Talk:Gallia Aquitania

Moulin Chokshi
Very thorough article that covers the breadth of Rome's reign over this area. You could include a contents section so that people could directly link to the history section or other section. When taking information from sources in your reference section, it may just be better to have a superscript 1 for the first source, 2 for the second, and so on so that you don't rewrite the author and year it was published each time. Also, you may want to include any important Romans who came from that region. "Two hundred thousand fought against Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus and against Domitius Ahenobarbus (Domitian." Parenthesis is needed after Domitian. It would be interesting to know what present or past cities exist in this region. "Early Roman Gaul came to an end late in the 3rd cent." Write out the word century. You also might want to alphabetize your reference section. "With the reorganization of the provinces by Diocletian, Gallia Aquitania was split into three provinces, Aquitania Prima, Aquitania Secunda, and Aquitania Tertia or Aquitania Novempopulana (modern Gascony), within the Diocesis Viennensis of the Praetorian Prefecture for Gauls." You may want to explain what this Diocesis Viennensis of hte Praetorian Prefecture for Gauls is. I tried looking it up but couldn't find an explanation. Finally, in your references, you may want to narrow it down and say which part of these large books, like Historia Augusta, you actually used. This article is very extensive and really does give a clear overview of the region —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MoulinChokshi (talk • contribs) 21:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

Rob Jackman
I agree with Moulin's positive take on your article. Good job. In terms of the references, you should think about avoiding citations within the text. Use the reference command that wikipedia provides - this would give readers the added bonus of knowing which pages you refer to. Though I don't know the wikipedia convention, my understanging is that sources do not need to be alphabetized in citations (that would make it a bibliography.)

The content is just fine, but there are a few things I'd like to know more about. How and why were the provinces of Gaul realigned under Agrippa? How and why were they realigned later? Did the people of Gallia Aquitania identify with Rome during the period of Roman control? If so, who identified themselves in such a manner and why? This might follow your observation that 'Gaul' as a nation was not a natural unit. All in all, good work. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.12.187.235 (talk) 21:44, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

Alex Sandhu
Overall a very informative, well-written entry. There is a lot of information that covers the breadth of the topic and relatively well-organized. Good inclusion of images to understand the area. Again, you might consider including Wikipedia annotations as they allow the reader to see the full citation of the source easily.

When one starts discussing the history, one might want to give a little more background and information on how Rome became involved in the area and why Massalia brought Rome in for help. In addition, it is unclear how they went from protecting Massalia to creating "the province." In addition, one might want to explain what "the province" originally was and why it went to war with neigboring tribes. On a grammatical note, you are missing the parantheses on the source "(Domitian."

One many want to find some information about the governance of the region under Roman control. This may include administrative actions, changes to local customs, or any other effects brought about by Roman control. One may also want to consider any longlasting effects of Roman occupation of the region, either culturally or structurally.

Altogether the article is well-linked and well-organized with almost all relevant information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.74.101.196 (talk) 07:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Anise K. Strong
Very thorough, well-researched article, and you responded very well to your editors' very helpful comments. Great job - this is a wonderful resource to add to the web. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anisekstrong (talk • contribs) 03:17, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Pagi
"Pagi" were institutions of the carolingian Empire, not of the roman Empire. The article should say that the celtic organization of the territory, that the romans remained, is not well knowed but was certainly very complexe and strong as you can understand when you read Cesar about the political parties in Gaul. That is probably the reason of the variation of the term "Aquitania". "Tribes" is not appropried. It is like say "Latium and Campania were the main tribes of Italy". Cesar said "civitates". "Tribes" ("tref" in britonish, cornish and welsh) were in the celtic organisation a subdivision of a town. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.66.73.147 (talk) 00:41, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

List of tribes inhabiting Aquitania
Being of a more obnoxious disposition I am sorry to say that I can’t quite join in with the praise and jubilation about the article. At least the list of tribes inhabiting Aquitania is rather inadequate, to put it mildly. Without much effort I found the following errors:

1. ULIARUS and 2. VENETI (Veneticae): Both terms occur in the last paragraph of Pliny’s book on the tribes of Aquitania, in which he describes the seas to the north and west of Gaul. Now, the Veneti were a seafaring tribe of Aremorica = Brittany and lent their name to some of the islands off the southern coast of the peninsula, the 'Veneticae' islands ["insulae … quae Veneticae appellantur"], a name which included for example today’s Belle-Île. And to the south of those islands lies the largest Gaulish-French island in the Atlantic Ocean, Uliarus, today the Île d'Oléron. But if one doesn’t understand Latin and can’t be bothered to find a suitable translation, one can easily turn the names of some islands into tribes of Aquitania. And why not? After all, if it’s in Wikipedia, it will be a fact sooner or later, albeit an 'alternative fact'. But who cares?

3. TOLOSANES: These had always belonged to the Provincia Narbonensis, and accordingly Pliny doesn’t mention them as Aquitanians, but just as being separated from the Petrocori, an Aquitanian tribe, by the river Tarnis = Tarn.

4. + 5. OSQUIDATES and OSQUIDIALES: These seem to be due – just like much of the other nonsense in this list – to Philemon Holland’s rather inadequate translation of 1601. The real names of these tribes were Oscidates Campestres, i.e. the Oscidates of the Plains, and Oscidates Montani, i.e. the Oscidates of the Mountains. Worse still, Holland translated the latter as Osquidiales Mountainers, he himself or the printer put a comma between the two, and then some genius apparently turned the Mountainers into an additional Aquitanian tribe, the Mandubii, just because the two words sound so overwhelmingly similar.

6. MANDUBII: These lived many, many miles away from anywhere in Aquitania, to the north of the Aedui and west of the Lingones in the Roman province of Lugdunensis Prima, in what is today the region of Burgundy. Incidently, their capital was the infamous Alesia, where the Gauls lost their decisive battle against Julius Caesar.

7. NITIOBROGES and ANTOBROGES (Holland, and hence the list have Autobroges): The latter has been accepted as an erroneous rendition of the former by scholars, i.e. people who – unlike most Wikipedians – normally know what they are writing about, for ages. (cf. Wikisource, RE:Antobroges and Bostock & Riley’s translation of 1855).

8. CAMBOLECTRI and AGESINALES: Firstly, according to more modern publications of the text it should be Agessinates and not Holland’s Agesinales. Secondly, pertinent scholars (e.g. Bostock & Riley and Mayhoff) generally agree that these should be seen as one people, i.e. the Cambolectri Agessinates, so as to distinguish them from the Cambolectri Atlantici (cf. Wikisource, RE:Cambolectri 2; Bostock & Riley, and Mayhoff). However, this question cannot be answered decisively since Latin had the basic flaw of doing without punctutation marks, so what with the absence of commas, these could also be two different peoples.

9. ELUI| and ELUSATES (I have idea how to pronounce the last "letter" of ELUI|)

10. PETROCORII and PETROGOTI (again Holland’s shoddy reading)

11. RUTENI & RUTHENES: all of these are just two different versions of the names for the same peoples. So it’s just three tribes as opposed to six! Great thinking that on the part of the author, splitting variations of one name into different names, thus inventing new peoples. Apparently the three top football teams in Manchester are Manchester United, the Red Devils and Manu.

12. CONVENAE: Having had to strike off so many Aquitanian 'tribes' off the list, one is actually relieved to be able to add one, the Convenae. Holland’s poor Latin made him mistranslate their name as meaning "[coming together] from different parts" with reference to the following list of Pyrenean tribes. But unlike most of the others here the Convenae are quite well-known, their name still being extant in the name of the region – also a medieval county – Comminges.

As for the rest:

- The list contains some rather curious names, due to the its progenitor using Holland’s AD 1601 readings. The accepted names today are: Pindedunni / Pinpedunni for Bipedimui and Tornates / Toruates for Vornates.

- Two other names exist in two versions each: the Latusates ara a.k.a. the Tarusates and the Sassumini a.k.a. the Lassunni.

- And last but not least, as for the CUBI and VIBISCI: These are the cognomina of two sections of the famous Bituriges nation, the Cubi having lived in what is now the region of Berry, capital Bourges, and the Vibisci around their capital Burdigala = Bordeaux. They are normally known as BITURIGES Cubi and BITURIGES Vibisci.

All in all, I feel quite justified to say that at least the list is not quite as "very informative", "thorough, well-researched", etc. as some people above believe it to be. (Having been surprised by the list, I couldn’t be bothered to read the rest of the article.) But that’s the thing about Wikipedia, isn’t it? Someone feels the creative impetus to leave a mark for the world at large; some other people – no doubt experts themselves, who are well-versed with the matter in hand and so of course able to form a well-founded opinion – find it 'awesome' and lo and behold! the article is used throughout the globe as a sound fountain of knowledge. Since the Wikipedia-sytem of writing and praising seems to be working so well, let’s hope it will go on and on and on forever and ever for the benefit of mankind. Lots of luck.93.208.65.140 (talk) 22:44, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Circular References
The links to Aquitania Prima and Aquitania Secunda just come back to the same article Gallia Aquitania. A temporary solution is to link these terms to the Spanish Wikipedia articles, Aquitania primera and Aquitania segunda, which include a map. However, I don't know how this is done. Could someone please make this change, assuming you agree any kind of map is a good idea. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 22:27, 4 June 2022 (UTC)