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Common name of Battle of the Allia

The Battle of the Allia took place in 390 BC and preceded the first Sack of Rome (390 BC), but the latter link is actually a redirect to the battle. It is obvious that the sack is much more famous than the preceding battle. The article has a short section of four paragraphs on the battle and much longer developments on the sack itself and the Roman recovery up to 345 BC(!). So the article actually deals with the Roman wars between 390-345 BC, including with other peoples (not only the Gauls). It's difficult to make something of this mess. It seems that the strange decision to name the article this way and merge it with the sack was taken long ago (2005?) and then contaminated the wikis in other languages, as they all have the same title, except the French and Italian WP which have separate articles on the battle and the sack (French: Battle, Sack; Italian: Battle, Sack). So, what can we do? The easiest is a rename to Sack of Rome (390 BC) [although it's the Varronian chronology, the Italian article uses 387 BC] or a split between the battle and the sack, but it would involve some rewriting. I'm open to other suggestions though. T8612 (talk) 13:50, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I think that the battle itself is the thing named in history; calling the aftermath a "sack" of Rome is a bit of a modern interpolation. This might be because the details of what happened in Rome were (and still are) disputed, or because the events at Rome were brief and the city rapidly recovered once Brennus and his men had left, unlike what happened eight hundred years later. As it's treated in Livy, the battle was the main event, and what happened afterwards just looting and pillaging that might have become much worse if the Gauls had succeeded in storming the Capitol. My first thought is to split the article if the aftermath appears to be overwhelming what's written about the battle—but in any case, it seems that the Romans usually referred to the battle by name, so deleting that title by turning it into a redirect to what we regard as the more important part of a connected narrative seems like the wrong approach. P Aculeius (talk) 14:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the two ought to be treated as separate events. While I was here back in 2005 when the articles were merged, a lot of decisions were made back then for reasons that have been forgotten -- or no longer make sense. But to the question: from my reading of how Romans saw their history, these were separate yet related events -- much as the Battle of Isandlwana & the Battle of Rorke's Drift are considered separate yet related. The Romans remembered the date of that defeat (as they had for the earlier Battle of the Cremera & the later Battle of Cannae), & marked the day as unlucky on their calendars. On the other hand, because the Romans managed to hold the Capitoline Hill against the Celts, it became a prime element in their belief that Rome had never been conquered by a foreign enemy & thus was invulnerable & immortal. (Well, until it fell. At which time that belief was transferred to Constantinople. And when that city fell, that belief somehow was transferred to Moscow.) -- llywrch (talk) 08:11, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Cornelia Africana Major

Hello. There are no sources to call this woman "Africana". The main one, RE Cornelius (406), calls her only "Cornelia", as does the reference in the article itself. Maybe she would be better to call her "Cornelia Major" or "Cornelia the Elder". --Romulanus (talk) 11:49, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Tbh, I don't think this article passes the notability threshold. She is only known in relation to her father, husband, sister, and son. The sources don't tell anything about what she did or said. We only know that she existed, which is not enough to justify an article. Notability is not inherited.

Regarding the name of the article, yes, many names with fantasy cognomina were invented in the early days of WP; one editor was especially fond of these "the elder/the younger" or "Major/Minor". In this case, it should be "Cornelia (elder daughter of Scipio Africanus)", or "Cornelia (wife of Scipio Nasica Corculum)". T8612 (talk) 13:28, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Plutarch: Removal of "Criticism" section?

The section "Criticism of Parallel Lives", of the article Plutarch, was recently removed. Please see the discussion: Talk:Plutarch#Removal of "Criticism" section. Paul August ☎ 12:11, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Basilica#RFC

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Basilica#RFC. Elizium23 (talk) 08:30, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Mass PRODding of ancient Greek town stubs

CGR's article alerts informed me this morning that more than twenty articles on ancient Greek towns and villages had been proposed for uncontroversial deletion on the grounds that they were non-notable. Three (beginning with 'A') were nominated for regular deletion; the rest (all beginning with 'C' or 'D') are being considered uncontroversial, which means that while anybody can deProd them without further discussion, they would be deleted automatically if nobody raises an objection, and if someone does, they could still be nominated for deletion through the regular process.

The grounds for deletion in the case of some of the articles is, "just a place on a map", but in others it's "not much information" or "not enough sources". Skimming through just a fraction of them, I noted references to Strabo, Pausanias, and Arrian, with some based on articles in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography and pretty much all of them cited to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Some of the articles say, "this place is not mentioned by ancient writers, but is known from epigraphic sources", and in most cases the location is identified in terms of the nearest city or town of greater importance. Here are some examples:

• Aralla was a town of ancient Lycaonia, inhabited in Roman times. The name does not occur among ancient authors but is inferred from epigraphic and other evidence. Its site is tentatively located near Atlandı, Asiatic Turkey.
• Cnausum or Knauson (Ancient Greek: Κναῦσον) was a town of ancient Arcadia, Greece, in the region of Eutresia. It was deserted in consequence of the removal of its inhabitants to Megalopolis. Its site is unlocated.
• Colonae or Kolonai (Ancient Greek: Κολωναί) was a town in the ancient Troad near Lampsacus on the Hellespont. It was founded by the Milesians. Its site is located about 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of modern Beyçayırı, Turkey.
• Corytheis or Korytheis (Ancient Greek: Κορυθεῖς) was a village in ancient Arcadia, in the territory of Tegea, and one of the nine townships into which ancient Tegea was divided. Its site is unlocated.

Now, I would have thought that these descriptions would have been sufficient for an article stub, given the fact that these places might be referred to in other articles—such as biographies or prosopographical lists mentioning where people came from, and it would be useful to keep the information about them in one place, rather than footnote the same basic text and sources in every article in which they might occur. In my work in Roman gentes, I always try to link the ancient towns and villages where people lived, if I can identify them, although in many cases no articles seem to exist about Roman villages in north Africa or rural Spain, and if the name can't readily link to an article about either an ancient or modern location, then I just leave it unlinked with a mention of the province it was in the first time it's mentioned. Frequently the articles that exist are short stubs identifying the location as clearly as possible, without much more information—one paragraph or less.

The Greek villages proposed for deletion aren't likely to have come up in my work, but they could be similarly useful in the future, and the same rationale being used to justify deleting them could be used to wipe out articles on dozens of Roman sites. Seeing as the articles proposed for deletion all consist of 'C' or 'D' names, with three nominated from 'A', I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. I think that if an article were to mention "Aulus Salubrius Flavus" as an inhabitant of Colonae, it'd be useful to readers to be able to click on "Colonae" and find out that it was near Lampsacus on the Hellespont, near modern Beyçayırı, and that the town was founded by the Milesians. I'd hate to have to footnote that in an article just because it mentions Flavus' residence—and I doubt I'd gather this much information anyway. I'm not about to go checking the DGRG and Barrington Atlas (which I don't own) every time there's no corresponding article on Wikipedia.

So the questions presented are, are any of these places notable? If they're not all notable, how do we distinguish the ones that are from the ones that aren't? Because I'm pretty sure that the three 'C' articles listed above and proposed for uncontroversial deletion are at least borderline notable, since each of them is mentioned in ancient writers, and has either a specific location or can be described as being in a particular area. And if they're not individually notable, then wouldn't it make sense to keep the useful information on Wikipedia somehow? Perhaps by merging them with other similar town and village stubs from the same geographic area, with redirects from the titles that currently lead to stub articles? I'm fairly certain that it's useful to have this information where people can find it, rather than deleting it from the encyclopedia. P Aculeius (talk) 14:18, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@LegesRomanorum: please start a discussion here when you intend to make significant changes like that (and deleting 20 articles is significant). T8612 (talk) 14:51, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello. You're absolutely correct that I'm responsible for the mass PRODding. First off, I apologise for being overenthusiastic at certain points: looking back through them, you're right that some of these (those with mentions in Strabo and Pausanias, as you say) should not have been PRODded, and I will retract these. I apologise, also, for not posting here to flag that I was embarking on this kind of clean-up, and I am grateful to you for rectifying that.

More broadly, though, there is an issue with these. The user responsible for literally all of them has created these stubs by working through the Barrington atlas and creating an article for every vague place-name found on the map. There might have been a town, village or minuscule settlement at some of them; there might not. The issue is that the creator of these articles didn't take the trouble to find out whether they were actual towns at all; instead they just indiscriminately created stubs, most of which are not notable.

While I agree that it's nice to have a link to the article on a town where a certain figure of interest lived, the possibility that an article might one day receive a relevant link to it from a notable page does not in itself satisfy Wikipedia notability requirements. As it is, these articles create a vast amount of clutter for no obvious benefit: they are almost entirely one-line stubs with no realistic possibility of expansion (and in many cases they may well be creating a 'town' where none existed).

Having said that, this is certainly a CGR project decision, and I apologise for jumping the gun on it. I would push to keep flagging them for deletion if they have no good sourcing or notability, and I would encourage other CGR members to help me out with this effort; I would completely understand if others do not share my feelings on this one. LegesRomanorum (talk) 15:55, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I understand your concern. But part of the issue is, if the existence of a particular village or town is asserted by ancient writers, or accepted by modern scholars based on epigraphic evidence, then as a formerly populated place—and one that readers might be expected to come across in any number of sources, whether or not we're aware of them—then they have what seems like a prima facie case for notability. If all we know about a village is that it was "probably located near modern Atlandı", that fact alone is important, because without the benefit of the Barrington Atlas to consult, readers might have no way of determining where it was, if we delete the article. Even stubs have their place in Wikipedia—simply identifying the location of a particular town or village that one might run across in this or that source is useful.

Now I did suggest that, as an alternative to keeping a lot of very short articles without much potential for expansion given known, existing sources (although they might still be expanded if subsequent archaeological research reveals more about them, or based on research not included in the Barrington Atlas or readily available over the internet), we could fold some of them into articles containing all of the various towns or villages of a region about which there's very little to say. For instance, "List of Greek villages in Pontus" or something along those lines. Each one could have an entry, or a short paragraph, with a redirect from the name—which could later be turned into an article, if enough information can be found to justify at least a longer stub than they have now. Such an article could potentially have links to larger towns and villages that already have their own articles, with a one-line summary so that the list is more complete. In fact, I'd be a little surprised if we don't already have something like this for at least some of the region in question. But either way, there are better ways of dealing with a series of not-very-detailed articles—that still contain useful information—than simply deleting them all. P Aculeius (talk) 16:44, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I fully agree with P Aculeius. Paul August ☎ 21:34, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Me too. Johnbod (talk) 02:10, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to hear from LegesRomanorum about P Aculeius's suggestion of merging some cases, at least the most unpromising ones, into regional lists. (I remember doing that myself with the uninhabited Danish islands that another editor thought were crying out to have a page each on Vicipaedia.) There would be the question: Is making such a list based only on the Barrington Atlas directory, which consists largely of lists just like that, plagiarising the Barrington Atlas? Andrew Dalby 08:55, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I would be warmly in favour of P Aculeius's suggestion! I'm afraid I can't provide a definitive answer to the plagiarism question, but I agree that it would be a really helpful format, and a very effective compromise between all users involved on this issue. LegesRomanorum (talk) 09:23, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

It wouldn't be "plagiarizing" the Barrington Atlas if it says plainly and up front that the lists are based to a great extent on those found in the Barrington Atlas, although it might become a question of copyright if large chunks of material were copied directly out of that source. However, precisely what constitutes "large chunks of material" and "directly" would depend very much on context. How much material are we talking about in total? What proportion of the atlas would be duplicated if it were added to Wikipedia without any additions or changes? Would the entries say exactly what the Barrington Atlas says about them, or would they paraphrase a basic description (one that, in some cases, may be so simple that there aren't really several different ways to explain it), and add details from other sources that might not be mentioned in the atlas (or which could be cited by it, but without including the contents, giving us something to add to the descriptions just by looking them up)? Obviously it would help if the person doing this were able to consult the Barrington Atlas to avoid direct quotations without attribution.

I think it ought to be possible to avoid potential copyright issues if, in the case of each entry, we checked to see if the entry is a direct quotation from the Barrington Atlas, attribute or reword it if it is, and incorporate whatever relevant details can be gleaned from sources such as the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. This source clearly doesn't have entries on all the towns and villages in question, but it at least mentions some of them; even if it can't add anything that isn't in the Barrington Atlas, it can still be cited, since readers who don't have the Barrington Atlas can find the DGRG on Archive.org; if it provides alternative spellings, those should certainly be provided (for example, a Latinized spelling for a place that the Barrington Atlas gives only in a Greek form, or variant spellings); if an entry contains mistakes or is outdated (for example, it confuses two different places that the Barrington Atlas clearly distinguishes), then it would be a good idea to note what was previously, if erroneously believed (it's also possible that the Barrington Atlas is mistaken in some cases), or what different scholars had to say about it if they contradict each other. Obviously any authority cited by either source is fair game to cite, and it would be a good idea to check what they say as well; it might be worth adding some details from them that are merely alluded to or summarized by the Barrington Atlas or the DGRG.

If some of the entries can't be attributed to any other source than the Barrington Atlas, then that's fine, as long as it's clearly cited as the source; but just Googling the names (perhaps adding the locality, since naturalists tend to steal the names of ancient persons and places for the names of insects, fish, plants, spiders, etc.) will often reveal mentions in other sources that could be cited. For example, if neither the Barrington Atlas or the DGRG mentions a prominent native of Sporkium in Bithynia, but Ronald Syme discusses one, then mention the person and cite it to Syme. Surely Strabo and other ancient geographers mention a lot of these places, and for those attested only by epigraphy, cite the inscriptions (and add details from them if they seem useful). I might try doing this before merging the articles, BTW. In many instances the details that can be added might bulk some of the one-line articles up to a paragraph or more—possibly still combinable with similar articles, but more likely to survive as a stub than they currently are. Admittedly this process could take a lot of time when there are so many articles—but that's how things often work on Wikipedia. There's no time limit for improving an article that could stand to be better. And you don't have to do it alone! You could always ask for help from other editors in working on chunks of the project at the same time, just by posting here, and explaining what it is that needs to be done. P Aculeius (talk) 13:49, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Online resources: a handlist

In case anyone hasn't noticed, a couple of years ago I started a section under Guides called "Other online resources". There are a lot of online resources beyond the usual ones (e.g. archive.org, academia.edu, & JSTOR) that prove indispensable in writing/improving/reviewing an article, & it's all too easy to feel frustrated because one lacks access to a research library. Right now what is there mostly reflects my interests & quirks (except for one contribution by Johnbod), so contributions are more than welcome. -- llywrch (talk) 19:12, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Can we add Sci-Hub? :-) T8612 (talk) 21:36, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I honestly haven't heard of Sci-Hub before this. It looks interesting & useful. (And learning about things like this make me feel even more behind the curve.) But I'm just trying to limit this section to Classics/ancient History online resources. -- llywrch (talk) 02:56, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

You might make the same reply, and I would understand! But I find Gallica and MDZ very useful for finding PD scholarly works, including editions of texts. They are best on French and German books, respectively, but they are far from being limited to those. Andrew Dalby 09:09, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@Llywrch: You have many books and articles on Classics on SciHub. ;-) T8612 (talk) 12:09, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@T8612:, I wasn't sure just how serious you were in suggesting Sci-Hub. I personally have no problem using it: I'm often frustrated in my quest for finding content because of paywalls or limits on collections at the local public & university libraries. However, there are two reasons for not linking to it in this section. The first is what I mentioned above: I want include the more specialized resources other Wikipedians might not be aware of. One of the weaknesses in education -- & IMHO this applies to all countries -- is that it sucks when it comes to teaching students how to perform research effectively. I learned about tools for research such as specialized bibliographies, hand lists, only in college & often in a by-the-way manner: a professor might take 10-15 minutes of one class to tell us that these existed. The second is obvious to anyone who understands the politics enveloping the Foundation: if forced to take official notice that Wikipedians are using Sci-Hub, the Foundation not only is likely to ban its use, but sanction any Wikipedian who uses it.

That last statement might sound alarmist & paranoid, but the Foundation is full of people with no significant experience writing an encyclopedia, & thus have no idea how valuable that resource is: they can easily be persuaded that it is noting more than an ongoing violation of copyrights, & thus a criminal enterprise. (Look at how easily they were convinced to support the spouse of a board member over an established Wikipedian who criticized the quality of her contributions.) Further, many of the resources offered thru The Wikipedia Library are from publishers with paywalls. These publishers are obviously against Sci-Hub; if they think the Foundation -- or a large group of us volunteers -- advocate using Sci-Hub, they might drop support of Wikipedia Library, which would harm access to sources for countless other Wikipedians. In short, drawing official Foundation to Sci-Hub can only end up a bad thing, so best if we just keep any advocacy or promotion of that site to ourselves. -- llywrch (talk) 21:23, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of whether the Bible can be used to summarize its own narrative

(I realize that this isn't necessarily directly related to the aims of this project, but since users here work extensively with sources that have been translated in various ways, and that's one of the major points of contention in this debate, I thought that project members insights might be helpful)

There is a discussion of interest to members of this project at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Scriptural texts (WP:RSPSCRIPTURE) concerning whether the Bible can be used as a source for its own narrative content.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:27, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Ancient greek pronounciation

I stumbled across the given pronunciation in the beginning of the article Telemachus and would have changed the phonetic transcription, but I'm not proficient enough in Ancient Greek to be sure about it. I'd appreciate input on the articles talk page. -- Dr.üsenfieber (talk) 13:22, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

I know this is off-Wiki, but

As we all know, Ancient studies -- not only Classics, but Egyptology, & the Ancient Near East -- is endangered at US Universities. (And the impression I get from reading British publications is that it's also threatened in the UK.) There is a movement to counter this. Check it out. -- llywrch (talk) 21:56, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

List of Roman women

This list is currectly very messy, it lists tons of women in the wrong era and appears to claim that Julio-Claudian descent to several women of the later Imperial period which I have never heard of before.★Trekker (talk) 20:31, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Well one woman I was surprised to find was actually a member of the Julio-Claudians was Domitia Longina, wife of Domitian. (There were a number of great-grandchildren of Augustus by one granddaughter or another, whose existence otherwise would not have been recorded. It can be hard to keep track of them all.) Otherwise, yes, there is a block of women who should be moved out of that category. And a few who are not Julio-Claudians. (And a few who I suspect are a product of the messy state of the family tree of the Trajan-Hadrian-Antonines. Yes, there are errors in that family tree which need fixing by someone who can better navigate the source code than I.) -- llywrch (talk) 22:19, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand the purpose of this article. We don't need a list of Roman women, we have categories for that. What is the criteria for selecting these women? Many parts of the text are plainly wrong, eg. "virtually deified by Roman women as a model of feminine virtues and Stoicism, but never officially deified" (wut?); the section "Distinguished women of the Classical Roman Empire" (what is the "Classical" Roman Empire?) features Servilia, the mother of Brutus, etc. I would vote for deletion if I were asked. T8612 (talk) 22:36, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

However bad a list is, a category would be even worse. At least with a list you can insert context and qualifiers. So keep the list but purge of obvious errors. Rather than "Classical", why not use the convention of the Roman kingdom, republic and empire ? Laurel Lodged (talk) 07:57, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Using the Kingdom, Republic and Empire is a far better idea I agree.★Trekker (talk) 14:53, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Stratopedarches

Is there anyone who can look at the book sources at Stratopedarches and verify them? I just reviewed it for GA, and it passed everything else. I just want to make sure everything's properly sourced. Ghinga7 (talk) 17:09, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC on Basilica

Editors may be interested in an RfC on the content of the article Basilica. See the discussion here: Talk:Basilica#RfC_-_scope_of_the_article. GPinkerton (talk) 12:50, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Spartan royals

This new ip, whose other edits appear to be vandalism, has been fiddling with the Spartan line of succession, though some of his edits appear to agree with the succession boxes. Could someone please check? Thanks, Johnbod (talk) 16:02, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

As you know, Johnbod, I already commented about this IP's most recent edit at Talk:Giovanni Mocenigo.

Well, I certainly can't defend the IP's first edit (at Mike Pence, back in January). The three edits of Spartan kings actually make the pages agree with one another internally better than they did before. But those pages don't cite any sources! Similarly, the Mocenigo edit made the page agree with its own infobox and with Wikidata. So the edits after the first are not really vandalistic. Whether all or any are true, I'm sorry, I don't know! Andrew Dalby 13:36, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, see my reply at Talk:Giovanni Mocenigo. Johnbod (talk) 14:19, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

A Byzantine diversion

If this isn't the best place to raise the point, I'll take it elsewhere, but: I see above the phrase "Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans", which (I happened to notice just the other day) is applied in infoboxes to Byzantine emperors after a certain date. How can it be correct?

• "autocrat" is not a title in English, it's a characterisation, usually pejorative. It's not an accurate translation of "autokrator"
• "autokrator" is a title, it's the precise Byzantine Greek equivalent of the Late Latin "imperator", and the normal English translation of both the Greek and the Latin is "emperor"

So the phrase "Emperor and Autocrat" consists of a good translation, followed by a bad translation, of the same title. Or have I got this wrong? Andrew Dalby 16:53, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Andrew Dalby: Autocrat emphatically is a title in English, see how Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias is styled. The same applies to Despot, as in Despotate of Epirus, the Despotate of the Morea and the Serbian Despotate. Autocrat is a very precise and accurate translation. We just think differently about autocracy nowadays. GPinkerton (talk) 17:03, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, I must admit I'd forgotten about the Russians. I still think there's a redundancy in our Byzantine phrase, though. Andrew Dalby 17:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Redundancy was built into the Byzantine court, which we call "byzantine" for good reason. GPinkerton (talk) 17:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with GPinkteron, I believe that autocrat is the correct translation - the common English meaning just comes from the association of that title with, well, autocratic rule.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:49, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

To clarify, the form was βασιλεύς καὶ αὐτοκράτωρ="emperor/king and autocrat".GPinkerton (talk) 17:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

As a title, I would not have translated "Autocrator" as "Autocrat", but left it in the latinized form "Autocrator", which I think is reasonably transparent, and more obviously a title. P Aculeius (talk) 18:09, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

From what I have seen, the title of Basileus in regards to the Byzantine emperors is most commonly translated to "Emperor" (since the Byzantines themselves repeatedly argued that it was their translation of the Latin Imperator - this can be gleaned from correspondence with the HRE emperors) and Autokrator tends to be rendered as "Autocrat" in English. If discussion on this should go further, it might be more appropriate to raise this point on the talk page of the Byzantine Empire article which seems to see more activity than any of the Byzantine-related wikiproject pages. Ichthyovenator (talk) 22:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that basileus sometimes equates to English emperor. Knowing now that basileus is the original term here, it makes sense. English autocrat was what really surprised me, but the Russian case cited by GPinkerton makes a kind of precedent there. So I'm satisfied. Thank you. Andrew Dalby 08:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Claudius Merge

This merge request has been around for 4 months now, so if other editors wouldn't mind giving some feedback hopefully we can resolve it (one way or another) relatively soon. Aza24 (talk) 01:11, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I assumed it got rejected since the marge tag was removed from the Drusus article.★Trekker (talk) 01:44, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Closed - both articles still had tags just now, but I've removed them. Clearly wrong after a big expansion. Johnbod (talk) 03:19, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Seuthes (general)

Can anyone help with this article, which has been in CAT:NN, and unreferenced, for over 11 years? I couldn't find any sources for the right Seuthes, and I'm unsure if this is a duplicate of another one we have an article for? Thanks, Boleyn (talk) 06:56, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Boleyn: See page 391 in: Delev, P. (2000). "Lysimachus, the Getae, and Archaeology". The Classical Quarterly. New Series. 50 (2): 384–401. doi:10.1093/cq/50.2.384. JSTOR 1558897. The original reference is to the work of Polyaenus. GPinkerton (talk) 07:26, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks :) Boleyn (talk) 07:27, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Are you sure the article isn't really about Seuthes No. 3 here? The stub is so vague and poorly worded that I have to wonder if it's a complete misunderstanding of the subject. P Aculeius (talk) 15:40, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

"The fragmentary remarks in the extant sources permit only a very imperfect reconstruction of the sequence of events during this large-scale military campaign. Although the number of 100,000 mentioned by Polyaenus seems an immoderate overestimate, Lysimachus must have invaded the lands of the Getae with significant forces. His Thracian adversaries probably evaded a direct encounter; Polyaenus has preserved the story about Seuthes, a general (strategos) of king Dromichaetes who presented himself as a deserter and deceived Lysimachus, led him into difficult terrain, and thus decided the outcome of the whole war. Tormented by hunger and thirst and attacked by Dromichaetes, the army of Lysimachus found itself locked in a desperate situation and the king had to surrender. The story of Polyaenus ends with the physical annihilation of Lysimachus and his whole army, which is clearly erroneous. Pausanias (1.9.6) mentions the captivity of Lysimachus only as an alternative version to his main story in which Lysimachus escaped from a position of extreme danger, but his son Agathocles was taken prisoner by the Getae; this might be a real event of the first war or a random interpolation of facts from the two Getic campaigns. According to the fragment of Diodorus, although advised to run away, Lysimachus refused to desert his soldiers and friends and was taken prisoner together with his train and the whole army (Diod. 21.12.1). The news of Lysimachus' captivity then tempted Demetrius Poliorcetes into a full-scale invasion of Thrace; he evidently counted on an easy victory in a country deprived of both army and government, but the uprising which broke out in Boeotia and the report about the expedient liberation of Lysimachus by Dromichaetes induced him to turn back."

GPinkerton (talk) 16:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Everything that's said at Seuthes (general) is also said, better, at Dromichaetes. (I say "better" because the phrase "faking a traitor" doesn't mean anything to me, but maybe that's just me.) The existence of this Seuthes depends on a single non-contemporary source and his notability depends on a single incident which that source alone mentions. Not a good basis for a biographical article. I haven't seen any authority for joining him with another Seuthes, which would be synthesis for us unless someone reliable has already done it. The simplest thing would be to redirect Seuthes (general) to Dromichaetes. If there were a separate article about Dromichaetes' war with Lysimachus (the events outlined in the quote given above), it would be better to redirect him to that article, but I don't think there is. Andrew Dalby 08:14, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

@Andrew Dalby: I cautiously agree, though perhaps there's more out there in the literature about Lysimachus that deals with Seuthes or his identity with others or his role. Coverage of Lysimachus-related topics is weak here in any case. GPinkerton (talk) 00:53, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

I also agree with a merge; so little information is provided at Seuthes (general) to justify a separate article.

Along these lines -- I have found large number of forgotten stubs & other short articles which appear to have been imported years ago that duplicate other content. An example is a case I stumbled across yesterday: there are articles about 4 early Christians all named Abercius, at least 3 of which could be combined into one article. (Many poorly known saints have multiple feast days, due either to errors in transcription or divergent traditions.) Of course, to do so would require time & resources to determine if these Abercii are the same man, or there is reason to conclude they are different men -- which is, of course, not our problem. But we do have a large amount of stubs & unrated articles related to Classical Greece & Rome which might either be duplicate entries, or better merged into another article. Articles like these pose prime vandal bait. Now all we need is someone with the time & resources to review them all... -- llywrch (talk) 21:05, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to those who replied. I have redirected Seuthes (general) to Dromichaetes#The war with Lysimachus. If there were currently anything else to say or to conjecture about this Seuthes, Delev in his CQ article of 2000 (already cited at Dromichaetes, and quoted verbatim above) would surely have said it ... if general Seuthes' tomb turns up next year, then the article can be resurrected. Andrew Dalby 08:47, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Draft-review of Germania

I am writing a sort of solo-revision of Germania and I'll appreciate very much comments, questions etc. Draft: User:Sechinsic/sketch1; Discussion: Talk:Germania#A toponym —— Sechinsic (talk) 12:04, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Antonia sisters

Right now the elder sister is located at Antonia the Elder while the younger sister is at Antonia Minor. Wouldn't it make more sense if they had the same form? I have a hard time seeing sources switching between the Latin and English names.★Trekker (talk) 05:56, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. They may be other examples of (unimaginatively named) Roman noblewomen. GPinkerton (talk) 14:45, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Good point. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 16:10, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Byzantine Empire moved without discussion

Just to let the project know, a user called User:Selfoe has just moved Byzantine Empire to (Eastern) Roman Empire, without any discussion. I would suggest any admins reading summarily move it back and ban him. --Nicknack009 (talk) 12:41, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

At ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Byzantine_Empire_page_move GPinkerton (talk) 13:08, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Byzantine emperors in the list of Roman emperors

To add to the recent series of Byzantine- and emperor-related shenanigans I've opened a discussion on Talk:List of Roman emperors which concerns whether that list of emperors should go all the way to Constantine XI. I'm impartial to the issue itself but I'm working on a new version of the list with proper references so it would be great if as many people as possible weighed in on the issue on that talk page (in order to establish consensus). Ichthyovenator (talk) 19:46, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Vettius Scato

According to this article from Oxford Classical Dictionary Titus Vettius Scato is a Publius. Also in Pauly-Wissowa: Hanslik, R. (1958). «Vettius (16)». --Romulanus (talk) 11:23, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

If his Praenomen is disputed then maybe a move to Vettius Scato would be best.★Trekker (talk) 01:21, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

FAR of Elagabalus

I have nominated Elagabalus for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. T8612 (talk) 19:38, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Age-structured homosexuality

Please help provide input at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 6#Age-structured homosexuality. Thank you.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 02:01, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Did Augustus raise the Antistii to the patriciate?

An IP editor has recently been tinkering with Antistia gens to indicate that Augustus made the Antistii patricians in 29 BC, and a few minor wording changes that seem to make individual Antistii sound more important than they previously did. I let this go a few days ago because I knew that Augustus had created new patricians, and I didn't have time to verify it, but I can't find anything that mentions the Antistii becoming patricians then or at any other time. I looked for passages referring to the creation of new patricians, but couldn't spot any that mentioned particular families (the references I got in Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and the Res Gestae of Augustus don't mention any names, although I could swear I've seen two or three named in some historian or other). I tried to look in PW, which says at the beginning that they were a plebeian family, but it's possible that I missed something under one of the individual Antistii. Does anyone know anything about this, or do we have an anonymous editor trying to make the Antistii sound impressive for personal reasons? P Aculeius (talk) 18:18, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

I've been fascinated by the existence of the Patrician class into Imperial times, when they were effectively an anachronism -- yet this class was still kept viable by emperors as late as Septimius Severus. So maybe I can help a little in this.

TL;DR version: Although there was a Patrician branch of the Antistii, that branch died out by the 3rd century BC. Any Antistii under the Empire had no direct connection with the Patrician branch -- they trace their origins to either North African or Spanish colonists -- & to my knowledge were never promoted to the Patricate.

In more detail: After the Civil Wars of the late Republic, the Patrician class was hollowed out. Practically all of the Patricians left were relatives of the Julio-Claudians -- who were composed of 2 of the remaining Patrician families. Augustus did promote some 60 men from about 20 families, but he also tried to restore some to the Senate, like the Quinctilii, who had long faded from importance. (About the only Patrician family that could trace some connection from Republican times that survived into the 2nd century were the shadowy Cornelii Scipiones Salvidieni Orfiti.) Claudius promoted 33 men of 14 families, but less than half of those 37 families were still around by Trajan's time. Vespasian promoted a further 26 men from 19 families, but they likewise failed to thrive. So if any imperial Antistii were promoted to Patricians by an emperor, I can assure you it was not Claudius or Vespasian -- I have access to lists of people experts have identified as promoted by either of these -- & while I doubt Augustus had promoted any Antistii to Patrician status, even if they had, it's doubtful that their descendants were alive past the second generation. So I would push back on this editing unless they provide a reliable source. -- llywrch (talk) 07:09, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Syme mentions that the Antistii Veteres were promoted to the patriciate, possibly in 29 (Augustan Aristocracy, p. 52). He cites as indirect evidence ILS 948.

Several patrician families continued to thrive under the Julio-Claudians though, but disappear completely after Galba. In my knowledge, the only historically patrician family to survive into the 2nd century are the Cornelius Dolabellae (one consul in 113), but not for long. The Cornelii Scipiones Salvidieni Orfiti were very likely not direct descendants of the Cornelii Scipiones. One family, although of plebeian descent, did survive throughout the Empire: the Acilii Glabriones, one of them was consul in 438 AD (!), 629 years after the first consul of the family (in 191 BC). -- T8612 (talk) 01:18, 31 July 2020

Alright, help me out here. I'm able to look at Syme—and he says almost nothing about the Antistii, apparently taking for granted that ILS 948 demonstrates that the Antistii Veteres had probably been raised to patrician status, requiring no further explanation. But looking at this inscription from Gabii, I can't see the connection. Here it is in full:

L(ucio) Antistio C(ai) f(ilio) / veteri pont(ifici) p(opuli) R(omani) / Xvir(o) stl(itibus) iud(icandis) q(uaestori) / Ti(beri) Caesaris Augusti / decuriones et populus / municipes Gabini / praefectura / Sex(ti) Marci Teris et C(ai) Varini Canacis

As far as I know, none of these offices or honours required the bearer to be patrician. Our article on the college of pontifices says that membership was only restricted to the patricians in the early Republic. For what it's worth, I note that the very first Pontifex Maximus (according to tradition) was from a plebeian family (Cornell notes that none of the Roman kings bore patrician names, and if I read him correctly, he suggests that they were intentionally excluded from the patriciate; if this is the case, it would hardly be surprising to have a plebeian Pontifex Maximus, even if in the early Republic the patricians managed to prevent plebeians from holding the office). But in any case, while a few priesthoods continued to be reserved for patricians, the rest of the pontifices could be plebeians. So how does this inscription indicate that Antistius was likely a patrician? P Aculeius (talk) 04:29, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Found other sources here and here. Apparently, the succession of magistracies in short time is what makes him a patrician, but I don't have access to the rest of Hoffman Lewis' book. T8612 (talk) 14:40, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

T8612 was kind to me: they could have pointed to this article & showed that I should have known at least some of the Antistii were patrician. (I must have confused the Antistii with the Papirii, another old Roman family with both a Patrician branch & a odd name for a Latin.)

As T8612, there are a number of clues that help indicate if a Senator was Patrician, the most certain of which was that Patricians could skip various regulations (such as they could skip the magistracy of aedile/plebeian tribune, go from quaestor to praetor, then accede to the consulate -- usually the Ordinary Consulate -- within two years after completing their service as praetor at the age of 32 -- all much quicker than non-Patricians, who could reach the office of consul no earlier than the age of 37, & usually later than age 45).

About the Cornelii Scipiones Salvidieni Orfiti: this family began when an otherwise unattested Ser. Cornelius Scipio adopted a Salvidienus Orfitus, who was either the son or the grandson of Vistilia, known for having 7 children by 6 husbands, so in Roman eyes they were legitimately descended from the Cornelii Scipiones. And the fact that the last known member of this house was a member of the Salii Palatinii -- a priesthood only open to the Patrician class -- provides the strongest proof this was a Patrician family.

In any case, determining if & when a family was Patrician under the Empire requires familiarity with the evidence & a lot of research. (And a good memory.) Best if we rely on experts to identify them. -- llywrch (talk) 22:52, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm aware of the Antistii being plebs during the Republic; after that I lose track of them, but T8612's details seem to confirm them as patricians in the Empire. By dead reckoning, we could say the IP's right, but it's uncertain. Best if somebody left a (friendly) message on the IP's talk page inviting him here to explain in detail. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 17:27, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

A link to a DAB page

542 Sea of Marmara earthquake links to the DAB page Aphrodisium. None of the entries on the DAB page looks geographically plausible. DGRG doesn't help either. Any suggestions? Narky Blert (talk) 10:32, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

@Narky Blert: I think it's probably this one on the Propontis. The spellings appear to be at variance with the source cited and should probably be changed. GPinkerton (talk) 18:50, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@GPinkerton: Thanks for your input. As it agrees with my tentative identification (which I'd added as a hidden note), I've gone ahead and resolved the tag using a footnote. I'm not at all worried by the -as, -on and -um variants of the placename, but we need to go with what the sources say. No-one seems to have dug what might have been a very minor polis, and not much of it may have been left even for digging by 543. Narky Blert (talk) 19:13, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Deprecate parenthetical citations?

There is an interesting discussion on the Village Pump regarding the end of the inline citation format. T8612 (talk) 00:59, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC invitation

Hello, everybody. There's an ongoing RfC at Talk:Molossians#RfC about inclusion in the lead of mention about the historical origins of this group in which members of this wikiproject could contribute and provide new perspectives.--Maleschreiber (talk) 00:57, 11 August 2020 (UTC)