Talk:Alexios I Komnenos/Archive 1

Map
To be totally accurate the city of Antioch was still formally part of the Byzantine Empire in 1081. It was semi-independant under an Armenian-Byzantine governor. But it only fell to the Seljucs at a later date. The map would be more accurate for 1091.

Urselius (talk) 09:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Geneology Nightmare
The beginning of this article confuses Alexios the first with his grandson of the same name. It says that he was the son of John II, when John II was in fact the son of Alexios I. Alexios the grandson was the son of John II. The top picture entitled "Depiction of Alexios as a young prince in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul" is also of Alexios the grandson (who died young, hence why he is frowning), and not Alexios I.

I should also note that the lady Anna Dalassena is listed as the mother of Alexios I. This is correct. But it says that she fathered him with her grandson, so that needs to be taken care of.

Speaking of taking care of this problem, I created my wiki account just now to address this problem. Since my experience with wikipedia editing is so new, I regret to say that I have absolutely no idea how to change it to make it right. But clearly, it needs to be fixed. Pharaoh of Byzantium? (talk) 03:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, that was added by Blofield of Spectre recently. I guess no one noticed. Well it was simple to fix. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Name
Dimadick, I don't know what you did, but I hope I've fixed it. I don't know what spelling this guy should be under, but if you are going to move it please be careful! Adam Bishop (talk) 00:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The message I got whenever I tried to move it to "Komnenos" was that there was already an article of the same name. I thought it worked in the tenth try only to find it had worked because of an accidental mispelling. Dimadick (talk) 06:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah because there was a redirect, which had to be deleted first. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Someone moved it back and changed the spellings again with the edit summary "correct unconventional spellings". This is a bit odd, as both spellings are used fairly frequently in scholarly discourse, with as far as I can tell "Komnenos" actually somewhat dominating in recent scholarship, making it pretty solidly "conventional". Given that this has been a topic of debate in the past, at the very least it should have been discussed before making a unilateral move, especially one with an unfriendly and inaccurate edit summary. --Delirium (talk) 11:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It was, who has been moving all the Byzantines back to Latin names. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * They should be wholesale reverted or we should fix them all up to be Latin. The inconsistency just makes us look like amateurs. Oh wait. . . Srnec (talk) 05:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There are inconsistencies anyway: they all seem to have started off using the more conventional Latinised versions. If we're going for consistency we need to take it seriously.  Deipnosophista (talk) 14:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I tried to sort them out a while back at Talk:List of Byzantine emperors, but got very little feedback. But your random page moves are no help. There was lengthy discussion and the unconventional titles, against my opposition, were settled upon. The number of editors who have short attentions spans, care deeply about a page for a month or two and then cease to take any interest in it makes for problems at Wikipedia. What you can do without opposition now, would have been reverted within minutes if done by me a year ago (or however long ago it was). Srnec (talk) 03:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, there may have been more people interested in giving their opinion if they were actualy notified. I only found out that Deipnosophista had vandalised the pages when checking for updates in the discussion pages of articles included in "Wikiproject:Greece" on 2 September. Most of the changed had taken place in August. If it weren't for Delirium the vandalism of the text would have gone unnoticed. The titles out to be changed but I already changed the texts back to their July status. Dimadick (talk) 07:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * (All very well for Dimadick to complain about not being notified - but s/he refuses to accept emails from other Wiki-users) Deipnosophista (talk) 11:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * How about using the article talp pages. Thanks to the projects involved in them it is rather easy to notice changes. Dimadick (talk) 12:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, vandalism, seriously? He didn't change it to "Alexius POOP Comnenus". Adam Bishop (talk) 08:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * But he did delete alternate names and explanations of them. Dimadick (talk) 16:24, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This is simply unacceptable. Fly by night changes of this type with misleading and obscure edit summaries and without discussion, after all the discusions that have taken place in the past are completely out of order. I thought this topic was settled for good. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium spelling is the dominant one in current scholarship and here we go back to anachronistic 19th century conventions. This kind of behaviour should not be rewarded. Please revert back to Alexios Komnenos. I tried to do it myself but it seems the move needs the intervention of an administrator. Dr.K. (talk) 04:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This talk of unacceptability and vandalism is offensive and unnecessary. The educated Anglophone reader's taste in transliteration is formed by works such as Gibbon, Bury, Finlay (a bit inconsistent on this issue), Runciman, Vasiliev's "Byzantine Empire", Hussey's "The Byzantine World", Buckler's "Anna Comnena", Andre Grabar's "Byzantium" and the Penguin translations of Psellus and Anna Comnena, which all use classical conventions of spelling names in English. It is hostile and potentially confusing to inflict modern Greek conventions of transliteration on him or her. Insisting on them in Wikipedia, apparently because they are used in journals many of the contributors to which are modern Greek scholars who find them more comfortable, is in my view pedantic, and unhelpful to the majority of users of the encyclopedia.
 * If you cannot accept the authority of the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium in your rush to attack the onomatological system that has become the scholarly standard then maybe you should reconsider. You sound like you want to throw us back in the 19th century with talk about Gibbon et al. Also please consult the vast discussions which have taken place over the years to gain the understanding that you are not in the majority as you say you are. Thank you. Dr.K. (talk) 14:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * And I find it quite disingenuous to call the modern onomatology "hostile to the english readers" and to write: "inflict modern Greek conventions of transliteration on him or her." and many of the contributors to which are modern Greek scholars who find them more comfortable" when all this is based on the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, a quintessentially British Institution. Greek scholars had nothing to do with it. The excellent British scholars did. Dr.K. (talk) 15:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * My apologies if there has been a proper discussion and resolution of this issue of which I was unaware. It is however plain that it was the classical conventions which were originally followed in Wikipedia, before what looks like some sort of political correctness campaign intervened.  Perhaps it is time for a proper discussion now.  Deipnosophista (talk) 11:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It was discussed before here and elsewhere, but I can't remember where. All in all, it was a rather long, pointless discussion when I re-read parts of it. Few people were strongly committed to retaining the Latin forms (like myself) even though a large minority did think them best. I will sum up my argument for them with an example: both Palaeologus and Palaiologos are Latinisations, but based on different principles; there is no reason to prefer the one set of principles to the other; so no change. I never opposed the Greek forms so much as an unnecessary change. I never denied the authority of the ODB so much as the superiority of its new conventions to its old. I think the whole discussion was unneeded; that's why I support the current nomenclature here. Consistency is better in this instance than what I prefer; and I only prefer it slightly. And I don't like being told that using the Latin form is "less correct"! Srnec (talk) 03:06, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I remembered: the original discussion took place here. It seems to have been more productive (everyone was less exasperated). I can't figure out why the pages were moved based on this vote, however. It seems in appropriate and it may be legitimate to revisit it now, but very unnecessary. I'd accept it as is; as one editor said in response to a comment of mine: this is an issue on which reasonable people differ. Srnec (talk) 03:15, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Srnec. Nice to talk to you after such a long time. I think that after the debate at Talk:Constantine XI the matter was subsequently put through mediation and the mediator ruled in favour of the ODB onomatology. I agree with your position and reasonable and measured tone and I think that reopening this debate would be unnecessary, counterproductive and would waste valuable editing energy which could be put to much better use elsewhere. I for one wouldn't like to revisit the divisive ghosts of the endless onomatological debates of the past. Take care for now. Dr.K. (talk) 03:32, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the responses (even though Tasoskessaris does not seem to be listening), and especially to Srnec for the careful summary and reference. I shall look at the latter when I get a moment. Deipnosophista (talk) 09:07, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Deipnosophista, I object to third person references to myself especially if they are baseless and unexplained. This transgression is uncivil and a personal attack and completely unacademic. If this use of innuendo is a debating strategy you deliberately use against your opponents it will not work because it reveals the poverty of your academic arguments. I also expect a rapid modification, (for the better), of this behaviour. Dr.K. (talk) 14:50, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The conclusion was in favor of the ODB onomatology but the older Latinizations should still be included in "alternate names" of article subjects and redirects still created to allow practically everyone to locate them. Dimadick (talk) 13:05, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Could everybody take a few days off from this topic? Time might help. Thanks. Student7 (talk) 21:17, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think anybody needs a few days off. I'm not aware there's really a "debate" going on. Just a discussion of past changes to Wikipedia. Srnec (talk) 01:15, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * True, this is not either an edit war or a particularly heated debate. Actually we seem to have taken a month off the discussion. Dimadick (talk) 13:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

More old talk
Somewhat literally (which is what I used in the article), "honored above all"--sebastos is, according to my handy copy of Liddell-Scott, a form of the verb "sebo," meaning honor, "pan" is "all", "hyper" is over. "Most honored" might be more idiomatic English. Vicki Rosenzweig

Well what the text means is that since Bryennius did not succeed Alexius I, he was given the new title panhypersebastos, one of the highest ranks in Byzantine administration. "Sebastos" in Greek actually means "respected".

What "sebastos" means in modern Greek is not the point. The point is that it was the ancient translation of the Latin "augustus". Deipnosophista (talk) 10:06, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Name
- 		 - 	Dimadick, I don't know what you did, but I hope I've fixed it. I don't know what spelling this guy should be under, but if you are going to move it please be careful! Adam Bishop (talk) 00:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC) - 		 - 	The message I got whenever I tried to move it to "Komnenos" was that there was already an article of the same name. I thought it worked in the tenth try only to find it had worked because of an accidental mispelling. Dimadick (talk) 06:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC) - 		 -
 * Yeah because there was a redirect, which had to be deleted first. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

- 		 - 	Someone moved it back and changed the spellings again with the edit summary "correct unconventional spellings". This is a bit odd, as both spellings are used fairly frequently in scholarly discourse, with as far as I can tell "Komnenos" actually somewhat dominating in recent scholarship, making it pretty solidly "conventional". Given that this has been a topic of debate in the past, at the very least it should have been discussed before making a unilateral move, especially one with an unfriendly and inaccurate edit summary. --Delirium (talk) 11:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC) - 		 -
 * It was, who has been moving all the Byzantines back to Latin names. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

- 		 -
 * They should be wholesale reverted or we should fix them all up to be Latin. The inconsistency just makes us look like amateurs. Oh wait. . . Srnec (talk) 05:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

- 		 -
 * There are inconsistencies anyway: they all seem to have started off using the more conventional Latinised versions. If we're going for consistency we need to take it seriously. Deipnosophista (talk) 14:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

-
 * I tried to sort them out a while back at Talk:List of Byzantine emperors, but got very little feedback. But your random page moves are no help. There was lengthy discussion and the unconventional titles, against my opposition, were settled upon. The number of editors who have short attentions spans, care deeply about a page for a month or two and then cease to take any interest in it makes for problems at Wikipedia. What you can do without opposition now, would have been reverted within minutes if done by me a year ago (or however long ago it was). Srnec (talk) 03:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

- 		 -
 * Well, there may have been more people interested in giving their opinion if they were actualy notified. I only found out that Deipnosophista had vandalised the pages when checking for updates in the discussion pages of articles included in "Wikiproject:Greece" on 2 September. Most of the changed had taken place in August. If it weren't for Delirium the vandalism of the text would have gone unnoticed. The titles out to be changed but I already changed the texts back to their July status. Dimadick (talk) 07:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

- 		 -
 * (All very well for Dimadick to complain about not being notified - but s/he refuses to accept emails from other Wiki-users) Deipnosophista (talk) 11:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

- 		 -
 * Oh, vandalism, seriously? He didn't change it to "Alexius POOP Comnenus". Adam Bishop (talk) 08:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

- 		 -
 * But he did delete alternate names and explanations of them. Dimadick (talk) 16:24, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

-
 * This is simply unacceptable. Fly by night changes of this type with misleading and obscure edit summaries and without discussion, after all the discusions that have taken place in the past are completely out of order. I thought this topic was settled for good. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium spelling is the dominant one in current scholarship and here we go back to anachronistic 19th century conventions. This kind of behaviour should not be rewarded. Please revert back to Alexios Komnenos. I tried to do it myself but it seems the move needs the intervention of an administrator. Dr.K. (talk) 04:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

- 		 -
 * This talk of unacceptability and vandalism is offensive and unnecessary. The educated Anglophone reader's taste in transliteration is formed by works such as Gibbon, Bury, Finlay (a bit inconsistent on this issue), Runciman, Vasiliev's "Byzantine Empire", Hussey's "The Byzantine World", Buckler's "Anna Comnena", Andre Grabar's "Byzantium" and the Penguin translations of Psellus and Anna Comnena, which all use classical conventions of spelling names in English. It is hostile and potentially confusing to inflict modern Greek conventions of transliteration on him or her. Insisting on them in Wikipedia, apparently because they are used in journals many of the contributors to which are modern Greek scholars who find them more comfortable, is in my view pedantic, and unhelpful to the majority of users of the encyclopedia.

- 		 -
 * My apologies if there has been a proper discussion and resolution of this issue of which I was unaware. It is however plain that it was the classical conventions which were originally followed in Wikipedia, before what looks like some sort of political correctness campaign intervened. Perhaps it is time for a proper discussion now. Deipnosophista (talk) 11:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I have now had a little time to check. It is clear to me that, although there was once a discussion on the talk page of one article, there has never been a properly ventilated debate on this issue: a small number of editors have taken it upon themselves to impose a new convention on the orthography of mediaeval and many classical Greek names.

My own suspicion is that the action is ultimately driven by the Koine-Katharevousa conflict within the Greek-speaking community spilling over into contests over the appropriate transcription of modern Greek in English texts; but that does not greatly matter. What seems to me to matter far more is the risk that Wikipedia entries may become more obscure and unfriendly to users because of such action. I believe that a properly wide debate should be engaged in (and that this discussion here should not again be suppressed by arbitrary deletion). Deipnosophista (talk) 10:27, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Reign and Coronation
In my copy of the Alexiad published by Penguin Classics, it makes it quite clear that Alexios stormed Constantinople on April 1, 1081. By the end of the day, the purple had been stripped from Botaneiates. Thus I changed the reign start date. I can find no evidence in the Alexiad or Google Books to support a date of April 4.

The coronation date is a bit trickier. I can find no definitive date for coronation online or in the Alexiad. However, the Alexiad states that his wife was coronated on April 12 and that this was 7 days after Alexios. Subtracting 7 from 12 yields April 5, not April 4. -user:iron0037 —Preceding undated comment added 14:42, 2 August 2011 (UTC).

Cause of death
Reading the Alexiad, I think his symptoms correspond to heart failure, but I'm just a layman. Near the end of the book it mentions that his lower limbs were swollen, a sign of heart failure I think. He also had pains in the chest at the end which may have been angina. It also clearly described how he could not lie flat, which the article says is a symptom of heart failure. 92.24.123.30 (talk) 20:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Archive
For some reason, the bot involved is broken and not producing archive links. ARCHIVE 1 IS HERE. — Llywelyn II   12:25, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Old talk
"he succession, which his wife Irene wished to alter in favour of her daughter Anne's husband, Nicephorus Bryennius for whose benefit the special title panhypersebastos (i.e. as it were augustissimus si quis ahus) was created."

Would someone please be so kind as to explain just what the hell this means? Thank you much. - user:Montrealais

Spelling
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