Talk:Valentinian dynasty

Description for the rulers

In my opinion, this article is a stub. Although there is a list of rulers provided in this article, there needs to be description for the rulers. Please help by creating new sections for these rulers so that this article would look more presentable. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Electro twisted wizard (talk • contribs) 09:31, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 30 August 2020

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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:06, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

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• Valentinian dynasty → Valentinianic dynasty
• House of Leo → Leonid dynasty

– To be consistent with Theodosian dynasty and Constantinian dynasty. Appropriate forms of "Valentinian" and "Leo" are respectively "Valentinianic" (cf. Domitianic, Trajanic, Hadrianic, Justinianic) and "Leonid". GPinkerton (talk) 00:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)—Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 04:15, 6 September 2020 (UTC)—Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 20:05, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

• NB There is already a Byzantine Empire under the Leonid dynasty. GPinkerton (talk) 16:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• Support as an improvement without prejudice to deletion or merging per P Aculeius' comment below. Srnec (talk) 02:08, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support as nominator. GPinkerton (talk) 13:34, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• Common name should be used in either case.★Trekker (talk) 00:20, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Of the sources cited in the Valentinian article, not one uses "Valentinian dynasty" (once "Valentinian's dynasty). One of them uses "Valentinianic dynasty". GPinkerton (talk) 00:49, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: these articles seem to be of very limited usefulness to begin with—there doesn't seem to be in-depth coverage of these topics as discrete historical subjects either in the articles or in general sources. The articles consist of little more than a list of related persons followed by large and unwieldy genealogical charts. But as to the merits of the proposal, "Valentinianic" seems to be a neologism. According to this ngram, it doesn't even appear in English-language publications until 1971, and for most time the phrase "Dynasty of Valentinian" is used more frequently than either the gramatically dubious "Valentinian Dynasty" (which is still much more likely to be encountered in literature than "Valentinianic") or the proposed phrase. But the fact that none of these occur prior to 1868, none of them occur at more than a very low level, sometimes going all the way down to zero mentions, suggests that none of them have ever been in widespread use—the topic seems to be obscure even within Roman history. The emperors individually were significant; their grouping together as a dynasty apparently is not. As for "Leonid Dynasty", this phrase does not ever seem to have been in general use. Introducing it here might be considered a Wikipedian coinage. For that matter most of the other occurrences on the chart seem to refer to publishing houses, or things other than Leo and his successors. These are simply not widely-used historical terms or discrete historical topics that scholars have studied. P Aculeius (talk) 14:55, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I think we can agree these articles have real subjects and we should be able to agree they are no less useful than any page of any dynasty. We have Theodosian dynasty and Constantinian dynasty so I don't see why we shouldn't have articles for their succeeding dynasties. I think the non-appearance of the terms before the mid-20th or 19th centuries is irrelevant. On such grounds we would have no article on Late Antiquity at all. The fact both dynasties receive non-trivial mentions in authoritative sources should be plenty. Ngrams are notoriously poor tools for discovering usage among published authorities. "Leonid dynasty" is used by a wide variety of sources, so I don't know why its being a "neologism" would be important. Here are some sources that use "Leonid" without having to explain it:

• Barnes, Weston (2019). Basileus: History of the Byzantine Emperors 284–1453. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-5462-5918-3.
• Bauer, Susan Wise (2010). The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-05975-5.
• Clark, Margaret Varnell (2013). Walking Through Rome: A Guide to Interesting Sites in the Eternal City. iUniverse. ISBN 978-1-4759-8132-2.
• Tillinghast, Richard (2017). Istanbul: City of Forgetting and Remembering. Haus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-909961-15-9.
• The Caucasus & Globalization. CA & CC Press. 2008.

GPinkerton (talk) 16:32, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I didn't claim that "Leonid" was a neologism... just that the phrase "Leonid Dynasty" doesn't occur in literature until, apparently, the last ten years. "Valentinianic" is a neologism, for which more common terms exist, but they're barely used either, because there is virtually no discussion of either "dynasty" as a discrete historical topic. Not every dynasty was historically significant in itself (for instance, the 28th Dynasty of Egypt consists of a single king who ruled for six years; the same is true of several Chinese dynasties; the limited discussion of the 7th Dynasty consists entirely of inconclusive speculation as to whether it existed at all). To borrow an example from the above list (of which I note there were no dynasties called "Domitianic", "Trajanic", "Hadrianic", or "Justinianic", and these adjectives are hardly ever used in anything but specialist literature), we have no article about the Justinian dynasty; it's a redirect to "Byzantine Empire under the Justinian Dynasty". And that's presumably a more significant topic than either of these. Of course I'll bet drachmas to donkeys that an article will be created in the near future, since the existence of these articles presupposes that more important dynasties should have articles of their own... I am certainly not agreeing that they are no less useful than any article on any dynasty. On the contrary, they are less useful than nearly every article on any dynasty that most people have ever heard of—because most people have never heard of them, including a large number of classical scholars. Allow me to be clear about this: I'm not arguing that nobody has heard about the emperors of whom these dynasties consisted. I'm saying that throughout the history of classical scholarship, nobody has felt it worthwhile to discuss the contribution or significance of these dynasties as dynasties at any length.

I think the above list of sources using the term "Leonid Dynasty" is itself of next to no value in this discussion. All five sources included are extremely recent; The Caucasus & Globalization does not appear to be a scholarly history of the Byzantine Empire, but a collection of essays intended to lure investors to central Asia; Walking Through Rome and Istanbul: City of Forgetting and Remembering are tourist guides; Basileus and Istanbul are self-published works from vanity presses. That leaves exactly one presumably scholarly source on the topic, and here is the entirety of what that source says about the Leonid Dynasty: "The Theodosian Dynasty ruled from 393 to 457; the Leonid Dynasty, which followed, ruled from 457 to 518." (p. 143, note). Other works seem to mention the "Leonid Dynasty" only in passing, usually when discussing Leo I's plans for succession. There simply is no significant scholarship devoted to the topic. That the topic exists is not in doubt. Whether it needs a stand-alone article, under a name that even historians generally don't use or recognize, is worth considering. P Aculeius (talk) 14:12, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Of course historians mention the dynasty in the context of discussing Leo I's plans for succession! Succession is usually the context in which historians talk about dynasties. I can't understand why we allow ourselves to have articles about legendary consuls about whom we know only names and possible dates if we're not going to have an article about an entire Roman imperial family that ruled both halves of the empire and is no less notable than the Theodosian dynasty that preceded it. My purpose with this bibliography was not to present the best sources, but, as I said, a wide variety. For the Valentinianic dynasty, my argument is not that dynasties are named with an -ic suffix for names ending in -ian, but that things pertaining to them generally. Here are some high-quality sources that use the term.

• Whitby, Mary (1998). The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquity. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-10571-3.
• Cuppo Csaki, Luciana (1987). Florilegium. Carleton University.
• Bruun, Christer; Edmondson, J. C. (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533646-7.
• Lee, A. D. (2013). From Rome to Byzantium AD 363 to 565. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-6835-9.
• Friell, Gerard; Williams, Stephen (2005-08-08). The Rome that Did Not Fall: The Survival of the East in the Fifth Century. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-73545-7.

As you can see, no vanity presses or tourist guides. I would argue nonetheless that Wikipedia ought to have fuller coverage than tourist literature and should follow reliable sources such as these in their nomenclature. Here's a rather more reliable work dealing with the Leonid dynasty, and you have one above that dates to some time before extremely recent. Crawford, Peter (2019-02-28). Roman Emperor Zeno: The Perils of Power Politics in Fifth-century Constantinople. Pen and Sword History. ISBN 978-1-4738-5927-2.. In the end, this discussion is intended only to rename the articles. I haven't seen anything that suggests "Valentinian dynasty" or "House of Leo" has any claim to common currency in recent reliable sources, which after all is what we need to follow. GPinkerton (talk) 16:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I said they mention it in passing. There's no detailed discussion of it as a dynasty, because there's no scholarship on the topic as a dynasty, because the dynasty itself is not a notable subject of scholarship. The phrase simply appearing in a list of Byzantine dynasties, or someone saying something like "Leo I was hoping that by taking this action, the Leonid Dynasty would endure for ages" doesn't amount to significant scholarship about the dynasty. As I pointed out above, the much more significant dynasty of Justin and his successors doesn't have its own article; the title redirects to an article about the Byzantine Empire under their rule. What good would it do to create one out of the bits and pieces of that article or articles on the individual members? Not much, but surely more than the articles on the Leonids and the Valentinians. P Aculeius (talk) 20:31, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Where do you get the idea the Justinians were "much more significant"? Where is the literature to support this claim? How are these two dynasties less notable? They all certainly existed in the same reality. Where is the purported literature about the dynasty, the dynasty itself, and the Justinians as a dynasty? They ruled for some eighty years. The Valentinians were in power for a similar length of time, and were responsible for some of the most significant reforms and events of Late Antiquity. Ditto the Leonids. GPinkerton (talk) 01:24, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps because the Byzantine Empire reached its apogee under that dynasty, which included perhaps the most famous and powerful of all Byzantine emperors—and at least two others who were pretty significant in terms of their contributions to the state and the Church? But I didn't make the point in order to begin a debate over which was the most significant dynasty of Byzantium. I was making the point that they don't have—and don't need—a stand-alone article, but rather share one with the significant historical developments within the empire that they participated in. Which would certainly be a better place for tables such as the ones here, and make it less important how to style the dynasties in question. Which is a roundabout way of coming back to the original point—these terms are hardly used in historical literature because they're not studied as topics—like the Justinians, they're studied individually or within the context of Byzantine history, while the dynasties as dynasties are not, so is this really the best way for these topics to be presented in the first place? P Aculeius (talk) 15:14, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree that its usefulness is limited, and would rather have the page feature simply a family tree. On the actual subject of the discussion, I agree that "Valentinian dynasty" sounds strange, regardless of what is decided on the page itself. Avis11 (talk) 18:27, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Reference error

@Michael Goodyear: something has gone wrong with the reference to the ODLA in the Valentinian & Valens section; you've been looking after that aspect so I leave it you to fix. GPinkerton (talk) 23:14, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks - let me take a look --Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 00:47, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

OK I see it - did a search and replace to move inline to sfn, but somehow the inline was not removed - fixed!--Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 00:58, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

@Michael Goodyear: Thanks! There's also an issue with the PLRE; the two volumes should be cited separately, since they have very different years and different editors (who are also the authors of the respective volumes). GPinkerton (talk) 02:00, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes that's my understanding - will check for errors --Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 22:35, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Agree. Volume 3 is beyond the scope of the page, but it works better to cite them separately - done --Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 23:21, 8 November 2020 (UTC)