Talk:Constitution of the Lacedaemonians

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A fact from Constitution of the Lacedaemonians appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 December 2017 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Xenophon's Polity of the Lacedaemonians is the only surviving constitution of ancient Sparta?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2017/December. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Polity of the Lacedaemonians.

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Requested move 19 March 2018 edit

Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Andrewa (talk) 09:40, 27 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Polity of the Lacedaemonians → Constitution of the Lacedaemonians – 'Constitution' is, as the refs in the lead make clear, the common name for this text in English, while 'Polity' is very rare. Compare the discussion at Talk:Constitution_of_the_Athenians#Requested_move_to_the_Polity_of_athenians. The target page is currently a redirect to Xenophon, which predates the creation of this page. Furius (talk) 06:44, 19 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Support per common name. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 12:50, 19 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
Comment: the sources in the bibliography use at least four different names: Polity of the Lacedaemonians, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, Republic of the Lacedaemonians, and Spartan Constitution (and it's possible I missed a mention of the Constitution of the Spartans). Since the work appears under all of these names, they probably all need to be mentioned in the lead, in the most concise manner possible (any more and a section discussing the name might become necessary). Polity is the most literal translation, even if it strikes us as a bit archaic. But if Constitution is the most common at this time, perhaps it's a better title for the article. This ngram appears to show that in English-language books, Spartan Constitution was at one time the most common phrase of these four, although Polity of was more common than Constitution of prior to the first World War, and continues to have some use. Even Republic of has some use, although not much recently. So I'd tentatively support this move, provided that the lead continues to reflect all of the common names. P Aculeius (talk) 11:46, 21 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

I've taken a stab at revising the lead for clarity, putting the names in a more logical sequence, combining some sentences, and avoiding calling it "Xenophon's work" prior to the paragraph on authorship (which immediately follows the lead), other than to state that it's attributed to Xenophon at the beginning. See what you think. My edit summary was abruptly abbreviated due to an accidental hitting of "return" on my keyboard while I was typing it. As for what to call the work throughout the article, I think it's fine to use the different names for variety as appropriate, since they're set forth in the lead, and shouldn't cause confusion. I used "Polity" once in the lead simply because the word "constitution" occurred in the same sentence. P Aculeius (talk) 15:21, 21 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Support to make it consistent with other similar articles. Aristotle's and the Pseudo-Xenophon's works on Athens are named "Constitution of the Athenians" on Wiki. (The title of the former should also be put in italic.)T8612 (talk) 14:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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