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But there was apparently a naval engagement off Rusucmona (Ghar el-Melh) in 203 BC near the end of the war (Livy, xxx, 9ish). The Siege and Battle of Utica articles also note and source Roman attacks and pillaging around Rusucmona and the Punic faith involved in what this page calls a "successful" "surprise attack" on the Punic camps near Utica. — LlywelynII 01:43, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
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Reviewer: Hog Farm ( talk · contribs) 15:38, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
Looks interesting. I'm on quarantine, trying to find things to keep busy. Looks like I'll be reviewing this one. Hog Farm Bacon 15:38, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
That's it from me, I think. Very well-written article covering a large topic. Hog Farm Bacon 00:31, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
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What's the rationale for departing from normal formatting by centring all the captions? And why are the images all so small? Hairy Dude ( talk) 00:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
I noticed the infobox underwent a major edit about the 6th October 2020. In the previous version, it listed the strength of the Roman military invested in the War (and an even earlier version of the infobox would also contained the strength of the Carthaginian military as well). Was there a reason for the removal of that info for the current version? I found the info on the strength of the militaries involved in the War informative as it gave a perspective on the level of national investment of the two countries involved in the War.
User:Wandalstouring/sandbox2 is a 2011 copy of this article with (in bold text) suggested points to be added. Please would an interested editor assess the usefulness of those suggestions, incorporate what is appropriate (with citations), and then blank the WP:COPYARTICLE, leaving a note here when done? – Fayenatic London 12:36, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
This map leaves a lot to be desired.
First, the legend. Other states are marked in orange. Presumably, other states means prominent powers on the map that are not the focus of the map. Why are, what appears to be, Ptolemaic Egypt and Macedon different colors? Why is Epirus and Syracuse orange but not those kingdoms? Are the Attalids even on the map? The resolution is also too poor to properly make out what is a city and what is a major battle.
I also believe there to be inaccuracies in the territories. I may be wrong, and if I am please correct me, but I'm fairly certain Carthage had territory extending to modern day Morocco, if not territory then allies that should be included in the map. I also don't remember Rome having the Dalmatian coast under its control, northern Epirus yes, but Dalmatia I don't remember. Pz Kmpf VI Ausf B ( talk) 20:21, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
The original map, showing the entire Mediterranean (and the entire theatre of War, including various allies) was replaced by the existing map in this edit. I doubt if anyone (including the GA reviewer) has examined the result with much care; of the various colours assigned to territories, only Rome matches the key colour. Carthage is a vague match, sort-of but some key coloured areas are not shown on the map at all, or are just titchy little blobs at the periphery. I can see the point in focussing on the Western Med., as this was the main theatre of war, but the result is amateurish, confusing and useless to any reader seeking guidance to who was who. This particular edit would be best undone, and the map reverted to the previous but I reckon that's best left to someone knowledgable and competent in this topic (thus not me, except in a very general way). Haploidavey ( talk) 05:57, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
As it happens, this is in User:Wandalstouring's sandbox (see previous section, above;
Published in 1923 (and looks like it, soooo drab, so I'm not recommending it as a permanent part of the infobox) but fwiw it focusses on the Western Med, focusses on the broad scenario and doesn't try to cram too much in - the Achiles heel of so many user-made maps from Commons. Lots of derived works too (maps showing Cartaginian and Roman lands and allies in 218; none is perfect but maybe good enough. Haploidavey ( talk) 06:15, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
As the FAR was closed a bit too fast, I'm continuing here.
Gog the Mild First batch, I will continue tomorrow. T8612 (talk) 00:13, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
Gog the Mild Final batch. T8612 (talk) 23:53, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
@ Gog the Mild: I have some more comments too, and I finally had a few free hours to record them. Here's what I have so far; it's most of the Italy section until I got bogged down in some of the vagueness and disorganization in the second half of the section. I'll have still more, but I spent several hours working on this and I imagine you'll require at least as much time, so I'll pause here. — Compassionate727 ( T· C) 19:15, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
During 218 BCRemember earlier when I suggested the preposition during and you reacted: "No way"? That's kinda how I feel about this one here. Guess I'm just far more used to "in" introducing clauses like this.
The Romans repulsed a Carthaginian attackwhere?
causing the Romans to flee to their previously established colony of MutinaAre we talking about refugees fleeing the chaos to the nearest safe place? Local garrisons somewhat disorderly and autonomously retreating to and regrouping there? Both? If it's the refugees, I would specify so; if it's the garrisons, I would replace "flee" with "retreat" or some other, more martial equivalent. If it's both… eh, I don't know what I'd do. Maybe leave it as-is, I'll have to think about it.
A Roman relief armyIs this a full Roman army (two Roman legions + two allied), or some other, smaller force?
An army had previously … to send to northern Italy.This sentence poses a somewhat abrupt break from the previous, and I think it would flow better if restructured. I'm still playing with the possibilities. See what you think of the following ideas (of the three, #1 seems weakest to me), and feel free to make counterproposals; these are just some templates I came up with:
The Roman Senate then detached one Roman and one allied legion from an army previously created to campaign in Iberia and sent them to northern Italy.
In response, the Roman Senate sent one Roman and one allied legion, detached from an army created previously to campaign in Iberia, to northern Italy.
One Roman and one allied legion, detached from an army created previously to campaign in Iberia, were sent to northern Italy by the Senate.
took an inland route, to avoid the RomanIs that something you can do in British English: separate a purpose clause from the main clause with a comma? I won't quibble if it is, it just stood out to me as unfamiliar.
Hannibal evaded the Romans and they continued to IberiaI.e., the Roman army tried to engage him but he escaped and the Romans continued with their previous orders, or Hannibal managed to avoid the Romans altogether?
surmounting the difficulties of climate, terrain[82] and the guerrilla tactics ofThere's nothing obviously wrong with this construction, but I'm just… not a fan for some reason? It's not really a big deal, but I'm going to offer
surmounting the difficult climate and terrain[82] and the guerilla tactics ofas an alternative that maybe sounds a little better and makes the placement of the citation arguably a little less awkward.
Hannibal arrivedWhen? I mean, I assume during winter, since the Romans were still in their winter quarters, but do we know if it was before or after the new year? If not, not important.
an unknown number of elephants – the survivors of the 37 with which he leftDo we have any idea how many elephants survived? Most? A couple? An explanatory footnote might be appropriate here.
in Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy). The Romans wereI would suggest connecting these with a semi-colon due to the intimate connection in meaning between them; after all, sentence two periodizes sentence one.
The Carthaginians captured the chief city … battle of Ticinus in late November.Did both of these happen in November? If not, I would suggest separating the clauses with a comma and "then" to disconnect the capture from the month.
and their army routedsuggest deleting "their army" as redundant
battle of the Trebia. The Carthaginians encircledWould suggest a semicolon here too.
in northern Italy by this victory,"by this victory" seems redundant
recruited further legions, both Roman and from Rome's Latin allies;I'm not sure specifying the recruited legions were both Roman and allied is necessary at this point; by now it seems clear enough to me that standard recruitment procedure is to raise them in one-to-one ratios and this can be assumed to be the case here too. Maybe you disagree though.
and be well positionedI think "were well positioned" is correct here, as their good positioning, unlike their blocking Hannibal's advance, is not contingent on anything.
Hannibal attempted to drawI think "drew" would be adequate here
had been sent to protect[101] which provoked FlaminiusI would propose "to protect,[101] provoking Flaminius…." This just adds some variety to the sentence structure by replacing the last instance of a long chain of clauses connected by only prepositions with one connected by only a comma, plus it places the footnote after a punctuation mark, which I prefer aesthetically.
The prisoners were badly treatedpart of the preceding. This doesn't really feel like a disconnected enough idea to merit a separate paragraph.
the Latin allies who were capturedconsider instead "captured Latin allies". Says the same thing in half as many words.
of their treatment.[95][104] Hannibal hoped someAnother potential semicolon candidate
in the hope of winningconsider "hoping to win"
rebuild its military strength. Hannibal was leftSemicolon?
The Roman populace derided Fabius … and that suggested by Varro.I would move this entire sentence to the end of the preceding paragraph, then join the two sentences that remain to the subsequent paragraph.
derided Fabius as the CunctatorAs an amateur (hopefully professional, one day) classicist, "the Cunctator" just strikes me as wrong, probably because there are no articles in Latin. Maybe omitting the article sounds equally wrong to the average English speaker, but I would prefer to do so.
at the elections of 216 BC elected new consulsProposal: "in 216 BC elected new consuls," mainly to remove the redundant second reference to election.
The heavily outnumbered Carthaginian infantry held out while this was happening untilProposal: "Meanwhile, the heavily outnumbered Carthaginian infantry held out until…." Fewer words.
As a result, the Roman … killed or captured.I'm playing with the idea of eliminating "as a result" as unnecessary and merging these two sentences into one, but right now don't feel too strongly about that. Maybe I'll have more of opinion coming back to it later.
cities in southern Italy allied themselves with Hannibal"themselves" feels unnecessary to me
also joined the Carthaginian causeWould merely "also joined Carthage" work? If not, "Carthage's cause" is still shorter than "the Carthaginian cause"
By 214 BC the bulk of southern Italy had turned against Rome, but the majority of Rome's allies remained loyal, including many in southern Italy.That took a minute for me to make sense of. Maybe because my brain is fried after all the close reading I've done so far today, I don't know. I don't see any obvious improvements for this sentence, but if you do, please say something.
many exceptions, and the majority of, linking the two sentences that are both about which allies defected and which stayed.
All except the smallest towns wereI assume this is an explanation for the pro-Roman holdouts in southern Italy? An explicit connection might be worthwhile.
Carthage's new allies felt little sense of community with CarthageWhat exactly does a "sense of community" mean in this context?
the number of fixed pointsHow about just "places"? "Fixed points" seems unnecessarily geometric or geographic or something technical.
to assist him in doing so"in doing so" is unnecessary
and performed badly when"poorly"?
the area and despatchedI'm not fluent in British English spelling, but "despatched" looks like a typo
Sicily remained firmly in Roman handsGiven what follows, as a summarizing statement this seems quite inaccurate. Some kind of temporal qualification would be appropriate
whereby Syracuse came over to Carthage"joined" or "defected to," not "came over to"
Fabius captured the Carthaginian-allied townQuintus Fabius Maximus? I was under the impression he had been rendered irrelevant a few years ago.
Livy's account … to lift the siege.Erm, what exactly is unclear then? Is there doubt that the Romans suffered heavy casualties, or are we merely unclear on how that came about.
…is unclear, but the Romans … heavy casualties, while the Carthaginians…)
Hannibal then assaulted the Romans' siege worksErm, what not-assaulting-the-siegeworks thing was Hannibal doing in the first battle? Would his attempt to lift the siege not have necessarily entailed something along those lines? Did he not get that far?
besieging Roman forces,but
this time they
the siege to defend their home cityPropose "to defend it"
although modern historians doubt his account.Uh, why? Explanatory footnote please.
This battle enabled anotherWould it be fair to call this a diversion?
was repelled[156] at the battle of Cissa.[85]Why isn't the Edwell citation at the end of the sentence with the Zimmerman one? That would certainly look nicer.
The Romans' lodgement … Pyrenees was now secureIt isn't obvious to me how this naval victory secured their lodgement. Is it possible to elaborate the connection a little?
Hasdrubal received ordersWhen?
offering battle at Dertosa. In this battle heI propose: "offering battle at Dertosa, where he…." It's briefer and joins two predicates that share the same subject (Hasdrubal), so it also reads more cleanly.
It was now not possible"No longer" sounds better to me, but I'll defer to you.
the three Carthaginian armies were deployed apart from each otherThree Carthaginian armies in Iberia? My first thought when reading "the three armies," which implies specificity, is that this refers to the armies campaigning in the three theatres mentioned in the lead. To clarify that this sentence is referring to things not previously mentioned, I would propose: "Observing that Carthaginian forces in Iberia were deployed apart from each other in three armies…" or suchlike.
This strategy resulted in … battle of the Upper Baetis.This sentence is a terribly verbose way of providing a name and a year, especially when both battle of Castulo and battle of Ilorca just redirect to battle of the Upper Baetis. It's also not clear to me after reading this paragraph what actually happened. Did the Romans split their forces into two and try to engage two of the Carthaginian forces in separate battles and defeat them both, and they are called a single battle because they happened physically apart but nearly simultaneously? Did the battle of the Upper Baetis consist of one engagement quickly followed by a forced re-engagement and second Roman defeat? What makes this battle a "complete" defeat rather than an ordinary defeat not requiring any adjective?
his army in good orderThis sounds like jargon, is there some unintrusive way to link it to a definition or make it not jargon? I mean, I can guess what it means, but ideally, I wouldn't need to guess.
Roman capture of Gades, after the city rebelledI.e., the city tried to assert independence and the Romans were able to capture it because it was isolated, or the city defected to the Romans?
Later the same year"later that year"
which initially attracted supportWhat does "initially" mean here? It took longer for Scipio to put down the mutiny than it did for the Iberians to lose interest in participating? If so, I feel like this sentence understates the severity of the mutiny, because I got the impression that Scipio had just defeated the mutinying soldiers in one battle and it was over. Meanwhile, if the sentence is supposed to indicate that the Iberians quickly joined the mutiny, "initially" seems unnecessary and misleading.
In 205 BC a last attemptThis article has made no reference to any previous attempt to recapture Carthago Nova. Is something missing or is "last" misleading?
back through the Carthaginian ranks. The Roman and allied calvaryA temporal conjunction would be helpful. Did the latter happen after the former? Both simultaneously?
The peace treatyNewly revised following the Carthaginians' repudiation and subsequent Roman victory? If so, I would say so.
began later in 149 BC"began later that year". Don't introduce the year by its number if it hasn't changed, that just requires extra thinking. "Later that year" also helps emphasize the direct flowing into the next of the events described here.
drawn into the fighting; and IberianThat semicolon looks wrong to me. Even though you Brits can apparently use whatever punctuation you want wherever you want, I would prefer you use a comma there, and I'm reasonably confident that wouldn't be wrong to you.
Iberia, where Hasdrubal … with mixed success beforeI feel like "mixed success" implies that Hasdrubal had lost some Carthaginian territories in Iberia but retained other important ones before choosing to redeploy to Italy, which is totally different than what actually happened (after a long stalemate, he was driven out of Iberia entirely and retreated to Gaul).
The First Punic War between Carthage and Romehad
ended in 241 BCThis is background, let's clearly frame it as such. I also believe "between Carthage and Rome" should be eliminated because it is unnecessary—given that the name is the same, it will be assumed the primary combatants are the same unless specified otherwise—and a lot of words.
after 23 years and with immense materieldelete "with"
Post-warThat looks and sounds really odd. "Afterward" or "After the war" would be more elegant, IMO.
Rome declared war on Carthage, starting the SecondI think "beginning" would sound better than "starting." I can't tell if it's because "beginning" with its extra syllable would make the number of syllables in each clause more equal or if I just have some weird thing against using "starting" as a subordinating conjunction. I'm just offering the alternative, you can decide which you prefer.
Moving to southern Italy in 216, Hannibal defeated the Romans again at the battle of CannaeFor the lead, this seems overmuch long just to say that what happened in the previous two battles (a Roman defeat) happened again. I propose merging this sentence and the preceding like so: "at the battles of Trebia (218), Lake Trasimene (217), and Cannae (216), annihilating the largest army the Romans had ever assembled at the latter." (Or "in the latter annihilating" or somesuch; that temporal clause can go pretty much anywhere.)
control over much of southern Italy. As SyracuseGiven this next sentence is still about states joining the Carthaginian side, a semi-colon would be more appropriate than a period.
and Macedoniaalso
joinedTo clarify that Syracuse and Macedonia were not defecting cobelligerents, unlike the aforementioned allies.
the Carthaginian side after Cannaedelete "after Cannae", we're clearly still discussing the aftermath of that battle, so it's not necessary.
This new Carthaginian invasion was defeated at the Battle of the Metaurus.This isn't even alluded to in the body.
treaty imposed on the CarthaginiansI know I asked about this previously, and you said needed something like this to follow the sources. FWIW, my quibble with "imposed" is that Carthage had not unconditionally surrendered and therefore was not forced to accept the treaty (in any political or diplomatic sense; meanwhile, saying that a defeated state was militarily forced to accept a treaty seems like stating the obvious). Having not read your sources: were they trying to say that the terms of the treaty were imposed on the Carthaginians, rather than the treaty itself? If so, I would suggest: "The peace treaty dictated by Rome stripped the Carthaginians of…" or somesuch. (This seems to me like the probable sense: given that they had negotiated terms previously, and Carthage had reneged when they thought they saw an opportunity and were instead crushed, I imagine the—probably irritated—Romans capitalized on the morale victory by just sending a new list of demands instead of reopening negotiations.)
subordinate to Rome. Rome contrivedWe just jumped fifty-two years without any explanation of what happened in the meantime. That's too abrupt; at a bare minimum, some explanation of why Rome contrived a new justification for war should be provided.
largely neutral as between CarthaginianI'm guessing "as between" looks normal to you? It doesn't to me. I'm thinking merely "between" would look less unusual, although I'm not sure how much so.
Polybius was an analytical historianWhat does that mean?
As a result, the main … is not extant.If you need to use an endash to separate two parts of a sentence because you can't tell what relationship they have to one another and therefore can't find another appropriate punctuation mark, you really just need to rewrite the sentence. I would propose rewriting this as something like: "Where Polybius's account is not extant, the main source used by modern historians is the account written by the Roman historian Livy." This is also just structured better from an information processing perspective, because the subject in the first clause of my revised version is the topic of the previous sentence, and the predicate subject of the second clause is the subject of the next sentence; that makes for less jumping between concepts while processing.
described by John Francis Lazenby as "clearly far inferior" to LivyIn what sense? Are they even more demonstrably inaccurate than Livy, or are they just less useful as sources for reconstructing what happened because they are fragmented?
…during the Roman era; they are described by John Lazenby as "clearly far inferior" to Livy, but some fragments of Polybius can be recovered from their texts.The previous wording suggested (to me at least) that the two things were both true but only distantly related, if at all; I think using a conjunction right away draws out the connection better.
a variety of arrangements; for exampleYou claim that they served under a variety of arrangements and then only cite one example. You don't need to include all of them, but it would be nice if you included one or maybe two other highly salient ones.
were frequently referred to asprefer "called" to the verbose "referred to as"
and used to close rapidly and aggressivelyshould be "closing"
among Hannibal's troops. Both Iberia andWe just spent several sentences discussing troops from Africa. A stronger break, using a conjunction like "In addition" or similar, would help with the transition here
This meant the loss … Treaty of LutatiusI think I would prefer this sentence be structured more like: "Under the Roman-dictated Treaty of Lutatius, Carthage ceded its Sicilian possessions to Rome," with the treaty being described before its terms. See what you think.
had led to victory inI would suggest that "to victory" is unnecessary given the preceding
Compassionate727, can I offer my humble apologies for taking nearly three months to get back to you on these. That is an unacceptable wait. Especially as your comments were so insightful and have improved the article so much. I have not agreed with all of your suggestions, but agreed with or was neutral towards the majority, probably the vast majority. I would welcome any further comments or come backs you may have. I am aware that there are still two, or is it three, comments for me to respond to, but it seemed that I had done enough for it to be worth pinging you. Many thanks for your work on this, I appreciate it greatly. Gog the Mild ( talk) 22:10, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
But there was apparently a naval engagement off Rusucmona (Ghar el-Melh) in 203 BC near the end of the war (Livy, xxx, 9ish). The Siege and Battle of Utica articles also note and source Roman attacks and pillaging around Rusucmona and the Punic faith involved in what this page calls a "successful" "surprise attack" on the Punic camps near Utica. — LlywelynII 01:43, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
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Reviewer: Hog Farm ( talk · contribs) 15:38, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
Looks interesting. I'm on quarantine, trying to find things to keep busy. Looks like I'll be reviewing this one. Hog Farm Bacon 15:38, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
That's it from me, I think. Very well-written article covering a large topic. Hog Farm Bacon 00:31, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
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What's the rationale for departing from normal formatting by centring all the captions? And why are the images all so small? Hairy Dude ( talk) 00:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
I noticed the infobox underwent a major edit about the 6th October 2020. In the previous version, it listed the strength of the Roman military invested in the War (and an even earlier version of the infobox would also contained the strength of the Carthaginian military as well). Was there a reason for the removal of that info for the current version? I found the info on the strength of the militaries involved in the War informative as it gave a perspective on the level of national investment of the two countries involved in the War.
User:Wandalstouring/sandbox2 is a 2011 copy of this article with (in bold text) suggested points to be added. Please would an interested editor assess the usefulness of those suggestions, incorporate what is appropriate (with citations), and then blank the WP:COPYARTICLE, leaving a note here when done? – Fayenatic London 12:36, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
This map leaves a lot to be desired.
First, the legend. Other states are marked in orange. Presumably, other states means prominent powers on the map that are not the focus of the map. Why are, what appears to be, Ptolemaic Egypt and Macedon different colors? Why is Epirus and Syracuse orange but not those kingdoms? Are the Attalids even on the map? The resolution is also too poor to properly make out what is a city and what is a major battle.
I also believe there to be inaccuracies in the territories. I may be wrong, and if I am please correct me, but I'm fairly certain Carthage had territory extending to modern day Morocco, if not territory then allies that should be included in the map. I also don't remember Rome having the Dalmatian coast under its control, northern Epirus yes, but Dalmatia I don't remember. Pz Kmpf VI Ausf B ( talk) 20:21, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
The original map, showing the entire Mediterranean (and the entire theatre of War, including various allies) was replaced by the existing map in this edit. I doubt if anyone (including the GA reviewer) has examined the result with much care; of the various colours assigned to territories, only Rome matches the key colour. Carthage is a vague match, sort-of but some key coloured areas are not shown on the map at all, or are just titchy little blobs at the periphery. I can see the point in focussing on the Western Med., as this was the main theatre of war, but the result is amateurish, confusing and useless to any reader seeking guidance to who was who. This particular edit would be best undone, and the map reverted to the previous but I reckon that's best left to someone knowledgable and competent in this topic (thus not me, except in a very general way). Haploidavey ( talk) 05:57, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
As it happens, this is in User:Wandalstouring's sandbox (see previous section, above;
Published in 1923 (and looks like it, soooo drab, so I'm not recommending it as a permanent part of the infobox) but fwiw it focusses on the Western Med, focusses on the broad scenario and doesn't try to cram too much in - the Achiles heel of so many user-made maps from Commons. Lots of derived works too (maps showing Cartaginian and Roman lands and allies in 218; none is perfect but maybe good enough. Haploidavey ( talk) 06:15, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
As the FAR was closed a bit too fast, I'm continuing here.
Gog the Mild First batch, I will continue tomorrow. T8612 (talk) 00:13, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
Gog the Mild Final batch. T8612 (talk) 23:53, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
@ Gog the Mild: I have some more comments too, and I finally had a few free hours to record them. Here's what I have so far; it's most of the Italy section until I got bogged down in some of the vagueness and disorganization in the second half of the section. I'll have still more, but I spent several hours working on this and I imagine you'll require at least as much time, so I'll pause here. — Compassionate727 ( T· C) 19:15, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
During 218 BCRemember earlier when I suggested the preposition during and you reacted: "No way"? That's kinda how I feel about this one here. Guess I'm just far more used to "in" introducing clauses like this.
The Romans repulsed a Carthaginian attackwhere?
causing the Romans to flee to their previously established colony of MutinaAre we talking about refugees fleeing the chaos to the nearest safe place? Local garrisons somewhat disorderly and autonomously retreating to and regrouping there? Both? If it's the refugees, I would specify so; if it's the garrisons, I would replace "flee" with "retreat" or some other, more martial equivalent. If it's both… eh, I don't know what I'd do. Maybe leave it as-is, I'll have to think about it.
A Roman relief armyIs this a full Roman army (two Roman legions + two allied), or some other, smaller force?
An army had previously … to send to northern Italy.This sentence poses a somewhat abrupt break from the previous, and I think it would flow better if restructured. I'm still playing with the possibilities. See what you think of the following ideas (of the three, #1 seems weakest to me), and feel free to make counterproposals; these are just some templates I came up with:
The Roman Senate then detached one Roman and one allied legion from an army previously created to campaign in Iberia and sent them to northern Italy.
In response, the Roman Senate sent one Roman and one allied legion, detached from an army created previously to campaign in Iberia, to northern Italy.
One Roman and one allied legion, detached from an army created previously to campaign in Iberia, were sent to northern Italy by the Senate.
took an inland route, to avoid the RomanIs that something you can do in British English: separate a purpose clause from the main clause with a comma? I won't quibble if it is, it just stood out to me as unfamiliar.
Hannibal evaded the Romans and they continued to IberiaI.e., the Roman army tried to engage him but he escaped and the Romans continued with their previous orders, or Hannibal managed to avoid the Romans altogether?
surmounting the difficulties of climate, terrain[82] and the guerrilla tactics ofThere's nothing obviously wrong with this construction, but I'm just… not a fan for some reason? It's not really a big deal, but I'm going to offer
surmounting the difficult climate and terrain[82] and the guerilla tactics ofas an alternative that maybe sounds a little better and makes the placement of the citation arguably a little less awkward.
Hannibal arrivedWhen? I mean, I assume during winter, since the Romans were still in their winter quarters, but do we know if it was before or after the new year? If not, not important.
an unknown number of elephants – the survivors of the 37 with which he leftDo we have any idea how many elephants survived? Most? A couple? An explanatory footnote might be appropriate here.
in Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy). The Romans wereI would suggest connecting these with a semi-colon due to the intimate connection in meaning between them; after all, sentence two periodizes sentence one.
The Carthaginians captured the chief city … battle of Ticinus in late November.Did both of these happen in November? If not, I would suggest separating the clauses with a comma and "then" to disconnect the capture from the month.
and their army routedsuggest deleting "their army" as redundant
battle of the Trebia. The Carthaginians encircledWould suggest a semicolon here too.
in northern Italy by this victory,"by this victory" seems redundant
recruited further legions, both Roman and from Rome's Latin allies;I'm not sure specifying the recruited legions were both Roman and allied is necessary at this point; by now it seems clear enough to me that standard recruitment procedure is to raise them in one-to-one ratios and this can be assumed to be the case here too. Maybe you disagree though.
and be well positionedI think "were well positioned" is correct here, as their good positioning, unlike their blocking Hannibal's advance, is not contingent on anything.
Hannibal attempted to drawI think "drew" would be adequate here
had been sent to protect[101] which provoked FlaminiusI would propose "to protect,[101] provoking Flaminius…." This just adds some variety to the sentence structure by replacing the last instance of a long chain of clauses connected by only prepositions with one connected by only a comma, plus it places the footnote after a punctuation mark, which I prefer aesthetically.
The prisoners were badly treatedpart of the preceding. This doesn't really feel like a disconnected enough idea to merit a separate paragraph.
the Latin allies who were capturedconsider instead "captured Latin allies". Says the same thing in half as many words.
of their treatment.[95][104] Hannibal hoped someAnother potential semicolon candidate
in the hope of winningconsider "hoping to win"
rebuild its military strength. Hannibal was leftSemicolon?
The Roman populace derided Fabius … and that suggested by Varro.I would move this entire sentence to the end of the preceding paragraph, then join the two sentences that remain to the subsequent paragraph.
derided Fabius as the CunctatorAs an amateur (hopefully professional, one day) classicist, "the Cunctator" just strikes me as wrong, probably because there are no articles in Latin. Maybe omitting the article sounds equally wrong to the average English speaker, but I would prefer to do so.
at the elections of 216 BC elected new consulsProposal: "in 216 BC elected new consuls," mainly to remove the redundant second reference to election.
The heavily outnumbered Carthaginian infantry held out while this was happening untilProposal: "Meanwhile, the heavily outnumbered Carthaginian infantry held out until…." Fewer words.
As a result, the Roman … killed or captured.I'm playing with the idea of eliminating "as a result" as unnecessary and merging these two sentences into one, but right now don't feel too strongly about that. Maybe I'll have more of opinion coming back to it later.
cities in southern Italy allied themselves with Hannibal"themselves" feels unnecessary to me
also joined the Carthaginian causeWould merely "also joined Carthage" work? If not, "Carthage's cause" is still shorter than "the Carthaginian cause"
By 214 BC the bulk of southern Italy had turned against Rome, but the majority of Rome's allies remained loyal, including many in southern Italy.That took a minute for me to make sense of. Maybe because my brain is fried after all the close reading I've done so far today, I don't know. I don't see any obvious improvements for this sentence, but if you do, please say something.
many exceptions, and the majority of, linking the two sentences that are both about which allies defected and which stayed.
All except the smallest towns wereI assume this is an explanation for the pro-Roman holdouts in southern Italy? An explicit connection might be worthwhile.
Carthage's new allies felt little sense of community with CarthageWhat exactly does a "sense of community" mean in this context?
the number of fixed pointsHow about just "places"? "Fixed points" seems unnecessarily geometric or geographic or something technical.
to assist him in doing so"in doing so" is unnecessary
and performed badly when"poorly"?
the area and despatchedI'm not fluent in British English spelling, but "despatched" looks like a typo
Sicily remained firmly in Roman handsGiven what follows, as a summarizing statement this seems quite inaccurate. Some kind of temporal qualification would be appropriate
whereby Syracuse came over to Carthage"joined" or "defected to," not "came over to"
Fabius captured the Carthaginian-allied townQuintus Fabius Maximus? I was under the impression he had been rendered irrelevant a few years ago.
Livy's account … to lift the siege.Erm, what exactly is unclear then? Is there doubt that the Romans suffered heavy casualties, or are we merely unclear on how that came about.
…is unclear, but the Romans … heavy casualties, while the Carthaginians…)
Hannibal then assaulted the Romans' siege worksErm, what not-assaulting-the-siegeworks thing was Hannibal doing in the first battle? Would his attempt to lift the siege not have necessarily entailed something along those lines? Did he not get that far?
besieging Roman forces,but
this time they
the siege to defend their home cityPropose "to defend it"
although modern historians doubt his account.Uh, why? Explanatory footnote please.
This battle enabled anotherWould it be fair to call this a diversion?
was repelled[156] at the battle of Cissa.[85]Why isn't the Edwell citation at the end of the sentence with the Zimmerman one? That would certainly look nicer.
The Romans' lodgement … Pyrenees was now secureIt isn't obvious to me how this naval victory secured their lodgement. Is it possible to elaborate the connection a little?
Hasdrubal received ordersWhen?
offering battle at Dertosa. In this battle heI propose: "offering battle at Dertosa, where he…." It's briefer and joins two predicates that share the same subject (Hasdrubal), so it also reads more cleanly.
It was now not possible"No longer" sounds better to me, but I'll defer to you.
the three Carthaginian armies were deployed apart from each otherThree Carthaginian armies in Iberia? My first thought when reading "the three armies," which implies specificity, is that this refers to the armies campaigning in the three theatres mentioned in the lead. To clarify that this sentence is referring to things not previously mentioned, I would propose: "Observing that Carthaginian forces in Iberia were deployed apart from each other in three armies…" or suchlike.
This strategy resulted in … battle of the Upper Baetis.This sentence is a terribly verbose way of providing a name and a year, especially when both battle of Castulo and battle of Ilorca just redirect to battle of the Upper Baetis. It's also not clear to me after reading this paragraph what actually happened. Did the Romans split their forces into two and try to engage two of the Carthaginian forces in separate battles and defeat them both, and they are called a single battle because they happened physically apart but nearly simultaneously? Did the battle of the Upper Baetis consist of one engagement quickly followed by a forced re-engagement and second Roman defeat? What makes this battle a "complete" defeat rather than an ordinary defeat not requiring any adjective?
his army in good orderThis sounds like jargon, is there some unintrusive way to link it to a definition or make it not jargon? I mean, I can guess what it means, but ideally, I wouldn't need to guess.
Roman capture of Gades, after the city rebelledI.e., the city tried to assert independence and the Romans were able to capture it because it was isolated, or the city defected to the Romans?
Later the same year"later that year"
which initially attracted supportWhat does "initially" mean here? It took longer for Scipio to put down the mutiny than it did for the Iberians to lose interest in participating? If so, I feel like this sentence understates the severity of the mutiny, because I got the impression that Scipio had just defeated the mutinying soldiers in one battle and it was over. Meanwhile, if the sentence is supposed to indicate that the Iberians quickly joined the mutiny, "initially" seems unnecessary and misleading.
In 205 BC a last attemptThis article has made no reference to any previous attempt to recapture Carthago Nova. Is something missing or is "last" misleading?
back through the Carthaginian ranks. The Roman and allied calvaryA temporal conjunction would be helpful. Did the latter happen after the former? Both simultaneously?
The peace treatyNewly revised following the Carthaginians' repudiation and subsequent Roman victory? If so, I would say so.
began later in 149 BC"began later that year". Don't introduce the year by its number if it hasn't changed, that just requires extra thinking. "Later that year" also helps emphasize the direct flowing into the next of the events described here.
drawn into the fighting; and IberianThat semicolon looks wrong to me. Even though you Brits can apparently use whatever punctuation you want wherever you want, I would prefer you use a comma there, and I'm reasonably confident that wouldn't be wrong to you.
Iberia, where Hasdrubal … with mixed success beforeI feel like "mixed success" implies that Hasdrubal had lost some Carthaginian territories in Iberia but retained other important ones before choosing to redeploy to Italy, which is totally different than what actually happened (after a long stalemate, he was driven out of Iberia entirely and retreated to Gaul).
The First Punic War between Carthage and Romehad
ended in 241 BCThis is background, let's clearly frame it as such. I also believe "between Carthage and Rome" should be eliminated because it is unnecessary—given that the name is the same, it will be assumed the primary combatants are the same unless specified otherwise—and a lot of words.
after 23 years and with immense materieldelete "with"
Post-warThat looks and sounds really odd. "Afterward" or "After the war" would be more elegant, IMO.
Rome declared war on Carthage, starting the SecondI think "beginning" would sound better than "starting." I can't tell if it's because "beginning" with its extra syllable would make the number of syllables in each clause more equal or if I just have some weird thing against using "starting" as a subordinating conjunction. I'm just offering the alternative, you can decide which you prefer.
Moving to southern Italy in 216, Hannibal defeated the Romans again at the battle of CannaeFor the lead, this seems overmuch long just to say that what happened in the previous two battles (a Roman defeat) happened again. I propose merging this sentence and the preceding like so: "at the battles of Trebia (218), Lake Trasimene (217), and Cannae (216), annihilating the largest army the Romans had ever assembled at the latter." (Or "in the latter annihilating" or somesuch; that temporal clause can go pretty much anywhere.)
control over much of southern Italy. As SyracuseGiven this next sentence is still about states joining the Carthaginian side, a semi-colon would be more appropriate than a period.
and Macedoniaalso
joinedTo clarify that Syracuse and Macedonia were not defecting cobelligerents, unlike the aforementioned allies.
the Carthaginian side after Cannaedelete "after Cannae", we're clearly still discussing the aftermath of that battle, so it's not necessary.
This new Carthaginian invasion was defeated at the Battle of the Metaurus.This isn't even alluded to in the body.
treaty imposed on the CarthaginiansI know I asked about this previously, and you said needed something like this to follow the sources. FWIW, my quibble with "imposed" is that Carthage had not unconditionally surrendered and therefore was not forced to accept the treaty (in any political or diplomatic sense; meanwhile, saying that a defeated state was militarily forced to accept a treaty seems like stating the obvious). Having not read your sources: were they trying to say that the terms of the treaty were imposed on the Carthaginians, rather than the treaty itself? If so, I would suggest: "The peace treaty dictated by Rome stripped the Carthaginians of…" or somesuch. (This seems to me like the probable sense: given that they had negotiated terms previously, and Carthage had reneged when they thought they saw an opportunity and were instead crushed, I imagine the—probably irritated—Romans capitalized on the morale victory by just sending a new list of demands instead of reopening negotiations.)
subordinate to Rome. Rome contrivedWe just jumped fifty-two years without any explanation of what happened in the meantime. That's too abrupt; at a bare minimum, some explanation of why Rome contrived a new justification for war should be provided.
largely neutral as between CarthaginianI'm guessing "as between" looks normal to you? It doesn't to me. I'm thinking merely "between" would look less unusual, although I'm not sure how much so.
Polybius was an analytical historianWhat does that mean?
As a result, the main … is not extant.If you need to use an endash to separate two parts of a sentence because you can't tell what relationship they have to one another and therefore can't find another appropriate punctuation mark, you really just need to rewrite the sentence. I would propose rewriting this as something like: "Where Polybius's account is not extant, the main source used by modern historians is the account written by the Roman historian Livy." This is also just structured better from an information processing perspective, because the subject in the first clause of my revised version is the topic of the previous sentence, and the predicate subject of the second clause is the subject of the next sentence; that makes for less jumping between concepts while processing.
described by John Francis Lazenby as "clearly far inferior" to LivyIn what sense? Are they even more demonstrably inaccurate than Livy, or are they just less useful as sources for reconstructing what happened because they are fragmented?
…during the Roman era; they are described by John Lazenby as "clearly far inferior" to Livy, but some fragments of Polybius can be recovered from their texts.The previous wording suggested (to me at least) that the two things were both true but only distantly related, if at all; I think using a conjunction right away draws out the connection better.
a variety of arrangements; for exampleYou claim that they served under a variety of arrangements and then only cite one example. You don't need to include all of them, but it would be nice if you included one or maybe two other highly salient ones.
were frequently referred to asprefer "called" to the verbose "referred to as"
and used to close rapidly and aggressivelyshould be "closing"
among Hannibal's troops. Both Iberia andWe just spent several sentences discussing troops from Africa. A stronger break, using a conjunction like "In addition" or similar, would help with the transition here
This meant the loss … Treaty of LutatiusI think I would prefer this sentence be structured more like: "Under the Roman-dictated Treaty of Lutatius, Carthage ceded its Sicilian possessions to Rome," with the treaty being described before its terms. See what you think.
had led to victory inI would suggest that "to victory" is unnecessary given the preceding
Compassionate727, can I offer my humble apologies for taking nearly three months to get back to you on these. That is an unacceptable wait. Especially as your comments were so insightful and have improved the article so much. I have not agreed with all of your suggestions, but agreed with or was neutral towards the majority, probably the vast majority. I would welcome any further comments or come backs you may have. I am aware that there are still two, or is it three, comments for me to respond to, but it seemed that I had done enough for it to be worth pinging you. Many thanks for your work on this, I appreciate it greatly. Gog the Mild ( talk) 22:10, 20 November 2022 (UTC)