Talk:Picenum

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Hey Amanda! Your article was really good. I assume you wrote the second part of the article because it appears to be written by a different writer. I just have a few suggestions: 1. I think this sentence could be reworked a little better: "The three interior towns of Picenum showed a system of urban layout and appeared to be economically successful, so it is unknown what caused this city to decline in later years.." There are also two periods on the end. 2. This sentence: "It was also used as a Roman base during the Social Wars, which took place from 91 B.C. to 88 B.C., showing Picenum’s Roman allegiance during the war for Italian citizenship." you could just take the dates out as just (91-88BC) and I think the sentence would flow a lot better. 3. Also the last paragraph you give a lot of good info on the items found in the tombs, but I think it would be helpful if you explained more the importance of these items. Maybe explain how important it is that they can identify the social hierarchy. Good article overall! Susan

Hi Amanda. Here are some potential fixes that I found, but please remember these are just my suggestions:

Organization - to aide flow, consider moving sentences 9 and 10 (more on geography) to the top where geography is being discussed. - adding section titles throughout would be great

Citations - when mentioning Strabo, Pliny, and Festus, maybe refer to them as ancient authors for clarity and perhaps show a citation for where in there works picenum is mentioned. - The statement in sentence 7 about modern archaeologists needs a citation - You already have several footnotes, why not insert the command that gives an auto listing of the footnotes at the end of your article (i would have put that command here for you but it won't display in these talk pages)

Nit-Picking - how(north/south or east/west) and where (above/below picenum or left/right) did the Foglia and Pescara rivers flow (i don't see them on the map; also foglia's internal link seems dead) - might consider changing the words cultural supremacy in sentence 4 to hegemony or dominance in order to maintain a neutral tone

This is a good encyclopedia article. I especially liked the discussion of the Rome/Picenum wartime relationships and the parts about the tomb archeology/traditions was interesting. Good job! Ken Kfd182 00:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

In general I would look at the article and try to group topics together in a more cohesive manner, you seem to move from geography to background to its importance to Rome and back to geography, try to group this together. My last comment isn't so much something that your article needs to imporve upon, but it might be interesting to add some sort of information detailing how they may have been particularly different from the from the Romans in terms of their early culture. Good Job. -Jeremy Kross

References on location
These are not necessary. As a parallel, you don't see any references telling us where Massachusetts is; people can just look at the map. Similarly, you don't need a reference to say that Rome is located in west central Italy. The location of Picenum is well-known, has never been in dispute. You do give maps. I'm removing those refs and putting them here.Dave (talk) 00:39, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "Picenum is one of the regions of Italy found on the Adriatic coast, on the opposite side of the peninsula from Rome and southeast of Umbria. Picenum spread along the Adriatic coast, and was surrounded by the regions of Umbria, Samnium, and Apulia. "


 * Non-encyclopedic; they can see where it is themselves. There are two maps.Dave (talk) 00:49, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Writing style
Wordy, repetitious, need polishing and condensation. I see your friends are having a great time picking it all apart. I notice they didn't write any articles. I wouldn't worry about it. If your writing did not improve as you go through school there would be no point in your going through school, would there? I'm sure you will do just fine. Mastery of English composition is not something most of us can learn overnight writing for WP. Meanwhile the level need to come up to adult.Dave (talk) 00:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Map change
Unfortunately the map of Picenum that was there does not identify the source even though the map is used in numerous WP's. The descriptions says it has been over 70 years since the map saw the light. It says that, but none of us can verify it as the contributor left off that little piece of information, what book he got it from. Not only that but the map is terrible - very fuzzy. So, I've taken the liberty of putting in a map we CAN verify, also from Commons.Dave (talk) 01:35, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic map
The ethnic map is used in all these italic peoples articles. It does not come up to snuff in precision and accuracy. I do not like it. What do you think if you care to vote?Dave (talk) 01:35, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I do not know about more accurate ones, there are simply more up-to-date variants [[Image:Iron Age Italy.png|thumb|250px|Approximate distribution of languages in [[Iron Age]] Italy during the sixth century BC.]]
 * probably from some original from the '20-'40ies  Cunibertus (talk) 15:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Iron Age in Italy
Well that is quite a good book. However, you can't get it at all without paying 1200 for it and at that price you don't get to review it. The sellers have us at their mercy. I do not know why you selected this inaccessible book. Some of the college libraries have it. For the moment I shall assume you looked at the book and the page numbers for those ideas are correct. For the moment.Dave (talk) 11:31, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Probably fake refs
Looking at the refs I see that a technical professional article by Vermeulen was used referencing the Journal of Roman Studies. What struck me is that the article is not used in any development you would expect. Subsequent recaps on the Internet indicate there is some really good information in there about the Potenza Valley. I would not know, you cannot access the article without buying the journal. The same is true of the other technical reference. No, the information is quite elementary and is opinionated. You would not expect professionals to be making an arbitrary statement of the length of the Iron Age and the other information. Not only that, but the article is about all of Picenum and not just the Potenza Valley. I note also that the notes are not on the information, they are placed regularly at the end of every paragraph. So, looking up the editor in the history I find some unregistered user from 2007 who only ever worked on WP that year and that not very much. From the comments in the history I can see that this is the same set of juveniles that made the comments above. Now, what would these juveniles be doing with expensive technical references you can only get in college libraries? My judgement is, nothing. They copied the refs off the Internet, I believe, without specific relevance, to lend credibility to their efforts. So ,what to do? The article needs expansion. Most of what is written there will be overwritten. That information is easily found in many of the books that ARE accessible. I am sure I do not need any visits to Boston University Library to check out these refs. So, they are going out. If my inferences are wrong, speak up, do a little more work, come back and say something mature and credible. Otherwise, my children, I must say that if you expect to go on with your educations this is not the way to do your homework and write your papers. Don't you think WP counts for anything? Until I get around to putting something credible in, I will not change them. I would say to the public, don't think you have to keep THOSE references around. There are plenty more out there to find.Dave (talk) 14:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Exonym
How do we know that Picenum is an exonym "assigned" by the Romans? Even if the Greek name Pikēnon comes only from an Imperial-era source (that is to say, Strabo) and is simply a Greek translation of Picenum, how do we know that Picenum wasn't simply a latinization of the Sabellic name? After all, the Sabellic languages are closely related to Latin as Italic languages, and many words are similar. There was, moreover, a legend that associated the Picenes with Latin picus, "woodpecker" (Umbrian peiqu, as explained here); although there is no reason to think that this would accord with an actual scientific etymology of the name, it does indicate at least that the Romans could have invented the derivation from picus because (as was standard practice in ancient etymology) it sounded like the name they found used among the Picenes. At any rate, there's no citation for the claim that this is an "exonym." Cynwolfe (talk) 22:01, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

North Picene language
The so called "North Picene" inscriptions are not from Picenum at all. Having been found around Novilara, in the present-day province of Pesaro-Urbino, they belong to the augustean regio VI Umbria. So they are not relevant here. 31.24.11.129 (talk) 06:07, 5 September 2022 (UTC)