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Could use an expert eye - rather iffy-looking ref doesn't support text, which is at variance with the de.wiki text (god or citizen?), etc. Pam D 15:08, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
Talasio or Talassio was a ritual cry at the deductio, of unknown origin. The ancients knew two accounts of it, an historical one explaining it as the dative of a proper noun and connecting it with the rape of the Sabine women (Livy i. 9, Plut. Q.R. 31, Rom.' 15), and an etymological one connecting it with τάλαρος, and interpreting it as an indication that the bride was passing to the duty of lanificium in her husband's house (Varro ap. Fest. 478 L.). Whatever its origin, a marriage-god was made out of it—Talas(s)ius (or Talassus, Mart. xii. 42. 4), a Roman counterpart of Hymenaeus. Here Talasio must be dative: 'your master now chooses to take Talasius as his master'.
The husband's attachment to the concubinus is the main theme of this portion of the poem; he must give up his male partner in order to effect a successful transition to married life. The chorus also calls on the concubinus himself to accept this event, asking him to recognize the marriage god (Talasius) as his master (126–7). Like the husband, the concubinus needs to enter the world of adulthood, his transition ritually symbolized in the giving of the nuts to the chorus and the cutting of his hair.
In fact, Martial may even criticize Catullus' longer poems (2.86.4–5). However, in 1.35, Martial does mention thalassiones ("wedding-songs") and may thus allude to Catullus' long and learned wedding-songs, where the term Talasius is actually used …
Roman literary sources comfortably use the Greek word hymen in wedding songs, refer to the god to whom it gave birth as Hymenaeus, and in later periods also adopt the Greek term epithalamium. Roman authors also mention a uniquely Latin wedding cry, talassio, sometimes also spelled talasio. Livy explains the cry by identifying Talasius as an early Roman, the winner of one of the Sabine women, a story that conveniently ties together two Roman themes: the snatching of women, and the traditional wedding cry. The existence of a parallel, Latin expression shows that the use of hymen by Roman poets is a Hellenizing, literary feature, and serves as a salutary reminder that many of our sources are permeated with erudite Greek features not necessarily representative of the native Roman ceremony
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link)Does this project have a deletion-sorting page? Couldn't see one. Anyway this one raises important issues for classical art, & any expertise would be welcome. Johnbod ( talk) 00:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Antinous#Requested_move_13_October_2020 for a request move on Antinous(/Antinoös). GPinkerton ( talk) 18:55, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
Gelae (Scythian tribe) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) is now a thing, with indecipherable references. One need only look at the map to imagine why. Is this a thing? GPinkerton ( talk) 23:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
We have two articles with apparently identical subjects but diverging contents. There is Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire and Anti-paganism policies of the early Byzantine Empire. There's also Decline of Graeco-Roman polytheism. (Oddly, there's no article on Graeco-Roman polytheism itself, which oddly redirects to Hellenistic religion.) GPinkerton ( talk) 22:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
Coins can be captioned like these two examples:
Avis11 objects to this format, and has been replacing it with a parenthetical version which does not take advantage of the benefits of 21st-century technology and which looks unpleasant and over-long (to me). Indeed, the advantages of having a digital abbreviation with mouse-over functionality is actually the same as the advantages of the abbreviated format discovered by the minters ages ago. Which is better: the one in Julian's infobox here: option 1 or here: option 2? GPinkerton ( talk) 18:18, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman Emperor (Principate) for the deletion of this and related pages. Avis11 ( talk) 17:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
The state of our coverage of classical headgear could use a review. At present, there is some coverage at Wreath, some more at Wreath (attire) (the Roman section of which I rewrote recently, aghast), but then also as Chaplet (headgear), Corolla (headgear), Laurel wreath, Garland, Olive wreath, Mural crown, Grass Crown, Civic Crown, Naval crown, while the closely related, Diadem, Tainia (costume), Fillet (clothing) are all very brief and rather overlapping. For the subject of crowns/wreaths in ancient Greece and Rome, I think we could probably use a new article, and collapse some of those into it, or else the existing articles need regularizing in some way and some new ones created for such things as the wreaths of ivy and vines worn for various reasons, or the different ones awarded at the Crown Games (i.e., the Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean, and Olympic games). Ideally I'd favour an omnibus article on ancient head-worn wreaths of all kinds, with redirects to sections. That way we can also deal with the full sweep of classical civilization, (inc. e.g. the symbolism of the crown of thorns) and the deprecation of wreaths and the promotion of the diadem in Late Antiquity. (I'd don't see Tertullian's De corona mentioned anywhere.) After that the Wreath (attire) page could probably be deleted as extraneous. A celery crown for the best suggestion! GPinkerton ( talk) 17:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
A problem with many substandard articles -- & this is not unique to those concerning Classical topics -- is that they remain in that state due to the difficulty of researching the topic. The more commonplace a subject, the harder it can be to find acceptable sources to use. (IMHO, the most challenging topics would be clothing, furniture, & food. I've found that even experts when faced with these topics sometimes resort to handwaving. And yet, these are often the articles most in need of writing.) It's hard to write on topics where one does not know where to start, & even if one does it can take months to get up to speed. So if anyone wants to tackle the articles Johnbod mentions above, you have my admiration & thanks. (And if one were to successfully tackle one of these topics, I think it would make for an interesting Signpost article. We need more encouragement to tackle difficult topics like these.) -- llywrch ( talk) 16:59, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Does anyone else feel that sidebar navboxes of Roman imperial dynasties, like Template:Valentinian dynasty, are useless and disruptive? Look at this, it takes up a massive amount of space and adds nothing of value to the article itself. I propose that all navboxes of the sort, from Template:Julio-Claudian dynasty onward, should be deleted, on the reasoning that they are totally useless, take up space that could be filled with more pertinent images (like coins or statues), and just pollute the article in general. Probably at this point many of them already are unused, so nothing will change if they're deleted. Avis11 ( talk) 02:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
Received a request to merge Caecilii Metelli family tree into Caecilius Metellus; Proposer's Rationale: Same information / redundant. Discussion has introduced other options. Your opinions are requested. Discuss it >>>HERE<<<. Thanks, GenQuest "Talk to Me" 14:10, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
Is undergoing a review of its Featured Article status at Wikipedia:Featured_article_review#Elagabalus. All input appreciated Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 00:22, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
Novempopulania ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) needs help. It appears some or all of the page was machine-translated from French or another language. It's very unclear. GPinkerton ( talk) 20:44, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm working on an article about the Athenian oligarch Peisander ( DGRBM]). Can anyone help with translations of "In the fragment of the Ἀείσανδρος εἰς Πακτωλὸν ἐστρατεύετο of Eupolis, which thus speaks of him, Πείσανδρος εἰς Πακτωλὸν ἐστρατεύετο, Κἀνταῦθα τῆς στρατιᾶς κάκιστος ἦν ἀνήρ"? Google Translate proudly tells me, It's in Greek! (which I'd half-suspected anyway) but goes no further even if I take the diacritics off.
(The DGRBM article conjures up visions of a warm fire, a comfortable chair, and a decanter of port. "Peculating propensities" and "gasconading demeanour", indeed! There's also a very early example of WP:REFBOMBing in support of the by-the-way statement about the size of Acharnaean donkeys.) Narky Blert ( talk) 17:50, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Peisander served at Pactolus, and there he was the most cowardly soldier in the army" and footnotes that "
Pactolus was a fabled river of gold in Lydia ( Sophocles Philoctetes 394). Hanow read " Spartolus" here, relating the fragment to the expedition in 429 recorded at Thucydides 2.79." The fragment is from Aristophanes Birds, line 1556. GPinkerton ( talk) 23:51, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Now at Peisander (oligarch). I've done what I can, including attempting to translate Smith's Victorian insults into C21 English. I've checked the links to Peisander; four were bad (1 for the Odyssey, 1 for the Spartan, and 2 for this Athenian). ( WP:PTOPICs collect bad links like nobody's business; few editors bother with WP:TESTLINK.) Narky Blert ( talk) 22:07, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
Ilkka Syvänne has written an ambitious series on the "Military History of Late Rome", published by Pen and Sword Books rather than an academic publisher, and now being used as a reliable source on several pages. It's detailed and uses pretty much every available source. Unfortunately, it uses them very badly. From the review by "Ozymandias" on Goodreads:
"Another tendency he demonstrates is to build long lines of speculation based on a single vague or unclear source, which he then treats as if they were established fact. For example, from a claim that Theodosius pacified the Indian Ocean he concludes that the Romans formed an alliance with their mortal enemy the Sassanians to invade India. The Romans provided the naval forces and pacified Axum (Ethiopia) on the way before sailing as far as Ceylon. And nobody mentioned an event of this magnitude (which would be comparable with the conquests of Alexander the Great) then or after except in an offhand comment about pacifying the Indian Ocean. I don’t like to use such words when discussing works of scholarship, but ludicrous is not too strong a description for this speculation. It didn’t happen. Period.
The book’s standards of evidence generally are pretty low... much of his work relies on loose connections like this. It would not be a stretch to compare the use of facts here to a conspiracy theorist thread on Reddit...
These books are very dangerous works for early or amateur scholars since they contain many facts that will need to be unlearned before expanding their research. As these are the only books to take such a general approach to this topic that is doubly unfortunate...
If you're looking for better military narratives of this period, Hugh Elton’s just come out with one: The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity: A Political and Military History. It’s not as detailed as this series, but if half of those details and most the conclusions are wrong is that really a bad thing?"
I think it's fair to say that Syvänne is not a reliable source for our purposes on Wikipedia, and that we should remove both references to his work and any "facts" based on it. Before I make a start, does anyone have any comments? Richard Keatinge ( talk) 14:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
GPinkerton, we should have a list of publishers, like we have a list for reliable sources. Your critique of Pen & Sword agrees with that I remember from some MILHIST discussions; it would be nice if we had such information available in a central location. Drmies ( talk) 18:23, 29 November 2020 (UTC) @ Drmies: I think they can just be added to the normal Perennial sources list can't they? Books come up less often than fake news and predatory journals but why not? GPinkerton ( talk) 18:31, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
Why exactly has several articles had their infobox changed to include some rusty coins instead of the sculptures we have avalable? I can understand in cases where the sculptures identification is uncertain, but why exactly would an article like Messalina have some ugly coin when there are several well known beautiful sculptures avalable? ★Trekker ( talk) 12:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Messalina suffered damnatio memoria and her statues were destroyed, so the one you refer to probably isn't really her. Ergo, "some ugly coin" which has a confirmed representation of hers is more appropriate than "well known beautiful sculptures" which probably don't. There are several unsourced and questionable attributions to busts in Wikimedia Commons; not all of them are accurate. Avilich ( talk) 16:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Good point, ★Trekker. Personally, I think that if any coin vs. statue situation comes up, the clearer one - visible coin image or undamaged bust - should be given preference. In Messalina's case, we have to see whether the statues in question are reliably hers. If they are, then yes. HalfdanRagnarsson ( talk) 10:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Hello from ancient Egypt. A few years ago, I created Mysteries of Isis and brought it to GA status. I didn't send it to FAC because I knew of sources that discussed the possibility that there were Egyptian precursors to the Greco-Roman mystery rites, sources that I didn't yet have. Now I have them, but two key sources are in German. By typing up the most relevant sections and putting them through Google Translate, I was able to whittle down those sources (one book chapter and one book) to the less than six pages of text that I think I need, but Google Translate isn't good enough for FAC, and Google rendered the most crucial passage in a very unclear way. While a few Wikipedians have listed themselves as willing to translate German sources into English, none of them seem to be particularly interested in the subject matter, and I thought I'd ask if anyone is available here before asking random Wikipedians who may be busy with completely unrelated projects. A. Parrot ( talk) 02:01, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
There's a problem with the article Avidia Plautia, which was emphasized by an edit *Treker made at Ignota Plautia here. In brief, the shadowy Ignota Plautia had a daughter in her second marriage to Gaius Avidius Nigrinus (his second marriage too) whose name has not come down to us, but is called by Syme & after him Anthony Birley Avidia Plautia. However, Nigrinus by his first marriage (to another woman whose name is not known to us) had a daughter whom Syme & Birley refer to as simply Avidia; she is the wife of L. Aelius Caesar & mother of Emperor Lucius Verus. This would be of no interest, except that (1) the article named "Avidia Plautia" originally was about the mother of Lucius Verus, which led to information about the daughter of Ignota Plautia being mixed in; (2) the template about the family tree of Marcus Aurelius (which is a bitch to edit) also confuses the names; however (3) Barbara Levick (Faustina I and II: Imperial Women of the Golden Age [Oxford: University Press, 2014], p. 164) calls the mother of Lucius Verus "Avidia Plautia" -- Levick is a solid Classical scholar, so I'm reluctant to dismiss anything she writes.
So my questions are: (1) Does anyone have access to Levick's book, & can share a copy of the page in question? (2) If Levick does call her "Avidia Plautia" (or no one has access to her book), any objections if call the daughter of Ignota Plautia "Avidia Plautia", & the mother of Lucius Verus "Avidia"? I admit both women are shadowy figures, barely more than boxes in a genealogical chart, & they are notable only because of whom they are related to, yet if these personages aren't made distinct this confusion persists. -- llywrch ( talk) 07:39, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Ignota Plautia is not the way inferred people are assigned hypothetical names. Usually Ignota or Anonyma are used for women. If the gens to which it belonged can be deduced, it is put in parentheses (); so, in this case (Plautia). Sometimes there is some confidence in the name and the parentheses are ignored by some authors; so, in this case Plautia.
Regarding what you have commented, Ignota or Anonyma is the first wife of Avidius Nigrinus. (Plautia) or Plautia is the first wife of Ceionius Comodus (cos.106) (first husband), the second of Avidius Nigrinus (second husband) and the second of Civica Cerialis or the first of Civica Pompeianus (third husband). (Avidia) and Avidia Plautia are two persons. The former is the daughter of Avidius Nigrinus and Ignota, woman who married Lucius Caesar and was the mother of Lucius Verus, Ceionia Plautia and Ceionia Fabia. The last is the daughter of Avidius Nigrinus and (Plautia), woman who married Titius Aquilinus. Part of all this is scholarly deductions.
Thus, the sources consulted: Syme, Antonine Relatives: Ceionii and Vettuleni; Birley, Marcus Aurelius; Levick, Faustina I and II.
Greetings. -- Romulanus ( talk) 18:02, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
An RfC regarding the lede of the article on the Atintanians has been proposed here [4]. It may be of interest to members of this wikiproject. Khirurg ( talk) 02:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
An editor has requested for Muse (disambiguation) to be moved to Muse. Since you had some involvement with Muse (disambiguation), you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). Whether or not to move depends mostly on the question if a) Muses (the ancient Greek goddesses) is the primary topic, or b) Muses and Muse (band) are comparably significant, and there is no primary topic. ExcitedEngineer ( talk) 12:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
I am wondering whether we should add mentions to the Varronian chronology in Roman articles using dates before 300 BC. To make it short, there is an offset of four years in the Roman chronology; in order to solve this gap, the Roman historian Varro invented three " dictator years" in 333, 324, 309 and 301 BC. So all the Roman dates before 300 BC are definitely wrong, but the problem is that they are universally used in the academic literature. You have a long and detailed explanation on Livius.org. So far, I've written this small text as footnote in one article I'm editing: This article uses the Varronian chronology, named after the Roman historian Marcus Terentius Varro. In order to solve an offset between several chronologies of the early period of the Roman Republic, Varro created four fictitious "dictator-years" in 333, 324, 309 and 301 BC, during which a dictator was the sole magistrate in charge. Dates before 300 BC are therefore wrong, but still used by convention in academic research. "Correct dates" can be found by removing up to four years from the Varronian date, eg. 340 (Varro) is 336 BC, 304 (Varro) is 303 BC, etc.
Perhaps there could be more though, like a template. Any idea how to deal with this? T8612 (talk) 22:25, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
B.C. 753[:] Foundation of Rome on the Palatine Mount, on the Palilia, the 21st of April. This is the era of Varro. According to Cato, Rome was founded in B.C. 751, according to Polybius in B.C. 750, according to Fabius Pictor 747.
For practical purposes the important thing to remember about Roman dates is that events were associated in the first instance with the names of the consuls of the year in which they took place. Locating that year in any general scheme of chronology, whether Olympiads, or years after the founding of the city, or years before or after Christ, is a secondary and necessarily somewhat artificial process. If this is not kept firmly in mind, confusion can result. For instance, one historian has recently written that the capture of Veii occurred "in (Varronian) 396 according to Livy, in 388 according to Diodorus". This implies that Livy and Diodorus reported the fall of Veii under different years, but actually they place the event in the same "Roman" year -- the consular tribunate of L. Titius, P. Licinius, P. Maelius, Q. Manlius, Cn. Genucius and L. Atilius; and as it happens their accounts also coincide in absolute terms, since both record the same number of years between the fall of Veii and 300 BC. Although they get there by different methods, both contrive to place the capture of Veii in 392 BC. Diodorus also synchronises the year in question with Olympiad 96.4, the archonship of Demostratus (393-392 BC). It is hardly necessary to point out that neither Livy nor Diodorus (nor any other literary source) follows the Varronian chronology.
Comments needed. Happy Dies Natalis Solis Invicti to all! Johnbod ( talk) 16:48, 24 December 2020 (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 30 | ← | Archive 32 | Archive 33 | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | → | Archive 40 |
Could use an expert eye - rather iffy-looking ref doesn't support text, which is at variance with the de.wiki text (god or citizen?), etc. Pam D 15:08, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
Talasio or Talassio was a ritual cry at the deductio, of unknown origin. The ancients knew two accounts of it, an historical one explaining it as the dative of a proper noun and connecting it with the rape of the Sabine women (Livy i. 9, Plut. Q.R. 31, Rom.' 15), and an etymological one connecting it with τάλαρος, and interpreting it as an indication that the bride was passing to the duty of lanificium in her husband's house (Varro ap. Fest. 478 L.). Whatever its origin, a marriage-god was made out of it—Talas(s)ius (or Talassus, Mart. xii. 42. 4), a Roman counterpart of Hymenaeus. Here Talasio must be dative: 'your master now chooses to take Talasius as his master'.
The husband's attachment to the concubinus is the main theme of this portion of the poem; he must give up his male partner in order to effect a successful transition to married life. The chorus also calls on the concubinus himself to accept this event, asking him to recognize the marriage god (Talasius) as his master (126–7). Like the husband, the concubinus needs to enter the world of adulthood, his transition ritually symbolized in the giving of the nuts to the chorus and the cutting of his hair.
In fact, Martial may even criticize Catullus' longer poems (2.86.4–5). However, in 1.35, Martial does mention thalassiones ("wedding-songs") and may thus allude to Catullus' long and learned wedding-songs, where the term Talasius is actually used …
Roman literary sources comfortably use the Greek word hymen in wedding songs, refer to the god to whom it gave birth as Hymenaeus, and in later periods also adopt the Greek term epithalamium. Roman authors also mention a uniquely Latin wedding cry, talassio, sometimes also spelled talasio. Livy explains the cry by identifying Talasius as an early Roman, the winner of one of the Sabine women, a story that conveniently ties together two Roman themes: the snatching of women, and the traditional wedding cry. The existence of a parallel, Latin expression shows that the use of hymen by Roman poets is a Hellenizing, literary feature, and serves as a salutary reminder that many of our sources are permeated with erudite Greek features not necessarily representative of the native Roman ceremony
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link)Does this project have a deletion-sorting page? Couldn't see one. Anyway this one raises important issues for classical art, & any expertise would be welcome. Johnbod ( talk) 00:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Antinous#Requested_move_13_October_2020 for a request move on Antinous(/Antinoös). GPinkerton ( talk) 18:55, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
Gelae (Scythian tribe) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) is now a thing, with indecipherable references. One need only look at the map to imagine why. Is this a thing? GPinkerton ( talk) 23:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
We have two articles with apparently identical subjects but diverging contents. There is Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire and Anti-paganism policies of the early Byzantine Empire. There's also Decline of Graeco-Roman polytheism. (Oddly, there's no article on Graeco-Roman polytheism itself, which oddly redirects to Hellenistic religion.) GPinkerton ( talk) 22:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
Coins can be captioned like these two examples:
Avis11 objects to this format, and has been replacing it with a parenthetical version which does not take advantage of the benefits of 21st-century technology and which looks unpleasant and over-long (to me). Indeed, the advantages of having a digital abbreviation with mouse-over functionality is actually the same as the advantages of the abbreviated format discovered by the minters ages ago. Which is better: the one in Julian's infobox here: option 1 or here: option 2? GPinkerton ( talk) 18:18, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman Emperor (Principate) for the deletion of this and related pages. Avis11 ( talk) 17:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
The state of our coverage of classical headgear could use a review. At present, there is some coverage at Wreath, some more at Wreath (attire) (the Roman section of which I rewrote recently, aghast), but then also as Chaplet (headgear), Corolla (headgear), Laurel wreath, Garland, Olive wreath, Mural crown, Grass Crown, Civic Crown, Naval crown, while the closely related, Diadem, Tainia (costume), Fillet (clothing) are all very brief and rather overlapping. For the subject of crowns/wreaths in ancient Greece and Rome, I think we could probably use a new article, and collapse some of those into it, or else the existing articles need regularizing in some way and some new ones created for such things as the wreaths of ivy and vines worn for various reasons, or the different ones awarded at the Crown Games (i.e., the Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean, and Olympic games). Ideally I'd favour an omnibus article on ancient head-worn wreaths of all kinds, with redirects to sections. That way we can also deal with the full sweep of classical civilization, (inc. e.g. the symbolism of the crown of thorns) and the deprecation of wreaths and the promotion of the diadem in Late Antiquity. (I'd don't see Tertullian's De corona mentioned anywhere.) After that the Wreath (attire) page could probably be deleted as extraneous. A celery crown for the best suggestion! GPinkerton ( talk) 17:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
A problem with many substandard articles -- & this is not unique to those concerning Classical topics -- is that they remain in that state due to the difficulty of researching the topic. The more commonplace a subject, the harder it can be to find acceptable sources to use. (IMHO, the most challenging topics would be clothing, furniture, & food. I've found that even experts when faced with these topics sometimes resort to handwaving. And yet, these are often the articles most in need of writing.) It's hard to write on topics where one does not know where to start, & even if one does it can take months to get up to speed. So if anyone wants to tackle the articles Johnbod mentions above, you have my admiration & thanks. (And if one were to successfully tackle one of these topics, I think it would make for an interesting Signpost article. We need more encouragement to tackle difficult topics like these.) -- llywrch ( talk) 16:59, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Does anyone else feel that sidebar navboxes of Roman imperial dynasties, like Template:Valentinian dynasty, are useless and disruptive? Look at this, it takes up a massive amount of space and adds nothing of value to the article itself. I propose that all navboxes of the sort, from Template:Julio-Claudian dynasty onward, should be deleted, on the reasoning that they are totally useless, take up space that could be filled with more pertinent images (like coins or statues), and just pollute the article in general. Probably at this point many of them already are unused, so nothing will change if they're deleted. Avis11 ( talk) 02:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
Received a request to merge Caecilii Metelli family tree into Caecilius Metellus; Proposer's Rationale: Same information / redundant. Discussion has introduced other options. Your opinions are requested. Discuss it >>>HERE<<<. Thanks, GenQuest "Talk to Me" 14:10, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
Is undergoing a review of its Featured Article status at Wikipedia:Featured_article_review#Elagabalus. All input appreciated Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 00:22, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
Novempopulania ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) needs help. It appears some or all of the page was machine-translated from French or another language. It's very unclear. GPinkerton ( talk) 20:44, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm working on an article about the Athenian oligarch Peisander ( DGRBM]). Can anyone help with translations of "In the fragment of the Ἀείσανδρος εἰς Πακτωλὸν ἐστρατεύετο of Eupolis, which thus speaks of him, Πείσανδρος εἰς Πακτωλὸν ἐστρατεύετο, Κἀνταῦθα τῆς στρατιᾶς κάκιστος ἦν ἀνήρ"? Google Translate proudly tells me, It's in Greek! (which I'd half-suspected anyway) but goes no further even if I take the diacritics off.
(The DGRBM article conjures up visions of a warm fire, a comfortable chair, and a decanter of port. "Peculating propensities" and "gasconading demeanour", indeed! There's also a very early example of WP:REFBOMBing in support of the by-the-way statement about the size of Acharnaean donkeys.) Narky Blert ( talk) 17:50, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Peisander served at Pactolus, and there he was the most cowardly soldier in the army" and footnotes that "
Pactolus was a fabled river of gold in Lydia ( Sophocles Philoctetes 394). Hanow read " Spartolus" here, relating the fragment to the expedition in 429 recorded at Thucydides 2.79." The fragment is from Aristophanes Birds, line 1556. GPinkerton ( talk) 23:51, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Now at Peisander (oligarch). I've done what I can, including attempting to translate Smith's Victorian insults into C21 English. I've checked the links to Peisander; four were bad (1 for the Odyssey, 1 for the Spartan, and 2 for this Athenian). ( WP:PTOPICs collect bad links like nobody's business; few editors bother with WP:TESTLINK.) Narky Blert ( talk) 22:07, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
Ilkka Syvänne has written an ambitious series on the "Military History of Late Rome", published by Pen and Sword Books rather than an academic publisher, and now being used as a reliable source on several pages. It's detailed and uses pretty much every available source. Unfortunately, it uses them very badly. From the review by "Ozymandias" on Goodreads:
"Another tendency he demonstrates is to build long lines of speculation based on a single vague or unclear source, which he then treats as if they were established fact. For example, from a claim that Theodosius pacified the Indian Ocean he concludes that the Romans formed an alliance with their mortal enemy the Sassanians to invade India. The Romans provided the naval forces and pacified Axum (Ethiopia) on the way before sailing as far as Ceylon. And nobody mentioned an event of this magnitude (which would be comparable with the conquests of Alexander the Great) then or after except in an offhand comment about pacifying the Indian Ocean. I don’t like to use such words when discussing works of scholarship, but ludicrous is not too strong a description for this speculation. It didn’t happen. Period.
The book’s standards of evidence generally are pretty low... much of his work relies on loose connections like this. It would not be a stretch to compare the use of facts here to a conspiracy theorist thread on Reddit...
These books are very dangerous works for early or amateur scholars since they contain many facts that will need to be unlearned before expanding their research. As these are the only books to take such a general approach to this topic that is doubly unfortunate...
If you're looking for better military narratives of this period, Hugh Elton’s just come out with one: The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity: A Political and Military History. It’s not as detailed as this series, but if half of those details and most the conclusions are wrong is that really a bad thing?"
I think it's fair to say that Syvänne is not a reliable source for our purposes on Wikipedia, and that we should remove both references to his work and any "facts" based on it. Before I make a start, does anyone have any comments? Richard Keatinge ( talk) 14:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
GPinkerton, we should have a list of publishers, like we have a list for reliable sources. Your critique of Pen & Sword agrees with that I remember from some MILHIST discussions; it would be nice if we had such information available in a central location. Drmies ( talk) 18:23, 29 November 2020 (UTC) @ Drmies: I think they can just be added to the normal Perennial sources list can't they? Books come up less often than fake news and predatory journals but why not? GPinkerton ( talk) 18:31, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
Why exactly has several articles had their infobox changed to include some rusty coins instead of the sculptures we have avalable? I can understand in cases where the sculptures identification is uncertain, but why exactly would an article like Messalina have some ugly coin when there are several well known beautiful sculptures avalable? ★Trekker ( talk) 12:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Messalina suffered damnatio memoria and her statues were destroyed, so the one you refer to probably isn't really her. Ergo, "some ugly coin" which has a confirmed representation of hers is more appropriate than "well known beautiful sculptures" which probably don't. There are several unsourced and questionable attributions to busts in Wikimedia Commons; not all of them are accurate. Avilich ( talk) 16:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Good point, ★Trekker. Personally, I think that if any coin vs. statue situation comes up, the clearer one - visible coin image or undamaged bust - should be given preference. In Messalina's case, we have to see whether the statues in question are reliably hers. If they are, then yes. HalfdanRagnarsson ( talk) 10:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Hello from ancient Egypt. A few years ago, I created Mysteries of Isis and brought it to GA status. I didn't send it to FAC because I knew of sources that discussed the possibility that there were Egyptian precursors to the Greco-Roman mystery rites, sources that I didn't yet have. Now I have them, but two key sources are in German. By typing up the most relevant sections and putting them through Google Translate, I was able to whittle down those sources (one book chapter and one book) to the less than six pages of text that I think I need, but Google Translate isn't good enough for FAC, and Google rendered the most crucial passage in a very unclear way. While a few Wikipedians have listed themselves as willing to translate German sources into English, none of them seem to be particularly interested in the subject matter, and I thought I'd ask if anyone is available here before asking random Wikipedians who may be busy with completely unrelated projects. A. Parrot ( talk) 02:01, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
There's a problem with the article Avidia Plautia, which was emphasized by an edit *Treker made at Ignota Plautia here. In brief, the shadowy Ignota Plautia had a daughter in her second marriage to Gaius Avidius Nigrinus (his second marriage too) whose name has not come down to us, but is called by Syme & after him Anthony Birley Avidia Plautia. However, Nigrinus by his first marriage (to another woman whose name is not known to us) had a daughter whom Syme & Birley refer to as simply Avidia; she is the wife of L. Aelius Caesar & mother of Emperor Lucius Verus. This would be of no interest, except that (1) the article named "Avidia Plautia" originally was about the mother of Lucius Verus, which led to information about the daughter of Ignota Plautia being mixed in; (2) the template about the family tree of Marcus Aurelius (which is a bitch to edit) also confuses the names; however (3) Barbara Levick (Faustina I and II: Imperial Women of the Golden Age [Oxford: University Press, 2014], p. 164) calls the mother of Lucius Verus "Avidia Plautia" -- Levick is a solid Classical scholar, so I'm reluctant to dismiss anything she writes.
So my questions are: (1) Does anyone have access to Levick's book, & can share a copy of the page in question? (2) If Levick does call her "Avidia Plautia" (or no one has access to her book), any objections if call the daughter of Ignota Plautia "Avidia Plautia", & the mother of Lucius Verus "Avidia"? I admit both women are shadowy figures, barely more than boxes in a genealogical chart, & they are notable only because of whom they are related to, yet if these personages aren't made distinct this confusion persists. -- llywrch ( talk) 07:39, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Ignota Plautia is not the way inferred people are assigned hypothetical names. Usually Ignota or Anonyma are used for women. If the gens to which it belonged can be deduced, it is put in parentheses (); so, in this case (Plautia). Sometimes there is some confidence in the name and the parentheses are ignored by some authors; so, in this case Plautia.
Regarding what you have commented, Ignota or Anonyma is the first wife of Avidius Nigrinus. (Plautia) or Plautia is the first wife of Ceionius Comodus (cos.106) (first husband), the second of Avidius Nigrinus (second husband) and the second of Civica Cerialis or the first of Civica Pompeianus (third husband). (Avidia) and Avidia Plautia are two persons. The former is the daughter of Avidius Nigrinus and Ignota, woman who married Lucius Caesar and was the mother of Lucius Verus, Ceionia Plautia and Ceionia Fabia. The last is the daughter of Avidius Nigrinus and (Plautia), woman who married Titius Aquilinus. Part of all this is scholarly deductions.
Thus, the sources consulted: Syme, Antonine Relatives: Ceionii and Vettuleni; Birley, Marcus Aurelius; Levick, Faustina I and II.
Greetings. -- Romulanus ( talk) 18:02, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
An RfC regarding the lede of the article on the Atintanians has been proposed here [4]. It may be of interest to members of this wikiproject. Khirurg ( talk) 02:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
An editor has requested for Muse (disambiguation) to be moved to Muse. Since you had some involvement with Muse (disambiguation), you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). Whether or not to move depends mostly on the question if a) Muses (the ancient Greek goddesses) is the primary topic, or b) Muses and Muse (band) are comparably significant, and there is no primary topic. ExcitedEngineer ( talk) 12:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
I am wondering whether we should add mentions to the Varronian chronology in Roman articles using dates before 300 BC. To make it short, there is an offset of four years in the Roman chronology; in order to solve this gap, the Roman historian Varro invented three " dictator years" in 333, 324, 309 and 301 BC. So all the Roman dates before 300 BC are definitely wrong, but the problem is that they are universally used in the academic literature. You have a long and detailed explanation on Livius.org. So far, I've written this small text as footnote in one article I'm editing: This article uses the Varronian chronology, named after the Roman historian Marcus Terentius Varro. In order to solve an offset between several chronologies of the early period of the Roman Republic, Varro created four fictitious "dictator-years" in 333, 324, 309 and 301 BC, during which a dictator was the sole magistrate in charge. Dates before 300 BC are therefore wrong, but still used by convention in academic research. "Correct dates" can be found by removing up to four years from the Varronian date, eg. 340 (Varro) is 336 BC, 304 (Varro) is 303 BC, etc.
Perhaps there could be more though, like a template. Any idea how to deal with this? T8612 (talk) 22:25, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
B.C. 753[:] Foundation of Rome on the Palatine Mount, on the Palilia, the 21st of April. This is the era of Varro. According to Cato, Rome was founded in B.C. 751, according to Polybius in B.C. 750, according to Fabius Pictor 747.
For practical purposes the important thing to remember about Roman dates is that events were associated in the first instance with the names of the consuls of the year in which they took place. Locating that year in any general scheme of chronology, whether Olympiads, or years after the founding of the city, or years before or after Christ, is a secondary and necessarily somewhat artificial process. If this is not kept firmly in mind, confusion can result. For instance, one historian has recently written that the capture of Veii occurred "in (Varronian) 396 according to Livy, in 388 according to Diodorus". This implies that Livy and Diodorus reported the fall of Veii under different years, but actually they place the event in the same "Roman" year -- the consular tribunate of L. Titius, P. Licinius, P. Maelius, Q. Manlius, Cn. Genucius and L. Atilius; and as it happens their accounts also coincide in absolute terms, since both record the same number of years between the fall of Veii and 300 BC. Although they get there by different methods, both contrive to place the capture of Veii in 392 BC. Diodorus also synchronises the year in question with Olympiad 96.4, the archonship of Demostratus (393-392 BC). It is hardly necessary to point out that neither Livy nor Diodorus (nor any other literary source) follows the Varronian chronology.
Comments needed. Happy Dies Natalis Solis Invicti to all! Johnbod ( talk) 16:48, 24 December 2020 (UTC)