptions

Coin of Constantine II as caesar, marked: d·n· fl· cl· constantinus nob· c· ("Our Lord Flavius Claudius Constantine, Noblest Caesar")

Julian on a bronze coin from Antioch minted in 361–363, inscribed
d·n·fl·cl·iulianus p·f· aug·

Coins can be captioned like these two examples:

Avis11 objects to this format, and has been replacing it with a parenthetical version which does not take advantage of the benefits of 21st-century technology and which looks unpleasant and over-long (to me). Indeed, the advantages of having a digital abbreviation with mouse-over functionality is actually the same as the advantages of the abbreviated format discovered by the minters ages ago. Which is better: the one in Julian's infobox here: option 1 or here: option 2? GPinkerton (talk) 18:18, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't mean to be rude here, but I must point out that your custom to baldly revert entire edits of mine without any attempt at filtering content or compromise, or to outright ignore messages of mine on your talk page, is annoying and outside common standards of politeness.

With regards to the matter at hand, part of me prefers to omit the coin legend from the caption altogether (per the reverted edit on Gallus): interested readers are always free to click on the image and visit the Wikimedia entry for more information. If you insist on showing it, then using parentheses rather than the abbreviation template allows the reader to already see what the text means just by batting an eye. I don't have any strong feelings for this, so you're free to undo the edits I've made on this regard. Avis11 (talk) 19:09, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

no-one is ever going to go through all the coins on Commons and write out their inscriptions, expand the abbreviation, and translations properly. We should decipher the text that is hard to read and supply a translation for the reader of this project. The reader can can already see the meaning if an English version is available, while leaving the abbreviated form gives a sense of the Romans' practices in this regard (and how it distantly influences modern use), as well as showing their Latin name in a suitably recognizable form. GPinkerton (talk) 19:23, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think there is much benefit in adding the inscription, unless the coin is used to illustrate a section on the emperor's titles and names. It is more useful to tell about the people/scene depicted and the reason behind the strike. For example the current caption of Julian's solidus in his article is too long. See my caption on the side. T8612 (talk) 21:05, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Well format is especially useful for infoboxes, but I think in other cases too the idea is to get as much informative information into the caption as cannot be gleaned by looking quickly at the image, in as concise a way as possible. Here's the thing: we can see already that this is a picture of someone dragging a captive. The caption needs to tell the reader what is more difficult to see - the writing around the coin which is written in circle in an abbreviated form of a dead language. My point is, one could have, for that example: "the mint-mark sirm shows that it was issued at Sirmium." But what is more opaque, and what the coins were designed to express, is the nature and identity of the figures, which is lost without the inscription, which is why they included it originally. Still, the question I'm asking is whether abbreviations written on coins should be rendered sirm or as SIRM(ium). GPinkerton (talk) 23:46, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I think option 1 looks much nicer and is more economical with space, but the Template:Abbr page seems to indicate that there are some ongoing accessibility and mobile display issues with this template. If that is the case, then option 2 is -unfortunately- the only way to go. Furius (talk) 18:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman Emperor (Principate)

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman Emperor (Principate) for the deletion of this and related pages. Avis11 (talk) 17:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Wreaths and crowns

The state of our coverage of classical headgear could use a review. At present, there is some coverage at Wreath, some more at Wreath (attire) (the Roman section of which I rewrote recently, aghast), but then also as Chaplet (headgear), Corolla (headgear), Laurel wreath, Garland, Olive wreath, Mural crown, Grass Crown, Civic Crown, Naval crown, while the closely related, Diadem, Tainia (costume), Fillet (clothing) are all very brief and rather overlapping. For the subject of crowns/wreaths in ancient Greece and Rome, I think we could probably use a new article, and collapse some of those into it, or else the existing articles need regularizing in some way and some new ones created for such things as the wreaths of ivy and vines worn for various reasons, or the different ones awarded at the Crown Games (i.e., the Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean, and Olympic games). Ideally I'd favour an omnibus article on ancient head-worn wreaths of all kinds, with redirects to sections. That way we can also deal with the full sweep of classical civilization, (inc. e.g. the symbolism of the crown of thorns) and the deprecation of wreaths and the promotion of the diadem in Late Antiquity. (I'd don't see Tertullian's De corona mentioned anywhere.) After that the Wreath (attire) page could probably be deleted as extraneous. A celery crown for the best suggestion! GPinkerton (talk) 17:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Generally a good idea, but I think those with significant pre- and post- classical uses should not be merged: Wreath (attire), Chaplet (headgear) (not really a proper term in modern classical studies, is it?), Garland, Diadem, Fillet (clothing), maybe others. Then there's crown, and Radiate crown. Johnbod (talk) 18:10, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Seems to be misspelled as "Radiant crown", which sounds repulsive. Chaplet is a synonym either for Wreath or Wreath (attire), which I say are synonymous with one another. The only non-classical thing shown in Chaplet (headgear) is the Cheyenne man wearing what the caption describes as a "wreath". Garland is obviously separate, but three articles on rings of vegetation worn on the head is too much: (wreath, wreath (attire), and chaplet (headgear)) These ought to be merged, with brief summary of "Wreaths and crowns in the ancient world" in a section pointing to main article on that subject, with which all or most of the different vegetation crowns should be merged. GPinkerton (talk) 18:30, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Wreaths are for coffins, front doors & war memorials, as well as heads, and for most readers the non-worn wreaths are the most obvious meaning, so I'd say having two articles is correct. Chaplet could well go to Wreath (attire), or a unified article on rings of vegetation worn on the head under any name, but garlands are more worn round the neck, or not worn at all, I'd say. "Radiant crown" does seem to be a respectable alternative term, but I agree the article should be at "radiate", as far more usual. Johnbod (talk) 04:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Delving deeper, it seems as though the very existence of Wreath (attire) is an artefact of a kind of mistake in about 2007. Originally it was created as "Vinok", and moved around until settled at the present name, but the original content and subject of the article was spun off again into Ukrainian wreath in an attempt to keep a separate article for the eastern European vegetation headdress of the present day. Wreath (attire) should probably be scrapped. The entire talk page is people saying it should be merged, where is the Roman bit, etc. GPinkerton (talk) 00:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

A problem with many substandard articles -- & this is not unique to those concerning Classical topics -- is that they remain in that state due to the difficulty of researching the topic. The more commonplace a subject, the harder it can be to find acceptable sources to use. (IMHO, the most challenging topics would be clothing, furniture, & food. I've found that even experts when faced with these topics sometimes resort to handwaving. And yet, these are often the articles most in need of writing.) It's hard to write on topics where one does not know where to start, & even if one does it can take months to get up to speed. So if anyone wants to tackle the articles Johnbod mentions above, you have my admiration & thanks. (And if one were to successfully tackle one of these topics, I think it would make for an interesting Signpost article. We need more encouragement to tackle difficult topics like these.) -- llywrch (talk) 16:59, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Imperial dynasty navboxes

Does anyone else feel that sidebar navboxes of Roman imperial dynasties, like Template:Valentinian dynasty, are useless and disruptive? Look at this, it takes up a massive amount of space and adds nothing of value to the article itself. I propose that all navboxes of the sort, from Template:Julio-Claudian dynasty onward, should be deleted, on the reasoning that they are totally useless, take up space that could be filled with more pertinent images (like coins or statues), and just pollute the article in general. Probably at this point many of them already are unused, so nothing will change if they're deleted. Avis11 (talk) 02:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Seems to me like the reason Template:Valentinian dynasty isn't used on any pages anymore is because someone has removed it from pages, not because they were never in use.★Trekker (talk) 06:13, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

They were removed b/c they are useless, why else? Avis11 (talk) 14:42, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Correction "someone removed them because that someone thought they were useless." Its like emptying out a category and then putting a speedy deletion notice on it because its empty.★Trekker (talk) 15:50, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, that someone was right. Template creators tend to be drive-by types who just love creating templates, probably because they don't like or feel confident writing text. They then usually slap these at the top of the article, regardless of what they push lower down. Johnbod (talk) 17:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Those are some pretty huge generalizations. Not to mention unnecessarily condescending towards those who mostly edit tempates.★Trekker (talk) 23:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree; I don't like how they look and I think they take up too much space. If navboxes are needed, an alternative to these big boxes would be to use smaller navboxes at the bottom of relevant articles; such as the ones that exist for the Komnenid dynasty (Byzantine Empire) or the Sargonid dynasty (Neo-Assyrian Empire). They're considerably less disruptive and offer the possibility of including members of these dynasties that were not rulers, perhaps making them more useful as well. Ichthyovenator (talk) 16:46, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, for a vertical template they are far too large, and too little use. In a compact horizontal form they might be fine, or harmless. Template:Theodosian dynasty is at least relatively short, & Template:Julio-Claudian dynasty would be fine if trimmed. At least the main Julio-Claudians have long articles. The Valentinian is just hopeless - much too long, confusing, & inappropriate for what are rather short articles, with just room for a bust & a coin or two as illustrations. Johnbod (talk) 17:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

All infoboxes of Julio-CLaudian emperors already have a link to 'Julio-Claudian dynasty' in the 'dynasty' parameter, so I don't see how a large Julio-Claudian-themed navbox almost the size of the infobox itself adds anything of importance to the article. Avis11 (talk) 17:43, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

That link is rather hard to find - you have to wade through all the other cruft in the infobox (which is of course far too long). The one in the text is probably easier. I was suggesting trimming the two lowest sections, making it about half the present size. But whatever. Johnbod (talk) 18:04, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I too prefer the horizontal examples adduced above: the Sargonid one is simplest layout, but I like that the Comnenai are included with their menfolk. I don't see any point in a Template:Constantinian dynasty that omits the two Helenae Augustae, Constantina Augusta, Constantia Augusta, etc. The Valentinian(ic) one, in addition to being misnamed, is misleading in its claim to have been succeeded but the Theodosian dynasty, since their reigns overlapped in time and blood, and the last of the Theodosians to rule was himself a Valentinian of that ilk. There's also something to be said for including members of the dynasty after the dynasty lost the purple. Where is Anicia Juliana in all this? She was the offspring of a non-dynastic emperor and of the Valentinianic-Theodosian dynasty, and her son married into the family of an emperor who was himself married into the ruling Leonid dynasty. Perhaps since the Sargonids were dealt with by Ichthyovenator we can use that as a, well, template. GPinkerton (talk) 17:53, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

This proposal appears to be aimed at me - guilty as charged as creator in 2012, but most certainly not fly-by. The proposer certainly seems to feel strongly about this issue. I have added my thoughts on the proposal for deletion page. It would be a pity to lose them rather than improve them. --Michael Goodyear ✐ ✉ 22:36, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

In response to criticism about size - I have collapsed the two sections - I believe that solves the issue for those who find it too long. I have also merged it with the existing image, to demonstrate usefulness and fit wrt other proposals --Michael Goodyear ✐ ✉ 21:26, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Would not the inclusion of other people be better served in the family trees? Also I think the text addresses the overlapping dynasties. --Michael Goodyear ✐ ✉ 17:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Received a request to merge Caecilii Metelli family tree into Caecilius Metellus; Proposer's Rationale: Same information / redundant. Discussion has introduced other options. Your opinions are requested. Discuss it >>>HERE<<<. Thanks, GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 14:10, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Elagabalus

Is undergoing a review of its Featured Article status at Wikipedia:Featured_article_review#Elagabalus. All input appreciated Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:22, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Llywrch's comments in the discussion there, and I doubt it's possible to change the sort-of-comfortable-consensus "primary sources bad, secondary sources good" once it takes hold. You won't learn anything useful in history unless you know what early sources say and then look at the conclusions of recent scholars. A good encyclopedia has to guide you to both. So, when references to "primary sources" are removed (and it sounds as if that's happening in this case) the article will be worse. Andrew Dalby 10:03, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Novempopulania

Greek translation

I'm working on an article about the Athenian oligarch Peisander (DGRBM]). Can anyone help with translations of "In the fragment of the Ἀείσανδρος εἰς Πακτωλὸν ἐστρατεύετο of Eupolis, which thus speaks of him, Πείσανδρος εἰς Πακτωλὸν ἐστρατεύετο, Κἀνταῦθα τῆς στρατιᾶς κάκιστος ἦν ἀνήρ"? Google Translate proudly tells me, It's in Greek! (which I'd half-suspected anyway) but goes no further even if I take the diacritics off.

(The DGRBM article conjures up visions of a warm fire, a comfortable chair, and a decanter of port. "Peculating propensities" and "gasconading demeanour", indeed! There's also a very early example of WP:REFBOMBing in support of the by-the-way statement about the size of Acharnaean donkeys.) Narky Blert (talk) 17:50, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't translate it either—must be a glitch with Google Translate, which used to attempt translating Greek, even if the results were iffy. But your title doesn't match what's given in the article, which says: "'Αστρατευτοι or 'Ανδρογυνοι". Not sure that makes a difference. As for "refbombing", one of the things that makes the DGRBM so useful is that it provides so many references to different works that might be useful to consult, especially on relatively obscure points—that the donkeys of Acharnae were immense may have been proverbial in antiquity, but it's entirely forgotten today, when few of us have regular contact with our long-eared friends! And with respect to the language, please bear in mind that 19th century scholars tended to possess and employ a much larger and more colourful vocabulary than we do today; but by the standards of the time it's not particularly florid. Much serious writing of this period and earlier far exceeded these examples in terms of arabesque flourishes and digressions, often leaving the reader quite bewildered by the end of a paragraph. Perhaps by our standards it's a bit over-the-top, but at least it's clear, relatively concise, and memorably expressive—part of what makes these articles so fun to read, IMO. P Aculeius (talk) 21:45, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't have access to the Loeb Classical Library online, and current pandemic measures make getting to a physical library where I am difficult, but the relevant Loeb volume seems to be Fragments of Old Comedy vol.II, if anybody has access? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:15, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

@Narky Blert: "Pesisander soldiered at Pactolus; therein he was the worst man in the army." The Loeb translation by Ian C. Storey (LCL 514:64–65) has "Peisander served at Pactolus, and there he was the most cowardly soldier in the army" and footnotes that "Pactolus was a fabled river of gold in Lydia (Sophocles Philoctetes 394). Hanow read "Spartolus" here, relating the fragment to the expedition in 429 recorded at Thucydides 2.79." The fragment is from Aristophanes Birds, line 1556. GPinkerton (talk) 23:51, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks. I'm not sure when I'll post; but when I do, I'll acknowledge your help on the Talk Page.

That gloss on Pactolus is most illuminating, and confirms what I suspected Smith meant by "ingenious conjecture" - "unnecessary guesswork".

I think that, all things considered, it may be not unfair to say that Smith did not have a fervent admiration for this avaricious obese cowardly populist, no matter how persuasive his oratory may have been. Narky Blert (talk) 06:55, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, I would be concerned if he did show admiration for this Athenian proto-fascist. Digging deeper into the rhetorical flourishes, I find that peculation actually looks like a useful word in classics: I've run into it numerous times referring to the real or alleged activities of Roman governors, and it looks like a better choice than embezzlement in the context of public, rather than commercial enterprise. As I read these articles, I become conscious of how much our modern vocabulary has become impoverished by over-reliance on clichés, jargon, and metaphors (particularly sexual and sports metaphors). Although I note that gasconade seems to have fallen out of fashion, quite appropriately, with the development of better relations between France and Britain, and is now almost as obscure as the Acharnaean donkeys (what a sight they must have been to behold!). To say nothing of insulting to generations of otherwise inoffensive Gascons! P Aculeius (talk) 14:29, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree, up to a point. Wiktionary equates peculate and its Latin roots with "embezzle", which I don't think is right. "Embezzlement" is in modern usage merely a variety of theft. Everyone expected that the governor of a provincia would arrive back at Rome richer than when he'd left; it was a perk of the job, and the basis for many a political career; if you didn't, you were either soft-hearted or incompetent. Samuel Pepys, father of the Royal Navy, cheerfully accepted monetary gifts for doing his job; but he came down like a ton of bricks on dockyard officials who took money not to do theirs. Bribes - sorry, unsolicited presents - have been and often still are the lubricant which gets things moving. It becomes peculation if, in public office, either you take money to turn a blind eye, or if too much sticks to your fingers on its way upwards. O auri sacra fames!

I disagree, in that some new idioms fill gaps, or are more vivid versions of obsolete ones.

Gascons were also known for their fiery tempers and bravery. Marshal Lannes was a Gascon, and proud of it. Narky Blert (talk) 17:35, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

As examples of useful modern idioms, I offer the British "all fur coat and no knickers" and the American "all hat and no cattle"; both self-explanatory. Narky Blert (talk) 17:41, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Both excellent. In which ancient biographies shall we test them?

I missed this discussion till now, and belatedly add two further unhelpful points: the donkeys of Poitou are also immense (can they be related?); OK, British-French relations are better than in Napoleonic times, when a French invasion across the Channel was on the cards, but not so very much better. Still scratchy :) Andrew Dalby 09:53, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't be at all surprised if one or other of the Latin satirists had said something which could be idiomatically/racily translated as one of those. The first in particular has an air of round-heeled early-imperial decadence. Narky Blert (talk) 20:51, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Now at Peisander (oligarch). I've done what I can, including attempting to translate Smith's Victorian insults into C21 English. I've checked the links to Peisander; four were bad (1 for the Odyssey, 1 for the Spartan, and 2 for this Athenian). (WP:PTOPICs collect bad links like nobody's business; few editors bother with WP:TESTLINK.) Narky Blert (talk) 22:07, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Ilkka Syvänne

Ilkka Syvänne has written an ambitious series on the "Military History of Late Rome", published by Pen and Sword Books rather than an academic publisher, and now being used as a reliable source on several pages. It's detailed and uses pretty much every available source. Unfortunately, it uses them very badly. From the review by "Ozymandias" on Goodreads:

"Another tendency he demonstrates is to build long lines of speculation based on a single vague or unclear source, which he then treats as if they were established fact. For example, from a claim that Theodosius pacified the Indian Ocean he concludes that the Romans formed an alliance with their mortal enemy the Sassanians to invade India. The Romans provided the naval forces and pacified Axum (Ethiopia) on the way before sailing as far as Ceylon. And nobody mentioned an event of this magnitude (which would be comparable with the conquests of Alexander the Great) then or after except in an offhand comment about pacifying the Indian Ocean. I don’t like to use such words when discussing works of scholarship, but ludicrous is not too strong a description for this speculation. It didn’t happen. Period.

The book’s standards of evidence generally are pretty low... much of his work relies on loose connections like this. It would not be a stretch to compare the use of facts here to a conspiracy theorist thread on Reddit...

These books are very dangerous works for early or amateur scholars since they contain many facts that will need to be unlearned before expanding their research. As these are the only books to take such a general approach to this topic that is doubly unfortunate...

If you're looking for better military narratives of this period, Hugh Elton’s just come out with one: The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity: A Political and Military History. It’s not as detailed as this series, but if half of those details and most the conclusions are wrong is that really a bad thing?"

I think it's fair to say that Syvänne is not a reliable source for our purposes on Wikipedia, and that we should remove both references to his work and any "facts" based on it. Before I make a start, does anyone have any comments? Richard Keatinge (talk) 14:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Pen & Sword isn't really reliable and for each subject better sources are almost invariably available. I recall @Kansas Bear: using this particular source on Gratian; perhaps he, as an experienced editor, might care to comment on this. Avilich (talk) 16:30, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Pen & Sword books are not reliable sources and should be removed from articles imo. T8612 (talk) 17:38, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

NB: Perhaps Pen & Sword could be added to the list here. T8612 (talk) 17:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

If we are going to take the opinion of someone from some website to negate an academic with a doctorate, why are we allowing the use of book(s) written by a former model?

Frieda, Leonie (2003). Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France.
Frieda, Leonie. (2018). Francis I: The Maker of Modern France
Frieda, Leonie. (2012). Deadly Sisterhood: A Story of Women, Power and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance

Perhaps any books written by Leonie Frieda should be listed here. --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:50, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Having a doctoral degree doesn't make you an expert, much less a careful researcher, any more than having modeled professionally makes you ignorant or a poor scholar. The quality of a source has to be judged on its merits, not the mere assumption that its author must be qualified or unqualified based on superficial criteria. Lots of puerile scholarship has been produced by academics with seemingly impressive lists of degrees and honours; and we don't discount Gloria Steinem's work in women's studies because she worked as a Playboy Bunny. I'm not familiar enough with Ilkka Syvänne's work to give an opinion on its suitability as a source, but Mr. Keatinge didn't say we should disregard it because of "someone from some website". His opinion was based on a rather glaring indictment of one of the conclusions in said book—and unless someone is prepared to say that the conclusion was justified, and explain how, I think it calls into serious question the reliability of the Syvänne's writing. Are you saying that "someone on some website" is wrong about Syvänne, or merely that you're not prepared to accept criticism of Syvänne without knowing the academic qualifications of the person criticizing Syvänne's work? If something is clearly wrong, it shouldn't matter if the person pointing it out is a commoner, or the most respected academic in the world. P Aculeius (talk) 19:39, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Agree. Did the book get reviews from decent journals, & if so, what did they say? If not, that is indicative in itself. Johnbod (talk) 20:46, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Google Scholar doesn't find one. Richard Keatinge (talk) 21:32, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Who is "Ozymandias"? From Syvänne's profile page at Pen and Sword:

"Dr. Ilkka Syvänne gained his doctorate in history in 2004 from the University of Tampere in his native Finland. Since then he has written extensively about ancient and medieval warfare and his publications include: The Age of Hippotoxotai, Art of War in Roman Military Revival and Disaster 491-636 (Tampere UP 2004), The Reign of Gallienus (Pen & Sword, 2019), the multivolume Military History of Late Rome published by Pen & Sword and the critically acclaimed Caracalla. A Military Biography also published by Pen & Sword. He is the co-author with Professor Katarzyna Maksymiuk of the Military History of Third Century Iran (Siedlce UP, 2018) and the Military History of Fifth Century Iran (Siedlce UP, 2019). He was Vice Chairman of the Finnish Society for Byzantine Studies from 2007 until 2016. He has been an Affiliated Professor of the University of Haifa since 2016. He lives in Kangasala, Finland."

I'm curious for the opinion of admins @Doug Weller: @Drmies: Should this be moved to WP:RSN? My experience with Pen & Sword books generally depends on the author in question. - LouisAragon (talk) 22:12, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

We don't care who "Ozymandias" is. We don't care what universities granted Dr. Ilkka Syvänne his degree, which universities list him as an "affiliated professor", what societies he helps to run, or how many books he's written, co-written, or ghost written. What we care about is the quality of his scholarship, which has been called into question—apparently for good reason. If a book authored by him seriously claims that the Romans pacified Axum and sailed to Ceylon, clearing the Indian Ocean of pirates, marauders, etc., and the only basis for this assertion is a vaguely worded statement about the various deeds of Theodosius, then the quality of his scholarship does not appear to be very good, and further scrutiny of any claims in Wikipedia articles that rely on that scholarship is warranted. That doesn't mean that nothing in Dr. Syvänne's works is correct—but if he routinely engages in wild speculation, then he's not a good source to cite things to. Please base arguments for and against using his writings as a reference on his reliability as a historian, not the number of diplomas, memberships in societies, and obscure publications there are in his name—you don't have to be a great scholar to have an impressive-looking résumé, or get published by small, specialty presses. P Aculeius (talk) 22:49, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

@P Aculeius: I'm not being in favor of Syvänne. I'm just outlining the info we have about him in order to get a more thorough view of the subject, rather than just basing everything on our own personal arguments and 1 Goodreads review.

I found a few more reviews in the meantime:

By A.A. Nofi (Albert Nofi?) [1]
By Joe Medhurst[2]
His own response to an Amazon review[3]

- LouisAragon (talk) 23:07, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

What a strange conversation we are having. First of all, if Pen & Sword is not acceptable, that needs to be argued. I remember that some of its publications have come up in MILHIST conversations; perhaps User:K.e.coffman has a firmer grip on it. But either way, we are not, ever, going to base an assessment of a published book on what a Goodreads reviewer says. I hope that's clear--it should be obvious. The book/author has no hits on JSTOR and that is not a good sign (OK, one single hit: his doctoral dissertation is mentioned in a list of dissertations, so that really means nothing). As for the other reviews, I am not completely impressed by Strategypage, but it's not as bad as some other websites and it seems to have an editorial board with some possibly notable people. But unrv.com is a hobbyists' page, and a response on Academia to an Amazon review is a bit desperate. To put the matter succinctly, I really don't see much reason to accept this as a strong secondary source. Drmies (talk) 02:56, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
I have grave doubts about using a "military history" book by an mainly military history publisher when so much better is available. I previously raised doubts to Michael Goodyear about Pen & Sword's book on Valens and Valentinian, which I looked at and think is rubbish, basically without footnotes, specifically "for the general reader" and the armchair general of whatever era. Syvänne's work on horse archers might be worthwhile, alongside whatever might have been published in proper Byzantinist journals etc., but writing for Pen & Sword is likely to be written for market, not an academic endeavour fit for encyclopaedia building. Many other sources are available for classical and post-classical subjects, and I have thought about an RSN discussion about all the Pen & Sword books on the ancient world (no comment on their other offerings but sceptical). GPinkerton (talk) 13:09, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Having now reviewed the long retort to the Amazon review (!) I think this Syvänne person is completely fringe and out to WP:RGW in history. The horse archers stuff in an edited volume might possibly be considered WP:DUE given attribution, but Syvänne clearly has an intellectual position quite at variance (and explicitly so) with the majority of scholars of whom he is quite unjustifiably dismissive and insulting. The passage about Movses the Armenian historian, rape, Maximian, and Plato is just insanity and not a little bigotry. GPinkerton (talk) 13:22, 29 November 2020 (UTC) These are poplit reviews of pop-history. There's nothing RS here. comment moved, having gone astray somehow GPinkerton (talk) 13:29, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Any "historian" who feels the need to respond to an Amazon review is not worth attention, in my opinion.★Trekker (talk) 13:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Agree, this Syvänne author looks very unreliable. Reasons explained well above. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 15:17, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Ditto. It's not just that I don't see the publisher as meeting WP:RS, but the lack of use of the author's book in scholarly books or articles. Without those we would need an extremely compelling reason to use him as a source, and I don't see one. And it's not as though we lack works by authors who clearly meet all our criteria. Doug Weller talk 15:27, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. Even on the basis of his own response to the Amazon review, he often relies on sources (religious tracts, much later politically-biased retellings, etc.) that are conventionally used as historical sources only with great caution. He then produces highly imaginative interpretations of these sources and of casual remarks in better sources, to generate fringe theories not found in academic consensus. The relevant academic community seems to mokusatsu him so far. As Doug Weller says, we would need a very compelling reason to use him as a source for anything. Unless anyone objects, I think it's time to remove him as a source. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:05, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Pen and Sword Books

GPinkerton, we should have a list of publishers, like we have a list for reliable sources. Your critique of Pen & Sword agrees with that I remember from some MILHIST discussions; it would be nice if we had such information available in a central location. Drmies (talk) 18:23, 29 November 2020 (UTC) @Drmies: I think they can just be added to the normal Perennial sources list can't they? Books come up less often than fake news and predatory journals but why not? GPinkerton (talk) 18:31, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I suppose--though I always considered that list to be exclusive of book publishers. But that's just me. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 18:33, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

What this discussion illustrates is that we should never rely on a single source for facts on WP pages, but look for concurrence. Although even that can be misleading if each author borrows from the other authors. A mentioned above GPinkerton and I discussed a Pen & Sword publication, but that one is not by Syvänne, but by Ian Hughes, and was only included after reading reviews. Anyway it is not a single source on the page it is used on by any means. So far there don't seem to be any critical comments on the Pen & Sword page. --Michael Goodyear ✐ ✉ 23:34, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I would like to point out that two Pen & Sword books were used extensively, more than 50 cites, in one of my recent FACs. The publisher was commented on by a notoriously picky source reviewer, but only to point out that I had inconsistently mixed "Pen & Sword" with "Pen and Sword". The author of one book had previously co-authored a book on a similar topic for Pearson Education, not normally considered an outlet for the ill-qualified.

A quick search of Wikipedia for "Pen & Sword" shows over 3,000 "hits", including on the first page alone the GA on the hockey player Sam Quek, and Philip Haythornthwaite, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Member of the British Commission for Military History according to a notoriously unreliable source, who is the author of four Pen & Sword books.

I assume that all of the above, and a sample of Wikipedia search's other 3,248 "hits", will feature in the mooted reference to {{WP:RSN]]? Gog the Mild (talk) 01:47, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

It seems that Pen and Sword doesn't provide anything in the way of academic oversight. They seem to offer little more reliability than self-publishing outfits. I'd have thought that we should use books published by them only after careful individual scrutiny, and never for any "fact" published by them alone. I suppose that a book specifically praised by recognized academics would be usable. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:05, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

In my experience; the quality is variable. Some are like the example cited above; others are respectable introductions to a topic. There might be an argument for including them in article bibliographies, since they are generally pretty accessible and affordable. But they aren't intended to be scholarly works and we should probably treat them as tertiary sources. The end of this BMCR review sums things up fairly in my mind. Furius (talk) 14:45, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I think that rather than any blanket disapproval of a particular author or publisher, we need to always treat sources with a critical eye. I think most people here know who the authoritative authors are in the particular field we are editing in, eg Late Roman Empire. It is not a large field. On the other hand, we also have to acknowledge that any book is written with a target audience in mind. These can vary from highly specialised academic works, through general histories to the popular concise histories being discussed here. Some of these are more reputable than others, such as the Fontana and Penguin series, and should be judged accordingly. Reviews in scholarly journals are usually a useful guide. --Michael Goodyear ✐ ✉ 22:11, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Why coins instead of statues/busts?

Why exactly has several articles had their infobox changed to include some rusty coins instead of the sculptures we have avalable? I can understand in cases where the sculptures identification is uncertain, but why exactly would an article like Messalina have some ugly coin when there are several well known beautiful sculptures avalable?★Trekker (talk) 12:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

★Trekker, I don't have a preference either way, but statues are nothing like as certain as museum labels imply, and with women it's even more vague and tenuous. The statue on Anicia Juliana for example, is almost certainly centuries older than the woman it's supposed to represent. Both statues on Messalina are captioned as "possible", which is probably generous and reflective of imaginative Renaissance identifications and repairs. GPinkerton (talk) 13:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Shouldn't we still accept concensus by experts tho? Even if there is some disagreements about identification several sculptures are pretty widely regarded as being of specific people. I don't think having worn down coins on several important people is ideal for identification.★Trekker (talk) 13:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

★Trekker, sure, where the identification is by experts and less so when done by Wikimedia Commons category! It's fine for the imperial family of the 1st and 2nd centuries and gets much more vague thereafter, not least because most of the statues were re-carved from older ones. GPinkerton (talk) 13:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

So again, with Messalina it shouldn't be a huge issue? The statue of her hoding Britannicus is as far as I know pretty well accepted as being of her.★Trekker (talk) 13:22, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

★Trekker, definitely better than the cheap coin that's there presently. There is also the issue of size; the infobox image has to be quite small and the coins are sometimes very low res, so fit well in such circumstances, while the statues sometimes benefit from a larger image in the body. Only speaking generally. GPinkerton (talk) 13:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

"Cheap coin"? it sold for $12,000 (and add 25% for the fees)! T8612 (talk) 14:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Expensive or not, I think the sculpture of her and Britannicus would be better fit for the infobox in this case.★Trekker (talk) 14:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

T8612, well clearly the value has appreciated in the interim! GPinkerton (talk) 14:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

If a sculpture is widely identified with a person, I think it's fine to use it as an illustration. It's quite easy to make a footnote explaining why scholars have doubts about the identification, and who, if anyone, they think it might represent instead. The old image seems fine, if a bit small. A modern image would also be acceptable in some cases, although in this one the images from antiquity are probably better choices. There's nothing wrong with using a coin, either, but generally a worn and pitted coin won't make for as interesting a lead image as a sculpture. I note that in order to be rusty it would have to be made of iron, not gold, silver, or bronze; but that's a minor point. P Aculeius (talk) 14:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

P Aculeius, "verdigreasy"? GPinkerton (talk) 14:51, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Actually, there's already a word for that: verdigrised. But it would only apply to copper and bronze issues. P Aculeius (talk) 15:17, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

The thing about coins is that they provide absolute certainty about the characters depicted. Unfortunately, few Roman busts carry a name. I made a post earlier about the famous busts of Marius and Sulla that are everywhere on Wikipedia, which attributions are certainly wrong. Often these attributions came from art dealers of the Renaissance to the 19th century who wanted to increase their prices ("bust of Brutus" sells better than "bust of a man")—attributions upheld by museums as "bust of Brutus" brings more visitors than "bust of a man"! I think every picture of a statue must be sourced too. I have therefore added two sources to the group of Messalina and Britannicus, but I don't think the second bust is Messalina. Even the name of the file tells it's Agrippina the Younger. T8612 (talk) 15:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Biases are also an issue in academic sources too, almost every bust of a young woman from the early Julio-Claudian period is identified as "Antonia Minor". I only know about one or two sculptures that have been identified as Antonia Major and NOT A SINGLE ONE identified as possibly being Marcella Major or Marcella Minor, despite the fact that for several years Marcella Major was the sister of Augustus intended heir and married to Agrippa.★Trekker (talk) 16:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Messalina suffered damnatio memoria and her statues were destroyed, so the one you refer to probably isn't really her. Ergo, "some ugly coin" which has a confirmed representation of hers is more appropriate than "well known beautiful sculptures" which probably don't. There are several unsourced and questionable attributions to busts in Wikimedia Commons; not all of them are accurate. Avilich (talk) 16:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Avilich: There is no way of knowing how complete a so called "damnatio memoriae" actually was. That term was never even used in ancient times, its just something some German came up with to describe destruction of some depictions of people who were dishonoured. There is no reason to assume every single sculpture of Messalina or anyone else was 100% destroyed, esspecialy when they also depict Claudius beloved son.★Trekker (talk) 16:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Whatever the case, the identification would require a reasonable level of certainty. One of the sources for statue in question "suggests that the group was preserved from the destruction following her damnatio memoriae by a supporter who kept it in his home", a wording which implies little more than speculation. If it can be demonstrated that the statue is indeed her, or has a high chance of representing her, then by common sense there's no problem in using it. To give a few examples, there is broad scholarly consensus that the statue in Decius is in fact of him, and there's a good chance that the 'pseudo-Corbulo' is Cassius the tyrannicide, but I doubt the one in Gordian I is even remotely accurate. Of course, the coin (which isn't even that bad to begin with and is probably one of the best available) still enjoys 100% certainty. Avilich (talk) 20:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

What articles are involved, aside from Messalina? Furius (talk) 19:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Good point, ★Trekker. Personally, I think that if any coin vs. statue situation comes up, the clearer one - visible coin image or undamaged bust - should be given preference. In Messalina's case, we have to see whether the statues in question are reliably hers. If they are, then yes. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 10:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

That rather assumes that these are questions on which "reliable" information is or is ever likely to be available. As T8612 explains above, this just isn't the case. Johnbod (talk) 11:11, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Anyone able and willing to translate a German source?

Hello from ancient Egypt. A few years ago, I created Mysteries of Isis and brought it to GA status. I didn't send it to FAC because I knew of sources that discussed the possibility that there were Egyptian precursors to the Greco-Roman mystery rites, sources that I didn't yet have. Now I have them, but two key sources are in German. By typing up the most relevant sections and putting them through Google Translate, I was able to whittle down those sources (one book chapter and one book) to the less than six pages of text that I think I need, but Google Translate isn't good enough for FAC, and Google rendered the most crucial passage in a very unclear way. While a few Wikipedians have listed themselves as willing to translate German sources into English, none of them seem to be particularly interested in the subject matter, and I thought I'd ask if anyone is available here before asking random Wikipedians who may be busy with completely unrelated projects. A. Parrot (talk) 02:01, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

If it isn't urgent I'm happy to help.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:06, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

@Ermenrich: No urgency at all, just something I'd like to get done. Should I email the text to you? A. Parrot (talk) 18:45, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Sure, A. Parrot, go right ahead. Looking forward to some interesting reading!--Ermenrich (talk) 19:20, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much! It's been sent. A. Parrot (talk) 19:27, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Avidia Plautia vs. Avidia

There's a problem with the article Avidia Plautia, which was emphasized by an edit *Treker made at Ignota Plautia here. In brief, the shadowy Ignota Plautia had a daughter in her second marriage to Gaius Avidius Nigrinus (his second marriage too) whose name has not come down to us, but is called by Syme & after him Anthony Birley Avidia Plautia. However, Nigrinus by his first marriage (to another woman whose name is not known to us) had a daughter whom Syme & Birley refer to as simply Avidia; she is the wife of L. Aelius Caesar & mother of Emperor Lucius Verus. This would be of no interest, except that (1) the article named "Avidia Plautia" originally was about the mother of Lucius Verus, which led to information about the daughter of Ignota Plautia being mixed in; (2) the template about the family tree of Marcus Aurelius (which is a bitch to edit) also confuses the names; however (3) Barbara Levick (Faustina I and II: Imperial Women of the Golden Age [Oxford: University Press, 2014], p. 164) calls the mother of Lucius Verus "Avidia Plautia" -- Levick is a solid Classical scholar, so I'm reluctant to dismiss anything she writes.

So my questions are: (1) Does anyone have access to Levick's book, & can share a copy of the page in question? (2) If Levick does call her "Avidia Plautia" (or no one has access to her book), any objections if call the daughter of Ignota Plautia "Avidia Plautia", & the mother of Lucius Verus "Avidia"? I admit both women are shadowy figures, barely more than boxes in a genealogical chart, & they are notable only because of whom they are related to, yet if these personages aren't made distinct this confusion persists. -- llywrch (talk) 07:39, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

@Llywrch: Levick's family tree at p. 164 has Nigrinus marry Plautia and then an unknown woman ("ignota") (with the italics), whose offspring (wife of L. Aelius Caesar) is listed as "[Avidia]" (mother of Lucius Verus, with the square brackets). The form "Ignota Plautia" does not appear, and must be made up from misunderstanding. "Avidia Plautia" does not appear either. Neither woman appears in the "Who's Who" at the end of the book. I would delete or retitle Ignota Plautia, ignota shouldn't be presented as a name and the person's name, doesn't appear to be Plautia either, since the man must have married two sisters of the same name in sequence to give "Avidia Plautia" that name, I think it safer to retitle that article Avidia, based on the uncertainty implicit in those square brackets. I haven't looked at anything else, so can't really comment further. In short: Avidia over Avidia Plautia for the one, remove the apparently erroneous designation "Ignota Plautia" as scribal error. GPinkerton (talk) 08:55, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

@Llywrch and GPinkerton: If "Ignota Plautia" is not the common name given by sources then I support a move. But I'm not sure we should pick a new name either, maybe we should do like Pharaoh's daughter (wife of Solomon) or similar and just describe who she is for the sake of avoiding confusion.★Trekker (talk) 14:08, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

"Ignota" clearly means "unknown" in this context, whoever it refers to. I think it would be fine in an article title, except that if we know that the woman was named "Plautia", then she's not unknown; the article would simply be "Plautia", with whatever parenthetical disambiguation might be necessary to distinguish her from other Plautias. But if Plautia and the unknown woman are different people, which is what I'm getting from the above, and we don't know anything about the latter besides whose wife she was and whose mother she was—not even her name—then she probably shouldn't have a stand-alone article, but can be fully covered in the articles about the spouse and child. Now if Levick doesn't use "Avidia Plautia" for the daughter, then I think it's safe to do as Llywrch initially suggested—distinguish between mother and daughter in the way proposed by Syme and Birley, since there doesn't seem to be any reason to have them reversed in Wikipedia. P Aculeius (talk) 14:23, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

"Ignota Plautia" (which I believe is Latin for "unknown woman of the gens Plautia") was my coining; in the sources I have found she is referred to as simply "Plautia". That is unsatisfactory because of the frustrating Roman habit during this period of not giving women distinctive names: all of the women of the gens Plautius, for example, were named Plautia. So I added "Ignota" for two reasons: to identify her as opposed to any other Plautia, & to emphasize the paucity of information about women of this period. The gender imbalance of biographical articles for this period is not caused by intentional bias but by lack of material. (I use this article to make this point when responding to complaints about bias in Wikipedia.) We should have some flexibility in names when handling a problem like this. And unless someone finds evidence that allows us to recover the name she was known by during her lifetime, IMHO it fits the best.

But about my primary question. It appears that the article Avidia Plautia should be moved to "Avidia", & "Avidia Plautia" reserved for the daughter of the postulated Plautia (a.k.a. Ignota Plautia) & C. Avidius Nigrinus. If there are no objections, I'll do this. (And if names are changed later, despite what I believe, the information will be attached to the correct women. Which is the important point) -- llywrch (talk) 19:26, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to have the ~~mother~~[edit: grandmother] of Lucius Verus just called [[~~mother~~[edit:Grandmother of Lucius Verus]], especially since we don't seem to know ignota was a Plautia at all. We shouldn't be coining new names, and we have already Wife of Julius Nepos. GPinkerton (talk) 20:12, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Clarifying my earlier remarks: if we know that she was Plautia, then "Plautia (mother of Lucius Verus)" would work best, IMO. If we don't know her name, then "Mother of Lucius Verus" would be acceptable, except that if the only things known about her are that she was the mother of Lucius Verus and the wife of his father, then there's not enough material to justify an article in the first place. Inherited notability is a no-no in general, and while I might not apply that too strictly if we actually knew some other details—such as the woman's name—if we don't even know that, then all of the information should simply be merged into the articles on Lucius Verus and his father. I distinguish this from cases like "Wife of Pontius Pilate", where we have some (contradictory) traditions and traditional names that deserve discussion—but no one name that scholars can agree upon. P Aculeius (talk) 20:58, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Likewise clarifying: Lucius Verus's mother seems to be "Avidia", her mother was ignota (possibly not notable enough), ignota's husband was previously married to Plautia. There doesn't seem to be any connection between "Avidia" and Avidia's father's previous wife, from the family tree of Levick in any case. GPinkerton (talk) 21:22, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Responding to P Aculeius, the reason I believe she is notable is due to her anonymity; had Syme not made the observation quoted in the article, notability would be much harder to prove. Some might argue making that point would then be original research. Much of what I originally put in the article explains how she was identified. Without that information, a critical reader would have grounds to ask how do we know an anonymous (& otherwise unattested) woman was married 3 times & had four children. (IMHO the section "Further reading" is distracting, if not unnecessary, & should be removed. More relevant might be a link to Herstory -- or other articles about how women are frequently written out of history.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:57, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

It may sometimes make difficulties for Wikipedia pagenames, but it's a fact that women in many cultures can be notable, i.e. do things that have notable consequences, without anyone mentioning their names. Just think of the number of notable 19th century books by women (e.g. British) signed by "Mrs" followed by the husband's name ... and all contemporary reviews and public mentions would give them that same name ...

An example from medieval history is the Damsel of Cyprus. Thanks for making me think of this, because I created the article about her on Vicipaedia ten years ago, and I find that an English article was created (better late than never) just this year by @Srnec:. Quite naturally Srnec didn't guess that there was already a Latin article. I must now link them at Wikidata, and see what I can add to the Latin based on Srnec's work :)

So, back to the topic, not at all doubting notability or the usefulness of the article, I don't support Ignota in the pagename because it's Latin, and English readers won't understand that we've invented it. Ignota is fine in the text, once the meaning has been explained. I would agree with those saying "Plautia (grandmother of Lucius Verus)", or, if the final view is that "Plautia" is uncertain, then just "Grandmother of Lucius Verus". Andrew Dalby 10:30, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

la:Theodericus Flandrensis (Philippi filius) now also linked. Thanks! Srnec (talk) 00:28, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd just like to clarify that I wasn't saying that people whose names are unknown can't be notable. I was basing my response solely on what was written in this discussion: if the sum total of our knowledge of the subject were that, "Avidius was married twice, and his wife Plautia was not Avidia's mother", then there would be no justification for an article about the otherwise completely unknown wife. If there's considerable debate among the historians concerning who this wife might have been—which this discussion seems to indicate—then there may be enough reason for an article. But without such scholarly discussion, the mere fact that someone's existence can be inferred doesn't generate notability. I point to the absurd number of articles that say "A was the son of B and an unknown (or worse, "unnamed") wife", where even the fact of A's mother having been B's wife is assumed without evidence—and of course whoever she was, she certainly had a name, even if we don't know what it was. I had no intention of downplaying the importance of women in history, or disputing the fact that women's history has historically been neglected. P Aculeius (talk) 03:34, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Forgive me if I misread a comment of yours. I think I agree with every word you say! Andrew Dalby 13:31, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Ignota Plautia is not the way inferred people are assigned hypothetical names. Usually Ignota or Anonyma are used for women. If the gens to which it belonged can be deduced, it is put in parentheses (); so, in this case (Plautia). Sometimes there is some confidence in the name and the parentheses are ignored by some authors; so, in this case Plautia.

Regarding what you have commented, Ignota or Anonyma is the first wife of Avidius Nigrinus. (Plautia) or Plautia is the first wife of Ceionius Comodus (cos.106) (first husband), the second of Avidius Nigrinus (second husband) and the second of Civica Cerialis or the first of Civica Pompeianus (third husband). (Avidia) and Avidia Plautia are two persons. The former is the daughter of Avidius Nigrinus and Ignota, woman who married Lucius Caesar and was the mother of Lucius Verus, Ceionia Plautia and Ceionia Fabia. The last is the daughter of Avidius Nigrinus and (Plautia), woman who married Titius Aquilinus. Part of all this is scholarly deductions.

Thus, the sources consulted: Syme, Antonine Relatives: Ceionii and Vettuleni; Birley, Marcus Aurelius; Levick, Faustina I and II.

Greetings. --Romulanus (talk) 18:02, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

RfC

An RfC regarding the lede of the article on the Atintanians has been proposed here [4]. It may be of interest to members of this wikiproject. Khirurg (talk) 02:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

That's certainly an interesting dispute at that link. Are the Atintanians Epirotes, Illyrians, or Greek? Did they speak an Illyrian language or a Greek one? And is there an unresolved disagreement over this shadowy people at the edge of the Greek world, or has recent research overcome Hoxha-era nationalistic dogma so the answer can be expressed in the lead paragraph? I honestly don't know whether to participate (I didn't even know these people ever existed before I saw your post), or wait until all sides have exhausted themselves then put on my Admin hat & decide what the consensus is. If a consensus could be reached, that is. -- llywrch (talk) 23:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Muse RM notification

An editor has requested for Muse (disambiguation) to be moved to Muse. Since you had some involvement with Muse (disambiguation), you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). Whether or not to move depends mostly on the question if a) Muses (the ancient Greek goddesses) is the primary topic, or b) Muses and Muse (band) are comparably significant, and there is no primary topic. ExcitedEngineer (talk) 12:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Varronian chronology

I am wondering whether we should add mentions to the Varronian chronology in Roman articles using dates before 300 BC. To make it short, there is an offset of four years in the Roman chronology; in order to solve this gap, the Roman historian Varro invented three "dictator years" in 333, 324, 309 and 301 BC. So all the Roman dates before 300 BC are definitely wrong, but the problem is that they are universally used in the academic literature. You have a long and detailed explanation on Livius.org. So far, I've written this small text as footnote in one article I'm editing: This article uses the Varronian chronology, named after the Roman historian Marcus Terentius Varro. In order to solve an offset between several chronologies of the early period of the Roman Republic, Varro created four fictitious "dictator-years" in 333, 324, 309 and 301 BC, during which a dictator was the sole magistrate in charge. Dates before 300 BC are therefore wrong, but still used by convention in academic research. "Correct dates" can be found by removing up to four years from the Varronian date, eg. 340 (Varro) is 336 BC, 304 (Varro) is 303 BC, etc.

Perhaps there could be more though, like a template. Any idea how to deal with this? T8612 (talk) 22:25, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Contrary to the assertions of the unsigned article, whose author clearly has a very strong point of view, we don't know where the "dictator years" originally came from, and it's quite convenient that the excuse for disregarding a particular chronology accuses the scholar who developed it of "inventing fictional events" to fill a gap. The truth is that we still don't know why there's a gap, although as said article—and our articles—suggest, it's probably related to the period during which no consuls were elected during the early 360's BC—a period for which even the ancient sources disagree about what happened, and how long the interval lasted. Varro certainly didn't create the discrepancy; Cato's calculation differs from Varro's by only a year. And scholars haven't even come close to agreeing on how to remedy the problem, which is hardly surprising since we don't have all the facts. Placing an asterisk next to what you point out is practically all Roman dates in nearly all sources would be as pointless as changing today's date to 2016, because Dionysius Exiguus' calculations were off by a few years (although we're still not sure by exactly how much), or insisting on moving Christmas to spring because Jesus probably wasn't born on December 25. If and when there's a reason to note a discrepancy caused by the chronologies of different historians, we note it. We don't need to place a disclaimer next to all dates simply because we know that none of the chronologies that are available are perfect. P Aculeius (talk) 22:59, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

P Aculeius, there is also the error in the AUC dates, or at least the internal inconsistency of the sources relating to certain of the eclipses said to have taken place in or around Romulus's supposed lifetime, which were misdated in ancient times by several years (or decades). GPinkerton (talk) 06:02, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Attempting to date the events of early Roman history—or more accurately, revise history—by eclipses is even less productive than the method of guessing dates provided above. We have absolutely no evidence that said eclipses were recorded in the annals of Roman history at any time during the Roman monarchy, because there is practically no writing that survives from this period, and relatively little historical writing that survives from the period anterior to the Punic Wars. The Roman historians and antiquarians do allude to annals and records stretching back at least to the sack of Rome by the Gauls, and it is entirely possible that some earlier records survived that period, if they were untouched by the Gauls (who presumably cared nothing for priestly records, and may or may not have fired whatever buildings they were kept in, depending on where they were and whether they could be taken to safety—things we can only speculate about). But none of those records survive into modern times, and of course even they were probably subject to later editing, and the best historians freely revised the materials they used to fit their own conceptions of history—not unlike what we're doing here!

The dates of eclipses could be calculated mathematically, but were also subject to error; and more importantly, as I think I noted in a previous discussion concerning eclipses used to date the Trojan War, astronomical events had—and still have—symbolic value that can cause them to be retrojected into writing without regard for historical fact, just as Dante imagined the astronomical conditions of what Ciardi calls "the perfect Easter" as a symbol of his rebirth at the beginning of the Divine Comedy, even though those conditions did not occur on Good Friday in 1300. And as most historians today reject the historicity of Romulus in toto, it seems utterly fatuous to use astronomical events ascribed to his lifetime as a means of revising the chronology of the Roman monarchy. P Aculeius (talk) 15:07, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

P Aculeius, yes. GPinkerton (talk) 23:34, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Some years back I tried to write an article about Varronian Chronology, & you can find my draft here in the shape I left off. (I have an interest in chronology & how it has been worked out, which is why I started working on it, but stopped because I could not find enough material to keep this from turning into an exercise in original research.) It is widely accepted that the traditional dates before the Samnite Wars are off by a few years -- & more the further one goes back -- but Roman historians keep to them. (I've only seen "corrected dates" provided for events between 375 & 300 BC.)

If I understand the reason for this lack of corrections is there are no points of synchrony with other recorded events. While Polybius offers one for the Battle of Allia, it's an isolated example. And we lack enough information to substitute these wrong dates with ones that a consensus will agree with. So even though the dates are wrong, we know they are wrong, but accept them out of convenience.

But I may be wrong about this. I would welcome comments based on what I wrote, & learn if my understanding is incorrect. -- llywrch (talk) 07:05, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

This is an interesting issue, but not very easy to resolve. There is no commonly accepted alternative to Varro's chronology, and although better consular datings are available (Livy, Cato and the rest), historians still commonly use Varro. The livius.org article fails to mention that only Varro created a comprehensive, convenient list - indeed, even that site uses the Varronian chronology on early republican articles for want of an alternative. I fear that T8612's quickfix footnotes, or things to that effect, are the best we can do, until historians agree on an alternative - that is, if they ever do.

As for templates, I'm not sure about that. However, it would definitely be a good idea to create an article on the Varronian chronology. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 13:47, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

As a starting point—and because it's the first place I learned of the distinction, long ago—I might mention the well-worded beginning of the "Chronological Tables of Roman History", from the DGRBM :

B.C. 753[:] Foundation of Rome on the Palatine Mount, on the Palilia, the 21st of April. This is the era of Varro. According to Cato, Rome was founded in B.C. 751, according to Polybius in B.C. 750, according to Fabius Pictor 747.

I offer this not to prove the truth of the matter asserted—that these are the correct and only eras known to the Romans—but as an illustration of how we should approach explaining the discrepancies of Roman chronology: not by accusing our sources of fabricating evidence to suit their purposes, but by explaining that while the era of Varro is used by convention, the exact dating of events in early Roman history is uncertain; that different writers approached the matter from different perspectives; and that most of the sources that they relied upon and the evidence underlying their reasoning have not survived. For this reason, it is impossible to date the events of early Roman history with absolute certainty. P Aculeius (talk) 15:07, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not asking for "correcting" the dates though, but telling that the dates before 300 BC use an artificial chronology (and how?). What is obvious knowledge for academics is not for readers, and should be mentioned somewhere. I think llywrch's draft is good enough to be an article.

P Aculeius The thing is that Varro's chronology is the most improbable. The dictator-years are constitutional absurdities and cannot be right at all. T8612 (talk) 15:27, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

How do we know that the others aren't equally improbable? Can we even evaluate them all equally? If none of the other chronologies are reasonably complete, it seems to me that they're inherently less useful. I'm getting the impression that this proposal has less to do with indicating uncertainty about dates, as it is an attack on Varro specifically—and that's not a scholarly approach. And I think we overbalance to the point of absurdity when every reference to a date occurring before 300 BC has to have a footnote explaining that it's wrong by X number of years, but we can't say for sure how many, and why, and who did what and why they're wrong and why somebody else is right and how we know it or don't know it, etc. etc. The place to discuss the uncertainties of Roman chronology is in articles dealing with chronology, not every single article containing a date before 300 BC. P Aculeius (talk) 16:17, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Because none of the other chronologies features a constitutional absurdity like the dictator-years. T8612 (talk) 16:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

That the solitudo magistratuum (NB magistratus is a fifth declension noun) & dictator years present a problem is mentioned in List of Roman consuls. (We could also mention the issue of "fictitious consuls", names added in later copies of the Consul List, but that might only further confuse the issue.) Both T.J. Cornell & Gary Forsythe discuss the issue of correct dates in their histories of Early Rome -- both better than I do -- & Cornell makes a very important point in this discussion (italics mine):

For practical purposes the important thing to remember about Roman dates is that events were associated in the first instance with the names of the consuls of the year in which they took place. Locating that year in any general scheme of chronology, whether Olympiads, or years after the founding of the city, or years before or after Christ, is a secondary and necessarily somewhat artificial process. If this is not kept firmly in mind, confusion can result. For instance, one historian has recently written that the capture of Veii occurred "in (Varronian) 396 according to Livy, in 388 according to Diodorus". This implies that Livy and Diodorus reported the fall of Veii under different years, but actually they place the event in the same "Roman" year -- the consular tribunate of L. Titius, P. Licinius, P. Maelius, Q. Manlius, Cn. Genucius and L. Atilius; and as it happens their accounts also coincide in absolute terms, since both record the same number of years between the fall of Veii and 300 BC. Although they get there by different methods, both contrive to place the capture of Veii in 392 BC. Diodorus also synchronises the year in question with Olympiad 96.4, the archonship of Demostratus (393-392 BC). It is hardly necessary to point out that neither Livy nor Diodorus (nor any other literary source) follows the Varronian chronology.

To repeat myself, although experts know the dates are wrong, the keep to them because they are wrong in a consistent manner. And for this portion of Roman history, consistency is more important than offering the "right" date. -- llywrch (talk) 19:20, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Sol_Invictus#Proposal_to_merge_with_Sol_(Roman_mythology) with Sol Invictus

Comments needed. Happy Dies Natalis Solis Invicti to all! Johnbod (talk) 16:48, 24 December 2020 (UTC)