Talk:Appius Claudius Crassus Inregillensis Sabinus

should this not be "remove his name from the list" ???
To everyone's surprise he proposed himself to sit on the next council, whereas everyone thought he would decide to act modestly by declining the offer and adding his name to the list —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.242.97.51 (talk) 09:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Crassinus vs. Crassus
This article seems to present as fact that the Consul of 471 is the same person as the Decemvir of 451. I was wondering what the source is?

Broughton (vol.1) in the entry for 471 (p.30) names the consul "Appius Claudius Crassinus Inregillensis Sabinus", and in the entry for 451 (p.45) names the decemvir "Appius Claudius Crassus Inregillensis Sabinus". Although they sound the same, Crassinus is not Crassus. Broughton treats them as separate persons, and so do most other histories. The Claudii genealogies I've seen treat decemvir Crassus as the son of the consul Crassinus. The 20-year difference between them seems consistent with that.

Both Livy (2.61) and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (9.54) give details of the death of Crassinus in 470/69. This death account is rather cavalierly dismissed in this article.

This really should be separated into two articles, one for the consul of 471, another for the Decemvir of 451, as they are considered two different people, and links should go to the respective person (as they do on other language Wikis). If there are speculative conjectures by some historians it may be the same person, these can be accounted for in the text (with references).

In the current condition, this article is misleading, and causing confusion and linking problems. Walrasiad (talk) 04:27, 28 August 2022 (UTC)


 * There is no such thing as certainty regarding the correct form of the man's—or men's—names. And in fact if you go back to earlier versions you'll see that there were two separate articles, following the theory that the decemvir was the son of the consul of 471—but they have since been merged into one, by an editor who was following the theory that they were the same man.  What other language wikis do isn't particularly helpful, as some if not all of them were probably following what we had here.  If you're proposing to split the article again, you should be prepared to discuss the change with the editor who merged them—without first discussing it, I believe.  Otherwise we're likely to wind up in an edit war.  P Aculeius (talk) 13:35, 28 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I am not supposing certainty. I am just looking how they are treated in RS, particularly in reference works like Broughton.
 * Not sure who this editor it is you're referring to. But that's why I posted this inquiry in the talk page.  It is baldly alleged in the lede without sources, so I would like the editor to speak up and explain himself.  And in particular explain why Livy, Dionysius, etc. are wrong about his death, and the alternative evidence discovered to prove them wrong.
 * There may be idle conjectures, but Wikipedia shouldn't be promoting conjectures as fact. We should distinguish what is speculation from what is in the sources.
 * Two separate articles seem essential to me, otherwise links from other Roman history pages to either men will go to the same page and become difficult to separate what pertains to the 471 consul and what pertains to the 451 decemvir. It confusing and a disservice to readers. Walrasiad (talk) 17:32, 28 August 2022 (UTC)


 * You might want to review the sources and the article history. You say that Broughton treats them as different people—but both under 471 and 451 he identifies them as the same man—despite calling him "Crassinus" in 471, and "Crassus" in 451.  The reputed death of a man who might be the consul of 471 is footnoted in Note 1 under 451, pointing to PW, Claudius No. 123, and Broughton's earlier discussion of the tribunes of the plebs for 470.  I have not read PW 123 for some time—you should do so if you intend to split the articles.  Google Translate does very well with German, if you leave out the internal citations and don't abbreviate things.  The version I recall was based on the entries in the DGRBM, which I believe treats them as different men.  This source depended heavily upon Drumann, who wrote extensively on the Claudia gens, and whom you might also wish to consult.
 * Now the basic discrepancy is related to the fact that the Fasti Capitolini, while missing the year 471, gives the filiation of the consul and decemvir of 451 twice (he's also mentioned again under 450, but the filiation is missing). Both call him the son of Appius and grandson of Marcus, which could identify him as the son of the first Appius Claudius, consul in 495.  So the compiler of the Fasti—in Augustan times, but presumably relying on older sources, now lost—evidently regarded the consuls of 471 and 451 as the same man.  This discrepancy could be solved by supposing that the elder Claudius had a brother named Marcus, hithertofore unknown, who was the grandfather of the Appius who was consul and decemvir in 451—not necessarily unlikely, but extremely conjectural given that there is no other evidence for his existence.
 * As for his name, I note that Crassinus is simply a derivative form of Crassus, and could have been applied to the son of the first Crassus to distinguish him from his homonymous father, the patriarch of the Claudii at Rome. This would not have been necessary in 451—the elder Crassus probably having died long since.  You assume that "Crassinus is not Crassus", but the Romans didn't necessarily assign the same significance to this distinction; the same man could be called both Crassus and Crassinus at different points in his life, or by different persons, depending on their point of view.  If you're trying to distinguish him from his great father—or grandfather—Crassinus could be used for this purpose, while the same person might later refer to him as Crassus.
 * Meanwhile, the form "Inregillensis" used here, found in the Fasti and used by Broughton, is rejected by some scholars in favour of "Regillensis", the surname used by the Postumii. This may be due in part to the Regillianus found in Suetonius, in his "Life of Tiberius", 2.  This name would not have been used every day—if at all—by any of the early Claudii during their lifetime.  There is a school of thought that suggests that these surnames were retroactively applied to the ancestors of the Roman gentes prominent in the later Republic—the more extreme line of which claims, perhaps a bit incredibly, that nearly all cognomina date from the period of the later Republic, and are anachronistic in the early years.
 * Earlier scholarship seems to have assumed that Roman names were as given in the authorities dating from the late Republic and thereafter, and that they were fairly static, even though the same person might appear in different sources or at different times with slight variations, either as to diminutive forms—Crassus versus Crassinus—or which of several surnames were included in each mention or in what order. As a result, if someone's father and son were called "Crassus", then the intervening generation must also have been "Crassus", even if that surname was not mentioned by any surviving sources.  This is not entirely unreasonable, but recent scholarship is usually less willing to make such inferences, given the highly variable nature of Roman names, even during the Republic, as well as the possibility that much of the nomenclature of the early period is not a fully authentic record of the names used at that time, but might have been bestowed retroactively—or edited for consistency—during the later Republic.
 * As a result, it is not at all clear from the inconsistent names or filiation of the consuls of 471 and 451 whether they are the same person or different men. It seems to me that a preponderance of the evidence favours the earlier interpretation, that they are different men, and that too much reliance is being placed on the filiation in the Fasti, given the statements in Livy and Dionysius that the consul of 471 died the following year, and the fact that the decemvir seems to have been a younger man.  But my conclusion—or that of any editor—can't resolve this.  That would be original research.  However, we can decide which authorities to follow in deciding whether to treat them separately or together.  Here it's necessary to reach consensus, since there seems to be disagreement among the authorities.  And for this we need to be sure we've examined the main authorities—Broughton alone isn't enough.  Hope this brings the matter into focus.  P Aculeius (talk) 23:38, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you so very much for a very thorough answer! OK, I notice the detail in Broughton and stand corrected.
 * I found a copy of PW 123 at Wikisource here PW 123. Admittedly my German is poor, but it is frankly quite unsatisfactory.  It seems rather like circular reasoning ("he cannot have died in 470 because he was decemvir in 451").  He seems very attached to the early Fasti, even while admitting that the Sullan fasti make him father & son!
 * There's a lot of brusque dismissal in PW of anything related by the chroniclers about the 471 consul (not only the death of 470, but also his candidacy in 482, his interventions on counter-tribune strategy in 481/80, etc.) (his early interventions make his age in 451 even more ridiculously out-of-whack - a consular candidate in 482 would have been a septuagenarian in 451!). The PW editor dismisses all this as retroactive reconstructions based on legends rather than historical fact. Perhaps. But that can be said about anything in Livy, Dion, et al. for these early centuries. The PW argument seems almost conspiratorial. But even if true, that doesn't mean the chroniclers should be entirely ignored.  Otherwise we might as well delete everything in his biography here (and go on to dismiss everything in other articles on early Roman history.)
 * In short, there really isn't a preponderance of evidence to override Livy & Dion's account of his death. Just a lot of conspiratorial conjecture.  I'd rather be naive and take them at face value, than embrace the speculations of our PW author.
 * The PW almost undermines its own argument by reminding that the chroniclers describe the App. Claudius of the first Decemvirate as being perceived as nice and fair by the plebeians in 451, and that he "changed face" during the second Decemvirate of 450 to reveal himself an aristocratic tyrant. If this is the same man of 471, there is no way he would be thought of as anything but an aristocratic tyrant from the outset, already at the first Decemvirate. The 471 consul had a very dismal reputation as a tyrannical brute, both in peace and war. PW goes to great lengths to skirt around this.
 * PW is really not convincing. He just cavalierly throws out everything and anything that might suggest they were different men.  He stubbornly hangs on to the identification as the same men,  for no good reasons other than "it is there".  He never considers whether the old fasti might be a typo.  This is very weak sauce.
 * I am not proposing to state it as a historical fact they are different men, but only that it is a fact that the chroniclers treat them as separate men, and so deserve separate articles. The possible identification issues can be discussed in the text. Walrasiad (talk) 04:00, 29 August 2022 (UTC)


 * That is certainly the stronger argument, IMO—surely the decemvir could not have deceived everyone with his character had he been the consul of 471. And generally his description and actions are those of a younger man, perhaps in his forties, not one in his sixties or beyond.  We cannot assume that consuls or consular candidates of the early Republic must have been over forty, as they were in the late Republic—but even allowing for a relatively young man in 471—or 482—he would have been getting on a bit to have been the decemvir from 451 to 449.  We can, as some sources suggest, take the story of the earlier consul's death in 470 as an embellishment of history; but unless there is some concrete reason for doing so, this is no better than ignoring any other details that do not seem to fit the narrative we have ourselves constructed.
 * Now, bear in mind that PW was not written by one man, but by many of the best classical scholars over several decades. I don't know who authored the discussion on Claudius No. 123, and can't evaluate the writer's general perspective from this alone.  We have two very general approaches to classical scholarship over the last two centuries: 19th century writers tended to take Greek and Roman writers at face value whenever possible, disregarding only those statements that seemed incredible to them, or which could not reasonably be harmonized.  More recent writers tend to regard everything that Greek and Roman sources say as dubious or potentially fabricated for propagandistic reasons.  It is certainly true that more material is available now, particularly in terms of epigraphy, and our chronology is better; modern writers can quickly retrieve—and search—more sources than older writers could.  But much of the difference is simply one of opinion, or perspective.
 * Before splitting the article again, I would check what Drumann says, if anything, about these one or two Claudii. I think he will have written something about them.  And check the DGRBM, as well, since it provides the counter-opinion to PW.  Broughton will have cited his sources as well—if you can see them, you might want to check what they had to say on the subject, since they will be much newer—not necessarily more correct, but they are not authorities to be lightly dismissed.  P Aculeius (talk) 04:33, 29 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I just took a peek at the copy of Drumann's Geschichte Roms, vol. II, at Archive.org, under the Claudii. Here the consuls of 471 and 451 are listed and discussed separately—but both assigned the number '2', and they appear as the same person on the stemma preceding this.  The explanation is provided by the footnote on page 144, which (according to Google Translate) says that the death of the first Claudius in 471 "is invention. Drumann did not know that the consul of 471 and that of 451 are one and the same person. He held them for father and son (but the identity is clearly stated in the Fasti Capitolini)."  So what we have here is a later annotation to Drumann's original, presumably by Paul Groebe, the editor of the 1902 edition, taking the opposite view—and the one currently relied upon by this article—based on the Augustan-era fasti.  I see no other reasoning provided.  Drumann held them to be father and son, as does the DGRBM, probably following Drumann—though noting that the fasti make him them the same man.
 * The article in DGRBM points to note 754 in volume 2 of Niebuhr, which says that the consul of 451's fililation in the fasti has long been known. Niebuhr seems to have been of the opinion that the repeated story of each of them committing suicide—although Dionysius says he was widely believed to have been put to death by order of the tribunes of the plebs—suggests that the death of the earlier consul in 470 was an invention, and that the man could well have managed to reconcile himself to the people over the intervening twenty years by skillful artifice; although Niebuhr also admits that the account of the decemvirate suggests the involvement of a younger man.  In short, he is not absolutely certain, although he is swayed by the fasti.
 * Now what I find curious is that Groebe assumes that Drumann treated the two consuls as different men because he did not know about the filiation of the consul of 451 in the fasti. But unless the note in Niebuhr is likewise a later annotation, the fasti must have been known this well at the time Drumann was writing; volume 2 of Niebuhr was edited and republished in 1828, and the author himself died in 1831; the English translation in question dates from 1851.  Drumann's work on the great houses of Rome was published from 1833 to 1844.  If the identification provided by the fasti was long known by 1828, or even 1851, then Drumann must surely have been aware of it, although Groebe may have assumed otherwise in 1902.
 * In any case, what we know is that Drumann treated them as different men; the DGRBM follows him, but notes that the fasti make them the same man; Niebuhr thinks they are probably the same, but he has his doubts; later editions of Drumann assert they are the same. PW regards them as identical, and I assume that Degrassi, the only recent source I see mentioned in Broughton, probably did as well, since Broughton so treats them, although he also notes the discrepancy.  Where does this leave us?  If it were up to me I would keep them as separate articles, indicating them as probably father and son, following Livy and Dionysius rather than the fasti, but noting the contrary and equivocal opinions.  But another editor merged the two articles, based on the opinion that they were the same man—so it isn't up to me.  Only a consensus among the editors can satisfactorily resolve this.
 * Just a quick note about his names: from Drumann it seems that the confusion about his correct name involves a reading of the fasti—should "CRASSINREGILL" be read as "Crassinus Regillensis" or as "Crassus Inregillensis"? The DGRBM uses "Regillensis", which I followed when writing/rewriting the articles on the early Claudii.  Most other sources seem to favour "Inregillensis", although they do not discuss the matter.  Whichever is correct would presumably also determine whether the other members of this family were "Regillensis" or "Inregillensis".  But this is a lesser issue than whether this article is discussing one or two men.  P Aculeius (talk) 01:55, 30 August 2022 (UTC)