Talk:Euergetism

Evergetism vs. Euergetism
It looks to me as if euergetism is the much more common spelling (being used, for instance, in Paul Veyne's Bread and Circuses). Any objections against moving the page? --Konstock (talk) 21:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The English in this entry is stilted and sounds as if it had been translated by machine from the French, perhaps. The French language entry is perfectly fluent, by the way, again suggesting that original as a source for the inelegance of expression seen here.Lower Broadway Guru (talk) 20:45, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Inelegance is putting it politely. This page is close to unreadable, especially in the early going. --BobDobolina (talk) 03:05, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Definitely machine-translated from French. I would have found a proper English version useful - isn't there anyone knowledgeable out there who can improve it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.32.129.171 (talk) 12:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Much of it is almost unreadable. It's tempting to delete the lot, and start from scratch with a stub, but it might still be worth waiting for someone to improve it. I'll bring it to the attention of the History WikiProject, and see if they can help. -- The Anome (talk) 06:24, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Spelling problems
I would like to ask the authors of this page to review it, since some of their sentences do not make sense. Here are a few examples:

since the second half of the 4th century BC. [...] that profound changes affecting the financing of public life

the legitimacy of their appointment by the city no longer consensus

the richest do not contribute less if they are required not to compel them

It seems that these sentences have been written by a non-native English speaker (or by a drunk one). The result is that they are unreadable.

Boulanger
This blogger, discussing this article, suggests that the historian "A. Boulanger" that coined the term might have been André Boulanger. The name "A. Boulanger" is also referenced on page 6 (book page numbering) of this PDF excerpt of the book The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire by Arjan Zuiderhoek (ISBN 9780521519304), with the words " It was first used in a work by A. Boulanger on Aelius Aristides and the sophists in Asia Minor" with a partial reference to "Boulanger (1923)" but since the online preview does not include the table of references, I can't follow it any further.

Update: The French Wikipedia article fr:André Boulanger has more on Boulanger. Given that it states that his thesis title was "AElius Aristide et la sophistique dans la province d'Asie au IIe siècle de notre ère", I think it's quite probable that he's the A. Boulanger in question. However, since we can't use Wikipedia as a source for itself, this doesn't quite clinch it: can anyone look up the full reference in Zuiderhoek's book, and hopefully pin this down properly?

Update 2: The German Wikipedia article de:Euergetismus also attributes the term to André Boulanger. -- The Anome (talk) 05:43, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Bingo! A Google search for "André Boulanger 1923 euergetism" finds a number of sources that all agree on this, including this thesis: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/NQ35439.pdf. On thesis page 15 (PDF page 27) it quite clearly attributes it to André Boulanger, citing "André Boulanger.  Aelius Aristide et la sophistique dans la province d'Asie au iie siècle de notre ère. (Paris: de Boccard, 1923). 25." -- The Anome (talk) 06:10, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Comprehensability
I think English is not the writer's native language. I wanted to comprehend this article, I tried, but it is for the most part incomprehensible to me. I can't determine even basic things, like whether wealthy Athenians became more or less generous in their donations over time. So, so many sentences are incomprehensible. It made my head hurt. 2603:7080:413F:B700:8CBE:C7E0:1537:AFE4 (talk) 00:32, 9 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I completely agree. The article is difficult to follow. It is rambling and makes very little sense. It would be better just to delete 90% of it if no one with sufficient knowledge on the topic is available to edit/rewrite it. 151.229.82.149 (talk) 23:24, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * All of the first section is garbled as of January 2024, if it's been this way for as long as these comments have been here, it's discouraging that no one has fixed it. I'm not a scholar on this, but I love Wikipedia for so many things and this topic seems important to me. Thanks to contributors! Melinda-pixel (talk) 19:24, 26 January 2024 (UTC)