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![]() | Text and/or other creative content from this version of First Punic War was copied or moved into Punic Wars with this edit on 13:46 20 July 2020. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
![]() | Text and/or other creative content from this version of First Punic War was copied or moved into Draft:Ships of the Roman Empire with this edit on 14:58, 15 July 2023. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
The Phoenicians lacked the population or necessity to establish large self-sustaining cities abroad, and most of their colonial cities had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, but Carthage and a few others developed larger populations because of interbreeding with the berbers thus creating the Punic language THAT IS A MIX OF BERBERS AND PUNIC. WHY ARE YOU RASICT TRYING TO UNDERPLAY THE PART OF NUMIDIANS WHO WHERE CALLED THE BEST SOLDIERS IN THE WORLD BY THE ROMANS. PLEASE CONTROL THIS BULSHIT. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.85.214.102 ( talk) 17:29, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
A line in Land Warfare needs editing but I can't decide what the paragraph intends. The line is:
"To the end of the conflict (249 BC), Carthage sent general Hamilcar Barca (Hannibal's father) to Sicily."
This should read either
1. "Towards the end of the conflict, ..." i.e. just pointing out the timeline;
or
2. "To end the conflict, ...", i.e. implying that Carthage's action was intended to stop the conflict.
-- Air 10:00, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Panormus was conquered in 254, and not in 251.
moved comment by anonymous editor. Wandalstouring 08:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Air
The Edit on Barca is fine "toward the end...",”to end the conflict" would suggest rather more decisiveness then Carthage ever showed.
I would like to see the ship crew number (in the casualties section) altered; it’s wildly out of touch with reality. A 5th century Athenian Trieres would have had about 170 crewmembers, and the Athenians were famous for deploying only a skeleton crew of marines. The standard ship-of-the-line for both Rome and Carthage was a Quinquereme (or Penteres), The crew of which could range from 300 to over 400 (in any case much more then 100).
conon394
I have reverted this edit by a user who has a history of hoaxing. Please check if it's correct. Conscious 12:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
The initial power struggle in Sicily involved attempts by Syracuse and Carthage to dominate the northeast portion of the island, including Messina. Hiero of Syracuse first attacked before he was elected tyrant, and Carthage intervened to prevent the victory of their rival. Messina turned to Rome later, hoping for more reliable protection. The prior text merged the separate assaults of Hiero and confused the dates.
-- StephenMacmanus 10:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
The third treaty between Rome and Carthage should be quoted. Wandalstouring 14:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The background section is basically a copy paste of this site http://www.crystalinks.com/punicwars.html Ciriii 22:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I base the 270/100K number on Dupuy; he, however, puts it in 256. Trekphiler 00:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Really niece someone made pictures about these events, but it is too obviously based on a game and very much from a Roman perspective. In the last image "end game" is not really needed. Source these images please. Wandalstouring 20:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
i threw on the GFDL statement for the images. I am a little new to this whole thing. I made the images, with info from Lazenby's book. He did not do the analysis, just listed when events happened. Is my listing correct?
Ok, I will make the changes. Give me a day or 2; I am off to work now, but will try to get it done tonight. Birdman93 09:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I would quite like to know what the army actually consisted of. Mercenaries and ect. But I think that they should the battles in better details.Like the actuall units
Livy [1.19]..."Thinking that the ferocity of his subjects might be mitigated by the disuse of arms, he built the temple of Janus at the foot of the Aventine as an index of peace and war, to signify when it was open that the State was under arms, and when it was shut that all the surrounding nations were at peace. Twice since Numa's reign has it been shut, once after the first Punic war in the consulship of T. Manlius, the second time, which heaven has allowed our generation to witness, after the battle of Actium, when peace on land and sea was secured by the emperor Caesar Augustus."... Wandalstouring 19:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I suspect this person doesn't exist. Besides the fact that his name just looks wrong for a 3rd century BC Carthaginian, I can't find any independent references for him. Other than mirrored copies of this article, the only reference I did find is from the "Spotlight on Games" website which includes military games. I don't think it counts. ;-)
If anyone knows a reliable source for this guy, feel free to restore him to the list.
StephenMacmanus 09:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Rick Heli 20:52, 12 September 2016 You can find a mention of Bostar in Hannibal's dynasty: power and politics in the western Mediterranean, 247-183 BC by Dexter Hoyos, p. 16. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick.heli ( talk • contribs) 03:51, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
So, could anyone explain why "incompetent leaders" was reverted to "demagogues"? Nobody understands this expression in this context, and furthermore it has got a negative connotation. -- 217.229.68.147 22:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
In the section "Beginning", this sentence isn't finished:
Most likely unwilling to see Carthaginian power spread further over Sicily and get too close to Italy, Rome responded by entering into an alliance with (?)
Isn't it supposed to be "the Mamertines"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.103.2.8 ( talk) 03:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC).
Category:First Punic War is itself a category within Category:Punic Wars. — Robert Greer ( talk) 15:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello to everyone! I believe that the date style in this article should be changed from the Christian centered AD- BC system to the BCE ireligious system. Since both systems denote the same years it is just a matter of adding an "E" to every "BC" in the article. A small change in practice but a very important one in that this way the article doesn't take a religious stance (for example, the article Jesus doesn't refer to the person as "Our holy lord").Please add your take on the subject so that we may reach the consensus needed to either stay with the current version or switch to the Commen Era one. -- Macarenses ( talk) 14:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
The article is not clear if the money asked by the Romans was 2200 talents of gold or silver or what. Other important consequence not mentioned is that Carthage invaded Iberia short after in order to extract metals and pay the enormous indemnization. And important also, having control of important silver mines in Iberia, the Punics felt themselves powerful enough to destroy Rome and start the Second Punic War. Something similar happened in the XX century when the Germans took the indemnization issue as an excuse to revenge in other war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.134.125.189 ( talk) 15:04, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
At least from what I´ve read now about the beginnings of the conflict, there is not much mention about different theories, much of the text seemingly following the account Polybius very closely. Authors before me seemingly didn´t even find it necessary to insert an "according to Polybius", or the like. I dont´think that it is sufficient to mention a source as such only in the citations, when the accuracy of that source is actually a matter of considerable scientific debate. -- Mike F2 ( talk) 16:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I noticed that the map in the info-box has Carthago Nova in Hispania Ulterior. The map is titled for 264 BC, but Carthago Nova wasn't founded until 227 BC (see Cartagena). In case that's a mistake, I erased the name and city marker in GIMP. There was (possibly) a town known as Mastia there prior to Carthago Nova, and I could edit that in there if it seem's more correct. I've uploaded a new version of the map here:
Besvo ( talk) 04:38, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
I decided to make the edit based on the "be bold" principle. Besvo ( talk) 00:54, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Greetings to the contributors and watchers of this article. It seems to have languished as B class for some time and I feel that it deserves better. I am intending to give it a major overhaul, and hopefully get it to FA. Having recently seen Battle of Cape Ecnomus to FA and with two other battles from the war on their way through the assessment process, I feel that I have some idea of what I am doing.
Obviously, this being Wikipedia, I am hoping that other editors will freely step in to make this article as high quality as we can. Regards. Gog the Mild ( talk) 23:12, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Gog the Mild: you added the detail of the Romans losing 384 ships and 100,000 men. How large was the total Roman force? I realize it probably fluctuated quite a bit, given how long the war lasted, but it would be helpful to have a general description of the size of the forces for comparison. (100,000 men sounds like a lot of soldiers for antiquity, but I never had a great sense of the scale of some of these things.) — Emufarmers( T/ C) 09:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Emufarmers: If that was an offer to review this article, then you may, or may not, find it useful to cut and paste this into the review page as a checklist. Gog the Mild ( talk) 13:32, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: Hog Farm ( talk · contribs) 02:19, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
Lead
"the two main powers of the western Mediterranean" - Should we indicate a time frame for this dominancy, like "ancient western Mediterranean" or throwing in the century?
"At the Battle of Cape Ecnomus they were again beaten" - not 100% clear which army "they" is referring to.
"but not believing they could hold it, they razed and abandoned it. " - Can this get rephrased so that it is not used twice in quick repetition?
"Next year they lost another 150 ships to a storm" - Possibly "The next year..." would be better.
"The Treaty of Lutatius was signed by which Carthage paid large reparations and Sicily was annexed as a Roman province." - The first part of this sentence reads a bit weird to me, but I'm not entirely sure what's wrong ("was signed by which Carthage" reads funny to me).
Sources
"The modern historian Anne Curry considers "Polybius turns out to [be] fairly reliable"." - Is considers the best word here, it makes the tense feel a little weird.
Background
"Carthage ... on at least one occasion used their navy to ferry" - Is Carthage and their the correct case matching here? My instinct would be to match Carthage with it (referring to the city) and to use their for Carthaginians. However, I'm not the greatest at grammar, so you may be correct here.
Armies
"They all carried short thrusting swords: in addition the front rank carried two javelins ..." - I'm not sure that the colon is the best option here.
"also employed war elephants; African forest elephants were" - Can you fix the MOS:SEAOFBLUE here?
Sicily
"The Romans had an inadequate supply system, partly because the Carthaginian naval supremacy prevented them from shipped supplies by sea, and were not in any case accustomed to feeding an army as large as 40,000 men" - Something here's not quite right. Maybe add they to make "and they were not in any case"?
Comment on headings - We have two sections named Sicily, would it be possible to change one of them?
Rome builds a fleet - So quinqueremes means "five-oared", not "five oared ship" or something like that? I'm not familiar with Latin, and you seem to be, so I'll trust that this is correct but I just want to make sure.
"A quinquereme carried a crew of 300: 280 oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers;[69] it would also normally carry a complement of 40 marines;[70] if battle was thought to be imminent this would be increased to as many as 120." - This is a lot of clauses in one sentence. Would it make sense to you to break it into two sentences between ref 69 and the next word?
"Boodes ships attacked" - Should this be "Boodes' ships attacked"?
"In 257 BC there was a typical chance encounter." - This seems like an odd way to introduce a notable battle.
Invasion of Africa
You refer to Hanno the Great and Hamilcar mustering the Carthaginian fleet against the Romans. Are you referring to Hamilcar (Drepanum) or Hamilcar Barca? They were both active in this war.
Second paragraph of this section - Unless I missed it, you never give the name of the battle you describe here. That would be helpful information to the reader.
Is the Hamilcar mentioned in the third paragraph the same Hamilcar from earlier? So many similar names in this era
Caption from the map in this section
Hasdrubal should probably be wikilinked at first mention, since he hasn't been mentioned since the infobox. This is Hasdrubal the Fair, right? (He seems to be the only Hasdrubal listed at Hasdrubal who would be alive at this time frame, although he would be youngish for army command.
Sicily (second section)
You mention the two consuls of 254 BC, but what are these two consuls' names? The consuls for the year of this year would be different than the consuls of the year for the previous years described, unless the Romans decided to carryover these.
"They turned to the maritime offensive," - Should Carthaginians be specified at the start of the sentence (the context is established, but later in the sentence).
Aftermath - I know this is written in British English, but is there a word you could use besides "havered"? As a speaker of American English, I've never seen this word before and had to look it up. See MOS:COMMONALITY.
The references and images are all good, no signs of COPYVIO and AGF on the print sources.
Overall, a very good and informative article. Aside from the issues with that one caption, most of this is just copyedit that should be quick cleanup. Pinging nominator, Gog the Mild. Hog Farm ( talk) 20:22, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Passing this one for GA now. Hog Farm ( talk) 23:17, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Do we need spaces before and after an en dash used for time range? This website says no. A span of years (such as “2009–2012”) or any other time range includes an en dash. (And note that “from 2009–2012” and “between 2009–2012” are incorrect; either use both from and to, or between and and, or neither.) The same treatment is given to a sequence of components, such as a range of chapter or page numbers or amounts (for example, “chapters 1–10” or “250–300 pages”). Hanberke ( talk) 07:26, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Hi Robinvp11
The normal convention when wishing to demonstrate a change is to either put it in a sandbox, or make the change to the article and then self revert. The diff can then be posted - eg [1] - and discussed without getting into an edit war. I will undo your edit again, with no prejudice - I may end up entirely agreeing with it - and post my thoughts on it here. I note that you made a subsequent small change. Is your revision of the lead ready to be discussed, or are you still working on it?
You comment that I have asked for "collaboration". I have no memory of this, but my memory is not what it was; could you point me to where this discussion is taking place?
Thanks.
Gog the Mild ( talk) 15:42, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I understand that this was recently promoted to FA, but the middle two paragraphs of the lede describing the details of the conflict seem unusually long, detracting from the readability. Is it standard practice to have such a long lede in articles like this? As an uninvolved reader I personally found it excessive, but if this is longstanding practice then so be it. Bzweebl ( talk • contribs) 20:07, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
Article | Lead | Total | Lead as % |
---|---|---|---|
First Punic War | 592 | 6,200 | 9.5 |
Battle of Dunbar (1650) | 477 | 7,100 | 6.7 |
Treaty of Lutatius | 339 | 2,682 | 12.6 |
Roman withdrawal from Africa, 255 BC | 295 | 2,692 | 11.0 |
Battle of Adys | 254 | 2,670 | 9.5 |
Battle of Panormus | 269 | 2,641 | 10.2 |
Hi Vanamonde93 and apologies for not getting back to you earlier; I came back from holiday to a confusion of RL and Wikipedia issues and this article completely slipped my mind. Checking your FAC comments the technical terms you specifically wanted explaining were "shock" and "close-order". I have found an article on the latter which is pretty good and have linked it in at first mention. There is an article on shock troops, but it is inappropriate; so I have inserted a footnote cited to a basic text (page 1 no less!).
Thanks. Gog the Mild ( talk) 21:35, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Hi Buidhe, you may remember me being frustrated that I couldn't support there having been 11 rams recovered from off the Aegates because I was stuck in the Highlands. I said that I would get back to you. I still can't reconstruct my original sourcing *eyeroll* but this would seem adequate to support the original assertion. However, digging a little further, I found on the website of the organisation doing the excavations this with "As of the end of the 2018 field season, 19 ancient warship rams have been added to the archaeological record". Are you OK with me updating appropriately? Cheers. Gog the Mild ( talk) 17:00, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
Hello, I have made a new version of the map. The contents are the same as the older maps, but I've upscaled the quality.
While previous versions have been made with a pastel colour scheme, this time I used the official wikipedia colour scheme. Also, I have removed the key from the older map and intergrated the info into the map itself. I hope to replace the current maps with this newer version. GalaxMaps ( talk) 08:26, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Hi GalaxMaps, and thanks for posting this for discussion. I have put the original map here to allow comparison.
I am entirely happy about the principle of tweaking the map, although significant changes will need at least the notification of all of the original ACR and FAC reviewers, and ideally their explicit agreement to them. However, a non-exhaustive list of things which I feel are worse about the proposed new map include:
Address these and I'll give it another look over. If you don't mind my asking, why did you decide to alter this map in the first place? Having got to FA quite a few people will have signed off on it as being of a high standard. If you would like to create new maps there are plenty needed; eg I am working on several other Punic War articles which I would like to get to FAC but which lack or have inadequate maps. Might you be interested in working with me to create them? Gog the Mild ( talk) 10:04, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
The reason I want to edit the map is because I found the map to be too low res, and that it wouldn't hurt to upload a higher res version of the old map. I'll also be happy to work on more maps to improve the articles. GalaxMaps ( talk) 10:39, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
![]() | First Punic War is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | |||||||||||||||||||||
![]() | First Punic War is part of the Punic Wars series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so. | |||||||||||||||||||||
![]() | This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 7, 2021. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() | Text and/or other creative content from this version of First Punic War was copied or moved into Punic Wars with this edit on 13:46 20 July 2020. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
![]() | Text and/or other creative content from this version of First Punic War was copied or moved into Draft:Ships of the Roman Empire with this edit on 14:58, 15 July 2023. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
The Phoenicians lacked the population or necessity to establish large self-sustaining cities abroad, and most of their colonial cities had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, but Carthage and a few others developed larger populations because of interbreeding with the berbers thus creating the Punic language THAT IS A MIX OF BERBERS AND PUNIC. WHY ARE YOU RASICT TRYING TO UNDERPLAY THE PART OF NUMIDIANS WHO WHERE CALLED THE BEST SOLDIERS IN THE WORLD BY THE ROMANS. PLEASE CONTROL THIS BULSHIT. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.85.214.102 ( talk) 17:29, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
A line in Land Warfare needs editing but I can't decide what the paragraph intends. The line is:
"To the end of the conflict (249 BC), Carthage sent general Hamilcar Barca (Hannibal's father) to Sicily."
This should read either
1. "Towards the end of the conflict, ..." i.e. just pointing out the timeline;
or
2. "To end the conflict, ...", i.e. implying that Carthage's action was intended to stop the conflict.
-- Air 10:00, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Panormus was conquered in 254, and not in 251.
moved comment by anonymous editor. Wandalstouring 08:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Air
The Edit on Barca is fine "toward the end...",”to end the conflict" would suggest rather more decisiveness then Carthage ever showed.
I would like to see the ship crew number (in the casualties section) altered; it’s wildly out of touch with reality. A 5th century Athenian Trieres would have had about 170 crewmembers, and the Athenians were famous for deploying only a skeleton crew of marines. The standard ship-of-the-line for both Rome and Carthage was a Quinquereme (or Penteres), The crew of which could range from 300 to over 400 (in any case much more then 100).
conon394
I have reverted this edit by a user who has a history of hoaxing. Please check if it's correct. Conscious 12:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
The initial power struggle in Sicily involved attempts by Syracuse and Carthage to dominate the northeast portion of the island, including Messina. Hiero of Syracuse first attacked before he was elected tyrant, and Carthage intervened to prevent the victory of their rival. Messina turned to Rome later, hoping for more reliable protection. The prior text merged the separate assaults of Hiero and confused the dates.
-- StephenMacmanus 10:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
The third treaty between Rome and Carthage should be quoted. Wandalstouring 14:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The background section is basically a copy paste of this site http://www.crystalinks.com/punicwars.html Ciriii 22:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I base the 270/100K number on Dupuy; he, however, puts it in 256. Trekphiler 00:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Really niece someone made pictures about these events, but it is too obviously based on a game and very much from a Roman perspective. In the last image "end game" is not really needed. Source these images please. Wandalstouring 20:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
i threw on the GFDL statement for the images. I am a little new to this whole thing. I made the images, with info from Lazenby's book. He did not do the analysis, just listed when events happened. Is my listing correct?
Ok, I will make the changes. Give me a day or 2; I am off to work now, but will try to get it done tonight. Birdman93 09:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I would quite like to know what the army actually consisted of. Mercenaries and ect. But I think that they should the battles in better details.Like the actuall units
Livy [1.19]..."Thinking that the ferocity of his subjects might be mitigated by the disuse of arms, he built the temple of Janus at the foot of the Aventine as an index of peace and war, to signify when it was open that the State was under arms, and when it was shut that all the surrounding nations were at peace. Twice since Numa's reign has it been shut, once after the first Punic war in the consulship of T. Manlius, the second time, which heaven has allowed our generation to witness, after the battle of Actium, when peace on land and sea was secured by the emperor Caesar Augustus."... Wandalstouring 19:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I suspect this person doesn't exist. Besides the fact that his name just looks wrong for a 3rd century BC Carthaginian, I can't find any independent references for him. Other than mirrored copies of this article, the only reference I did find is from the "Spotlight on Games" website which includes military games. I don't think it counts. ;-)
If anyone knows a reliable source for this guy, feel free to restore him to the list.
StephenMacmanus 09:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Rick Heli 20:52, 12 September 2016 You can find a mention of Bostar in Hannibal's dynasty: power and politics in the western Mediterranean, 247-183 BC by Dexter Hoyos, p. 16. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick.heli ( talk • contribs) 03:51, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
So, could anyone explain why "incompetent leaders" was reverted to "demagogues"? Nobody understands this expression in this context, and furthermore it has got a negative connotation. -- 217.229.68.147 22:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
In the section "Beginning", this sentence isn't finished:
Most likely unwilling to see Carthaginian power spread further over Sicily and get too close to Italy, Rome responded by entering into an alliance with (?)
Isn't it supposed to be "the Mamertines"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.103.2.8 ( talk) 03:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC).
Category:First Punic War is itself a category within Category:Punic Wars. — Robert Greer ( talk) 15:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello to everyone! I believe that the date style in this article should be changed from the Christian centered AD- BC system to the BCE ireligious system. Since both systems denote the same years it is just a matter of adding an "E" to every "BC" in the article. A small change in practice but a very important one in that this way the article doesn't take a religious stance (for example, the article Jesus doesn't refer to the person as "Our holy lord").Please add your take on the subject so that we may reach the consensus needed to either stay with the current version or switch to the Commen Era one. -- Macarenses ( talk) 14:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
The article is not clear if the money asked by the Romans was 2200 talents of gold or silver or what. Other important consequence not mentioned is that Carthage invaded Iberia short after in order to extract metals and pay the enormous indemnization. And important also, having control of important silver mines in Iberia, the Punics felt themselves powerful enough to destroy Rome and start the Second Punic War. Something similar happened in the XX century when the Germans took the indemnization issue as an excuse to revenge in other war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.134.125.189 ( talk) 15:04, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
At least from what I´ve read now about the beginnings of the conflict, there is not much mention about different theories, much of the text seemingly following the account Polybius very closely. Authors before me seemingly didn´t even find it necessary to insert an "according to Polybius", or the like. I dont´think that it is sufficient to mention a source as such only in the citations, when the accuracy of that source is actually a matter of considerable scientific debate. -- Mike F2 ( talk) 16:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I noticed that the map in the info-box has Carthago Nova in Hispania Ulterior. The map is titled for 264 BC, but Carthago Nova wasn't founded until 227 BC (see Cartagena). In case that's a mistake, I erased the name and city marker in GIMP. There was (possibly) a town known as Mastia there prior to Carthago Nova, and I could edit that in there if it seem's more correct. I've uploaded a new version of the map here:
Besvo ( talk) 04:38, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
I decided to make the edit based on the "be bold" principle. Besvo ( talk) 00:54, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Greetings to the contributors and watchers of this article. It seems to have languished as B class for some time and I feel that it deserves better. I am intending to give it a major overhaul, and hopefully get it to FA. Having recently seen Battle of Cape Ecnomus to FA and with two other battles from the war on their way through the assessment process, I feel that I have some idea of what I am doing.
Obviously, this being Wikipedia, I am hoping that other editors will freely step in to make this article as high quality as we can. Regards. Gog the Mild ( talk) 23:12, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Gog the Mild: you added the detail of the Romans losing 384 ships and 100,000 men. How large was the total Roman force? I realize it probably fluctuated quite a bit, given how long the war lasted, but it would be helpful to have a general description of the size of the forces for comparison. (100,000 men sounds like a lot of soldiers for antiquity, but I never had a great sense of the scale of some of these things.) — Emufarmers( T/ C) 09:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
@ Emufarmers: If that was an offer to review this article, then you may, or may not, find it useful to cut and paste this into the review page as a checklist. Gog the Mild ( talk) 13:32, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
Reviewer: Hog Farm ( talk · contribs) 02:19, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
Lead
"the two main powers of the western Mediterranean" - Should we indicate a time frame for this dominancy, like "ancient western Mediterranean" or throwing in the century?
"At the Battle of Cape Ecnomus they were again beaten" - not 100% clear which army "they" is referring to.
"but not believing they could hold it, they razed and abandoned it. " - Can this get rephrased so that it is not used twice in quick repetition?
"Next year they lost another 150 ships to a storm" - Possibly "The next year..." would be better.
"The Treaty of Lutatius was signed by which Carthage paid large reparations and Sicily was annexed as a Roman province." - The first part of this sentence reads a bit weird to me, but I'm not entirely sure what's wrong ("was signed by which Carthage" reads funny to me).
Sources
"The modern historian Anne Curry considers "Polybius turns out to [be] fairly reliable"." - Is considers the best word here, it makes the tense feel a little weird.
Background
"Carthage ... on at least one occasion used their navy to ferry" - Is Carthage and their the correct case matching here? My instinct would be to match Carthage with it (referring to the city) and to use their for Carthaginians. However, I'm not the greatest at grammar, so you may be correct here.
Armies
"They all carried short thrusting swords: in addition the front rank carried two javelins ..." - I'm not sure that the colon is the best option here.
"also employed war elephants; African forest elephants were" - Can you fix the MOS:SEAOFBLUE here?
Sicily
"The Romans had an inadequate supply system, partly because the Carthaginian naval supremacy prevented them from shipped supplies by sea, and were not in any case accustomed to feeding an army as large as 40,000 men" - Something here's not quite right. Maybe add they to make "and they were not in any case"?
Comment on headings - We have two sections named Sicily, would it be possible to change one of them?
Rome builds a fleet - So quinqueremes means "five-oared", not "five oared ship" or something like that? I'm not familiar with Latin, and you seem to be, so I'll trust that this is correct but I just want to make sure.
"A quinquereme carried a crew of 300: 280 oarsmen and 20 deck crew and officers;[69] it would also normally carry a complement of 40 marines;[70] if battle was thought to be imminent this would be increased to as many as 120." - This is a lot of clauses in one sentence. Would it make sense to you to break it into two sentences between ref 69 and the next word?
"Boodes ships attacked" - Should this be "Boodes' ships attacked"?
"In 257 BC there was a typical chance encounter." - This seems like an odd way to introduce a notable battle.
Invasion of Africa
You refer to Hanno the Great and Hamilcar mustering the Carthaginian fleet against the Romans. Are you referring to Hamilcar (Drepanum) or Hamilcar Barca? They were both active in this war.
Second paragraph of this section - Unless I missed it, you never give the name of the battle you describe here. That would be helpful information to the reader.
Is the Hamilcar mentioned in the third paragraph the same Hamilcar from earlier? So many similar names in this era
Caption from the map in this section
Hasdrubal should probably be wikilinked at first mention, since he hasn't been mentioned since the infobox. This is Hasdrubal the Fair, right? (He seems to be the only Hasdrubal listed at Hasdrubal who would be alive at this time frame, although he would be youngish for army command.
Sicily (second section)
You mention the two consuls of 254 BC, but what are these two consuls' names? The consuls for the year of this year would be different than the consuls of the year for the previous years described, unless the Romans decided to carryover these.
"They turned to the maritime offensive," - Should Carthaginians be specified at the start of the sentence (the context is established, but later in the sentence).
Aftermath - I know this is written in British English, but is there a word you could use besides "havered"? As a speaker of American English, I've never seen this word before and had to look it up. See MOS:COMMONALITY.
The references and images are all good, no signs of COPYVIO and AGF on the print sources.
Overall, a very good and informative article. Aside from the issues with that one caption, most of this is just copyedit that should be quick cleanup. Pinging nominator, Gog the Mild. Hog Farm ( talk) 20:22, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Passing this one for GA now. Hog Farm ( talk) 23:17, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Do we need spaces before and after an en dash used for time range? This website says no. A span of years (such as “2009–2012”) or any other time range includes an en dash. (And note that “from 2009–2012” and “between 2009–2012” are incorrect; either use both from and to, or between and and, or neither.) The same treatment is given to a sequence of components, such as a range of chapter or page numbers or amounts (for example, “chapters 1–10” or “250–300 pages”). Hanberke ( talk) 07:26, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Hi Robinvp11
The normal convention when wishing to demonstrate a change is to either put it in a sandbox, or make the change to the article and then self revert. The diff can then be posted - eg [1] - and discussed without getting into an edit war. I will undo your edit again, with no prejudice - I may end up entirely agreeing with it - and post my thoughts on it here. I note that you made a subsequent small change. Is your revision of the lead ready to be discussed, or are you still working on it?
You comment that I have asked for "collaboration". I have no memory of this, but my memory is not what it was; could you point me to where this discussion is taking place?
Thanks.
Gog the Mild ( talk) 15:42, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I understand that this was recently promoted to FA, but the middle two paragraphs of the lede describing the details of the conflict seem unusually long, detracting from the readability. Is it standard practice to have such a long lede in articles like this? As an uninvolved reader I personally found it excessive, but if this is longstanding practice then so be it. Bzweebl ( talk • contribs) 20:07, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
Article | Lead | Total | Lead as % |
---|---|---|---|
First Punic War | 592 | 6,200 | 9.5 |
Battle of Dunbar (1650) | 477 | 7,100 | 6.7 |
Treaty of Lutatius | 339 | 2,682 | 12.6 |
Roman withdrawal from Africa, 255 BC | 295 | 2,692 | 11.0 |
Battle of Adys | 254 | 2,670 | 9.5 |
Battle of Panormus | 269 | 2,641 | 10.2 |
Hi Vanamonde93 and apologies for not getting back to you earlier; I came back from holiday to a confusion of RL and Wikipedia issues and this article completely slipped my mind. Checking your FAC comments the technical terms you specifically wanted explaining were "shock" and "close-order". I have found an article on the latter which is pretty good and have linked it in at first mention. There is an article on shock troops, but it is inappropriate; so I have inserted a footnote cited to a basic text (page 1 no less!).
Thanks. Gog the Mild ( talk) 21:35, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Hi Buidhe, you may remember me being frustrated that I couldn't support there having been 11 rams recovered from off the Aegates because I was stuck in the Highlands. I said that I would get back to you. I still can't reconstruct my original sourcing *eyeroll* but this would seem adequate to support the original assertion. However, digging a little further, I found on the website of the organisation doing the excavations this with "As of the end of the 2018 field season, 19 ancient warship rams have been added to the archaeological record". Are you OK with me updating appropriately? Cheers. Gog the Mild ( talk) 17:00, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
Hello, I have made a new version of the map. The contents are the same as the older maps, but I've upscaled the quality.
While previous versions have been made with a pastel colour scheme, this time I used the official wikipedia colour scheme. Also, I have removed the key from the older map and intergrated the info into the map itself. I hope to replace the current maps with this newer version. GalaxMaps ( talk) 08:26, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Hi GalaxMaps, and thanks for posting this for discussion. I have put the original map here to allow comparison.
I am entirely happy about the principle of tweaking the map, although significant changes will need at least the notification of all of the original ACR and FAC reviewers, and ideally their explicit agreement to them. However, a non-exhaustive list of things which I feel are worse about the proposed new map include:
Address these and I'll give it another look over. If you don't mind my asking, why did you decide to alter this map in the first place? Having got to FA quite a few people will have signed off on it as being of a high standard. If you would like to create new maps there are plenty needed; eg I am working on several other Punic War articles which I would like to get to FAC but which lack or have inadequate maps. Might you be interested in working with me to create them? Gog the Mild ( talk) 10:04, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
The reason I want to edit the map is because I found the map to be too low res, and that it wouldn't hurt to upload a higher res version of the old map. I'll also be happy to work on more maps to improve the articles. GalaxMaps ( talk) 10:39, 2 June 2021 (UTC)