Talk:Julius Placidus

Proposed deletion, 30 November 2021

I've just deprodded this article based on a cursory review of the sources and the reasons provided in the nomination. This article might still be determined non-notable, but I believe it requires further discussion.

The first reason provided in the nomination was the lack of secondary sources. I don't believe this is a valid reason for deletion. The fact that the sources are the Roman historians who originally recorded them has no particular relevance. But if secondary sources are desired, they're easily-enough located. We don't delete articles because the sources currently cited are insufficient; we delete them because no sources can be found with a reasonable attempt to locate them. Here we have multiple reliable sources, so deletion based on the sources or type of sources or lack of citations is inappropriate.

The second argument, that the two persons mentioned here may not be identical, is probably correct. Neither the primary source nor the DGRBM suggests that they're the same person. The article originally focused solely on the tribune who dragged Vitellius from his hiding place; then someone else added the sentence about "military exploits in Galilee". Although it's not unlikely that one of Vespasian's generals was present at Rome during the overthrow of Vitellius, it is improbable that he would be described as "tribune of a cohort", when Josephus appears to be describing one of Vespasian's commanders, not a minor officer. So they probably are different people—but excising the second sentence wouldn't determine that the person originally referred to is non-notable.

The question of notability is quite relevant, although it seems likely that the second person—the commander of Vespasian in Galilee—is notable as a military leader. It may be that not enough detail can be extracted from Josephus or other sources in order to justify a stand-alone article, but that's a different argument from notability, and I don't believe that the proposed deletion notice indicates any attempt to determine whether this is the case. See WP:BEFORE, particularly points B. 2., C. 3. and 4., and all of D.

The original subject of this article, the military tribune, may not be mentioned or described in detail in other sources, and the level of detail about him in Tacitus is minimal; in fact Tacitus doesn't say that Placidus tortured Vitellius to death (if it did, the executioner of an emperor has presumptive notability). I suppose someone might have misread Tacitus to say so, but that seems like a very strained reading of the relevant passage. But WP:BEFORE C. 4. seems to be the relevant guideline here; if there's no more information then perhaps the subject should be merged into Vitellius, Vespasian, or the Year of the Four Emperors. In either case, the article should not simply be deleted; the correct procedure would be either improvement of the article or merger. P Aculeius (talk) 16:00, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

That's fine, but please don't misrepresent what I said, I did say I looked for sources before Prod-ing. I don't usually bother with merges when the target is a stub that cites no secondary sources. I have some reservations about DGRBM in general (the cited entry, incidentally, just forks over a sentence or two from Tacitus with no additional commentary), but I suppose I can't expect everyone to agree with me on that. Avilich (talk) 19:18, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't believe I misrepresented anything. You said you found no evidence that the two people referred to were the same, and while I could presume this was the reason for concluding that the article consisted of "original research", I didn't do so. That wouldn't be a good argument, anyway, since the only basis for doing so would be a later addition of one sentence to the article, based on someone's improbable assumption that one of Vespasian's generals was "tribune of a cohort" in his army when he overthrew Vitellius. Even if we call that "original research", it's not a valid reason to delete the article; it's a reason to delete the added sentence.

The point I was getting at earlier, however, is that the fact that the sources cited are the historians who mentioned people is not relevant. Articles don't get deleted because they consist of "primary" sources, as if that were A) a relevant distinction in this case, which it's not, and B), as though articles should be deleted unless they're cited to secondary sources. Statements in Roman historians are frequently the only sources available for who did what in antiquity; without more details it's impossible, as you pointed out, for secondary sources to add much to what they say.

However, the general of Vespasian does appear to be mentioned in multiple places, so it may be possible to say much more about him than this article presently does. As a general in a significant historical conflict, he's presumptively notable; the only reason for not having his own article would be if the sources don't provide enough detail. And it's perfectly sufficient if Josephus supplies that detail, even if secondary sources distill it to a sentence or two. We don't ignore details that are mentioned by Roman historians simply because they're not repeated in secondary sources summarizing the people in question.

Stubs are no less worthy of being articles than any others; they're the basis upon which more detailed articles can be developed. The fact that nobody has done it yet really says nothing about whether the article should exist in the first place. Neither stub status nor the state of sourcing currently in an article is a basis for preferring deletion to merger; if there is relevant, notable, and verifiable information in an article then it should not be deleted or redirected without merger. And here we clearly have such information, albeit confusing two apparently different persons (as originally written, the article said nothing about the general of Vespasian), and with a probable misreading of what the tribune did (the version of Tacitus I read doesn't say that he tortured Vitellius to death). Those errors can be dealt with by splitting the article, refactoring and/or merging the part about the tribune into the articles about Vitellius, Vespasian, and the Year of the Four Emperors, and checking Josephus (and I think I saw another source cited in the DGRBM) for more details about the general. P Aculeius (talk) 20:50, 1 December 2021 (UTC)