Talk:Pliny the Younger on Christians/Archive 1

Non-neutral
This article contains non-neutral, unattributed statements such as "Pliny was considered an honest and moderate man, and consistent in his pursuance of suspected christian cult members by roman law." Cynwolfe (talk) 12:10, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I see that Aldux has worked through all this to good effect. I'm still concerned about the wording of the last section (Pliny the Younger on Christ), less because of neutrality than the "we know" wording (we who?) and the use of three different sources massed as one to support a whole paragraph of statements, which raises the question of improper synthesis. Another issue of balance/undue/neutrality with articles like this is that they tend to use religious studies sources who are often viewing the text through a "history of Christianity" lens; the work of philologists, classicists, and ancient historians is (as here) absent; no Pliny specialists are used as sources. These kinds of sources are needed to understand the context in which the remarks are made: how the classical author thinks, and how he normally talks about minority communities or other religions, or other historical circumstances. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:36, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Pointless article
What exactly is the point of this article? I think it should either be merged with the Pliny the Younger article or an article about ALL contemporary references to early Christians 138.246.2.73 (talk) 20:14, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree. I've suggested elsewhere (can't remember where) that I don't see what's served by having this article, Tacitus on Christ, and Suetonius on Christ. They all seem like questionable content forks to me, because the scholarly methodology overlaps in all three and (if covered properly) would cause considerable repetition of content. They all also seem to have been compiled from religious scholars who work within a Christian rather than classical frame of reference, which skews the POV. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The neutrality tag is well placed I think, in that the article seems to have a rosy picture of various aspects, etc. But I do not think merging it to Pliny will be a good idea because there is room for much expansion here on Pliny on Christians rather than Pliny on Christ. That issue in itself is a valid historical topic and merging it into Early Christianity will totally divert from that page by making it too long. As for merging it with Tacitus on Christ, these are completely different ball games, in that Pliny wrote more on Christians and on diverse issues about them and his writings are historically notable in their own right. What this article needs is a move to Pliny on Christians and a good expansion with historical sources and views rather than the current sad state it has now. But unlike Tacitus on Christ which is a valid topic in its own right, I think the general scholarly consensus is that Suetonius on Christ is not of a high historical value and that page may as well get merged to Suetonius itself, given that it is but a footnote to history, unlike the Tacitus and Pliny material. History2007 (talk) 23:17, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I meant that since all three articles require some of the same kinds of context for understanding the passages, they might all be treated together as something like "classical authors on Christ(ians)" or some such. The Suetonius article used to have a highly disproportionate section on the topic which had to be reduced, because it was longer than the section on The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, as if Suetonius's primary importance was what little he said about Christianity. Cynwolfe (talk) 01:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * But Suetonius is hardly even a guest in that party, given that he says so little and what he says is not considered of the same caliber as Tacitus by any measure. And the details Pliny gives about the Christian rituals are nowhere to be found in Tacitus. What does make sense, however would be to have a common reference point for them, as you suggested, and a section on Tacitus and Pliny in the Early Christianity article would certainly be good. We might even let Suetonius come to that party for a few minutes if he is nice. I actually suggested work on the Pliny issue an hour or so ago on Talk:Early_Christianity. This issue has not been treated properly in Wikipedia, and as usual it will take plenty of work to set it right. The editors on the Early Christianity page such as Carlaude, Esoglou, Richard, etc. (alphabetical order) are all pretty well versed in this topic. It will be a question of talking them into spending the effort. The guilt angle may just work if you want to try that. But do not let them read this... History2007 (talk) 02:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * There is merit to having this page, as this letter and the response to it are likely to be looked up on their own, although greater historical context needs to be added, including references to Pliny's contemporaries, as Cynwolfe pointed out. This article would also seem less pointless if the contents of each section had to do with its heading, such as removing the part about the significance of the letter from the section on authenticity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BCRE-Raskin (talk • contribs) 06:02, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with that statement. In Wikilanguage the term "merit" is usually referred to in terms of notability and the topic is clearly notable. And as sated a few times before the page does need clean up. I am waiting for the class project to finish its assignments, then I will touch it up further if needed, say in early June 2012. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 07:37, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Synthesis
This is a carelessly put together article, as the clusters of footnotes indicate. In several instances, a statement needs to be attributed to a specific source, and instead we get a cluster of footnotes at the end of the paragraph. In the passage I've marked as synth, two of the three sources are online, but neither of these seems to say quite what the paragraph says. So verification is problematic. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You are, of course, right. I need to I find time at some point to fix it. But it is now also the subject of a class assignment, so maybe we should wait for that to end then see what remains to be done. What do you think? History2007 (talk) 13:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Should focus on the letters between Pliny and Trajan
I understand where the other commenters are coming from, in that this article in its current state would not necessarily warrant being separate from the source article on Pliny the Younger. However, if this article were to be revised to focus on the letters between Pliny and Trajan (and not on what the article says about the existence of Christ), then it could stand on its own as a more detailed account of how Pliny may have viewed early Christians as a Roman official.

It is of the utmost importance that readers understand that Pliny did not execute or persecute Christians as part of official Roman policy; in fact, the content of his letters reads more like a request to validate or clarify the Roman Empire's stand on Christians. In the beginning, Pliny clearly notes that "I am unacquainted with the method and limits to be observe either in examining or punishing [Christians]," and is confused about whether or not to punish Christians for just being Christian or for the alleged crimes that they commit.

This letter thus reflects some of the early confusion of Roman attitudes toward Christians, and it also brings to light the fact that Christian accusers were not Roman officials, but were rather private citizens (delatores) that brought the accused before the governor. This article needs to trim back its focus on the theological aspects of the letter and focus more on providing a detailed account of the text of the letter itself.


 * Thank you for making a helpful and thoughtful comment. I'm not sure anyone suggested that the article focus on the letters themselves (Epistulae (Pliny) already exists). I'll just reiterate my comment above that having looked over Pliny the Younger on Christians, Tacitus on Christ, and Suetonius on Christ, it would for me make a more coherent article if these were unified and called something like Christianity in Classical literature. What the various commentators don't seem to get is that the methodology and socio-religious context for these authors is the same; at least of the third of each article (in an ideally developed state) would cover the same background. The material from Pliny is obviously more expansive; that of Tacitus and Suetonius would be a complement to that. All three articles suffer (though "Tacitus on Christ" to a lesser extent) from improper synthesis, in that there's often a collocation of multiple footnotes at the end of the paragraph, as if all the sources concur on the summary presented therein, but when you check the sources, you see that in fact they're often saying rather different things, and individual sentences or even phrases need a citation.


 * There's also an obvious problem when people looking for evidence on the existence of Christ mine or cherrypick Classical sources they don't understand as a whole. The secondary sources used for these articles are almost entirely, if not entirely, from Biblical scholars, without the perspectives of classical philologists or ancient historians. If you don't understand Tacitus's general tone and attitudes, you can't evaluate what he's saying about Christians. If you don't understand ancient Roman religion or the structure of Imperial society and government, you can't understand how the Christians fit in. Even small points (like the difference between a pontifex and augur) potentially matter, if you're trying to make some kind of point about the inseparability of religious authority and legal authority in Rome. The crucial question, as Tertullian knew (see religio licita), is whether the Christians were treated any differently than any other religious sect or movement, or whether there was ever any possibility that they would accept being treated like everyone else.


 * The article religio licita offers a good example of how Biblical scholars invented an entire system of "permitted" and "forbidden" religions, and even some kind of supposed licensing process for religions under Roman Imperial rule, on the basis of a single phrase in Tertullian. They thus argued that Christians were persecuted because Christianity had been declared a religio illicita under the law—a law which did not exist, and which Tertullian never said existed.


 * I think I saw somewhere that a class is looking at this and related articles. The best Wikipedia article I've seen on a related topic is Diocletianic persecution. I would urge any class participants take a look at that article, for its balance, context, and neutral tone. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I really, really do not think these three articles can be merged because each letter etc. was by a different person and each has its own characteristics and background. Combining them is making historical gumbo in my view: they are so different. The "Christianity in Classical literature" article if anyone gets to write it would need to review, compare and contrast all of these (and perhaps Mara Bar-Serapion). Then that would be a review article that points to these as Mains, each of which has its own context and background. History2007 (talk) 12:59, 10 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Most books deal with all of these authors in just the manner I describe. The Biblical scholars used to compile this set of articles, as well as related articles, deal with all of them. See, for instance, Chapter 2, "Jesus in Classical Writings," in Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament, which looks at seven classical sources chronologically, with an introduction. I really don't know what you're talking about. The Tacitus on Christ article is a detailed exegesis; I'm not suggesting that it be merged into another article and done away with. I didn't use the word "merge", nor did I intend a technical merge. But what makes for a "historical gumbo" is to chop up the topic into discrete bits, rather than providing readers with an overview for understanding the Roman Imperial socio-religious context and the modern scholarly methodology required for bridging religious studies and classical studies. If a subsection of the topic merits independent treatment, with the kind of development that Tacitus on Christ currently shows, then of course that's good. I didn't propose a merge. I proposed an overview article. Wikipedia is increasingly failing its readers by chopping up topics into extremely narrow and unreadably pedantic articles. (Try looking up "civil law" for an overview of the concept, for instance; I needed to link to a broad overview of the concept of "civil law," and never did figure out which of the links on the dab page I needed—because what I needed was a historical overview.) The secondary scholarship shows quite clearly how an overview article on Christianity in Classical literature (or "writings" or "sources," if you will) would be framed and developed, with some sections offering the potential for expanded treatment of individual sources or problems, such as the orthographical question of Chrestus vs. Christus in Tacitus and Suetonius. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:16, 10 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Books do not have the benefit of hypertext. If you look at the article on automobile you will see that it is a backbone/portal article that then branches into others by hypertext. As I said, if you want to start writing Christianity in Classical literature to give a background, compare and contrast the elements, please do. Once that backbone is there, we can see if it makes sense to merge in the other elements. Interestingly enough 3 days ago, a new project called Christian History was started, and this would just fit into that. History2007 (talk) 14:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Come to think of it, I do not know why the top level backbone/portal article should just be restricted to "Classical literature". It needs to review the situation in the first and second centuries anyway, and hence the issues of the early Jerusalem Church and hence James would need to be discussed, and Josephus would probably need to be compared and contrasted there to give an overall view if it is going to be a nice and comprehensive article on the Non-Christian writings about early Christianity. History2007 (talk) 15:05, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know who you mean by "James", but Josephus wrote Greek in the tradition of Greco-Roman historiography, not koine: Josephus is a major example of the Atticizing reaction against ... koinē.  Everything you've said reinforces my reservations about articles built on cherrypicking "evidence" for something or other without understanding the context. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * By James, I of course mean the James that Josephus refers to in 20.9.1 of the Antiquities. Isn't that obvious? Yes, Josephus was in Greek, but the Jewish Wars was originally in Aramaic and then translated, etc. And believe me buddy I know the Feldman article in that link back to front and have referenced it at least 10 times by now elsewhere. Now regarding the cherry picking mantra, exactly who/what are you referring to? To date I have only done two edits to this article from what I can see in the history. I have only made one move and one minor edit to this article, so who are you accusing of "cherry picking" here? That is actually a pretty insulting charge, whoever it is made against, so please do make your case explicit, or drop that refrain. Thank you. History2007 (talk) 18:07, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Authenticity of Book X
The authenticity of Book X of Pliny's Letters is in doubt. The exchange with Trajan was unknown in the Middle Ages. It was first published by Fra Giocondo, and there is no manuscript. See further "Falsche Zeugen" by Hermann Detering (2011). /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

cognitio extraordinarem
In the introduction it says "cognitio extra ordinem", under the first headline " cognitio extra ordenum" and in the linked article about Roman litigation "cognitio extraordinarem". Could someone check and fix this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.175.170.43 (talk) 10:20, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It should be "ordinem" in this article, I have fixed that, I have not looked at the linked article.Smeat75 (talk) 02:21, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Contumacia
The article currently reads in the trial format section: "Contumacia, defying an official, was sufficient for punishment.[6] While many scholars believe that contumacia is the reason for the guilty verdicts, G. E. M. de Ste. Croix argues that, since the obstinacy could not make an appearance until the trial itself, and therefore could not be used as an accusation, it was the “name” alone that was the only punishable offense." Since it does not state who these scholars who think contumacia was the reason for the verdicts are, and mentions the idea only to dismiss it, and since the recent book by Candida Moss The Myth of Persecution states, p 179, that the stubbornness and obstinacy of the Christians Pliny complains of was not the reason why they were sentenced as if it were "we might expect to find the technical term contumacia used in either Pliny's letters or the early Christian martyrdom stories", I have removed the discussion of contumacia. I have been making a lot of changes to the article in an attempt to make it easier to read and make more sense than it did.Smeat75 (talk) 02:29, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I have not looked into that, can do later. But it will be good to do a 50% rewrite as you go along, this is a 3 Aspirin minimum page at the moment - pretty hard to read. The lede is a monolith and fails WP:LEDE. So needs serious fixes. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 03:11, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I've done the best I could for right now, I am sure the article can still be considerably improved!Smeat75 (talk) 05:33, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Sherwin-White seems to be the source used all over, so I will look for a couple of others... Did not really even want to work on this, but now that I am here... History2007 (talk) 07:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I am hesitant to remove material that cites sources I am unable to check but I agree that Sheriwn-White is used too much. I have a new book by Notre Dame university NT professor Candida Moss "The Myth of Persecution" which discusses this Pliny/Trajan correspondence thoroughly, I quoted it twice already, I am tempted to remove a lot of the sources quoted and use that instead. Are you able to check the reference to the St. Croix, G.E.M (Nov 1963) article "Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?" cited? It is behind a very expensive paywall. It is used to cite the statement " the persecution of Christians was not a systematic empire-wide pogrom ordered by any emperor prior to Emperor Domitian". I feel this must be a mistake, Domitian was Emperor from 81 -96. Moss says "prior to 250 there was no legislation in place that required Christians to do anything that might lead them to die" and this is in reference to a decree of the Emperor Decius, not Domitian. Thanks.Smeat75 (talk) 17:22, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Before I can do anything I need to do a general overview for myself that helps me get a good picture in my own mind, then see how to say that. I have not done that yet. I will need several days, if not a week or more to do that, so if you want to make changes just go ahead. Sheriwn-White is an expert, but my guess is that he is not the only game in town. And that aside, the page is just too hard to read anyway and a simpler lede is needed. History2007 (talk) 18:04, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * By the way, sometimes looking at other language Wikis gives ideas, specially on historical topics like this one. On scientific topics those are usually a long way behind, but on these types of issues there may be some material that give suggestions about the topic; and then we can see if English RS sources confirm those. History2007 (talk) 18:22, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

And unfortunately, the letters are not in Wikisource. That would have been good to have... History2007 (talk) 18:28, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I did put an external link to a full translation of this letter and Trajan's reply in to the article the other day. Just now I moved discussion of cognitio extra ordinem from the lead to the "context and background" section where it was already discussed as you said the lead was too long and WP:LEAD says "avoid difficult to understand terminology and symbols... Where uncommon terms are essential, they should be placed in context, linked and briefly defined" and I don't think that is essential for the article. If anybody wants to put it back in the lead, that's fine with me however. Also, since I cannot check the St Croix article but feel sure that the reference to Domitian is a mistake, I changed that sentence from "the persecution of Christians was not a systematic empire-wide pogrom ordered by any emperor prior to Emperor Domitian" to "prior to 250 AD" and referenced it to Moss' book "The Myth of Persecution" as she says in her discussion of the Pliny letter "prior to 250 there was no legislation in place that required Christians to do anything that might lead them to die". I am not sure that she would agree with the term "pogrom" but am not going to worry about that right now.
 * Thanks for adding the info on context and the map History 2007, I think the article is now much improved.Smeat75 (talk) 04:29, 29 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, your link is useful, but I generally prefer Wikisource because it is self-contained and does not get WP:Linkrot. About the map, I thought it was necessary to tell the reader that Pliny was not sitting in Milan or Florence or somewhere when he wrote but was on the Black Sea. I have not actually looked at the rest of the page in detail yet. But there is a long article Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire which has a section that relates to this. The two should be coordinated so they will not say different things anyway. Whatever T. Barnes says should also be considered, for he is usually a good source. I will look into it next week. History2007 (talk) 17:10, 29 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Just took a brief look at that article Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire and there seem to be some real problems there, for instance "Because (Pliny's) letter also raises the question about whether Christians should be persecuted for their rumored terrible deeds they (flagitia) their Christianity itself (Superstitio); there is no scholarly consensus on Pliny's beliefs on the matter" - ungrammatical; "Many scholars believe that this order was often ignored in the provinces, and Christians were anonymously delated?." - what? An archaic legal term followed by a question mark, why? Nonsensical. Another article that needs a lot of work, I don't think we need to make this one agree with what that says as it as basically gibberish.Smeat75 (talk) 17:47, 29 March 2013 (UTC)


 * What I meant was to make it the same as the section Trajan. The long article has been unkempt, as this shows. Richard stopped in 2010 and others have been there only sporadically, and I just fixed a blatant ref format that was sitting there. But that section should be fixed to correspond to here, although there is not much hope for the rest of it, which is a textual jambalaya really. History2007 (talk) 19:06, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Smeat, here is a free link to the the full text of the St. Croix 1963 paper. But please note that by 1964 White was debating and he was responding. White later modified his position as the ping-pong continued, so the over-reliance on White in the article is not that great. There is more recent scholarship on the issue as well, e.g. the summary confirming the Moss statement. Both Everett Ferguson and George Heyman discuss the Pliny issue as well, it will just take time to bring it together... History2007 (talk) 23:09, 29 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Anyway, I am done with my fixes/ref-additions, so if you want to fix more, please go for it. But we have many more sources now than A. N. White; and I think between Benko, Barnes, Moss, Ferguson and Heyman the picture eventually emerged. History2007 (talk) 14:49, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the link to the article History2007. I think this article on Pliny is much better now. Having had my attention drawn to
 * that article Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire I now feel compelled to try to something about that one at some point, it's awful. If you have time and you can stand to, maybe you can check in on that article over the next couple of weeks. Smeat75 (talk) 19:03, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I will have to avoid that other article - it is not going to be on my path to work on. I had been trying to avoid this one for a while, but just could not once we started talking about it. If you want to fix the Under Trajan section there that might be a start. My feeling is that the rest of it will be a two month task at least, and will be a major undertaking. There is, however, Today's articles for improvement and that may tbe a venue for getting help. That would probably qualify for that activity. I think they need a "This week" version of that for larger articles. I am not sure how much help will arrive, but it may be worth trying. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 19:56, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Pwldnvthailand's addition to the lead
Hello Pwldnvthailand, I would leave you a message on your talk page but you are a very new user it seems and do not have one. You have put a long digression into the lead, which belongs in a footnote if it belongs anywhere, please see WP:LEAD. There are numerous other problems with the material you inserted, some fairly minor style issues, the word "EDIT" should not appear like that in the text. Also you marked that edit as "minor" when it most definitely was not.I do not want you to think I am being rude or do not value your contribution, but I do not see how to fix that except to remove the material.Smeat75 (talk) 22:12, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Calling Paul's epistles "Roman documents"
An editor keeps adding "outside of the Bible" to the statements in the article "The letter is the earliest surviving Roman document" and "Pliny's letter is the earliest surviving Roman document to refer to early Christians". The editor is referring to the epistles of Paul, said to be a Roman citizen. This is original research and WP:SYNTH unless the editor can find reliable sources that say that the epistles of Paul are "Roman documents" which were written before 112 AD. They are not Roman documents, they are Christian, and no one knows when they were written, there are various conjectures about that but no agreement and not even any agreement as to which of the Pauline epistles were actually written by Paul. Pliny the Younger is an historically attested person whose governorship of Bithynia-Pontus can be precisely dated.Smeat75 (talk) 14:56, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I used the word "Bible" to indicate that the New Testament contains letters penned by multiple authors who were possibly Roman citizens, Paul being the one who is actually called a citizen in the text (cf. Acts 16:37, 22:25-26, 23:27). I don't know on what grounds this could be considered "original research", since an ancient text with literally thousands of copies claims it as a fact; but I also offer |critical research. It would be on this basis that they could be considered "Roman documents", and scholarly consensus neither questions the bulk of the Pauline epistles nor places any after 112 AD; from those two articles, take note that there is consensus both on approximate dates as well as authorship. Also, their being Christian in no way discounts their being Roman as well (Christianity is a religion, while being Roman denotes ethnicity or citizenship; they are compatible). Paul (who is less accurately dated than Pliny, as a non-politician), is historically-attested to in a vast multitude of sources, mostly Christian though they may be. natemup (talk) 17:29, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The link you give refers to "Paul′s Jewish, Greek, and/or Roman background". You are taking "Roman background" and combining it with "Epistles of Paul" to produce "Paul's epistles are Roman documents" and that is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. You would need to cite a WP:RS that specifically called the epistles of Paul "Roman documents" to do that on WP. Also as I say there is no agreement among scholars about when those letters were written, you would also need a  WP:RS that unequivocally says they were written before 112 to say they were written before the letter of Pliny.Smeat75 (talk) 17:48, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I apologize; realized my tone earlier was inappropriate. The edits I usually do don't require sources. So does the book of Acts (as an ancient Greco-Roman document) not qualify as a source for Paul's Roman citizenship? Or is that his citizenship does not necessarily make his letters (to churches within the Roman empire) "Roman documents"? Does the same apply for the other New Testament authors? As for the dates, that page on Pauline authenticity (Pauline epistles) lists consensus dates along with a source that confirms them. natemup (talk) 10:58, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Nothing to apologise for. Yes, sources are the key. Right now the statements "this is the earliest Roman document to refer to Christ / earliest Christians" are cited to reliable sources. To change that to "(outside the Bible)" meaning that the epistles of Paul are earlier Roman documents, there would need to be a source cited that says exactly that. Finding a source that says Paul was a Roman citizen and combining it with another source that says he wrote the epistles prior to 112 and putting them together yourself to make a statement that neither of the sources say,"the epistles of Paul are Roman documents written before 112" is original research by WP's definition.WP:SYNTH explains the principle.Smeat75 (talk) 15:14, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I have looked through the sources for the claim that they are the earliest Roman documents referring to Christ/Christians, and none of them use the term "Roman document" at all. The first two sources, from Benko and Ehrman, actually make specific reference to the fact that they were the earliest "pagan"/"non-Christian" sources to refer to Christ/Christians; the third is simply a reference to the legal nature of Pliny and Trajan wrote, without dealing with their earliness. It appears that I am not the first culprit of original research or synthesis concerning this article. natemup (talk) 10:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It is plainly unclear to say that these documents are the oldest without the sensible qualification that, based on some definitions of Roman, there may be older such documents, and it should be possible to clarify this without there being anything objectionable about it. But Smeat75 seems to be quite right about the age of the documents, and Wikipedia isn't meant to be an accumulation of quotes either, is it? I have accordingly edited to "pagan" rather than "Roman" since that is what the source says according to Natemup. Dionysodorus (talk) 11:21, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Added a similar edit to the repeated phrase in a later section. Thanks! natemup (talk) 21:18, 1 June 2014 (UTC)