Talk:List of Roman and Byzantine empresses

Translations
Can anybody translate all the name of the empresses into Greek and Latin? It would be a daunty task but it would help the article. Greek and Latin should be used in both periods since that was the two main language in the two empires even if the Roman used Latin more and the Byzantine used Greek more. --Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 01:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

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Imperial Coronations
I know that the earlier Roman empresses probably weren't coronated but some of the Byzantine empresses were. I don't know all the dates can anybody help with this? --Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 00:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Wrong Birth Year for Eudokia Angelina (d. 1211, Wife of Alexios V)
She couldn't possibly have been born in 1083 because that was earlier than her parents' birth dates. I guess it's a typo. Should it actually be 1183? Can anyone confirm? Esmetsai (talk) 04:32, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Where are the Valentinians?
This list skipped the Valentinians. Valentinian I (Marina Severa, Justina), Gratian (Laeta, Flavia Maxima Constantia) and Valens (Albia Dominica) are missing. José Luiz talk 01:17, 15 July 2013 (UTC) ✅. José Luiz talk 22:08, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Emperor Page Style vs. Empress Page Style
Could someone please explain why this page is a united list of both 'Byzantine' Empresses and Roman Empresses, when the List of Roman Emperors page contains only classical Roman Emperors? JCKaine (talk) 09:54, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It is pretty arbitrary, isn't it? I can't think of a real reason myself. I agree with you I think the separate pages for Roman and "Byzantine" should be merged. I Feel Tired (talk) 22:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Anachronism
This article currently states, "The Romans had no single term for the position" (i.e. of "women who were Roman Empress, i.e. the wife of the Roman Emperor, the ruler of the Roman Empire"). I'd like to suggest that this formula is misleading, at least for the Classical period, because there was in fact no such position. There were Augustae, but the position of "Empress" as such did not exist. I think we need to wait until much later for the position and title of basilissa to become a regular thing. And if the article is meant to list the holders of a position that didn't exist, this is a problem. Might I suggest that we rephrase the lede so that it makes clear that "empress" is used (in this article and by historians generally) as a convenient shorthand for any woman who was the consort of an emperor; that we make "empress" lowercase in "Became Empress" and "Ceased to be Empress"; and that we change "Empress consorts of the Roman Empire" to something that doesn't sound like a 17th-century European absolutist title? Maybe "Empresses in the united Roman Empire" or "Wives of Roman emperors (38 BCE–395 CE)"? Also incorrect are the succession boxes at the bottom of pages on individual empresses indicating their "Royal title" as "Empress of Rome" (sic). Q·L·1968 ☿ 15:42, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

It is hardly incorrect. All emperors, empresses and claimants of the Roman Empire held various titles, formal and informal, but modern historians treat them as singular offices and titles. Dimadick (talk) 18:40, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * With respect, it's exactly incorrect. "Empress" in the sense of being the wife of a Roman emperor was not royal and not a title. (This is certainly the case for centuries after the Augustan constitution of 27 BCE; eventually Byzantine empresses did evolve into titled royalty.) Q·L·1968 ☿ 15:53, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

No male "empresses"/husbands?
Nero, IIRC, married two man, Sporus and Pythagoras/Doryphorus. Even if probably nobody (beside Nero himself)took the marriages serious, they took place, so the two man should be added as emperor consort or something like this. 83.216.246.126 (talk) 15:07, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

List of Augustae
Someone created List of Augustae and messed up all wikidata interwikis for this page. I believe just Turkish and Portuguese are all right. José Luiz talk 02:33, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

The List of Augustae history page mentions creation in 2005, though it has been sufficiently fleshed out since then. The two articles are not exact matches, because the title "Augusta" was not granted to all Empresses and could be granted to other female relatives of the Emperor (sisters, daughters, etc). Dimadick (talk) 07:23, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Table contents
I was thinking about making some gradual changes to this article. Should the column about these empresses' father even be included? Considering that what they all have in common is their status as Roman/Byzantine empresses, all that matters is who their husbands were, and details about their life and marriage. Would it be better to just remove it?

Also, regarding the table, should the column regarding their husbands be at the very end of the table at the right, or come right after their name? PanagiotisZois (talk) 14:12, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Proposed merge of List of Augustae into List of Roman and Byzantine empresses
The list of Augustae already includes almost all empresses. The empresses list is also more detailed and fully sourced. I've made a new list in my sandbox to test it out, and it turns out that not much is changed overall. Tintero21 (talk) 21:38, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose I see no good reason for this.★Trekker (talk) 13:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose There may be distinct similarities, but I think there is enough of a difference to justify separate articles. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  17:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Augusta is a title awarded to specific women, and in my opinion we shouldn't even be calling the wives of Roman emperors "empresses" in the first place unless they were verifiably styled imperatrix. The earliest reference to an Augusta as imperatrix I have located comes from the reign of Leo in the fifth century CE (late antiquity, after Christianization). It's incredibly misleading to refer to the "Roman empress" as if she ascended to a throne like Catherine the Great, but probably such a kudzu of misapplied terminology that we could never root it out of the encyclopedia. Imposing a term that was not used to designate the role inevitably creates misperceptions because it evokes powers or ceremonies that did not attend on the emperor's wife. Augusta, however, is verifiable and has a meaning specific to Roman culture. During the Principate, the American "First Lady" might even be more apt than "empress". Cynwolfe (talk) 18:34, 5 June 2024 (UTC)