Talk:Curator aedium sacrarum et operum locorumque publicorum

Did you know nomination

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

The result was: promoted by Schwede66 talk 03:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

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• ... that the curatores aedium sacrarum et operum locorumque publicorum were responsible for the upkeep of public works and buildings in ancient Rome? Source: Robinson, O. F. (2003-08-27). Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration. Routledge. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-134-84494-4.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Meeple

Created by Graearms (talk). Self-nominated at 02:12, 11 November 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Curatores aedium sacrarum et operum locorumque publicorum; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• New enough, long enough, fine sourcing, no copyvio. The page cited does not verify the "temples" part of the hook. I'm sure "public temples" is true, but why not just say "public works and public buildings"? @Graearms: The most important thing I learned from looking up p. 46 in Robinson is that August created a new office for maintenance as distinct from new builds and major restorations. Perhaps there is a better hook there? Srnec (talk) 01:20, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• @Graearms: Can you address the above? I'll also leave a notification on your talk page so ensure that you see this. Z1720 (talk) 19:04, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

• @Z1720:@Srnec: I edited the hook to include your proposed change. I am unsure if another hook would be necessary, I thought this hook would be interesting due to the unusually long name.Graearms (talk) 22:27, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• Good to go. Srnec (talk) 23:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

"Roman political position"

What does this phrase in the first sentence convey? Might it be better to lead with a translation of the Latin job description? I'm guessing that one of the admirably abundant sources must "English" it, and there's a lot of untranslated Latin going on here.

It seems like the curatores oversaw an aspect of public works—that is, their political rank as such had already come from the highest office they had held (consular or praetorian, according to the article), and this duty was taken on for whatever reason—to curry favor with the emperor, to be in the public eye and be seen as committed to public service, to actually serve the community … . If you had already been a consul or praetor, were you really doing this to advance your political career as such? You'd already made it to the top. (I guess I'm implicitly asking whether the sources had much discussion about why men of this rank would want this "job" because that would be interesting to me.)

One other little question: Furius Octavianus. The "also" in his sentence makes it seem as if he is an exception like the outlier curator who was only a quaestor. But being an eques was a social rank or status, not a political office like quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul. So is the point in that sentence actually that while the curatores were typically of senatorial rank, Furius was only an eques?

Congrats on all your diligent research. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:32, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

One more little thing: the temple shown is in Nîmes, France—a Roman temple, but not in Rome. You do mention that there were municipal curatores, but the article seems to be about the ones in the city of Rome, so the caption may or may not be true. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:39, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

@Cynwolfe:

• I have added a translation.
• I read more about the political role of this office, it appears there is disagreement amongst academics about if it was exclusively reserved for high-ranking senators.
• The source specified that an equestrian curator aedium was special because equestrians typically held the rank of subcurator. This rank goes unmentioned on Wikipedia outside of this article, and it appears to be exclusively mentioned in academic literature in relation to a few positions, including the curator aedium. There seems to be more research on these curators, however I have not chosen to include this in the article because the article is not about the general role of sub curators.
• I have replaced the image with a photo of another temple located in the city of Rome. Graearms (talk) 21:15, 28 December 2023 (UTC)