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Attila

The article on Attila has quite a lot of highly questionable material and is generally of a low quality. I cleaned up the etymology section last year, but there's still quite a lot of over-reliance on primary sources in the body and also the inclusion of questionable conclusions by non-scholars in the text. Given Attila's importance, I thought I'd bring the matter to the project's attention.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:49, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

We must be looking at two different articles. Hardly any of this one is cited to primary sources. The only one in the citations list is Jordanes, and he's only cited once—for a quotation describing Attila—before his account of Attila's death and succession, and those are the only parts cited to any contemporary source. Getica is cited, but not Romana, which is also relevant. Priscus is mentioned repeatedly, but never actually cited. Hydatius is quoted once, but only through a modern work. Isidore isn't mentioned at all. There's an anecdote originating in Paulus Diaconus—but you wouldn't know it from either the text or the citations. Another anecdote reported by both Jordanes and Procopius doesn't appear. I don't know how this qualifies as "over-reliance on primary sources", since if you throw out what they say about Attila, all there is left is hot air and imagination. P Aculeius (talk) 15:51, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

The infobox picure is also a strange choice but I'm not sure what other options there are. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:54, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I guess I was thinking about the section on Attilas death for over reliance on primary sources. Different sections of the article vary widely in their use of sources: one is mostly sourced to books in French even. Anyway, I repeat my criticisms of the information in the rest of the article. It is of very poor quality given Attilas importance in both popular culture and in Ancient History.—Ermenrich (talk) 15:55, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Primary sources—in this case meaning Greek and Roman writers—are necessarily the foundation of historical writing of this type. Without them, we would have next to nothing to say about Attila, so they should be cited, copiously, and directly, i.e. by citing to book and chapter of their work, not merely summarizing what modern historians report that they say. A general scheme for writing this type of article would be to begin with a skeleton based on the accounts in Greek and Roman literature, then flesh it out by adding what later writers (mainly modern historians, but there should be some medieval perspectives as well) have to say about the same things, including any criticism or comparisons made by them or between the different sources, as well as related questions that the ancient sources don't answer. But practically everything that the Greek and Roman writers said about Attila belongs in this article.

On a related note, but one veering into my own speculation, I add that I've always assumed that "Attila" must be a Hunnic name, as it doesn't appear to be Germanic, Greek, or Latin. But as the section on his name points out, the Huns, like everyone else, could freely borrow names from the people around them. The fact that his name in Germanic sources—Etzel, i.e. Edsel—has the form of a Germanic name, suggests the possibility, although I don't see this mentioned under the etymology section. We usually think of Germanic names as ending in consonants, but earlier ones frequently have vowel endings, including ones that to us look feminine (note the many early Anglo-Saxon kings, such as Anna, Wuffa, Pybba, Penda), although in many instances these were hypocoristic, standing for a longer name. Do any of the etymological sources link "Attila" and "Etzel" explicitly? P Aculeius (talk) 18:25, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Most scholars (although I haven't found an explicit citation to that effect - yet - I know it to be true) believe Attila is Gothic, as summarized at the beginning of the section: Many scholars have argued that Attila derives from East Germanic origin; Attila is formed from the Gothic or Gepidic noun atta, "father", by means of the diminutive suffix -ila, meaning "little father", compare Wulfila from wulfs "wolf" and -ila, i.e. "little wolf". The Gothic etymology was first proposed by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 19th century. Maenchen-Helfen notes that this derivation of the name "offers neither phonetic nor semantic difficulties", and Gerhard Doerfer notes that the name is simply correct Gothic. The name has sometimes been interpreted as a Germanization of a name of Hunnic origin.. Atta is the normal Gothic word for father, as attested in their version of the Lord's Prayer. Etzel is just the natural evolution of the name through the High German sound shift, in which t shifts to ts, while final -a is lost in German and unstressed vowels generally become a schwa (generally represented by "e" in German). The initial a shifts to æ (later e) because the i causes Germanic umlaut. The name appears in Old English as Ætla and Old Norse (without Umlaut) as Atli. A source that could be added to that effect would probably be A catalogue of persons named in German heroic literature (700-1600), although I don't happen to have immediate access to the book. It's a notable fact that probably should be added.

As to primary sources: I'm certainly not saying they should not be used. I realize this is a sore point because of arguments about it recently, but I'm not against mentioning and using them when appropriate, as I think my work at Pontius Pilate (or even at the related article Huns!) shows. My concern is just that the sources are not being commented on very well in that section - as you've pointed out, in other sections there are no primary sources or its impossible to tell what sources are used, etc. All of this strikes me as bad for the article. The opinions of individual scholars are overemphasized, sometimes against consensus, and while I would have to do a careful check of all the sources, I've already noted at least one as not appearing to be RS.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:42, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

References

Format standardization?

Something I've been mulling for a while: should we work towards standardizing which templates we use for succession tables, infoboxes, etc.? I've been thinking specifically about the succession tables/navboxes at the bottom of articles on the Roman consuls, but I've been wondering if we should standardize other templates & how we present collections of names (e.g. lists or tables)? Or maybe I'm the only one who is annoyed at our inconsistencies at the moment. -- llywrch (talk) 23:48, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that this is something worth discussing—and the navboxes that have been in place for ages with Roman consuls have always looked awkward to me. But the most obvious alternative is the infobox, which in many cases becomes a disinformation box—cluttering a short article with information duplicating the lead, and full of trivia, often nearly as long (and occasionally longer) than the whole article, but not really adding anything to it—just something that "aggressively attracts the marginally literate eye with apparent promises to contain a reductive summary of information..." and "...offers a competitive counter-article, stripped of nuance."

In at least 90% of Roman biographical articles, we don't have a picture—even an "attributed" bust or a modern interpretation of the person—we have a list of offices held, usually (but not always) with dates and colleagues, and occasionally a date of death or the names of relatives. The value of a list of offices held is of marginal value for an infobox; only important magistracies, such as the consulship or dictatorship, are really helpful; and in nearly all cases those will be given, with years and colleagues, in the lead. A sort of minimal infobox would be less of a distraction—but also potentially less useful.

But I think it might be worth considering such infoboxes as a replacement for the consular navboxes. We can always add other important details, or pictures, when they're available. But I do think it's important not to clutter them up with every office the person held, every colleague, every predecessor or successor (of course, since it'd be a replacement for consular navboxes, we'd need to keep those things for consuls). I know this isn't a really coherent discussion, but I have mixed feelings about this—and I don't want to create a formal policy that would be pushed on editors who are likely to disagree with whatever we come up with. P Aculeius (talk) 00:19, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

What specific inconsistencies bother you? I think a comprehensive standardization of the navboxes of consuls at the bottom of a page is probably unfeasible, but two issues might be worth addressing. First, I noticed how horrible succession boxes look for consular tribunes (see the bottom of this page and the infobox here), and I think they should not be used in their case. Second, there is the question of what exactly to put in the |title= or |office= parameters: we have variously Roman consul, Consul of Rome, Consul of the Roman Republic, Consul of the Roman Empire and Suffect consul of the Roman Empire (I do not like the last one). There is a 2-year-old discussion in the consuls' list talk page (started by none other than you) on whether the list itself should be split along those lines, though I'm not sure you want to discuss that specifically here, now. Avilich (talk) 00:43, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

There are a few more points here than I expected to discuss, & I hope I don't get distracted by addressing them instead of specifics.

First, I have no deep-seated dislike for infoboxes, succession boxes, or diagrams of stemmata. They all have a place in an article when appropriately used. I object to them when they don't fit in, for example infoboxes on stubs (which often only duplicate the information in the article), or succession boxes where the predecessor & successor are "unknown" -- which is not very useful. (And if no one objects, I'll start removing the latter when I encounter them.) And since succession boxes are, as a rule, found on every head of state, & consuls were the official head of state of the Roman state (although increasingly ceremonial as time went on, as the emperor gradually usurped that role), therefore they must appear on every applicable article.

But what I wanted to get a feel for was more the implementation of these templates. Since I mentioned consul succession boxes, let me use them as an example.

I've come up with a format that I've used for the last few years, & while I think it's good it's definitely not perfect. There are two considerations with any such template: how it presents the information to human users, & how it presents it as machine-readable data. In the case of consul succession boxes, the information provided is the title, names of the two consuls, their 2 predecessors, & 2 successors. In the case of Republican consuls & the Later Imperial consuls, this is fairly straightforward, but there is a need to make the pairs of names distinct. (I use a comma & the word "and" to do this.) For consuls of the Early Empire/Principate, we have the complication of suffect consuls, so we need to distinguish between ordinary & suffect consuls. (This is an important distinction.) Unfortunately, none of the existing templates allows us to provide this information without misusing the parameters of the templates -- which prevents these boxes from providing machine-readable data. Ideally, we should just fill in the values of each parameter of these templates & everyone is happy with the results in all possible ways. And if there is a problem, we fix it in the template & the changes propagate over all of the pages that use it, not have to fix each instance of the template in each article.

As for infoboxes, as I wrote above, I have no real problem with them. They offer a place to put useful information that would be awkward to add to individual articles -- for example, with biographical articles, that is where data like filiation, voting tribe, the index number in Pauly-Wissowa (which anyone who has used that work knows would be an invaluable time-saver) & the index number for Prosopographia Imperii Romani.

Of course to implement any of this requires some kind of consensus. Otherwise, we end up with lame edit wars over commas & which misfitting parameter of a template to use. On the other hand, I may be obsessing over trivial matters, & should simply focus on improving content, not how it is presented. -- llywrch (talk) 07:11, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Whenever editing navboxes, I prefer to use |before= and |before2= rather than commas and 'ands' two separate any two predecessors or successors, unless the names are very short. With regards to a suffect consulship, I prefer doing it like this (placing it on the 'years' parameter), on grounds that the qualification 'suffect' is contingent on chronology (not assuming office on 1 January). I tried doing it once but you evidently disliked it; as it currently stands, the navbox in that article displays "Suffect Consul of the Roman Empire", which I think is too long and awkward. Alternatively, the specific months could be shown, as in Antoninus Pius, but I think that's just unnecessary information and we don't know the months of everybody anyway. My preferred slution to the 'suffect' question is still the previous one.

The problem with showing voting tribe, filiation, and all that is most infoboxes simply don't allow for significant customization, unless you're using Template:Infobox. I recall you suggesting elsewhere already that the RE and PIR numbers be displayed on the infobox, and I tentatively followed up on that in Arinthaeus, just to see how it might look like, though I tried it nowhere else and it was only a sort of test edit. Avilich (talk) 19:39, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Things like filiation and tribe should most certainly not be taking up space in an infobox. Nor should relatives—except perhaps for emperors. There are places for things like this in articles, but in infoboxes they're just clutter—I bet you can count on one hand the number of instances where the tribe to which any particular Roman belonged was particularly important. I can't think of any, so I can count them on zero hands (I'm not saying that tribes have no importance—just that the fact that a particular Roman belonged to a specific tribe is almost certainly insignificant, and thus not infobox material). As for what to call consuls—just call them "Roman consul"—the dates given in the articles will elaborate. And while there was a lot of prestige attached to the ordinarii, the reason for appointing multiple pairs of consuls each year in imperial times was to have a constant supply of officials of consular rank to hold important administrative positions throughout the Empire—and for that purpose it made little difference whether the consul was an ordinarius or a suffectus. P Aculeius (talk) 23:17, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I should've mentioned from the outset that I also think filiation, tribe etc. are too superfluous to feature anywhere other than a prosopographical list. "Roman consul" is probably the better and concise alternative, not least because "Consul of the Roman Empire" becomes obsolete for the period after 476. On the question of dates, I still think it's better to omit the month and put a '(suffect)' between parentheses beside the date when needed. Avilich (talk) 23:56, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

A link to a DAB page

This one is, for me at least, a real head-scratcher. In Philo, it is said that that philosopher quoted Zeno. I think I've identified the passage, in a 1905 English translation by one J. H. A. Hart. I hesitate to criticise a learnèd man, but Philo might at least have given some small clue as to which Zeno he was referring to. Can anyone here help? or is this a case for a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine {{efn}}? Narky Blert (talk) 19:32, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Done - it's Zeno of Citium Furius (talk) 02:34, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

The depth of knowledge in this WikiProject never ceases to amaze me. Narky Blert (talk) 07:59, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Herm or Herma

I would be grateful for comments for or against moving Herma to Herm (sculpture) at Talk:Herma. Furius (talk) 16:40, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

King Pyraechmus of Euboea

I just came across the article King Pyraechmus of Euboea. Ever since 2011, it has had a 'factual accuracy disputed' tag on it. There's nothing on the talk page, but I assume the issue is the following: the article states that this Pyraechmus 1. killed Eudoros and 2. was killed by Hercules. This seems impossible, as Eudoros fought in the Trojan war, but Hercules had died by the time of the Trojan war. The cited sources do support both 1 and 2, but it's likely that they do not refer to the same Pyraechmus. Is there someone here who can make sense of this and maybe fix the article? Lennart97 (talk) 23:51, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

As you say, it looks like confusion between two different mythological personages. It shouldn't take long to fix, so I'll take care of it if nobody beats me to it. P Aculeius (talk) 00:23, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at it. I couldn't find the Greek or Roman source, but the encyclopedia that mentions him looks credible. If anyone can find more, the article is still pretty skimpy, and could still use additional details found in mythological sources—even just an additional citation. P Aculeius (talk) 01:09, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@P Aculeius: Thanks a lot! Do you know if anything else is known about the Pyraechmus who killed Eudoros? Lennart97 (talk) 01:27, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

He's mentioned under both "Pyraechmes" and "Eudorus" in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, but they don't have a lot to say about him (I think the latter article calls him "Pyraechmus", but that might be a typo—I don't know if both spellings are found in Greek). Fortunately, the articles cite the relevant passages in the Iliad, and I think also to a scholiast on Homer. I'd check out the original sources and see if they have anything to add—Pyraechmes has his own article on Wikipedia already, but it could probably use a little work. Here are links to all three volumes of the DGRBM—always a go-to for a general overview, but just as importantly, a way to find the original sources. Not always enough for thoroughness, recent discoveries, or modern perspectives, but nearly always a solid foundation to begin from. Volume I Volume II Volume III P Aculeius (talk) 05:24, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! I didn't realise that Pyraechmes already has an article. I'll look into it. Lennart97 (talk) 21:29, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Religion of Carthage

There’s a discussion of interest to this project at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Phoenicia#Religion of Carthage that I think would be of interest to members of this project. In particular, I suspect that members here might have a good knowledge of classical sources on Carthaginian religion. —Ermenrich (talk) 19:01, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC that needs more community input

There is an ongoing RfC on a dispute at the Atintanians article. Some fresh opinion, especially from outside the Balkans, would be appreciated. Ktrimi991 (talk) 13:52, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Input requested on merger proposal (Antae temple and Temple in antis)

Hi. I would really appreciate if someone who knows a thing or two about ancient architecture can have a look at this merger proposal. Thanks! Lennart97 (talk) 15:52, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! I've posted already, suggesting that "distyle in antis" might be the best location for the two or three articles concerned. P Aculeius (talk) 17:02, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Quick question on gens categories

Would it be appropriate to move all gens-based categories (e.g. Category:Pontii) to a separate container category named Romans by gens, instead of having them remain in Category:Roman gentes? In the current arrangement, Pontius Aquila (just an example, could be just about anyone) will have Category:Roman gentes as its grandparent category, which I'm not sure is appropriate since he was not a gens. Furthermore, Pontia gens currently has Category:Roman gentes as both a parent and grandparent category, a deprecated arrangement which would be fixed by my suggestion here.

As a test I have already created a container category for this purpose and filled it with a few gens categories, but will promptly delete it if the idea gains no support. Avilich (talk) 18:29, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I can certainly see "Romans by gens" as a container category to make "Category:Roman gentes" easier to navigate. But I don't see the objection to "Roman gentes" being a "grandparent category" for members of those gentes. How relevant is the number of steps separating the members of a group from a category containing groups of said member? In the given example, Pontius Aquila isn't in "Roman gentes", he's in subcategory "Pontii". I don't see a problem with that. If we do this, we should do it simply because it'll make "Roman gentes" easier to navigate. P Aculeius (talk) 19:00, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

If Pontius Aquila is descended from "Roman gentes", then it follows that he may himself be a gens, regardless of the generation he belongs to. "Pontii", strictly speaking, refers to members of the Pontia gens, not the gens itself, and so, by rights, the category should be descended from Category:Romans by gens and ultimately Category:Ancient Romans, rather than Category:Roman gentes. For an analogy, consider that the article *magister militum* (equivalent: Pontia gens) is descended from Category:Military ranks of ancient Rome (Roman gentes), whereas Category:Magistri militum (Pontii) traces its descent to Category:Romans by occupation (Romans by gens). I can understand if this sounds too pedantic or redundant but the logic is simply making a distinction between individuals themselves on one hand and families, offices, or groups on the other. Avilich (talk) 22:07, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

N.b. the article *Pontia gens* itself: the current arrangement ensures that the page is linked directly to a grandparent category (*Roman gentes*), which is discouraged (though not prohibited) by WP:SUBCAT ("a page or category should rarely be placed in both a category and a subcategory or parent category (supercategory)"). Avilich (talk) 22:39, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

"Pontia gens" should be included in the category, "Roman gentes". "Pontii" is also one of the categories in which "Pontia gens" is included, so anyone in it would still be reachable from "Roman gentes". Does that make it a great-grandfather category for "Pontius Aquila"? As I understand it, you're saying that it's okay for "Roman gentes" to be a "granduncle" category but not a "grandfather" category for anything that's not a gens itself—but it's okay to be a "great-grandfather" to individual gentiles. I question the utility of this distinction—although as I said at the outset, including categories such as "Pontii" within a container category that would be listed as a subcategory of "Roman gentes" is probably a practical idea. I simply think that the decision of whether or not to do this should be based on whether it's helpful to readers, and not on the genealogical relationships of the categories and their contents. P Aculeius (talk) 23:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Addressing your primary concern, yes, I do think it will be greatly useful: Category:Roman gentes is currently too big, and having a container category for gentes also seems just as reasonable as the already existing counterparts for occupation, class, profession etc. I'm willing to drop the whole genealogical part if that's what it takes to obtain an agreement on this. Incidentally, the container category I created has already been nominated for merging; I would greatly appreciate if you could leave a notice there. Avilich (talk) 00:11, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

As for the admittedly less important genealogical part, you have correctly described my position. I do think the categorical distinctions between (grand-...)father and (grand-...)uncle and between gens and gentiles are, in theory, important. Though, this won't matter much if all gens categories are placed into the container category, since their descent will be contingent on that of the container itself. Avilich (talk) 00:21, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't quite get the point - if we already have a category serving the purpose, is a separate category necessary? It would be useful if we use it as P Aculeius says (i.e. making Category:Roman gentes easier to navigate), but it seems unnecessary to make it, er, "independent". Do let me know if I am missing something here. HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 14:43, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@HalfdanRagnarsson: they do not serve the same purpose; one is a container, the other is not. Containers exist as a convenient way to put subcategories together, and, more broadly, make navigation easier, as Aculeius said. Instead of throwing all gens categories (like Category:Pontii, for example) into Category:Ancient Romans (where they obviously belong) directly, I found it reasonable to have a Category:Romans by gens just as we already have Romans by city, death and occupation. Note that Category:Roman gentes is within Category:Prosopography of ancient Rome and not Category:Ancient Romans.

You may ignore all the rambling about parent categories and descendants. I had raised the question here because at first I was not sure how to approach this myself. Let me know if you still have doubts. Avilich (talk) 18:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@HalfdanRagnarsson: if you agree with what I said, would you mind giving an input in the merger discussion which started in the new category before I even finished setting it up? Thank you in advance. Avilich (talk) 02:35, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@Avilich: Yup, done. (Sorry for the late reply, some things just slip out of my mind sometimes) HalfdanRagnarsson (talk) 08:00, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Thrasybulus for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog Farm _Bacon 03:11, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Is it possible to identify the gender of the child depicted on these coins?

http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2_1(2).dom.132?lang=es

http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2_1(2).dom.134?lang=es

http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2_1(2).dom.156?lang=es

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domitia,_1842_0214_63,_BMC_Domitian_65.jpg

Domitia and Domitian had a son and a daughter, this coin depicts one of them, I was wondering if its possible to tell if its the son or daughter.★Trekker (talk) 14:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

It's probably the son, since Domitia is described as "DIVI CAESAR MATRI", but if you're looking for a picture of the boy, this one is better. T8612 (talk) 15:49, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the obverse of each coin depicts an adult woman, presumably Domitia. The one that appears to show a seated woman and a child on the reverse might be an allegorical representation of Domitian as a child, or of motherhood in general, since as I read the inscription it appears to be dedicated to Domitian's mother. I don't think the inscription suggests that it could refer to one of his children, although if it did, it would surely be the son, as T8612 suggests. However, the file he's linked to identifies the child as Domitian, depicted as the infant Jupiter, not Domitian's son. P Aculeius (talk) 18:37, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that's right: the coin in the file linked by T8612 is marked "DIVVS CAESAR IMP DOMITIANI F": "the son of the divus Caesar Imperator Domitianus". GPinkerton (talk) 22:59, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

That looks like what the inscription says, but why would Domitian's son be depicted as the infant Jupiter? And perhaps more importantly, how do we know that it's the same child depicted as on the reverse of the other coin, which seems to be dedicated to the Domitian's mother? It seems unlikely that the coin would be identifying a child as the divine Caesar. Haven't any of the authorities on coins discussed these particular examples? P Aculeius (talk) 00:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

The RIC says "Domitia has a "Pietas" type referring to her happy (?) family life and the charming picture of the baby Caesar, who died young and was consecrated, seated on the globe, like a baby Jupiter, and holding out his hands to play with the stars." I think the child is called divus because he was deified after his death in 83. It bugged me too. For the other coin with the child in front of the seated Pietas, the RIC just says "a child". T8612 (talk) 01:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Deified emperors usually apotheosed themselves in the guises of Jupiter. This son, born in 73, who was probably called Titus Flavius Caesar, died before 28 August 83 and was deified with the consecratio "Divus Caesar". Domitian's mother is not mentioned; the inscription refers to the augusta (by then) Domitia Longina, the mother of the divine (and deceased) infant Caesar. GPinkerton (talk) 15:38, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

"Roman people" or "Romans (people)"

User SrpskiAnonimac moved the article Roman people to Romans (people) without any discussion whatsoever. I don't see the reason for the move but I thought that it might be worthwile to discuss here which title is more appropriate and standard. Quite a non-issue, but wondering if anyone has any input. Ichthyovenator (talk) 02:01, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I can think of three logical titles here: (1) Romans, (2) Roman people, (3) Romans (people). All three have the same linguistic ambiguity, since they could refer either to Romans, plural, or to the Roman populus. However, in all three cases only the latter interpretation makes sense as an article title—we wouldn't have an article about various Romans under any of these titles. I would simplify it and move it to "Romans", but if that doesn't appeal to others, then "Roman people" is clear enough without parentheses. The phrase means exactly the same thing with or without parenthesis. P Aculeius (talk) 03:32, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Was there even a Roman people? Italy, then the Roman Republic and Empire were made of multiple peoples, and as Roman citizenship wasn't based on ethnicity, men could be Roman citizens while also remaining culturally Greek, Celt or Lusitanian. I note that the lede does not mention Roman people at all, and there are few mentions of "Roman people" in the article. As a result, I also prefer the bare Romans (or Ancient Romans), which is vague enough to include everything that is discussed in the article (eg. Roman populus, citizenship, culture, identity, etc.). Roman people is too restrictive and ambivalent. T8612 (talk) 04:17, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

The article essentially argues that no, there was not a Roman people in an ethnic sense; it mainly covers Roman identity and what Romans at different times would have perceived "Roman" to mean. I would support just Romans if we can get a consensus for that; "Ancient Romans" might not work since the article covers Roman identity from the earliest times to far beyond 476 (when traditional historiography has "ancient Rome" end). Ichthyovenator (talk) 13:53, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Ichthyovenator, to the Romans themselves, ethne meant a range of things. I note that there is only one citation to Kaldellis in the article at present, and despite his provocative and disputed theses, his work is definitely one to cite: his Romanland is an omission, though I'm glad to see Stouraitis referred to. (Kaldellis (unjustly) attacks Stouraitis as: "a denialist of ethnicity".) GPinkerton (talk) 15:00, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

GPinkerton I don't claim the article to be complete in any way, but the point that it strives to drive home is that what "Roman" means depends on when you look. To the late (c. 10th/11th century onwards) Byzantines it was (arguably) an ethnicity, to the early Rebublican Romans it was a citizen of Rome (the city), to the 5th-century Romans it was someone of the (correct) Christian faith subservient to the emperor etc. An article on the Romans needs to cover all of these in order to provide the full picture. You are more than welcome to beef up the article with more information but there definitely was not a consistently defined "Roman ethnicity" from the 700s BC to the 400s AD, much less to the 1400s and beyond. The article now uses "Romans" and "Roman people" as a shorthand for people self-identifying as Romans. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:24, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Quite right! GPinkerton (talk) 15:29, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

T8612, there most definitely was a Roman people; to Theophanes Confessor Romanness was defined by loyalty to the Roman emperor, knowledge of the Greek language, and adherence to the orthodox Church. GPinkerton (talk) 14:52, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I would suggest to at least revert the move until a consensus is reached about what the name should be (and for what it's worth, I much prefer Roman people over Romans (people)). This is apparently not the first time this user has moved a highly visible article without discussion or even as much as a rationale and that should absolutely not be rewarded. Lennart97 (talk) 14:35, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Update: I actually feel sufficiently strongly about what I said above that I've gone ahead and reverted the move myself. Lennart97 (talk) 14:38, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Quite right (I tried but couldn't). I suggest if people want to pursue a rename this discussion is copied to the talk page & continued there. Johnbod (talk) 18:16, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Did a gens Milonia actually exist?

Milonia Caesonia is the only well know Roman figure who appears to have held this nomen, Wikidata has items for two men (Gaius Milonius and Marcus Milonius Verus Junianus) who seem to have held the Milonius nomen. But I can't seem to find anything to confirm the first mans existence.★Trekker (talk) 21:09, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Gaius Milonius (RE 2) was a senator who died fighting for Marius and Cinna during the civil war between the consuls in 87 BC. He definitely existed, as did the Milonia gens by extension. Avilich (talk) 21:35, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I found a few more and added them to the article. An obscure family, but it clearly existed. There are probably a lot of gentes out there that didn't leave even this much of a trace in history. P Aculeius (talk) 04:14, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Trivia in Roman Emperor articles

There's a consistent problem in mainly the Julio-Claudian Roman Emperor articles: they have a trivial lists of unsourced appearances in random media. Some like Augustus and Nero have Cultural depictions of Augustus and Nero in the arts and popular culture respectively (the latter which should probably be renamed to the same format as Augustus's article); others have lengthy unsourced sections, such as Elagabalus#Cultural references, Claudius#In modern literature, film and radio, Tiberius#Popular culture ,Caligula#In popular culture. Now there is precedent for creating more of these articles, just look at this. But what I'm hesitant about is moving so much unsourced info into a new article that then be a completely unsourced article, is that even an option? Aza24 (talk) 00:01, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Without commenting on individual instances, a statement that a historical figure appears in a book, film, television program, song, painting, etc. doesn't require a citation. Creative works are valid as sources for their own contents. You could of course add a citation to the work in question, but it's not really necessary if anyone reading/watching/viewing/reading the work would see that it's so. You don't need to find a book that says, "Claudius is the central character of I, Claudius, by Robert Graves" in order to mention it in an article about Claudius. P Aculeius (talk) 00:25, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I would argue that finding a citation shows that the fact the, e.g. emperor X appears in work Y is noteworthy at least.—Ermenrich (talk) 00:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree in spirit P Aculeius, but if one of the articles were brought to FAC, there's no way it would be succesful without a citation for every appearance. Aza24 (talk) 00:53, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm actually citing Wikipedia policy. Creative works are valid sources for their own contents—provided that the fact cited to them is one that's evident to anyone examining the work, such as someone being a character in a novel. Now, any analysis of the work would indeed require an external source. But simply saying that person 'A' is mentioned in work 'B' doesn't, any more than you would need another source to say how many chapters a book has, or that Van Gogh's Starry Night has a lot of blue in it. Also bear in mind that the Manual of Style doesn't even require citations to use ref tags or their equivalent—you can actually attribute something to a source in the text as you write it—even though most citations do. But with respect to creative works, simply describing the work in a manner that can be verified by anyone who examines the work (i.e. factual descriptions, not opinions about its meaning, quality, or influence) requires no additional source than the work itself. That's all that would be expected for a statement that The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is about Caesar. Imagine having to find reliable, third-party sources for every minute detail about a published work! You don't have to cite the fact that the sky is blue. P Aculeius (talk) 03:08, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

The citation point seems less important than the question of what makes an appearance significant enough to be mentioned in the article. Obviously the article on Claudius should mention I Claudius, but I'm less sure that it should be mentioning that he is a minor character in several TV drama/documentaries and very recent historical novels. Furius (talk) 10:50, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the logical remedy for this is to split the section off into its own article, "Claudius in popular culture", allowing for as long a list as desired, with more detail on different portrayals. For instance, a section for literary appearances, a separate section for film and/or television, etc., perhaps a section contrasting the way he's portrayed in some media (i.e. sympathetically, as an intelligent or astute politician, or alternatively, as a dull and easily-manipulated man), perhaps indicating how views of Claudius in such portrayals have changed over time, or influenced one another (presumably, I, Claudius has had a profound influence on subsequent portrayals, which will either have accepted Graves' interpretation, rejected it outright, or accepted some aspects and rejected others). Then the main article, "Claudius", would retain only an abbreviated section with the most important examples, and a note linking to the "popular culture" article. I believe this is how "popular culture" references to other historical persons, places, or events tend to be treated, when they become too expansive for the articles in which they originally appeared. P Aculeius (talk) 14:17, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

P Aculeius, even better, one could group the pop culture portrayals of related emperors: "Julio-Claudian dynasty in popular culture", otherwise covering I, Claudius-type material could spawn dozens of articles. GPinkerton (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I can see no particular advantage to having a list of occurrences of Nero in popular culture in the same article as occurrences of Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and all of their wives, children, adopted children, grandchildren, ministers, etc. Some of the sections in question are already quite extensive, and combining them all would present a long litany of disjointed material about different persons. It would also tend to discourage any elaboration of the kind I described above, concerning how artistic portrayals of the subject have changed over time, or been influenced by one another. Different persons, different works, different analyses—why combine them all simply because they were part of the same dynasty? I don't see why we would combine an article about Henry VIII's portrayal in arts and literature with one about Elizabeth I. P Aculeius (talk) 14:42, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

P Aculeius, you mean like: House_of_Tudor#In_popular_culture? GPinkerton (talk) 15:12, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

No, because that's a very abbreviated list with none of the things I mentioned. And it's not necessary to keep pinging me every time you reply—that's what a watchlist is for. P Aculeius (talk) 17:02, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

A bit of history I suspect no one else knows: back in the early days of Wikipedia (prior to 2008, & I can't be more certain than that), Jimmy Wales was giving a presentation about this odd new website. He was showing off everything that one could find under a subject heading, when he noticed that the article he was profiling (the name escapes me, but I will call "X" here) had an "X in popular culture" section that was little more than a list of how X appeared in various "Family Guy" episodes. Wales ranted about this, apparently on the Wikipedia-EN mailing list, & a war was declared on all "in popular culture" sections. Incivility followed: at the time many acted without thought on almost any command or suggestion Wales made, while many others would act based on their own opinions or common sense. (Not to say either was automatically right, but this dialectic did make creating a consensus challenging at times.)

Since then, general opinion has wavered between the two extremes: some believe all "A in popular culture" sections were barely a step up from vandalism; others believe every mention of a given notable personage or subject in popular culture is worth a mention. (Even if it is to "Family Guy".)

FWIW, my own opinion is in the middle. Some mentions or allusions in popular culture (for various definitions of "popular culture") are worth listing -- such I, Claudius (in print, film & tv). (I'll notice here that I added an episode of The Time Tunnel to Nero in the arts and popular culture. Nero does figure as a major plot device in this otherwise laughably inaccurate tv series.) Others are not. And others should be summarized, such as how various debauched public figures resemble various Roman Emperors -- in my experience, Caligula, Nero & Domitian are the ones mentioned most. (Although Domitian was a far more effective & beneficial ruler than the common perception portrays him.) -- llywrch (talk) 01:38, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Ignota Plautia again

There was a thread on this topic a while ago but I'm not sure if any of the issues were really resolved?★Trekker (talk) 12:22, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

The lede is confused and doesn't tell why she is notable. T8612 (talk) 12:43, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm mostly concerned with factual accuracy for the sake of Wikidata. The page as it is still implies that two of her children got married to each other.....★Trekker (talk) 12:49, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

The Nerva-Antonine family tree template we have currently implies that it was Ignota Plautia's sister who was the mother of Avidia Plautia (thus making Verus and Avidia cousins, which is far more likely), but the family tree also calles the ignota Fundania Plautia, which would imply that she was the daughter of Lucius Fundanius Lamia Aelianus and not his sister, which is what the current article text says.★Trekker (talk) 13:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

http://www.strachan.dk/family/aelius_lamia.htm this page also has further ideas.★Trekker (talk) 13:51, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Gaius Avidius Nigrinus This article also makes a couple of claims which seem confusing.

{{Nerva–Antonine family tree}}

• The thread *Treker refers to above is here. (I'm including this link because it was hard for me to find it, & I knew it existed because I took part in it.) -- llywrch (talk) 21:45, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Thank you @Llywrch:. I hope more people can chime in to help establish a consensus on changes to the article.★Trekker (talk) 21:52, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    • I'm trying to figure out what had been decided. Beyond the fact that the article should be renamed -- but no one proposed a different name -- I'm not sure myself. -- llywrch (talk) 22:03, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Yeah it feels like a bit of a pickle.★Trekker (talk) 21:30, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Structural history of the Roman military for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. RetiredDuke (talk) 21:00, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Furius Camillus, consul in 8 AD

Are Marcus Furius Camillus (consul AD 8) and Marcus Furius Camillus (II) really two separate people? The articles do not overlap completely, but both are said to have defeated the Numidian rebel Tacfarinas and been awarded triumphal honors. It would require an unbelievable coincidence to believe they are distinct, unless I am missing something. Avilich (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

It could be that they are father and son or that some material intended for one (like the governorship of Africa) has been added to both, but to me they look like the same person. GPinkerton (talk) 20:40, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

They look the same to me. The last bit of the 2nd article shows the knots WP can tie itself up in: "Unlike his relatives Marcus Furius Camillus, consul in AD 8, Marcus Furius Camillus Scribonianus, consul in AD 32 and Furius Camillus Scribonianus who all had spectacular falls after plotting against the emperor, Camillus was deemed totally unambitious and of no danger to the emperor.

His moderation, and the simplicity of his manners, screened him from envy. He enjoyed his honors with impunity.

"

Johnbod (talk) 21:29, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The two latter persons are identical and the article of the consul doesn't mention him having been executed, so there's apparently only a single relative who suffered a 'spectacular fall'. More evidence that the two Marci are identical. Avilich (talk) 19:31, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

And the one at the end of the first link died of the plague some 400 years earlier. Johnbod (talk) 04:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I spent a little time digging into this matter, & it's a slight bit more complex than the explanation above. On one hand, these are two articles on the same person which were created independently about 2 years apart. On the other, there actually were 2 Marcii Furii Camilli active in the first century AD. One was the the consul of AD 8 & later proconsul of Africa; the other was his son. (I first stumbled upon the son in Syme's The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 259.) While Furius Camillus the consul & two of his children -- Livia Medullina Camilla & Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus -- are notable, the younger Furius Camillus arguably is not. He is only known for being a member of the Arval Brethren (succeeding his father in 38), & maybe as the addressee of one of the poems in the Palatine Anthology.

(Note: I'm only bringing this fact up because I expect a couple years down the road someone will learn of the son, & insist on creating a stub about him without taking the time to properly do the research, possibly duplicating content once again. And we will have to repeat this discussion once again, unless we have access to this information.) -- llywrch (talk) 08:03, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

So, the two articles should be merged. Presumably Marcus Furius Camillus (consul AD 8) ought to be the target? "(II)" doesn't seem terribly helpful as a disambiguator. Furius (talk) 17:09, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Done: I've inserted the content from (II) on (consul AD 8), though I must say that (II) was not very well written and a good cleanup and review of (consul 8) is now needed. Avilich (talk) 17:38, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

With that done, I now nominated the article for deletion here. Avilich (talk) 17:43, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Invitation to review new articles

I have recently completely rewritten a number of articles, two of which may be of interest to the members of this WikiProject: Hermetica and Microcosm-macrocosm analogy.

Granted, the scope of both articles extends far beyond Classical Greece and Rome, but then again, both subjects are rooted in Greco-Roman antiquity.

In any case, I would like to invite you all to review the new articles. Any input is welcome!

Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 17:49, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

You're a brave man to tackle Hermetica. I remember considering tackling this article a few years back -- having read Fowden's The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind & finding it not only reliable but insightful -- only to be intimidated by the edit war between the occultists & everyone else. There are some people over the age of 18 who seriously think Hermes Trimegestos was a real person with deep insights about reality... -- llywrch (talk) 09:28, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I too was hoping someone would appear to sift this stuff. I was intrigued at the suggestion somewhere much of the alchemical tradition emerged from Late Antique dilettante intellectuals' efforts to give an occult gloss to what might have been papyrus recipes for counterfeiting Tyrian purple from lichens. It's only gone downhill since ... GPinkerton (talk) 09:34, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

'Occultism', as that term is commonly understood (a hodgepodge of pseudo-philosophical and pseudo-scientific beliefs), is a phenomenon that only emerged in the nineteenth century (see especially Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 2012. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). It should not be confused with the insistence of alchemists starting with pseudo-Democritus on trying to discover the hidden ('occult') causes and natures of things. To understand what is meant with 'hidden causes', one only has to read Celsus's (fl. c. 175 CE) characerization of the Dogmatic school of medicine in the prooemium to his De medicina:

They, then, who profess a reasoned theory of medicine propound as requisites, first, a knowledge of hidden causes involving diseases, next, of evident causes, after these of natural actions also, and lastly of the internal parts. They term hidden, the causes concerning which inquiry is made into the principles composing our bodies, what makes for and what against health. For they believe it impossible for one who is ignorant of the origin of diseases to learn how to treat them suitably. They say that it does not admit of doubt that there is need for differences in treatment, if, as certain of the professors of philosophy have stated, some excess, or some deficiency, among the four elements, creates adverse health; [...] (tr. Spencer 1935)

Alchemy was born from applying the approach of the Dogmatic physicians (the Hippocratics, and later Galen and the Galenic tradition) to all natural substances rather than only to the human body. It was about the discovery of the hidden constitution of things, the theoretical knowledge of which would enable one to alter natural substances (often also framed as a 'healing', by means of a 'medicine' or elixir), or even to artificially create them anew. Just like practical medicine had been around for centuries before the days of Hippocrates, knowledge of how to manipulate chemical substances (cosmetics, glass-making, metallurgy, etc.) was already ancient by the time pseudo-Democritus came around. But we wouldn't say that the Hippocratics put an 'occult gloss' on older medical knowledge, would we? Just like premodern medicine, premodern chemistry was deeply mistaken in its theoretical framework. Yet both are historically important, because they represent the first attempts to systematically pursue theoretical knowledge (that is, ultimately, knowledge of occult things like bacteria, enzymes, neurons, or atoms, electrical charges, quantum spin, etc.) in the first place.

For those who want to know more, I highly recommend the following:

• Newman, William R. 2004. Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Newman, William R. 2006. Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 11:18, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I did not mean to suggest the modern occult; rather the cryptic, Pythagorean-style obscurantist elements. Perhaps small-g "gnostic" would better describe it. In any case, I was referring to the disconnect introduced at some point between those whose actually did practical experiments or knew how to make dyes, soaps, metals, glass, etc. and those who later wrote and interpreted these recipes as revealing higher truths or a systematic theoretical framework of how substances interacted and changed without actually getting their hands dirty. GPinkerton (talk) 18:17, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Alchemists were certainly cryptic and secretive, but neither obscurantist, nor 'gnostic' (whatever that means?). In spite of what modern occultists and Jungians may be claiming, there is no evidence at all that there ever was an alchemist before Jakob Böhme (1575–1624) who didn't get his or her hands dirty (on Böhme and spiritual alchemy, see Zuber, Mike A. 2017. Spiritual Alchemy from the Age of Jacob Boehme to Mary Anne Atwood, 1600-1900. PhD diss., Universiteit van Amsterdam). That they got their hands dirty was precisely one of the major reasons why chemists were (and still are) so looked down upon. Of course, that they engaged in practical laboratory work (and not a small amount of it!) does not mean that they couldn't have any elaborate (and often fanciful) theories, nor that they couldn't envisage their work as a quest for divine nature. I especially advise you to read the work of Lawrence M. Principe (The Secrets of Alchemy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), who holds PhDs in both chemistry and history of science, and who pioneered the use of laboratory replications as a tool for historical research. See also the work currently being done by Matteo Martelli's ERC team (Alchemeast, under 'Replications'). Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 00:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Apaugasma, thanks, but I have to disagree. Texts like Isis the Prophet to Her Son Horus are explicitly obscurantist; the arcana are to be kept secret by the reader (though apparently not the author ...). I cannot believe that Synesius's interest in alchemy was anything other than theoretical, even rhetorical (he also refers to deception practised by Egyptian sages to keep the esoteric truths hidden from the common herd), and I doubt whether Pelagius's investigations were anything other than literary. I cannot accept that Psellus ever got his hands dirty with anything but ink. Stephanus of Alexandria's work is delicately obscure and deploys, as earlier alchemists had done, gnostic rhetoric and imagery drawn from the Gnostic texts. Keyser says that in places he writes "as a Gnostic", and like Psellus his works seem to me to be thin on original material or observations. GPinkerton (talk) 14:00, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

You may be right that alchemists were obscurantist as defined in our article on the subject ("the practice of deliberately presenting information in an imprecise, abstruse manner designed to limit further inquiry and understanding"). This is precisely what the great majority of alchemists were doing. However, the term 'obscurantism' implies the identification of this practice with dilettantism and fraud, which as applied to alchemists is a seventeenth century cliché that current research is exposing as largely baseless, especially when viewed from a wider historical perspective (be sure to take a look at Principe 2013). You may also be right in viewing some of the later Byzantine authors' interest in alchemy as mainly rhetorical (this selective attitude on the part of Byzantine copyists is precisely the reason why what is left of Greek alchemy is so much less interesting than the extant Arabic texts), but you would be wrong to project this attitude on alchemy as a whole. As for the term 'gnostic', let's just say that nobody really knows what it means, and that its former use as a blanket label for anything not properly understood has become ever more rare in the last ten to twenty years. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 16:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

The reputation of alchemists for fraud goes back to at least Chaucer, if I recall. And yes, I'm referring to Greek alchemy (don't know anything about the Arabic side) and using occult, gnostic, obscurantist with their proper meanings, which are related and (historically) not (necessarily) negative. Anyway, many-fold thanks for your work on the subject, I look forward to learning more! GPinkerton (talk) 17:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Antony-Octavia custody battle?

The article on Octavia the Younger states

"She took his sons Antyllus and Iullus with her when she left Antony's house in 33. He had to sue her for custody and won back his sons, but not their daughters."

I've never heard of Antony suing Octavia to get back his children. Is this backed up by anything.★Trekker (talk) 16:50, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Although it was added on 5 June 2020 without sources or explanation, the information seems to have been derived from one of the preceding citations. Dio, one of the references, says nothing useful, but there's this passage in Plutarch's Life of Antony (§ 57. 2–3), as follows. "To Rome, however, he [Antony] sent men who had orders to eject Octavia from his house. And we are told that she left it taking all his children with her except his eldest son by Fulvia [Antyllus], who was with his father".

The context of this is Antony's divorce of Octavia in 33 BC. From the passage, it's clear he did not sue her for his sons: Antyllus was already living with him in Egypt, whereas Iullus appears to have simply joined the rest of his siblings with their stepmother after her expulsion from Antony's house. My guess is that the author of your passage simply transcribed the facts incorrectly after reading this excerpt. Avilich (talk) 01:17, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Naming conventions for women

I have come across some cases of women called "Caepia" being believed to be relatives of men named "Caepio", but this book claims that Romans would not feminize the cognomen this way. If not a feminized version of "Caepio" then where would these "Caepia" names likely come from?★Trekker (talk) 15:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

A third-declension name such as Caepio would probably not take the first-declension form Caepia in the feminine (but some surnames ending in -o were derived from words or cognomina ending in -us, so I can't absolutely rule it out). I would expect a derivative, such as Caepionia or a diminutive, such as Caepilla, neither of which is known from epigraphy. There seems to have been a gens Caepia, as an inscription from Portus mentions a Caepius Corinthus, and from Puteoli we have Tiberius Caepius Ponticus and Caepius Proculus. Caepia would be the feminine form of this nomen, and it appears in the case of Caepia Onesime and Caepia Glypte—both probably freedwomen. There also seems to have been a gens Caeparia (a couple of instances of Caepasius are probably from the same family). So an error for one of those seems possible in an incomplete inscription. I also see a surname Caepianus in a couple of inscriptions—Caepiana would be the feminine—and one Gaius Caepianius, in which we seem to have another gentilicium—Caepiania would be the feminine. But I see no epigraphic evidence of Caepia in connection with the Servilii Caepiones; perhaps a feminine form of the cognomen appears in a literary source, but since it's a third-declension name, I would expect something like I mentioned at top. P Aculeius (talk) 17:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@P Aculeius: Very interesting, I was not aware that cognomina like Caepio, Cato or Nero could be transformed into a feminine form with nia.★Trekker (talk) 18:15, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

That's not quite the process—third declension nouns ending in -o take stems ending in -on, which can then be used to form names of the first or second declension. For instance, the gentile name Caesonius (fem. Caesonia) is formed from the praenomen Caeso. There were evidently feminine forms of this praenomen, but the handful of examples attested are mostly formed as diminutives, such as Caesula or Caesilla (there may be an example of Caesia, but I need to consult my source, and I think it's not certain whether it's a praenomen). Other names that didn't fit the typical paradigm of first-declension feminine, second-declension masculine followed the same pattern: Agrippa, masculine, seems to be attested primarily as the derivative (or diminutive) Agrippina in the feminine (masculine Agrippinus is also found). So while I can't completely rule out Caepia as a feminine form of Caepio, rather than of Caepius, it's not a form we would expect to find. I couldn't view the first external source given above, and could see only a snippet view of the second. I'd be curious to know the basis upon which the first assumed that it was feminine for Caepio, and see the full explanation for why the second rejects that. P Aculeius (talk) 18:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The solution for this appears to be provided by source no. 2 itself, a 1988 Finnish journal article by Mika Kajava, which is available for free. Some historians have assumed that Caepia Procula (mentioned in source no. 1, the 1992 biography of Domitian) was a daughter or sister of (...) Proculus Ti. Caepio Hispo, based on apparently nothing more than similarity of names. Perhaps as a corollary, a (Caepia) Crispina (mentioned in source no. 2) was assumed by some to have the nomen 'Caepia' because she was the daughter of Aulus Caepio Crispinus (note that Caepio is a gentilicium, not cognomen). Kajava says the transition Caepio -> Caepia is basically an onomastic absurdity and that the conclusions taken from similarity of these names must be discarded.

More specifically, Kajava argues that Crispina's nomen must be 'Caepionia' rather than 'Caepia', and that Proculus/Procula are not uncommon names to begin with, and therefore a relationship between Caepia Procula and Proculus Ti. Caepio cannot be established. The first source was published only 4 years after Kajava's article, and so perhaps its author was not up to date with that particularly recent scholarly development. Avilich (talk) 20:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Take a look at CIL X, 1784, from Puteoli: "...in templo divi Pii scribundo adfuerunt Caep(ius?) Proculus Cossutius Rufinus / Cl(audius) Priscus Calp(urnius) Pistus quod postulante Annio Proculo..." Not sure if it's just "Caepius Proculus" or "Caepius Proculus Cossutius Rufinus". We could have four persons named before Annius Proculus, or just two—probably the latter. But clearly this is masculine, and as we also have this from Puteoli, CIL X, 2191: "...Ti(beri) Caepi Pon/tici Caepia Onesime / uxor coniugi..." it's pretty clear that "Caepius" is the right reading, not "Caepio". Now if the only connection between Caepia Procula and Galeo Tettienus Severus is the names "Caepio" and "Proculus", then I think we can probably reject the proposed connection as highly improbable, as we know that there was a gens Caepia at Puteoli and elsewhere in Latium, including Rome and Portus, and we even know of a Caepius Proculus. The simpler solution is that she was a member of the Caepia gens (or, as Kajava suggests, a Caepionia gens), not a daughter of Tettienus. P Aculeius (talk) 21:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Procula was definitely a member of a Caepia gens. It's the other one, Crispina, confirmed daughter of Aulus Caepio, who was presumably named 'Caepionia'. I would note that, in Galeo's confusing name, the forms Proculus and Caepio do not feature in the same tria nomina (M. Eppuleius Proculus & Ti. Caepio Hispo), indicating that there were no Caepiones Proculi, only the Caepii Proculi whose existence is proven both by Caepia Procula's name and the inscriptions you provided. Avilich (talk) 21:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The C-S Databank shows no entries under Caepionius or Caepionia, except for Caepionianus. Searching just for Caepio without Caepionian- should reveal any Caepionii under any form—or Caepiones, if "Caepio" is taken to be a nomen—if they are to be found in known Latin epigraphy. Thirty-eight inscriptions are found; these are the ones in which it could possibly be a gentile name:

• M(arci) Caepioni T(iti) f(ilii) [N]ovelli SPFOFAT
• ...[3 S]ergius C(ai) f(ilius) Vel(ina) / quom Q(uinto) Caepione / proelio est occisus...
• Dis Manibus / Onesimi Caepionis / Hisponis disp(ensatoris) / Ti(berius) Caepio Hieronymus / et sibi et suis
• Di{i}s Manibus / Primitivo fecit / Ti(berius) Caepio Alexander / cum Tyche coniug(e)...
• D(is) M(anibus) / Ti(berius) Caepio Soterichus / sibi et Decimiae Victorina[e] / coniugi karissimae...
• ex testamento [3] / M(arcus) Caepio M(arci) f(ilius) L(ucius) Ca[epio(?)

I note that Onesimus, the dispensator of Caepio Hispo, matches a collocation of names belonging to Galeo Tettienus Severus, and so probably refers to him or a relative of his. If Caepio is not a gentile name in his nomenclature, then presumably it is not the gentile name of Tiberius Caepio Hieronymus, who dedicated a tomb for Onesimus. However, from what I know of polyonymy in Imperial times, the collocation "Tiberius Caepio Hispo" has the look of a tria nomina, and I begin to suspect that Caepio may in fact have been a gentilicium with an unorthodox form, presumably from the same root as the surname, and probably the gens Caepia as well. That said, some of the foregoing inscriptions may simply have omitted a nomen and used a distinctive surname as though it were a gentile name, just as if they were saying "Gaius Gracchus", "Quintus Metellus", or "Lucius Caesar". The nomen was there, but not written because it wasn't deemed necessary to identify the person in question—the cognomen was more distinctive than the gentilicium. P Aculeius (talk) 22:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the practice of omitting the gentilicium in favor of a recognizable cognomen was mostly one of the illustrious families only, like L. Piso and Q. Metellus, as well as (for whom there is abundant epigraphic evidence) Tiberius Caesar and Germanicus Caesar. Unless every single one of your and Kajava's examples follow this practice, the form 'Caepio' must have indeed been used as a gentilicium. Marcus Pedo Vergilianus comes to mind, reinforcing the idea that some nomina, however unusual, could indeed end in -o. Avilich (talk) 23:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

That poor guy's name did not age well.★Trekker (talk) 23:48, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I have my doubts as to Pedo being a gentilicium, absent a clear explanation from an expert on Roman onomastics. Bear in mind that he's a figure of the second century, by which time names were frequently abbreviated. But Caepio is chiefly known from an important family of the Servilia gens, one of the oldest and greatest of Rome's patrician houses. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Caepio alone were deemed sufficient to tell anyone that its bearer was a Servilius. Even so, the nomenclature of the individuals given above does seem odd, and I'm not comfortable dismissing the idea that Caepio could be a gentilicium. You'd think there would be more clear-cut examples of similar names, but if they exist, I don't know what they are. P Aculeius (talk) 00:10, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

As a postscript to the above, I discussed Pedo with @Llywrch last year for the same reason, but don't know what the result of his research was. I just looked for inscriptions of this man, and four of them call him "Marcus Vergilianus Pedo", compared with one that gives "Marcus Pedo Vergilianus". That's also how he's listed in the DGRBM and (I think, although I couldn't locate the entry) PW, which seems to think he's a Popilius. Vergilianus is unlikely to be a gentilicium, but it's not impossible as an elaboration of Vergilius. Pedo is harder to explain as anything but a cognomen. But I'll defer to Llywrch on the correct nomenclature of this consular. P Aculeius (talk) 00:22, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

To me Vergilianus looks like an adoptive agnomen similar to Octavianus or Claudianus or an indication of his mothers name like with Cato Licinianus or Cato Salonianus.★Trekker (talk) 00:54, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

That's what it would presumably be under the Republic, but in imperial times adoptive and polyonymous nomenclature (Salomies wrote a couple of papers with that title) regularly deviated from republican norms. So we can't determine anything about Vergilianus from its form alone—we would be on safer ground if we knew the names of other members of his family. Of course it's not clear precisely who that would be—I'd read his entry in PW if I could find it. I think it's supposed to be under "Popilius", but I didn't see it there. P Aculeius (talk) 01:15, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

With a more careful review, I found Vergilianus Pedo in PW Supplement 15, article by Werner Eck, which concludes that he should have the same nomen as the consul of AD 191, Popilius Pedo Apronianus, based on a reading of Dessau, with the original inscription reading "[P]opilio Pedone" (dative), as well as on the example of Gaius Popilius Carus Pedo, the consul of 147, and Marcus Popilius Pedo, the Salius Palatinus. If Llywrch agrees, we might modify the relevant articles. Of course the reason this matters is that it would mean that Pedo is definitely not a gentilicium—in which case the probability of Caepio being a gentilicium, instead of the root upon which other nomina are based, decreases. Of course we could also be dealing with errors—an engraver erroneously writing Caepio instead of Caepius or Caepionius, or just abbreviating Caepionius. P Aculeius (talk) 02:44, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Ennodius

Hi, I have a rather simple question, or so I hope: at Felix Ennodius#Descendants, there's a link to the disambiguation page Ennodius (at the third bullet point). Who is meant here - is it one of the persons listed at Ennodius, or someone else? I haven't been able to figure it out. Lennart97 (talk) 11:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

This seems to be poorly written: surely if she's being described as parens of Ennodius, and mother of "..., a clergyman", but is followed by only one bullet, then the Ennodius mentioned should be the same person as the clergyman, who for some unexplained reason is not being called Ennodius. So are they the same person or not? The author of this article seems to have been unsure of Wikipedia conventions, as there is considerable overlinking and use of technical jargon—not including a great deal that was previously cleaned up. The author is a long-banned user whose chief interest seems to have been descent from antiquity, and who relies largely on Christian Settipani, the only source cited in the article. Settipani's work is dense and not widely available to English-speaking readers, and peer review is sparse, due to the complexity of his evidence and arguments—but for the time being it's presumptively verifiable—there is no scholarly review refuting his methodology or conclusions as a general matter, although obviously some of the work is speculative (and so described, so it's not apparently created with the intention to deceive), and no doubt there are guesses or conclusions that are open to dispute or may have been disproven (but that would also be true if we were speaking of Ronald Syme or Werner Eck). Felix Ennodius seems to be notable, and a list of his descendants is potentially useful—but it looks as if some of the details may have been garbled between the source and the article, since the identity of the Ennodius you're asking about and the clergyman on the line below is ambiguous. Surely the source is clear about whether they're meant to refer to the same person. But without knowing what is in the source, I'm not sure I know how to resolve your question. P Aculeius (talk) 12:22, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I've tried to clean up what I can, but there is still some lingering ambiguity in the article. Perhaps one of our other experts can help! P Aculeius (talk) 12:48, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Additional issue: Felix Ennodius says that one of his grandsons was Magnus Felix Ennodius, whose own page says (with citation) that Magnus was not Felix's grandson. Furius (talk) 13:31, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

The Ennodius you refer to is Ennoius (name spelled both w/ and w/o 'd'), who was apparently moved from 'Ennodius' so the latter target could be turned into a disamb pag. I nominated him for deletion a few months ago because nothing aside from his office is known, but a consensus was not reached. Avilich (talk) 14:46, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that's the person he means. He said the third bullet point, which is for a descendant of the article's subject, not an ancestor. At least, that's how the article was written—it might have gotten different people confused in this instance. P Aculeius (talk) 15:03, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Oops, you're right. The person in question must be the bishop Magnus Felix Ennodius himself. The PLRE II describes him as the relative (parens) of the mentioned Camilla, who sent to him her son for religious training (presumably this is the "clergyman at Arelate" the article mentions). The relevant excerpt is just very confusing (there is even a 'clarification needed' tag), as is the article in its entirety. Avilich (talk) 15:14, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Turns out it wasn't such a simple question after all! Many thanks to all who have replied so far and good luck with figuring this mess out :) Lennart97 (talk) 17:48, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Ugh. Felix Ennodius is the creation of that infamous banned editor who is responsible for so many articles on fictional personages. Based on that, first thought would be that this is another one of his fictions, & fodder for AfD. (He's not mentioned in the list at List of Roman governors of Africa, which raises suspicion.) However, there is a reliable source that not only confirms his existence, but provides some information on this proconsul: Martin Heinzelmann, "Gallische Prosopographie", Frankia, 11 (1982), pp. 531-718 at p. 596; he cites PLRE II, p. 393. And Heinzelmann fails to confirm most of the names in the family tree of the proconsul -- although he notes the proconsul is the ancestor ("Vorfahr") of the bishop. -- llywrch (talk) 08:52, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Most of his creations seem to be of real people, so I don't think he was acting in bad faith, but he was too much concerned with genealogy and too little with notability and RSS. This led to many of his articles having bogus names or weird compositions, and at least one seemed to have been multiple people condensed into one. Also, on a sidenote, thanks for providing a free copy of Gallische Prosopographie, I didn't know that existed. Avilich (talk) 13:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Translations of articles

I'm very interested in this article that I've found, but it is in French, does anyone know if there is some place where a translation could be found?★Trekker (talk) 16:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

What I've done with articles in a foreign language is to use either Google or Bing translator (& more recently DeepL), copying the articles paragraph by paragraph into the translation interface, then pasting the English translation into a text file on my computer. (It's far easier to cut-&-paste from a pdf file than it used to be.) This is not the most elegant solution -- & admittedly the translation will have garbled passages or nonsensical word choices -- but using common sense to revise passages here & there gets me as much as 90% of what the article contains. Enough for use on Wikipedia. -- llywrch (talk) 09:19, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Xyston article

I'm no expert and I don't have the required sources to hand, but to the untrained eye the xyston article looks like it's had a rather rambling off-topic essay on all manner of other topics inserted into the middle of it, conflating that weapon with the sarissa, contradicting the existing material in a poorly integrated way, and opining rather freely. I'm not sure if one of the sources added (a rather clickbaity '10 Things You Should Know' page on www.realmofhistory.com) is especially usable. Is any of this of any value, or would it be better to simply revert to the version of a couple of months ago? 109.255.211.6 (talk) 03:07, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I've done some basic amputation of totally extraneous material, but you are absolutely right that large portions of it are talking about the sarissa, not the xyston, so more work is needed Furius (talk) 12:49, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Chalkydri

Chalkydri (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) sounds interesting, but the sources are not ideal. Does anyone have anything about these mythical creatures? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GPinkerton (talk • contribs) 21:35, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I've added information and a citation. It's less than ideal, but the scholarship looks sound, and formally links chalkydri and the two articles which were see-alsos but are now in main text.. Narky Blert (talk) 09:17, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

The page title doesn't seem to follow normal transliteration rules. Unless "Chalkydri" really is the overwhelmingly most common term in scholarship, it should be Chalcydrae in the Latinate transliteration that we usually use on wiki, or Chalkydrai on the Greek transliteration. Furius (talk) 10:22, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I thought of that, but haven't been able to find any other spelling, either capitalized or not, in Google's ngram viewer, which shows only "chalkydri" (both capitalized and not) from 1906 onward—are there really no references to them in older literature, or am I overlooking something? P Aculeius (talk) 14:54, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I had googled for χαλκύδραι. Now looking at all the results, the only English-language spelling I find is "chalkydri" (often with a transliteration as khalkýdrai - with that diacritic, which raises my suspicions about independence). FWIW, I also found "chalkedri" in an English-language Dutch blog, and "chalkydri" in an Italian-language source (note 560), another one which I would just about feel able to cite. Enochian scholarship tends to attract - shall I say - specialists. Narky Blert (talk) 17:34, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

A link to a DAB page

Which Antiochus wrote about Pelops? Narky Blert (talk) 15:01, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

The link was added by Markx121993. Maybe they know? Lennart97 (talk) 09:28, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

'Antiochus' is probably an incorrect expansion of the abbreviation 'Ant.' or 'S. Ant.', which stands for Sophocles's Antigone. Avilich (talk) 16:49, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Good pickup. Sophocles, Antigone, 824-5: "... the Phrygian stranger, Tantalus’ daughter, ...". Paul August ☎ 18:23, 22 February 2021 (UTC) P.S. I'm afraid the editor in question, is prolific, has a tendency to edit beyond their competence, and copies lots of genealogical info (like this) from one article to another, without verifying that the cited sources are correct. Paul August ☎ 18:30, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

That genealogical source table is quite a mouthful. Surely a simple citation to wherever he took that table from (he must have taken it from somewhere) is bettter than having that massive thing taking up the whole screen. Avilich (talk) 19:05, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Good catch, thanks! 824-5 had puzzled me; it's not the sort of numbering you expect in fragments. I've made the change.

FYI, a recent trawl (8 February 2021) through the links-in to Antigone turned up 61 bad bluelinks; many but not all meant for the Sophocles (there was inter alia a suburb and a castle, and plays in four other languages). A trawl though Antigona found 10 more examples of the Sophocles, 7 bivalves, and resulted in a successful WP:RM.

Medea had collected 133 bad links, some wildly wrong (e.g. 13 cities, and Media (region), twice misspelt). Narky Blert (talk) 22:47, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not thrilled about the table. While it probably is useful to make clear the variety of different mythological versions that exist, there are several problems with it. (1) The inclusion of Graves as if he were an ancient source! (2) The vague or unclear references: I think I'm pretty familiar with the abbreviations, but I've no idea who "Acus." is off the top of my head; "Plu." is obviously be Plutarch, but that's a huge corpus and without a specific reference, we just have to take the article's word for it that he says somewhere that Copreus was Pelops' son. (3) The table is totally unsourced. (4) As Avilich says, it takes up a lot of space. It certainly isn't what the reader should be confronting at the beginning of the article... and given the large areas of empty space in it, I'm not convinced it is the most efficient way of conveying the genealogical information. Furius (talk) 00:16, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I have to agree with Furius. There is possibly some good information in that table, but that is not the most useful way to present it. I'd lean towards having, say, a paragraph discussing each individual, then add a sentence in parentheses, "Mentioned by...". A bit of common sense suggests one will either look to see which character each source mentions, or which source mentions each character. -- llywrch (talk) 00:33, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with most of the above comments. @Furius: "Acus." is almost certainly the mythographer Acusilaus. Paul August ☎ 00:42, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

WikiProject Bluelink patrol

Wikipedia:WikiProject Bluelink patrol (WP:BPAT) is a relatively new WikiProject dedicated to improving or fixing bad bluelinks, especially links to WP:PRIMARYTOPICs. I mentioned in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Archive 35#A link to a DAB page, above, that I had recently cleaned up a couple of hundred links to Antigone and Medea. I have also cleaned up the links to Andromache, Electra and Hecuba. A colleague keeps an eye on Julius Caesar. I've put Iphigenia and Pluto on my to-do list; but Odysseus may be hard work, and Oedipus and Troy are in the too-difficult pile - searches designed to pick up rogue links also pick up huge numbers of false positives and insoluble problems (so, in modern times someone has played Oedipus? without more detail, it's a WP:Original research guess that it's Rex).

In late Classical times, I'm cogitating a WP:RM on Constantine - an implausible target for anything Algerian.

Now to the point. If anyone here can think of any other Classical PTOPICs which may have accumulated bad links - post them at WP:BPAT#New investigation suggestions, and I will add them to my to-do list. Thanks, Narky Blert (talk) 20:44, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I've had a go at Troy and am monitoring new links to the article. However, a second pair of eyes would be welcome. Certes (talk) 22:28, 23 February 2021 (UTC)