Talk:Gaius Sosius/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 12:30, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll look at this one. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 12:30, 26 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I have attempted to address the objectionable language (the article was indeed originally copied from an old public domain source) and the excessive citations.
 * The problem with using newer sources is that they are brief and refer to older works for the full picture (for example, the Oxford Classical Dictionary and Brill's New Pauly both rely on Syme 1939), so that, while "there has certainly been a lot of more recent research on the Second Triumvirate", this is not true of Sosius in particular, on whom older literature remains up to date. That said, I have reduced somewhat the number of citations to those sources from the 1920s and 30s.
 * Now that you mention it, I had never verified the authenticity of the coin picture. I found no sources aside from the CNG website itself, so I might replace or remove it altogether.
 * Let me know if I forgot something. Avilich (talk) 21:26, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Let me know if I forgot something. Avilich (talk) 21:26, 26 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you - I can certainly see the progress. I think the coin picture is good for the article and the identification is good enough for a 'maybe' - though also note that the CNG page mentions a few with his actual name on them. I wonder if any pictures of those exist?
 * I'm not sure the problems are quite fixed, particularly as regards citations. To take a quick example: note 14 covers 'The Second Triumvirate was to legally expire in 32 BC against the backdrop of Antony's growing enmity with Octavian and his marriage with Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt.', and references it both to Broughton and to Syme. There's a couple of key facts here - a) the Triumvirate was due to expire in 32, b) Antony was increasingly an enemy of Octavian, c) Antony's marriage to Cleopatra was (by WP:SYNTHESIS) somehow connected to at least b) and somehow relevant to a).
 * Do both Syme and Broughton provide evidence for all of that? I'd suggest that it's more likely that some parts come from Syme, others from Broughton, and that the overall synthesis may be original to Wikipedia. If the two sources do indeed have precisely identical accounts, then only one should be cited; if not, and the difference is significant, it should be reflected in the article.
 * This is just an example - 26 is another (presumably, Shipley doesn't give evidence for Syme's views, and so the citation to him should be pushed back before the brackets); 13 sticks out as well (again, a lot of moving parts: a) Sosius rebuilt the temple, b) Sosius pilfered the statues, c) Sosius was trying to commemorate his own triumph.
 * I fully appreciate your point on the lack of modern scholarship on Sosius specifically - though there is a significant chunk that comes up when you put his name into JSTOR in "quotes". It's also not quite the case that everything is simply a restatement of .g. Syme - see for instance Barbara Kellum's recent-ish (2008, p. 279) look at the Temple of Apollo Sosianus through a gender lens, which you can get the salient parts of from the Google Books preview (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Sex_and_Difference_in_Ancient_Greece_and/waUxEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1). Ditto if you do the same with Google Books - there's some good material on him in Barry Strauss' 2022 book, which goes into more detail on his role at Actium (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_War_That_Made_the_Roman_Empire/4qJgEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Gaius+Sosius%22&pg=PA162&printsec=frontcover). Even if you cite a modern source which bases its argument on older ones, you have the advantage of their fact-checking - that is, it proves that the older narrative is indeed up to date, and has not been superseded or questioned. If you only read and cite the older source, you run the risk of missing an important modern critique.
 * The tone is much better: there are still a few parts which read a little 'off' (more like an essay, or perhaps an early-20th-century historian) - look out particularly for bits which editorialise in favour of the Romans/one side: 'subdued the rebellious island city of Aradus' (is that how the locals would have described it?), 'which cost him the victory and the life of his ally' (lovely zeugma, but strange focalising: gives the agency to the person who didn't do the dying), 'the disastrous Battle of Actium' (not for Octavian). There are a few other spots which give the sense of detail being missed out: 'a constitutional advantage' (what, exactly, is that?) and 'advocating birth control'. In general, it looks as though the article's had a good spot-fix, and could now do with a more general look-over so that the ideas are expressed as someone would express them in 2022, not 1922. I've got a personal bugbear against 'committed suicide' (see Suicide terminology), but there are a couple of other examples where the language sticks out as dated ('routed under cover of fog a squadron...'). UndercoverClassicist (talk) 22:03, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I made some further changes as suggested. Still, I don't see a problem with some sentences citing more than one source, nor am I convinced that any reader at all will think that some of these passages are "from 1922", whatever that means. As for the works you cited above, they aren't focused on the topic and thus cover it only briefly; the ones from JSTOR are also mostly passing mentions. Syme's Roman Revolution and Broughton's Magistrates are classics, used as basic works of reference to this day, and there is no reason not to regard them as reliable sources. Avilich (talk) 00:48, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The issue with citation isn't about multiple citations in one sentence - it's about the loss of precision when multiple ideas are cited en masse to multiple sources, without any clear sense of which, if any, are supported by each source. A good example is the following sentence:
 * "Gaius Sosius assumed the consulship in 32 BC just as the Second Triumvirate, which had ruled Rome for the last decade, was about to legally expire and relations between the triumvirs Antony and Octavian collapsed."
 * There's at least four factual claims there:
 * Sosius became consul in 32 BC.
 * In 32 BC, the Second Triumvirate had ruled Rome for the last decade.
 * In 32 BC, the Second Triumvirate was about to legally expire.
 * In 32 BC, relations between Antony and Octavian collapsed.
 * The current citation style (citing Syme and Broughton for the whole thing) makes it impossible to tell which are actually supported by Syme and which are supported by Broughton. This is part of WP:TSI. I don't have the sources in front of me, so this is only an example, but it's possible that the real picture of what the sources actually say is closer to:
 * "Gaius Sosius assumed the consulship in 32 BC, just as the Second Triumvirate, which had ruled Rome for the last decade, was about to legally expire and relations between the triumvirs Antony and Octavian collapsed."
 * Assuming that all of those assertions are indeed backed up in the sources, splitting the citation so that the individual facts are cited would prove the case and remove the ambiguity. The other way to do it is through WP:BUNDLING, where the footnote actually explains what each source says: so something like:
 * "Gaius Sosius assumed the consulship in 32 BC just as the Second Triumvirate, which had ruled Rome for the last decade, was about to legally expire and relations between the triumvirs Antony and Octavian collapsed.[1]"
 *  ^ For Sosius' consulship, Broughton, p.147; for the breakdown of the Triumvirate in 32 BC, see Syme, pp.276-277.
 * In terms of the sources cited: there's nothing wrong with picking up valuable information passing mentions. You aren't going to find a whole book on a relatively peripheral figure like Sosius: what we do when we work with these kind of characters (and even the major ones) is pick up small bits of material from multiple sources, often where few see our subject as their main topic. Syme was the great master of this approach - have a look at his footnotes and see how he pieced together the raw material for his narrative. Both of the sources I linked for you contain useful information, on topics pertinent to the article, which is not currently reflected in the article.
 * On the older sources: Syme certainly has a lot of value, but definitely isn't the standard text on the 'Revolution' any more, and hasn't been since at least the 1970s. If you've got JSTOR access, these reviews will give you a sense of how his work is currently used and (rightly) viewed more through a history-of-scholarship lens than as a first resort for matters of fact and interpretation:
 * Christopher Smith, 2012 (esp. p.308)
 * Osborne and Vout, 2010 (of Wallace-Hadrill's Rome's Cultural Revolution, which is very important in the current conversation on the period)
 * Christopher Stray, 2010 (esp. pp. 9-10)
 * As the article stands, I'm not happy to pass it under c1 or c2. I recognise, however, that some of these are subjective matters, particularly when it comes to assessing what level of prose or citation is 'good enough' for GA status, versus the expectations of an FA. I'm happy, therefore, to wait until the end of the hold period to see where the article is at that point, and to pass it on for second opinion if the concerns above still stand. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:25, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * So you haven't a clue what the sources say, and are drawing conclusions on how they should be cited? WP:TSI says nothing about pedantically assigning each individual citation to each fragment of a sentence, nor about readers being able to personally verify what is in them, and and bundling sources "that each support a different portion of the preceding text" is explicitly allowed by WP:CITEBUNDLE. Do elaborate more on C1 and C2, because all the concerns on your box for C1 have been addressed, and there are absolutely no verifiability concerns. Avilich (talk) 15:14, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think I can explain this any further: I find your tone in the last response aggressive, and don't have confidence that we can have a reasonable or productive discussion about this. I have explained the steps I am happy to take with the review: I will leave it at that, for you or other editors to take forward as you wish. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 15:29, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * So you haven't a clue what the sources say, and are drawing conclusions on how they should be cited? WP:TSI says nothing about pedantically assigning each individual citation to each fragment of a sentence, nor about readers being able to personally verify what is in them, and and bundling sources "that each support a different portion of the preceding text" is explicitly allowed by WP:CITEBUNDLE. Do elaborate more on C1 and C2, because all the concerns on your box for C1 have been addressed, and there are absolutely no verifiability concerns. Avilich (talk) 15:14, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think I can explain this any further: I find your tone in the last response aggressive, and don't have confidence that we can have a reasonable or productive discussion about this. I have explained the steps I am happy to take with the review: I will leave it at that, for you or other editors to take forward as you wish. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 15:29, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Second opinion


 * The lead could be expanded a bit.
 * one of his most loyal and important lieutenants WP:PUFFERY
 * Sosius rebuilt the temple of Apollo Sosianus clarify. Did he rebuild it himself? I assume he oversaw it. The sentence as a whole is a bit awkward to read.
 * was appointed governor clarify who was appointed governer.
 * Sosius and his colleague in office... sentence is run-on, or bordering on it
 * This missive was never read... reword, language is a tad confusing
 * may also have been Sosius' daughter. looks like a citation got dropped

I ran this through Earwig and made random spotchecks, I am not finding anything in the realm of copyvios and everything seems reasonably cited. I did a fair amount of copy editing, just to save on time, please double check my work. These issues are relatively minor so this aught to be done in no time. Etrius ( Us) 04:07, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Done mostly. I disagree about the lead, however, as MOS:LEADLENGTH recommends no more than two paragraphs for < 15,000 characters, and this article has just over 6000. Avilich (talk) 14:54, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Avilich That's fine, the lead expansion is a rather weak suggestion anyway since the page is so short. I think that it would help the page but I agree it is out of scope, such is GAR. I've reviewed the page again, cleaned up a few more bits of prose. Page meets GA criteria and passes. Congrats on your first GA!!! Etrius ( Us) 01:09, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Etrius ( Us) 01:09, 29 December 2022 (UTC)