Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Archive 43

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Archive 40 Archive 41 Archive 42 Archive 43

Move Philippics-related articles

There is an article on the Philippics generally (article is singular) and one on Cicero's at Philippicae. I can't say I've ever heard of them as singular objects since they are always referred to together (or otherwise with the designations "First" etc). It also does feel as if we could merge First Philippic, Second Philippic, Third Philippic, and Fourth Philippic into a Philippics (Demosthenes) article while moving Philippicae to Philippics (Cicero) to match. Thought I might float the idea for comment. I've done nothing substantial on the matter so far. Ifly6 (talk) 02:34, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Glancing at it, I think that the article is on the literary form established by Demosthenes and Cicero, but emulated by later writers. In this case, the singular title makes more sense than a plural one would. The article looks like it could use some expansion. If I recall, Cicero's article is at "Philippicae" in order to distinguish them from their model, and the title "Philippics" was already taken. However, as the plain title is about the general concept, it might make sense to use "Philippics (Demosthenes)" for a merged article, provided it doesn't become unwieldy in size. I understand the desire to make the Cicero article consistent, but as I've said many times, consistency should usually be secondary to convenience. I think the Cicero article can stay where it is, both because it's stable there, and because the Latin title gives it natural disambiguation, although "Philippics (Cicero)" isn't a bad alternative. P Aculeius (talk) 04:01, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
That all sounds good to me. Johnbod (talk) 04:06, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Merging the Demosthenic Philippics articles makes sense to me. Other Demonsthenic speeches are already treated this way: we have a single article for the Olynthiacs (and, of the judicial speeches, those Against Aristogeiton and Against Stephanos). Merging all of the content currently in the four speeches on the Philippics gives us a total of 1,500 words, which is still a reasonably short article, so there are no length concerns. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:53, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Personally, I wouldn't merge these articles. Demosthenes pronounced the 4 Philippics over 10 years, while Cicero made his speeches in quick succession (same with the Olynthiacs), and the 4th Philippic is disputed. Therefore the 4 Philippics are often treated separately in the literature. Philippics (Demosthenes) could be used as disamb though. T8612 (talk) 09:03, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Dispute at Herculaneum papyri

I would like to ask for additional input in a conflict at the article on the Herculaneum papyri. See Talk:Herculaneum papyri#Possible selfciting by Vito Mocella (or just see the last section at Talk:Herculaneum papyri, since the heading of the discussion is also involved in the dispute). —St.Nerol (talk, contribs) 09:23, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

It is simply on the origin of the phase-contrast technique applied to the Herculaneum papyri. With factual data, a simple truth has been restored: the primogeniture of the use of the experimental phase contrast technique to Herculaneum is clearly that of a 2015 article in which Vito Mocella is first author (https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6895). This is a fact attested by a publication in a leading scientific journal and widely reported in the media (see for instance https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6895/metrics or https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/the-invisible-library). In fact, some of Vito Mocella's statements made in 2015, when there was the wide media echo, were taken up and included in Uroll's section of same wikipedia page longtime ago. For example, the page in Italian "Papiri di Ercolano", made by someone else supposedly a long time ago, clearly shows the correct primogeniture in the use of the technique. User St.Nerol , on the other hand, claims to quote a generic phrase such as "several group proposed and used phase contrast technique ... " in a chronologically random order and without any factual corroboration.This is not about a conflict of interest, but about restoring a clear and unambiguous truth. Does St.Nerol have any factual argument to quote, other than an interview by Seals which is clearly not factual but simply the Seals opinion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by VitoMocella68 (talk • contribs) 09:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Mass changes of birth and death dates

@Edgenut: Your recent edits have included unsourced changes to the birth and death dates of various figures, including M Antonius Creticus (which also improperly uses |death_date= instead of leaving it blank given the range is fl.), Pontius Aquila, C Verres, Fulvia, Marcia, M Octavius, L Vibullius Rufus. These additions are not consistent with WP:V and should not be continued. Making up birth and death dates to fill in to infobox parameters is not consistent with Wikipedia policies. If you otherwise have a reliable source which gives the dates you are adding, it must be cited. Ifly6 (talk) 23:32, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Nor is there any need to add infoboxes with fictitious or imputed locations of death as in Q Salvius Salvidienus Rufus. There are a number of articles which have had barebones infoboxes added with no citations or body text support for claims made therein. Ifly6 (talk) 03:56, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
I reverted a couple of them earlier this week as "disinformation boxes", i.e. infoboxes that at best regurgitate basic information from the lead sentence, paragraph, or a very short article, as if promising something more helpful than they in fact are. I also left a note on the editor's talk page, but I don't know whether it had any effect, since I only reverted these on pages that were already on my watchlist, which most Roman biographical articles aren't. P Aculeius (talk) 04:59, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
Also an example of the kind of edit I'm talking about. Edgenut (= E) put birth and death years for Hortensia (daughter of Quintus Hortensius). But instead of picking a reasonable period of time like fl. c. 42 BC, E decided to say that Hortensia – who again is Quintus Hortensius' daughter – was born in 114 BC and died in 40. 114 is the same year that the pre-edit article says Quintus Hortensius was born. E's editing strategy here is obviously to take the first numbers that even at all look like a range and put them into the infobox. A moment's thought would have shown the implausibility of QH popping out of his mother's womb early in 114 BC to immediately impregnate someone else to have a daughter within the year! No source is given for either year. The body of the article is of no help. 40 BC seems to be drawn out of a hat, though perhaps is reasonable if E thinks Hortensia was somehow 72 years old when she gave her speech. Ifly6 (talk) 05:44, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
Another example of an obviously erroneous, imputed, and unsourced birth year. E would have us believe that Gaius Claudius Glaber held the praetorship at the age of 22. This is obviously erroneous due to the Lex Villia annalis. This is, frankly, characteristic of E's methods in these cases: a birth year is simply concocted without any regard for known Roman institutions or, as above, logic. Ifly6 (talk) 20:09, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
@Edgenut: Please stop insisting on your concocted fictitious death years, as on Hortensia. Just because someone fell out of the historical record does not mean you can say they died two years later. I haven't heard or seen any recent news about Allison Mack; that doesn't mean I can now edit her article to say she's dead. You must provide a source for such claims. WP:V. Ifly6 (talk) 00:16, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
I'm very thankful that you guys decided to deal with this, it was becoming a very annoying problem.★Trekker (talk) 20:43, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
I was only aware of ten or so Roman articles. But digging into the edit history, the number of articles vandalised with fictitious insertions is worse than the worst MSS. If you look at my contribution list right now it's just rm fictitious birth and death years over and over and over and over again. Ifly6 (talk) 20:46, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Just counting now, I've counted at least 165 articles where these fictitious birth and death years were added or something similar. Ifly6 (talk) 21:28, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Jesus Christ.★Trekker (talk) 23:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
See Ifly6 (talk · contribs). I'm pretty sure it's over c. 240 now. Ifly6 (talk) 23:30, 27 February 2024 (UTC) Rough count as of signature of 365–75 different articles. Ifly6 (talk) 00:36, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
I have reverted edits I think that should be reverted (unsourced additions to infobox especially fictitious birth, death, and service years); an infobox with like two elements on a stub article). There are at least 300+ edits in the stack. The remaining edits are those before 22:10 7 January 2024, if anyone wants to waste time reviewing them. Before around 10 January or so, E seems not to have realised he could make up birth and death years. However, there may be a substantial number of very misleading "years of service" where a citizen soldier is now asserted to have (like a coward or something) evaded serving his polis except when Herodotus or something mentioned it. Ifly6 (talk) 00:32, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Greco-Persian Wars#Requested move 28 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Greco-Persian Wars#Requested move 28 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 09:10, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Lusitania#Requested move 29 February 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Lusitania#Requested move 29 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 18:41, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Discussion and move proposal at Talk:Styx

There is a discussion at Talk:Styx about (among other things) where the terms "River Styx", "Styx River", ought to redirect, as well as a proposal to rename Styx to "River Styx" and Styx (band) to "Styx". Please comment there. Paul August ☎ 22:20, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Questionable Article: Battle of Alba Longa

An editor recently created this, and has started adding links to it in other articles. However, it seems to be largely a rehash of the article about Alba Longa itself (from which a large portion apparently was copied, initially without attribution). It's ostensibly about an event that Livy mentions in a few sentences with very few details during the myth of Romulus and Remus; I haven't checked in Dionysius, but I doubt it's much more substantial there. I don't think any sources describe it as a "battle", much less "the Battle of Alba Longa"; in Livy it's an ambush of the king by some shepherds. And the article is about everything there is to know about the city and Romulus and Remus, complete with precise dates plucked from nowhere. Possibly I'm making a molehill out of a mountain here, but I'd like another pair of eyes on it at least... P Aculeius (talk) 15:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, it's just a WP:CFORK and, until someone noted an attribution, it also was WP:COPYVIO (from the rights-holder me). I think that article should be deleted or turned into a redirect. There is precedent for this in the same way Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Octavian's march on Rome was reduced into War of Mutina. Ifly6 (talk) 15:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
The editor in question who has been adding this also has, frankly, a very shoddy sourcing process. See eg Talk:Battle of Tauris. Or just look at his talk page for recurrent copyright problems: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It appears little has been learnt since then, which may raise WP:COMPETENCE questions. Ifly6 (talk) 15:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Of just over 2400 words in the article, only 350 of them are about the actual battle, all of which are cited solely to ancient Roman sources. I'm not seeing the compelling need to have an article about this incident, rather than merging any useful original text into Alba Longa and/or Founding of Rome, which seem to be the main sources for the current content anyway. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:30, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion it's worse than that too. The article just takes the ancient sources at their word on an event which almost certainly didn't happen. Livy and Dion Hal are not reliable sources for this period, except as to what Livy and Dion Hal say; everything here needs to be filtered first through modern scholarship. Ifly6 (talk) 17:01, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
We have lots of articles about mythical occurrences. And the sources aren't the problem, IMO—they're easy to supplement with modern scholarship. The issue is that there isn't much to say about the event—in Livy it's a very brief description, not a colossal battle with various forces and distinct individuals engaging in combat—compare this with the battle between Romulus and Titus Tatius, or the Battle of Silva Arsia, or the Battle of Lake Regillus. It should be covered under Romulus and Remus—only a brief mention there, but that's not much less than Livy reports—and again in Romulus—and as Caecilius mentioned, there are other possible places. I don't see the need for a stand-alone article, much less one that only mentions the subject of the article briefly! P Aculeius (talk) 17:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
There are multiple levels here. First, it's a copyright violation. Even if it weren't, it's a content fork. Even if it weren't a fork, there's almost nothing to talk about. Even if there were something to talk about, what there is to say cannot be substantiated with reliable sources. On this last one, the problem isn't that the article discusses fictitious events; it is that the article is unduly presenting fictitious events as if they were real. (I know we differ as to how Wikivoice should treat these fake non-existent mythological characters; I don't think we differ as to this article's fate.) Ifly6 (talk) 17:23, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I think you should raise an AFD on it. Ifly6 (talk) 01:34, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

AFD re Battle of Alba Longa

I have started an AFD re TableSalt43's Romulean battles:

The discussion above on this page has been there linked. Ifly6 (talk) 21:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Apparently there is also a separate discussion at ANI. Ifly6 (talk) 07:33, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Clean up of other minor battle articles from TableSalt43

There are other articles on obscure or minor battles with minimal descriptions:

These all suffer from similarly shoddy sourcing, exceptionally long introductions etc for a battle with a description no more than a paragraph in ancient sources, and I think should all be stubified. I recently moved them all to draft but was, on consideration of the explanation, rightfully reverted. I seek a consensus that stubification should be done. Ifly6 (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

RFC proposing the MOS recommend infoboxes for articles on events, people, settlements, etc

Editors here may be interested in the RFC discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes. The proposed MOS text begins The use of infoboxes is recommended for articles on specific biological classifications, chemical elements and compounds, events, people, settlements, and similar topics with a narrow and well-defined scope. NebY (talk) 17:32, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afrikaans exonyms

This is an AfD on several dozen similar lists, including Latin exonyms, a list of the Roman names of various places that existed in Roman times and today. Looking over the Latin list, it seems to have a decent rationale for existing, although I cannot say the same about the Greek list, which seems to consist mostly of modern places that did not exist as part of the Hellenistic world, or even in Roman times, and so is a list of Modern Greek names, not Ancient Greek names of places that have since been renamed or transformed in modern languages. I don't have the knowledge to give an opinion about any of the other lists, but I think the Latin list should be kept. Members of this project might want to give their opinions, pro or con, regarding whether to keep the Latin list. P Aculeius (talk) 14:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Duplicate artcile: Porta Caelimontana and Porta Querquetulana

Three articles partially deal with the same subject: Porta Caelimontana, Porta Caelimontana and Porta Querquetulana, and Porta Querquetulana. I don't know what to do with the second one. T8612 (talk) 07:34, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Not sure I understand the rationale for the existence of the joint article. Looks like I created both Porta Caelimontana (2010), which someone has now confidently illustrated with the Arch of Dolabella though that identification is not certain, and Porta Querquetulana (2013). I don't see a huge amount of actual information in the joint article that could be extracted and digested encyclopedically; it's more a loose review of the history of the scholarship. I admit, though, that I don't love articles that read like a research paper or the dreaded first chapter of a dissertation. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:04, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
After a brief perusal of the three (and some small tweaks), my first thought is to merge the contents of the joint article into the two separate ones. There should be some overlap. Overly technical details about the scholarship could be turned into electronic footnotes (I use {{efn-lr|text}} and {{notelist-lr}} to avoid confusion with references, with which I don't usually include explanatory notes, but any format should work). Some of the language could probably be simplified. As the joint article has very few contributors, has gone largely untouched since its creation, and its primary author doesn't appear to be active on Wikipedia anymore, I suggest being bold rather than proposing a merge first; merge discussions on short articles in CGR don't seem to attract much participation. P Aculeius (talk) 13:29, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Help with a Stand Alone List Going Live on Thursday

Can you review a Stand Alone List for me that is being developed as a WikiEdu class project? It's on archaeologically attested women from antiquity (none of whom have a presence on Wikipedia, although presumably that could change). I've done several drafts of the intro following the guidance of a Wiki editor and WikiEdu staff. One ancient woman has been added to the list as an example, the other women will be added to the holding places by the students on Thursday during a group editing/posting session.

Can you give it a look and give feedback? I'm particularly hoping to avoid the entire list being rejected immediately and all the students' efforts being for naught.

List of Archaeologically Attested Women from the Mediterranean Region

--EtruscanMayhem (talk) 14:58, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm, well, I can see a few issues that might come up in review. I won't be involved in the decision to accept or reject it, it that helps. I'm also curious as to who the students are—not individually, but at what educational level? I would hold college students to a higher standard than high school or junior high school students. But that's beside the point, I suppose, because in order to get the article accepted, there are things that have to be addressed, no matter what grade level the students who produced it. Issues that I see:
  1. Are being "archaeologically attested" and from the Mediterranean region a valid intersection of categories? The Mediterranean is a pretty vast area, and it's not clear why the three ethnic/cultural groupings belong together: Assyrian, Greek, and Roman. It would be easier to see the intersection between Greek and Roman women, but including them in the same category with Assyrian women seems like a stretch. If Assyrian women are included, what about Babylonians, Hittites, Canaanites, Hebrews, Philistines, Phoenicians, Egyptians, etc.? Is there a reason for including Assyrians specifically?
  2. If "archaeologically attested" includes women known from epigraphy, then there are thousands of Roman women known exclusively from inscriptions—though a few of them may or may not count as being "from the Mediterranean region"; are all Roman women included because Rome is a Mediterranean culture? If Assyrian women count, then maybe all Romans should too—and probably a lot of Greek women as well. I don't know how much epigraphy relating to otherwise un-notable individuals there is from Assyria. But for the Greek and Roman categories, there are presumably more women who are "archaeologically attested" than could comfortably fit in one article, much less a combined list of all Greek and Roman women known from archaeological sources. It's true that the list currently has just a few entries, but lists on Wikipedia should anticipate the possibility of being expanded based on the scope of their contents, and it would be problematic if we had a short list of persons that suggested that it's all, or even most of the persons in the category who are known to scholarship.
  3. Only one of the entries so far has any biographical information or sources. Without anything further, all we know is that "there was a Greek/Roman/Assyrian woman by this name", and even that doesn't meet Wikipedia's standards for verifiability without any kind of source. Facts asserted on Wikipedia should always be cited to a reliable source. Many aren't, and get deleted for this reason. Without sources, all but one of the entries is liable to be deleted by any editor who comes along and doesn't feel like looking for a source. More helpful editors might look for sources instead of deleting them, but of course that might be something your class should have the chance to do first. Fortunately, it's not necessary for each of the women to be individually notable. But there should at least be some identifying information, such as, "known from an inscription at Smyrna".
  4. I can say with certainty that there were countless Roman women named "Maxima", which would make verifying an entry with no further identifying information impossible. Meanwhile, there were probably many women named "Phryne", but it's a Greek name, and by far the most famous person by the name was a wealthy Greek courtesan accused of impiety, who was acquitted by a jury after displaying her magnificent bosom to them (technically, "Phryne" was only her nickname, but there were probably lots of women called "Phryne" for various reasons, and most of them would have been Greek). Presumably the "archaeologically attested" one is somebody else, but without any further information, the reader won't know.
I hope this isn't just pouring cold water on the project. Some of these are curable issues. Others may require re-examining the scope of the list. I can't say whether any one of these will or won't be a roadblock to getting it accepted, but all of them could be, and there may be other issues that I didn't think of. Good luck with the project, though! P Aculeius (talk) 17:26, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
I have to agree with P Aculeius: the scope of this list looks way too broad to me. If you are committed to creating a list of ancient women, neither List of ancient Greek women nor List of ancient Roman women currently exist, though List of ancient Romans and List of ancient Greeks both do. If you were to make such lists which were limited to only entries which already have an English Wikipedia article, I think it would be much easier for you to make the case for inclusion. (Similarly, I would presume that a case could be made for lists of women from other ancient cultures, though I am in less of a position to comment usefully on those!) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
(For the sake of completeness, I will note that we do have list of ancient Macedonians in epigraphy, which is perhaps a closer parallel to what EtruscanMayhem is suggesting. That looks to me like a case study in what not to do, though: it's linked to from three mainspace articles, averages two page views a day (which admittedly is two more than I expected!) and hasn't had a substantive content change since 2009, less than two weeks after it was created. The best which can be said about that article is that nobody cares.) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:54, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
There are some Wiki lists of ancient Roman women, and here's one of the lists THIS list is responding to: List of distinguished Roman women. Most of the women on the list are either elite women described in literary texts written by male authors, or are literary/mythical constructs. In other words, that list doesn't tell us much about real historical women at all.
Another list of note is List of prostitutes and courtesans of antiquity, which has a regionally wide scope. A great list, but again, these are women who we only know about because they are described in literary texts almost entirely written by male authors.
The point of the list is to fill in Wikipedia content gaps (in keeping with Projects like Women's History), and since many well known and/or interesting women discussed in the scholarship have no presence on Wikipedia whatsoever, this list is meant to address that content gap. Some archaeologically attested women DO have Wikipedia pages, such as Claudia Severa and Enheduanna, and they would be appropriate for this list as it is imagined.
Moreover, these are all 'real' women who we can study archaeologically, not simply through biased literary texts.
EtruscanMayhem (talk) 15:59, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Unfortunately, besides funerary inscriptions there will be relatively little written about what you refer to as "real" women—and very little in funerary inscriptions, apart from the names of their relatives, whether they were freedwomen, and sometimes how old they were or how long they were married. Details beyond that will occur almost exclusively in literary sources—though for most, literary mentions provide few details beyond what would go in a funerary inscription.
I'll add, virtually all epigraphic details will also have been carved by men, although some of them may have been at the direction of women who paid for them to be carved, but at best we can only infer this in some cases. So this list will in no way address the complaint about authors being male; even if a percentage of inscriptions were carved at the direction of women, they don't differ significantly in content or tone from those carved at the direction of men. To the extent that literary sources reflect a "male" perspective of women, that can't really be "corrected" by using epigraphic sources.
If there are additional details to be gleaned from archaeological materials, the list fails to address such content gaps unless it provides those details, which as of yesterday were only provided for one person. Without anything else, it's just a list of names.
The reason why many of these "real" women have "no presence on Wikipedia" is that individuals generally have to be notable to have an article about them; and persons known exclusively from epigraphic sources are rarely notable, whether they are men or women. This necessarily means that individual notability is largely dependent on literary sources, not because there were no other notable persons, but because epigraphic sources rarely provide enough information about anyone to establish notability or justify a biographical article.
For instance, the Fasti Ostienses record the names of hundreds of men who rose to the top of the Roman aristocracy, held consulships and probably were regional governors with long and distinguished careers prior to that. But many of them are not known from any other sources, and so even though they were "elite", their careers are largely unknown, and so they appear only in lists that have nothing further to say than that "Gaius Bolonius Maximus was consul some time during the reign of Antoninus Pius, possibly around AD 145".
There are exceptions, however. If you browse through the List of Roman gentes, you'll find many articles that list individual men and women known exclusively from epigraphic sources. Most of these will be articles about minor gentes, with fewer than a hundred known members; it would be impractical to include everyone known from epigraphy in articles about major families, like the Julii or the Valerii. But since you're trying to avoid describing "elite" women, you can certainly find a large number of "real" women in them, each of whom is cited to an epigraphic source (the ones from the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum and L'Année épigraphique are linked to a database that will provide parallel citations and other sources, sometimes even a picture of the inscription).
Starting at the very top of the list, I see eight women known from the epigraphy of the Abudia gens, none of whom seems to belong to the "elite". Eight more examples are found at Accia gens, two at Accoleia gens, six at Acerronia gens (plus one who certainly was "elite"), thirty-six at Acutia gens, not counting the aunt of Aulus Vitellius. So "non-elite" women known from archaeology do have a presence on Wikipedia, although in most instances the information known about them is quite limited. P Aculeius (talk) 17:11, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
I'll be honest, I disagree with you on so many points that I can't even begin to respond. I'd have to defend the entire field of archaeology and what it tells us about ancient women, and I just...can't.
You said: "The reason why many of these "real" women have "no presence on Wikipedia" is that individuals generally have to be notable to have an article about them; and persons known exclusively from epigraphic sources are rarely notable, whether they are men or women."
It almost sounds like you're saying all notable women already have articles about them, and that 'real' women aren't notable, including if they have detailed funerary inscriptions, votive inscriptions, monument inscriptions, etc.?
You said: "This necessarily means that individual notability is largely dependent on literary sources, not because there were no other notable persons, but because epigraphic sources rarely provide enough information about anyone to establish notability or justify a biographical article."
It also sounds like you are saying that to meet Wiki notability requirements, a person had to be 'notable' in antiquity, in literary texts. Because an archaeologically attested woman who has many modern scholarly articles about her, or who is referenced in many scholarly books, doesn't meet your understanding of notable?
Perhaps I misunderstand, but this demonstrates why a List demonstrating the notability of archaeologically attested women is necessary.
Since the List is currently in a draft state, it's likely not possible to convince anyone. Mostly I was hoping for general feedback on the List viability given the parameters described in the Intro. EtruscanMayhem (talk) 19:02, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Your response suggests that you think I'm dismissing women from antiquity as unimportant, when in fact I'm simply explaining why most women from antiquity about whom a significant amount is known are known from literary, rather than archaeological sources. But the post above, in contrasting "real" women versus "elite" women, suggests that the women who are known from literary sources are not "real", and somehow less deserving of study—and that this is even more so due to the fact that what was written about them was nearly always written by men, and therefore "biased". I don't see how this is a productive line of discussion.
There is no doubt that the literary record is written from the perspective of men, and that many (though certainly not all) men regarded women as of little importance in civic or social life. Of course this has to do with what men regarded as worthy of discussing—especially politics and war, fields from which women were typically excluded. That this represents a bias in terms of what and who they wrote about cannot be denied.
But the main reason that Wikipedia doesn't have a lot of material on persons not mentioned in historical sources—that is, those who appear primarily in archaeological publications—is because most of our material is biographical, and biography usually requires literary sources. This does not mean that no other women were notable; but if we don't have any information beyond their names and some personal details—was related to the following people, was buried with gold jewelry or other grave goods—then we don't have much to establish notability. You might want to review what constitutes notability for Wikipedia.
Of course, the same criteria for individual notability don't apply to stand-alone lists such as the one you're working on, but they do explain why we don't have much material on persons—men or women—known only from archaeological materials, which was a criticism of Wikipedia's coverage; not so much the result of bias in the encyclopedia as a consequence of the criteria used to justify stand-alone articles, which most people work on rather than lists. And you do not need to limit this list to women who are "notable" by any criteria, although that would be one means of limiting its scope, and thus potential size. I certainly wasn't arguing that "all notable women already have articles about them". As with men, there are many more notable persons in history—men and women—than we have sufficient material to write articles about. P Aculeius (talk) 23:00, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
(ec) Hmmm, dubious. I don't really see why inscriptions on graves, statues etc, which must represent a pretty high proportion of "archaeologically attested women", are less "biased" than literary mentions, being mostly subject to COI, plus they are surely equally subject to the taint of male authorship. Johnbod (talk) 17:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
I can accept that point, though in many preserved cases, women paid for funerary inscriptions for themselves or their loved ones, and clearly say so in the inscription. EtruscanMayhem (talk) 17:20, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
The students are college level. Here is the WikiEdu course: https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/The_Ohio_State_University/Classical_Archaeology_(Spring_2024)
3 and 4: Phryne and the other women have not been filled in yet because the students will be posting their entries tomorrow when the list goes live. Currently those names are acting as place-holders until then.
2: While there are indeed huge numbers of Roman women attested epigraphically, it would make sense for them to meet Wiki Bio notability requirements to be on the List. Many ancient women attested epigraphically would not qualify. The same could be said of burials of women, as there are tens of thousands. The Rich Athenian Lady, though is absolutely huge in the scholarship, and the Royal Sister from Mycenae has been garnering lots of attention since her aDNA tests (only briefly mentioned in the Grave Circle, B Wiki article). These both easily meet notability standards. Would it makes better sense to frame the List as a list of archaeologically-attested women who meet notability standards, since Lists don't typically require it of all List entries? (All of the women on the List at the moment DO meet notability standards, though you can't see that yet.)
The List has only 15 names at the moment because I only had so many students in the class. Not only might other people add to the list, but next semester's students would have more entries. The Assyrian women are included because a) the Assyrian women from Kanesh have been receiving a lot of attention lately in scholarship/popular media, and b) because from a practical standpoint, we had a day on them in my class and so students were assigned them.
1: As noted in the third paragraph of the List intro, for years now women of various Mediterranean cultures have been studied together in groups because of the direction of area-studies. The bibliographic sources listed in the citations there all do that.
--- If you look at the table of contents or scan the articles in Budin & Macintosh Turfa, you see that topics include Women from Mesopotamia (including Akkad, Ur III, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Elamite, etc.), Egypt, Hittites, Levant & Carthage, Bronze Age Aegean, Etruria, Greece, Rome, Celtic regions, Scythians (Amazons), etc.
--- Carney & Müller's Companion to Women & Monarchy, you see Egypt & the Nile, the Near East (including Hasmoneans and Sassanids), Greeks, Macedonians, and Romans.
--- Middleton's book includes women from Mari (on the Euphrates), Egypt, Hittites, Bronze Age Aegean, Greece, Etruria, Rome.
In other words, the List's geographical span is entirely in keeping with scholarship on women in the region and these cultural groups can be documented together in multiple scholarly works. The question is whether that is not enough? My understanding was that Wikipedia summarizes works of historians and scholars (when an approach is generally accepted by the related disciplines), and the List we're creating follows these usual groupings. Do you think it matters if I more explicitly cite the standard regional cultural groupings that I note above?
EtruscanMayhem (talk) 17:17, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
It's reassuring that you'll apply a notability criterion, making the whole thing much more manageable and meaningful. I'm currently enjoying Emma Southon's latest; may I offer some women from that who may be edge cases that usefully test your other criteria? Sulpicia Lepidina and Claudia Severa are known only from their letters found at Vindolanda, which would really stretch "ancient Mediterranean and adjacent areas". Julia Balbilla's poetry has not, I think, needed excavation; can she still be included as archaeologically attested? NebY (talk) 17:48, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Julia Balbilla's poem on the Colossos of Memnon is amazing! She would definitely qualify.
EtruscanMayhem (talk) 17:52, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Oh good! And now I see you mentioned Claudia Severa already; still an awful long way from the Mediterranean. NebY (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
True, but she's part of the Roman empire and is a Roman woman. EtruscanMayhem (talk) 17:55, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
I am getting the impression that requiring additions to the list meet notability requirements is not enough, given the response above.
If pivoting from List to Stubs creation seems more viable, I can go that route. I don't want the students' work to be rejected because the List itself is rejected. The creation of 10-15 stubs is perfectly acceptable as a goal for filling content gaps, though the idea had been for them to be grouped together in a List for easy access by readers. EtruscanMayhem (talk) 17:58, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Err, why not both? The stubs would provide healthy blue links in a list. (They could also be grouped by Wikipedia:Categorization, but I suspect most readers ignore that.) NebY (talk) 18:20, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Individuals do not need to be notable for a list like this, but you probably do want some sort of selection criteria that other editors can use to figure out who does and doesn't belong. Otherwise any woman known to have lived in any culture bordering on the Mediterranean at any point in its existence could be added—and there are thousands known from archaeological sources, if we count epigraphy. Notability is just one possible criterion you could use. P Aculeius (talk) 01:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
A criteria could be that the woman also be mentioned in non-archeological writing.★Trekker (talk) 03:20, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone. The students felt that our best bet was to post the list and see what happens. I tried to incorporate a few of your suggestions in the hope that it will make the list stronger. @NebY @Caeciliusinhorto@Johnbod@P Aculeius@StarTrekker EtruscanMayhem (talk) 21:11, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Common name for Sulla's opponents during the civil war

There is no common name on Wikipedia and in academic sources for the opponents of Sulla during the civil war of 83-82 BC. The main problem is that his two enemies, Marius and Cinna, died before the war (in 86 and 84 BC), but the faction opposing Sulla was still called after them several years after their death. For the sake of consistency on WP, there should be only one name, I think. The names that occur in reliable sources are:

  • Cinno-Marian(s)
  • Cinnan-Marian(s)
  • Cinnan(s)
  • Marian(s)
  • Marianist(s)
  • Carbo's faction, after the name of Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, who dominated the years of the civil war. This name would actually be the most logical, but it's also the least common.

Perhaps, I have missed some. T8612 (talk) 13:51, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly that we should pick one. I don't think "Marianists" is at all common in the English literature but the others I have seen. As to the topic itself, I find it rather amusing that it seems that some (OCD Online) have decided to sidestep the issue by never referring to Sulla's enemies with any such label: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.1878. Ifly6 (talk) 14:42, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
I've seen "Marian party" or perhaps "Marians", but don't recognize any of the others. Some of them look like hypercorrect neologisms. Maybe they're not, but I've never seen any of the ones beginning with any form of Cinna's name. I certainly wouldn't want to stop people from using "Marian foo/Marians", since at least I would recognize those and know what they mean. I doubt anyone who would recognize any of the others would be confused by those. P Aculeius (talk) 20:27, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Doing a few searches of the Historia Jstor archive, "Cinno-Marian" gets 1 result, "Cinnan-Marian" gets no results, Cinnan gets 14 (+1 plural) results, Marian gets 60 (+22 plural) results but many of these results relate to Marian reforms and pick up authors like the scholar named Marian Helm, Marianist gets 0 results. Carbo is mostly usages of the name and "Carbonian" has 0 results. I think I would go with Cinnan; Marian is too ambiguous, would require substantial untangling of search results to get right, and somewhat nonsensical regardless. Ifly6 (talk) 17:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
FWIW, Scullard (From the Gracchi to Nero, 1963) has no such term until in 82, "the Marian cause" and "a few 'Marian' governors" (Scullard's single-quotes). NebY (talk) 18:32, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
It does feel as if the most used options are Cinnan and Marian. We probably ought to pick between the two. I prefer Cinnan since it makes (1) more sense and (2) is used in Latin form already with Cinnanum tempus. Ifly6 (talk) 17:24, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
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