Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome

Project overviewTasksCurationGuidesAwardsOur classicistsTalk page

Polis (board game)

New article of mine. Perhaps someone would like to add more sources, an image, or perhaps there is a Greek Wikipedia interwiki to add? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Andromeda (mythology) image deletion discussion

There is an image deletion discussion about the file "Clash of the Titans poster" in use at Andromeda (mythology). It demonstrates that the myth remains current, and that misinterpretation of the black princess of Aethiopia as a white woman is also continuing, a matter of misogynistic racism in the eyes of some of the cited scholars. Project members are invited to contribute their opinions to the discussion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:17, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Trajan's mother

An IP editor on Wikidata has added a different mother for Trajan named Aureliana. The sources for this supposed person seem to be from Medieval Spanish sources, while the supposed mother Marcia who is mainly accepted by modern scholars (as far as I know) is based mainly on the name of Trajan's sister. My question here is if there is any credibility to support the idea of "Aureliana"? Right now the Spanish language article for Trajan seems to portray that Aureliana is correct, which I'm sceptical of. ★Trekker (talk) 09:27, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

The Spanish article suggests Aureliana at one point, but a couple of paragraphs down suggests Marcia or Ulpia with no mention of Aureliana as a possibility, and in the infobox says Marcia. None of the sources they cite for Aureliana seem to be modern scholarly sources, and from searching Google Scholar it is easy to find sources calling Trajan's mother Marcia, or saying that she was probably called Marcia, but I cannot find any scholarly sources supporting Aureliana. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:38, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

The text in the article should reflect the consensus of reliable sources: if modern scholars heed this mediaeval Spanish source, then it should be dispensed with. At most, a comment should be added saying that some other source says that in the body text; if there are explicit comments that this source is unreliable it should be noted. Ifly6 (talk) 17:11, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

There's an endless swath of claims that medieval literature has claimed particularly about the Roman past. If modern scholarship does not attest to it, or even highlight that medieval source's usage of it, it should not be reflected there. At most, this seems to be a matter only of historiographical interest. Sleath56 (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Medieval treatments of figures from Roman history are still relevant, even when they can be shown to be historically inaccurate. So are modern ones, though of course here we have to be much more selective due to the number of treatments, many of which aren't necessarily notable. P Aculeius (talk) 18:45, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

While I don't disagree with that in spirit, there is a distinct difference between this and more well attested naming discrepancies like that of Tacitus' praenomen which should be remarked upon. Though entries there are not generally discriminating, I'd say a single offhand reference by a medieval source does not credibly qualify this alternate name for inclusion. Sleath56 (talk) 18:58, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

The fact that other sources follow it demonstrates why it should be mentioned: people will run across it and wonder why it says something different from modern sources. Having it in the article explains that a medieval source gives a different name—what that source is, whether it has any credibility, what basis there might have been for it, and whether modern scholars have anything to say about it. Failing to mention such materials leaves readers in the dark about an aspect of the topic that they might find confusing. P Aculeius (talk) 21:28, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I came across this very interesting writing also in Spanish, sadly since I'm not that good with the language it's hard for me to make out a lot of it or asses it's reliability.★Trekker (talk) 22:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

A lot of reading there. The title is "The Baetic roots of Trajan and more new information on his family". The whole book has been put online by the author, along with some others of hers. According to the first endnote some of the work was presented at an international congress in Rome in 1998 Traianus Optimus Princeps; the author is definitely academic, a professor of archaeology at Madrid whose work seems to focus on Roman inscriptions in Spain. According to my searches on two pdf readers, "Aureliana" is not mentioned in this book. If that's confirmed, and since it's an academic publication all about Trajan's family origins, that's a strong reason not to mention Aureliana in our article ... unless in a section about medieval references to Trajan. Generally, one of the things that renders Wikipedia less reliable is when we make alternative views, alternative names and spellings, etc., look equal when reliable sources don't make them look equal. In this I might be disagreeing with P Aculeius, a thing that I don't often do :) Andrew Dalby 09:11, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not advocating a false equivalency here. A section on medieval views would be a logical approach, if there were more to say than simply "this medieval source gives a different name for his mother". That could potentially be footnoted where she's mentioned, or if there's any discussion of her to be had, then an explanation of what medieval sources add or how they differ would be in order. Under no circumstances should it be presented without context, as though the reader should simply choose which name is right! But leaving out that she's mentioned, or that the details are different in another source, would be leaving a known question unanswered, and that's my concern. P Aculeius (talk) 11:15, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Removing Collaborative Effort from WP:CGR/tasks

As per a decision agreed to three years ago about a collaborative effort dating to 2013 (see Archive 36; April 12th, 2021), I've decided upon seeing the project's tasks page that we are never going to make Theatre of Pompey a GA (at least in any remote connection to the collaborative effort's section being present on the tasks page). It's just kind of in the way for those of you who like to visit the tasks page. Yes I've lurked for that long :) Paladin Arthur (talk) 02:14, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I probably should have brought it up first to make sure we still feel the same. If anyone advocates for its continued inclusion on the tasks page there's nothing wrong with reverting and reopening discussion (after all, it was in 2021 when its existence was met with 'meh'). Paladin Arthur (talk) 02:18, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Lycurgus (lawgiver) and propagandistic content

This article really needs work. It needs critical appraisal, supported by a balanced, representative set of sources, by historians more modern than Plutarch. It currently contains text like the following uncited paragraph:

Some further refinements of the Spartan constitution came after Lycurgus. It turned out that sometimes the public speakers would pervert the sense of propositions and thus cause the people to vote foolishly, so the Gerousia reserved the right to dissolve the assembly if they saw this happening.

How wise and benevolent and utterly proof against conflicts of interest. And, for instance, it says that the helots were attached to the land, but that's about all. It does not say how many they were or how they lived or were ruled. So the vast majority of the people who lived under laws attributed to Lycurgus rate barely a passing mention.

I have no expertise in this area, but still know enough to know that this article is problematic. Some other articles on Sparta seem to have some similar problems; for instance, helots has uncited content on eugenics. HLHJ (talk) 00:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

probably most of the article should be nuked and stubified. while Plutarch is definitely going to need to be cited in the article, he shouldn't be considered a secondary source for, well, anything. so this is all WP:OR. it would be nice to have a policy that nothing before the 19th century should ever count as a secondary source for our purposes but I'm not holding my breath with this crowd... Psychastes (talk) 00:42, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I was partially wondering if this was content from the DGRBM but no, it seems even that article is in better shape than this one. Still well over a century old, and *far* less critical of reports of the Spartan constitution than I've ever seen a modern historian be, though. So probably still better to stubify this article than use the DGRBM. Psychastes (talk) 01:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Psychastes. I agree Plutarch counts as a primary source. Modern historians will, I'm sure, discuss his statements on Spartans, and I have no objection to such discussion being covered in the article. I seem to recall some Classical authors were a bit skeptical of the value of Plutarch as a source, too. If you'd like to nuke and stubify, go ahead.

Since the broader problem of panegyric accounts of Sparta seem to have links with 20th-century fascism (see, for instance, Agoge#19th – 21st centuries), I think I will also ping K.e.coffman, who has done a lot of good work in that area. HLHJ (talk) 01:43, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Stubify done. I've kept the first couple sentences. Probably some small amount of the info I removed could be added back, but it's all tangled up with uncritical citations of ancient authors so I erred on the side of not having wrong information. Also, agreed that the links to fascism make this the sort of misinformation that should be removed with more enthusiasm. Psychastes (talk) 01:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I've actually cut a bit more, since I'm not sure if his reforms were military-oriented or not, and I know there is a serious historical arguement the Spartan constitution was not actually effective at promoting equality (even just among the tiny minority of Spartiates), military fitness (as measured by, say, military skills or performance), or even austerity (among Spartiates). I've also edited the template message.[1] HLHJ (talk) 02:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

You've taken a C-class Level 4 Vital article that was twenty years old with over 800 edits, and reduced it to four sentences with a single source. This was undertaken in the course of a few minutes, without any prior discussion on the article's talk page, or any involvement by any of the more active editors in this WikiProject. This has to be the most extreme example of its kind that I've ever seen on Wikipedia.

So the article cited Plutarch: it also cited a lot of fairly well-regarded modern historians, now consigned to the dustbin (I'm no expert either, but I recognize J. B. Bury, N. G. L. Hammond, and Michael Grant; I'm currently reading one of Grant's books, though not the one that was cited). The remedy for uncritical statements is to substitute more critical ones, or place them in context; not to delete everything so that there's no information left. You said that the DGRBM article was in better shape than this one; that's not hard to believe, since those articles were written by the finest classical scholars of their day, and relatively little that is new can have been "discovered" about Lycurgus since that time, although certainly attitudes toward history have changed (and of course that has to be accounted for). But you could do a lot worse than cite the DGRBM; in fact, you have: now readers searching for information on Lycurgus will find nothing.

WP:TNT is supposed to be used only when there is nothing worth saving in an article, and that's a heck of a conclusion to reach given the number of experienced editors who've contributed to it over the last two decades. TNT is just another form of deletion, and deletion, as is rightly said, is not cleanup. One of you claims to have no expertise on the subject, and neither of you seem to have any prior involvement with the article. Do either of you intend to rewrite it from scratch, or are you just planning to leave it a pile of rubble in the hopes that someone else will come along and write something? I certainly wouldn't want to make the effort, given what was just done to the article. I realize that just voicing this opinion will probably result in some very angry replies. But I'd like to hear from other members of this project: was this "stubification" a good idea, and was this the right way to go about it? P Aculeius (talk) 05:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

In my view, a (real) discussion should have been had. A rewrite should have been done. The rewrite then should have replaced the original text. I wouldn't oppose reverting stubification; but at the same time I'm unconvinced that the original text had much of any value. I have no idea why WP:TNT is at all relevant; that, and WP:TNTTNT, relate to real deletions – those purge page history – and not stubifications. Ifly6 (talk) 05:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

If we had to rewrite every bad article on this project before removing a bunch of bunk, we'd never get anything done. Deleting most of the content in a poorly researched article full of WP:OR encourages people to add material in a collaborative project, one person pledging to go off on their own and rewrite the article results in no changes to the actual article people read until they get around to finishing it (which, let's be honest, most of the time is "never") Psychastes (talk) 16:00, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Who are we? Ifly6 (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

(and FWIW I'm similarly confused about the invocation of WP:TNT. the content is all still there in the page history, if there's anything worth scavenging from there, which there probably is, it can just be copied from a prior version) Psychastes (talk) 16:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

This isn't an important point, and I don't intend to argue it, but WP:TNT is effectively what was done here. That essay doesn't say that it refers to the deletion of the entire article, although that's one way to implement it; it also refers to deleting the contents, and keeping the title, and subsequently it mentions "stubifying". Since practically everything in the article was in fact deleted, including perfectly good sources besides Plutarch (although as everyone here seems to admit, Plutarch does need to be cited alongside what modern writers say about him), the article was pretty much "blown up" (in fact, the discussion above expressly refers to "nuking" it; I don't see any productive reason to quibble over the type of explosive used). P Aculeius (talk) 18:15, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Plutarch is not "well-regarded" among modern historians. Plutarch is a primary source, and interpreting primary source data is a job for historians. not for wikipedia editors. it's vaguely concerning that you don't seem to grasp this. Psychastes (talk) 15:47, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

PA said So the article cited Plutarch: it also cited a lot of fairly well-regarded modern historians, now consigned to the dustbin. Ifly6 (talk) 16:49, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I started some work on a rewrite some time ago here: User:Ifly6/Lycurgus (lawgiver). Many other projects intervened (and I realised I like Roman history much more than Greek). This partial deletion is tough medicine indeed; I don't find it particularly objectionable given that the original article was rubbish but a replacement should (probably must) be worked on promptly. However, I do find the mere minutes-long discussion here objectionable. Practically no time was given for basically anyone to weigh in. Ifly6 (talk) 05:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I made a WP:BOLD edit. you're certainly welcome to revert it per WP:BRD, but whining about how your permission wasn't granted before someone made a change to a page sounds a whole lot like WP:OWN. Psychastes (talk) 15:52, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Different WikiProjects have different cultures; this one is more dicussion-oriented than most. That stubifying an article and then refusing(?) to contribute to it irks people shouldn't be surprising. Calling it whining and ownership is unnecessarily inflammatory. Ifly6 (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether completely unnecessarily personalising a discussion by characterising people who disagree with you as whining is more or less unhelpful than characterising somebody not reverting you as WP:OWNERSHIP, but I am sure that neither is productive. Let's not. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:59, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

On the actual content, I largely agree with Ifly6. The Lycurgus article wasn't great; the stubbing it was probably overly aggressive; given that a discussion had been opened here the issue probably wasn't so urgent that it couldn't wait for some people to actually weigh in. Glancing at Ifly's draft it doesn't have the reliance on ancient sources of the previous text; I'm not seeing any obvious issues with what's written there and it's clearly more comprehensive than the current stub. Does anyone have any issues with promoting that to mainspace? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:04, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

It's hugely incomplete and mostly focuses on historicity with almost nothing on what the figure is alleged to have done. I suppose it could be a starting point for a new article but an {{under construction}} is definitely needed. Ifly6 (talk) 17:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but it's less hugely incomplete than the four sentences we have currently! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:14, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Lycurgus is just as far outside my area of expertise as it is that of the people who deleted the entire thing, along with the work of everyone who ever contributed to it. But anything would be an improvement over what there is now. If reverting it and working on cleaning up each section is not an option for the people who plan to work on it, then perhaps a viable strategy would be to look over the last stable version of the article, finding sections or topics that need to be covered in the new version, and working on rebuilding them one section at a time, saving anything useful from the old version and then building on it.

I'm tempted to pitch in, but I don't want to make things worse if there are people like yourself who have considerably more knowledge of the field and who plan to do some of this. It's just my basic strategy: use the most comprehensive scholarly article on the subject as a starting point, then build on it using other sources and what they have to say, including what the Greeks themselves had to say, and what standard modern reference works say about that. But you already know how to do this, so I won't harp on the subject! P Aculeius (talk) 18:24, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

No objections here, that certainly looks better than a stub. Psychastes (talk) 17:19, 31 May 2024 (UTC)