Talk:Patroclus

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jjdgzd. Peer reviewers: Eewaggoner.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:14, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Odysseus... What?
"After retrieving his body, which had been protected on the field by Odysseus and Ajax (Telamonian Aias)..."

Wait, what? Isn't it Menelaus and Ajax? Odysseus was still injured and didn't take part in that battle. 212.250.138.33 (talk) 02:38, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * You are correct, I changed it and added a reference. Lophostrix (talk) 11:27, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

What was he then?!
It seems to me that the Greek heroes had attained a level of divinity which set them apart from ordinary mortals - even though the Greeks saw them also as historical personages. I am sure that you are aware that at times these heroes, formally known as "divine heroes" were even referred to as "gods" in a casual use of the word. Since to us they are even less historical then they were to the Greeks, what would you call them if not deities (a term which encompasses supernatural personages of ranks below that of the gods)?! Haiduc 12:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced that "deity" is a significantly wider concept than "god". There certainly isn't a meaningful distinction here.  (I'd also be interested to see an example of a hero — besides figures like Heracles and Asclepius, who were actually considered as both heroes and gods — being described as θεός.)


 * As for the specifics of the Greek divine heroes, I think that incorporating them into the term "deity" muddies the waters unnecessarily. Although heroes were widely worshipped in hero cults, there's still a distinction drawn between heroes and gods, both in ancient writings (Homer) and contemporary scholarship (for example, the Oxford Classical Dictionary, which says in its hero-cult entry, "Heroes... were a class of beings worshipped by the Greeks, generally conceived of as the powerful dead, and often forming a class intermediate between gods and men").  I think that incorporating gods and heroes into a single category of "deities" isn't really very useful for Wikipedia's purposes.  If, as seems to be the case, the scholars regard gods and heroes as different categories, we should do the same. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I think you have a point here - I have modified the name of the category to accomodate this understanding of the definitions. Haiduc 04:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Who is right? According to the movie "troy" Patroclus was Achilles cousin and not his friend, and that Patroclus was younger than Achilles. So I'm wondering about what is the correct information about Patroclus?.(Bader=21:47, 9/4/2008) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.166.179.101 (talk) 18:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It is good advice to ignore everything in the Troy movie. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

therapon?
An anonymous user added the redlinked word "therapon" to the introduction. I wasn't familiar with this word in English, and I couldn't find it in an English-language dictionary, the Oxford Classical Dictionary or even in Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon. I eventually found it in a Homeric lexicon (meaning "squire", roughly). It's apparently also used in koine to mean "servant" or "attendant" (so used in the New Testament, in the letter to the Hebrews), but I'm not familiar with the word's meaning in a Homeric or classical sense. I assume it's derived from ϑέρὰπεία ("service, attendance, medical treatment or cure"). Is this a term that should be recognized? I don't think that a casual reader should have to hunt for the meaning as I did. If it's not a widely known word, and the link remains red, it's not very helpful to have it in the description of Patroclus. Anyone object to removal? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with your removal of "therapon" from the article, but it may be interesting to know a bit more about the significance of the word: it seems to derive from an Anatolian word that meant "ritual substitute". By calling Patroklos the therapon of Achilles, the Iliad indicates that Patroklos' death is a substitute for Achilles' death, and a foreshadowing of it. A good place to look for the significance of the word is Ch. 2, section 8 of Gregory Nagy's The Best of the Achaeans, conveniently placed online by the Johns Hopkins University Press.


 * This is a bit specialized for a general encyclopedic article, however. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Josiah, I got your message. Yes, therapon means "ritual substitute".  I actually like including specifics in the encyclopedia - I think that's what's exciting about Wikipedia, that with continual updating you can (theorhetically) find information that is always up to date or being improved.  Anyway, no biggie. 131.194.232.14 02:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)131.194.232.14


 * Thanks to both of you. I think that if a therapon article is created, we can mention it here, or we can add a bit to the article about Homer's use of the word and its applicability to Patroclus.  I was just worried about the addition of the word without any context or explanation readily available to the lay reader. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008
Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 20:05, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Spelling
Shouldn't the name of the article be Patroklos? It's the direct transliteration of the Greek spelling. 70.128.46.25 (talk) 21:32, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Missing sources
1. "Menoetius was a member of the Argonauts in his youth. He had several marriages, and in different versions of the tale four different women are named as the mother of Patroclus."

What are the sources for the different versions?

2. "The death of Achilles is given in sources other than the Iliad."

What are these sources then?

ICE77 (talk) 07:20, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Does not Patroclus (PTR) without consonants, have some resemblence to St. Peter? or Jesus?
Well? The sources are this site and related ones! Regards, 96.19.147.40 (talk) 02:25, 14 January 2013 (UTC)Ronald L. Hughes


 * Well, the vowels are kind of important. The root of Patroclus is pater, "father", while Peter is petros, a rock. I suppose you could say the meaning of "Patroclus" ("glory of the father") could be a way to describe Jesus, but otherwise, what are the similarities? Sticking -cles (or -clus) on the end of a noun was a common way of forming names in Greek (Heracles, Androcles, Megacles, and so on). Adam Bishop (talk) 22:20, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Edits of this day
Please see the "Missing sources" section above, dating to 2011, to start, to understand that the perspective I am about to state is not new, and not singular or isolated. I merely extend the examination that this previous editor did, to the whole of the article.

I will begin with my conclusion, and then justify it: The article is an embarrassment to the encyclopedia, in its flouting the stated WP rules regarding sourcing and original research by editors. The article is a student essay (and poor for want of sourcing), with only sporadically appearing citations to primary sources, often vague at that. Most sentences and paragraphs have in fact no sources cited, despite their non-common knowledge content (most of article). On the few occasions that a citation appears, only primary sources are cited, and incompletely, and without standard links as can be offered to classical sources (most of remainder of article). There is a single exception, to the book of Martin; hence, a single quality secondary source appears in the whole of the article, as of this date.

Finally, in addition to its failure to allow for the verification of its factual content, the article repeated states interpretive conclusions regarding historical events, stating matters as fact without the required expert attribution (secondary sources), and so disconnects this article from published expert opinion, making it a mere pose of encyclopedic writing. In short, in its reliance on unsourced material or primary sources, and so on editor expertise, the the article is near to unverifiable, and almost entirely original research, in violation of WP:OR and WP:VERIFY. Le Prof 73.210.154.39 (talk) 06:48, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Fiction tag added, as best available (though not exactly needed) message, to call attention to the fact that the article fails, in its choice of language at times, to properly distinguish between history and mythology. Note, with regard to Patroclus and Achilles, the (historically presented) description of their being sent of to grow up among the centaurs. Leprof 7272 (talk) 07:28, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Issues are pedantic
Patroclus is a mythological character. It should be understood that every biographical statement in this article pertains to the legends surrounding the character as delineated in the Iliad, not as an historical personage. As such, I find it rather a nuisance to see all the big boxes complaining about the article. In addition, the frequent "non-primary source needed" notes also seem ill-placed considering that nigh everything that has ever been written about Patroclus is derived from the Iliad, a primary source as it were. Complaining that the article is derived from a single source seems rather pointless considering that there is only one source (besides the occasional and mostly insignificant references to him in other works of antiquity, as well as the Odyssey); it seems no different than whining that everything that is known about Chandler Bing is derived from a single source: Friends, who doesn't exist outside of that universe. Likewise, Patroclus exists only within the universe of the Homeric epics: any secondary/tertiary sources would invariably be interpretations of that one source. In my mind it is pointless to insist on something more. Philologick (talk) 16:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Possible Sources
I am going to focus on this article, specifically Patroclus' relationship with Achilles, for a class I am currently taking. I have compiled a few possible references. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Ledbetter, Grace M.. “Achilles' Self-address: Iliad 16.7-19”. The American Journal of Philology 114.4 (1993): 481–491. Percy, William Armstrong. “Reconsiderations About Greek Homosexualities.” Journal of Homosexuality 49.3-4 (2005): 13-61. Rabel, Robert J. “Cebriones the Diver: Iliad 16.733-76.” The American Journal of Philology 114.3 (1993): 339-41. Dowden, Ken. The Uses of Greek Mythology. London: Routledge, 1992. Print.

Jjdgzd (talk) 20:33, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

After making some additions to the page (including clarifying information and updating proper citations), I also corrected both Patroklos' and Achilleus' names to the spelling used by Homer in the Iliad. However, I am unable to figure out how to change the title to the correct spelling.

Jjdgzd (talk) 05:18, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The spellings "Patroclus" and "Achilles" are the most common spellings and are used throughout Wikipedia. Please stop changing them. Paul August &#9742; 01:15, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Consistency with Achilles and Patroclus
Hi all! I'm a student editor working on Achilles and Patroclus for a class assignment. I'll be editing the Relationship with Achilles section here for continuity across both articles. I'll likely edit down and move over any information that is specifically related to their relationship, as that is the purpose of the Achilles and Patroclus page! Grenadine13 (talk) 02:04, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HUM 202 - Introduction to Mythology
— Assignment last updated by Cherryfly (talk) 04:38, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi everyone! I'm working on a project about adding references to mythological Wikipedia pages-- I've included four so far. Please feel free to edit or delete if they don't seem necessary. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cherryfly (talk • contribs) 02:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)