Talk:Athenian coup of 411 BC

Mysterious
The article is a bit mysterious about the oligarchs, who they were, and what motives they (may have) had. Why was the deal with Persia attractive? What other conflicts with the democrats could have led to a schism? --Dhartung | Talk 11:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remains unanswered, it seems. Yet I agree completely. Perhaps a stub flag will arouse some interest. =)Yeago 07:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Lead
I wonder if a coup can be a 'revolutionary movement'. Surely a coup is the result of a revolution. The movement is either the group of people who are revolting or the action of revolting. Also, the first sentence seems to suggest that the coup is somehow between Athens and Sparta. I think the lead should read something like: "The Athenian coup of 411 BC was the result of a revolution that took place during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The coup overthrew the democratic government of ancient Athens and replaced it with a short-lived oligarchy known as The Four Hundred."

The rest could do with a ce - I'll have a go. Myrvin (talk) 11:59, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

BC should be changed to BCE - including renaming the article.
As this episode has nothing to do with Christianity it makes no sense to use the term BC "Before Christ" rather than the more neutral BCE "Before Common Era".

In addition, as the Roman Catholic Pope Gregory XIII accepted bad calculations when enforcing the new calendar, Jesus of Nazareth (if born at the time laid out in the Christian gospels) would have been born in the year 6 Anno Domini ("the year of our Lord") so it is an archaic calendar term that in truth serves no one and has a history of asserting that minority faiths like Judaism and native ancestral religions are false.

For this article all the notables are pagans which have no connection to any tradition that holds the need for a savior, so placing them in a timeline that promotes the ideas that they and people like them worship demons (as Christian Church Fathers John Chrysostom and others state) makes no sense.

If we were writing articles for Conservapedia (a conservative Christian version of Wikipedia) than abandoning neutral terms to promote a version of events that tries to center all of human history around Jesus of Nazareth than using the term BC could arguably make sense. It does not make sense here. --Wowaconia (talk) 17:23, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * It's funny, really. So much argumentation and yet the irony remains that BCE to CE still revolves around the central event of the Christian reckoning of years. Pope Gregory:1, Wowaconia:0 ;) Jyg (talk) 21:14, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Kagan
This article appears to be a précis of Donald Kagan's "The Fall of the Athenian Empire." I've never seen so many citations to exactly the same book in one article. We should be looking for more references. Also, just mentioning the book as a citation is not good enough. Citations should also contain page numbers. Again, I'll have a go once I've finished ce-ing. Myrvin (talk) 17:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * When I came upon this article Kagan's book was the only thing listed and there were no inline citations. See old page here[]. Therefor I began with Kagan's work as the main source to expand the article. Page numbers may be preferable but are not a requirement of Wikipedia as far as I am aware. I have no problem if one wishes to add page numbers, and agree it would be nice to have more sources. I will also be adding more info from Kagan, as looking over his work shows the complexity of the event is still not fully reflected in this article.--Wowaconia (talk) 17:34, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Well done on the work. If you read WP:Page numbers, you'll see that for lengthy references, pages are preferred. We might consider using WP:SFN. Myrvin (talk) 18:23, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, there is confusion between what Kagan says and what he says Thucydides says. This should be clarified. Myrvin (talk) 18:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

And then...
The article ends with ".... The Four Hundred were officially replaced by the 5,000, who ruled for several more months until after the Athenian victory at Cyzicus." And then what? If I search for "The 5,000" on Wikipedia I am directed to this same article. I'm falling off the edge of my seat here. Can we at least have a link at the end to the next leadership of Athens? Jyg (talk) 21:18, 9 June 2016 (UTC)