Talk:Roman command structure during First Mithridatic War

This article is an old section that was located in the First Mithridatic War article for years, confusing the hell out of general readers and generally leading them to stop reading. It was located in the section "Mithridates vs Rome". As can be seen, is too detailed in that it talks about the evidence, of which Roman aristocrats were present with Sulla, a subject left to prosopographical journals and studies to decipher. MrMalax (talk) 15:45, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

This is awful
You're absolutely right, this "article" is absolutely awful. Here is what I see can be done. First, those "references" are copied from somewhere. They use the abbreviations and conventions of other works, but unfortunately none of that is presented here. But, whenever I see that I think immediately that the whole text has been copied. Unless we presume that the WP editor is a skilled Greek language scholar and has a right to expect that the general public can read his Greek without translation and understand exactly what he is trying to say by including it then I would say that someone with lesser qualifications copied this article verbatim from a specialized journal and is now giving it to us as the work of WP editors! No way. If you were that good you would not be writing for WP, you'd be writing for the journals that WP can use as sources. So, a check of the Internet for plagiarism, if you please. Now, I am not saying the material does not have a place. We need translations and reasons why the inscription appears. We need also subdivisions and leader sentences to tell us where this is going and why. These conclusions that are thrown all around the place need to belong to someone. I may well be working on this sooner than later but go ahead if you can.Botteville (talk) 09:59, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know about that. The material originally appears in this edit, by a long-gone editor who seems to have been rather like that. Absent proving copyvio, you might bear in mind that the article has had just 621 views in 2.5 years. There are plenty of awful articles that get that in a week or even a day. God knows how it ended up on my watchlist. Johnbod (talk) 23:17, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you don't know about. You seem to be agreeing with me, it is awful, just as I was agreeing with the previous comment. By that we seem to mean as far as readability is concerned. I can't read it, can you? I agree with the "so what" conclusion. There are in fact more awful articles than anyone can address when there are over a mil articles. Where does that leave us? It seems to me we can opt in or opt out. I've opted in. There is a lot on the positive side. So, I hope my awful comment isn't too awful. What we really mean is, it needs improvement to be readable. Awfulness is a rough and awful standard of readability. Anyway, let's not get too far off on offleness - I mean awfulness - gosh this is awful.Botteville (talk) 04:55, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't know about the copying, I mean't. If it were copied it would probably be more readable. Johnbod (talk) 11:06, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Plagiarism check
I did one check, couldn't find anything. That doesn't mean it isn;t there. Meanwhile it needs such cleanup that I don't know if it will make any difference.Botteville (talk) 22:02, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Looking further
I'm on this topic at the moment because I'm working on Mithridatic Wars, an adjunct to Sulla's removal of the books of the early peripatetics to Rome to become the corpus Aristotelicum.This effort is a sort of labor-saving approach. Since I am looking into this topic I may as well put what I learn to maximum use. After a few weeks on this here is what I discovered. What I said about plagiarism, I take it all back. No scholar would ever have written this. I'm leaving it at "this." Right now what I see are mainly WP editorial conclusions based on WP editorial readings of these inscriptions. That means, I have two choices. I can either lard the thing up with notices that it needs references, or I can begin removing material to this talk page where it can be better discussed, if anyone is to be found inclined to do that. I prefer the latter. This will cut down considerably on the size of the article. However I plan also to put in the English translations, which Attalus is kind enough to provide for us. The original editor reminds me of me. When he wrote that he was at the point where he thought WP could be used for his original interpretations. Se, if we can remove that element, I think we can still use the inscriptions. In fact I will see if I can find some conclusions among the secondary sources that will help. I love those inscriptions. But, we're not supposed to put our own interpretations on these primary sources. This is going to take a while. "There's no royal road to geometry."Botteville (talk) 05:19, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

A replacement
"Sulla's province was Asia as well as the bellum Mitridaticum supreme command, while the ex praetura viri pro consule Lentulus and Murena seem to have been assigned the Macedonian and Cilician commands respectively. But the dramatic events of the Pontic invasions of Asia, Thrace, Macedonia and Greece involved Sulla and his deputies in drawn out and difficult campaigning before they could resume control of the lost provinces and even begin to exercise their command powers in their properly allotted spheres.

It conclude with a legation to a series of Roman officials who constitute the top echelon of the Roman high command in the east subsequent to Sulla's successful expulsion of the Pontic king and armies from Asia province, and his destruction of the Marian commander C. Flavius Fimbria and assimilation of his élite army of Fimbriani (autumn 85 BC)."

This is basically unsubstantiated. There's no explanation of ex praetura viri - it's an obscure point of law that needs a ref - The entire thing is totally speculative even though the speculations come from such classical ancestors as Mommsen. Not even Mommsen is cited. Being an ancestor does not make you per se right. These provincial assignments are only guesswork. None of them ever took up any such assignments or had them to begin with. Sulla made a deal and departed to become dictator in Italy. To be sure, the Romans must have resumed overlordship in Asia Minor, but we don't hear a thing about it. The three offers certainly didn't resume anything. Murena was far from Macedonia. There was no difficult and drawn out campaigning. The whole campaign lasted less than a year, one campaign season, and was over by March 1 86. Sulla then went on vacation. He had beaten the Pontic forces in every single battle with minimum losses. As for Fimbria, there was no battle with him at all, and where this elite idea comes from is a total mystery. When Sulla came up to Fimbria his men all streamed out shouting greetings to Sulla's men and clapped each other on the back, etc. They weren't going to war for Fimbria, especially when Sulla rewarded his men so richly. Fimbria was so humiliated at this defection that he had someone kill him. In fact there was no battle for Pontus either. Mithridates was so humiliated at his disasterous defeat at Chaeronea (he was not there in person) that he readily assented to just about any deal Sulla would offer, so Sulla offered him a fair deal, which he took. The only obstacle was Fimbria, who was making all kinds of threats and refusing to submit to Sulla. So, Sulla just marched down there and took over all his men at first sight. The real problems cam from Sulla's own officers, who broke the peace unilaterally and refused orders to stop. Also, the Senate would not confirm the peace, which upset Mithridates terribly. He wrote his views to the Parthians, fellow Iranian speakers. In summary, truth is stranger than fiction. The editor has told us what he thinks should have happened instead of reporting on the sources. There is always a big temptation to do that; Mommsen does it all the time. Surely, we think, such great man as Mommsen must be going to tell us the true story. Social status there gets in the way of truth.Botteville (talk) 16:24, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Unreferenced editorial supposition
"None of the many tituli honoring Lucullus in the east as quaestor and vir pro quaestore append the ethnic to his title, so it is evident that it was he (an enthusiastic philhellene, fluent in Greek from youth) who first encouraged Greek civic authorities to drop the ethnic and treat Romans as fellow Hellenic-speakers."Botteville (talk) 13:25, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Compression of time
"In spring 84 when Sulla took the bulk of his army and Lucullus' fleet back to Greece he left Murena in charge of Asia and Cilicia provinces, with instructions to raise another fleet and assist the Rhodians tackle piracy and the bandit dynasts infesting the hinterland who had both been significantly sponsored under the belligerent and predatory administration of the Pontic king. ."

That is not what Mith 92 says. That passage refers to the later time in the 2nd war after the Senate sent him out again as praetor. Moreover these piracies were not sponsored by poor old Mithridates by then on the run for his life. They arose spontaneously in the chaos of war, according to the sources. It was mainly Pompey who was sent to restore security. The editor is grabbing snippets from different times to put together his own story. I have no wish to be insulting but that is exactly what you go to graduate school to learn to avoid. The substantiated chronology is what counts and substantiating it. Having Murena jump to praetor in 88 gives him several years he did not actually have, but there are worse paradoxes of chronology. Often they can't be fixed.Botteville (talk) 09:18, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

"There is every reason to suppose that Torquatus (born 119 or earlier) was also quaestor in 88 and went out east pro quaestore to Sulla in 87, while Lucullus was officially quaestor to L. Murena during the latter's praetura in 88 and remained officially the senior deputy on his brother-in-law's command staff until 81 BC when Murena was ordered to return to Rome and replaced in charge of Asia and Cilicia by the special commander (praetor in office) M. Minucius Thermus"

I'm tempted to say, "yeh? what?" but that would not be too polite. Sorry. We have not established that there was any such praetura of legate Murena in 88, so anything conjectured about it is pretty much fantasy. I'm going to supplant those paragraphs as soon as I get a chance.Botteville (talk) 09:27, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

The ethnic, the ethnic
The term "ethnic" is a specialized one utilized in the study of ancient toponyms. As the earliest known social structure was tribal, the tribal concept crept into ancient geography. Settlements were named after the tribes settling them. One example is the city of Paris, which is a toponym. Paris was in theory the city of the Parisii, a tribe. The ethnic of the city, or city-ethnic, is therefore Parisii. Of course, at the time the city was named, the Parisii as a tribe were long gone, but it was the site of their ancient territory. Most ethnics are similarly unrealistic. We can do it also, preferring Bostonians over Boston. The ethnic finds mention in studies of inscriptions. The original composer of this article makes mention of the "ethnic" in the inscriptions, but without explanation and apparently only for glitz. There is some extraneous mention of dating, but the ethnic is not used for the dates given and has no bearing of the intent of the article, which is to find inscriptional data on the characters mentioned in the ancient historians. So, I must say I'm dazzled and impressed, but I wanted to be informed and so I suppose do the public. This is not a study of ethnics; it is a study of ranks and military behavior as presented to us by the secondary sources relying on the primary sources. Mention of the ethnics is confusing and irrelevant. So, I am weeding them out.Botteville (talk) 13:46, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Shared command camps
"The pressures of events of the Pontic war when the two subordinate commanders, with their own command staffs and iura imperii, had to spend several years huddled together with Sulla and his army in the same encampments and military operations, seem to have resulted in a good deal of misunderstanding about the technical command structure of the time."

This fantasy comes from the idea that Murena was a general from the beginning and also from the misunderstanding of command and commander. I've clarified this in the article. Commander is not a rank, it is an assignment. In the inscriptions, three ranks hold the assignment, proconsul, propraetor and legatus. You would never have three commanders in the same camp, because of supersession. For example, in the story, Sulla does not propose camping up with Fimbria. He makes it clear that he is there to supersede Fimbria. Fimbria's men must make a choice. They choose Sulla. Also, Sura is not left in command in Boeotia, nor is he invited to share any camps with Sulla. He is told that he has been suprseded and is relieved of the command. That does not mean he loses rank; now that he is not a commander, he must return to his commander. Note also, Roman troops do not huddle. They build palisaded camps with nice tents laid out in nice rows pretty much like the US army or any other army. Soldiers huddle when they are fleeing without organization trying to evade being seen by the victor. Moreover, the camp has only one praetorium, or headquarters, located where it still is located, in the middle of the camp beside the main square. I think there may be an experience problem here.Botteville (talk) 14:43, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Outmotivating Sulla
"L. Murena pater probably died in Rome in 81 BC soon after his triumph, otherwise with Sulla's help and the éclat of the recent triumph he would surely have gained a consulate. Cicero is explicit that the consulate of the son was already due the family as owed to the father. More than likely Sulla had planned to install him as consul in 80 with Metellus Pius, but with those plans upset at the eleventh hour by Murena's death late in the year he decided to improvise and take the other consulate himself - contrary to the old laws recently reinforced by his own leges Corneliae regulating the cursus honorum, which required a decade between repeated consulates. The likelihood that this was indeed an improvisation, and that he had just about had enough of imperia when he set the limit of 29 December 81(R) to his dictatorship, is shown by his refusal to take up the command of Gallia Cisalpina in 79 which was voted to him during his second consulate according to the normal procedure. "

I must say our editor has some pretty wild theories. I've been looking for him on the Internet in the hope that he became a scholar in the field. He sure isn't in this article and if he did become one he isn't letting on. This paragraph is nearly all editorial conjecture. There are two references but they have nothing to do with the conjectures. What was on Sulla's secret mind? The editor wants to become Sulla and let us know. We see him like a character in a psychic detective story putting himself in the place of the missing perpetrator. Sorry, not for us. Maybe he became a great historical fiction writer and we are lucky to be reading an original plot of his. Anyway this is full of pseudo-detail, looks detailed, but the relevance is an artifact.Botteville (talk) 12:50, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

The editor knows better
"Clearly then Plutarch's extreme summarizing and biographic slant has obscured the proper background that in 87 Sulla sent Murena and his brother-in-law acting quaestor south to suppress the pro-Pontic governments in the Peloponnese, which they rapidly accomplished with the assistance of those remaining pro-Roman, such as Messene with its ancient tradition of hostility towards Sparta. Murena was evidently first hailed imperator for these successful operations, and the fines exacted in punishment from the pro-Pontic polities were melted down and struck as Greek-style coinage by Lucullus, perhaps at Korinth and Argos. Some Hellenistic specialists have even thought Murena to have been a legate under Sulla, apparently ignorant of the Roman constitution which only permitted commanders with their own command rights to be hailed imperator or awarded the triumph."

The editor, claiming by implication to know better than Plutarch and the "Hellenistic specialists," proposes his own theory. That is not allowed. I looked for the theory, couldn't find it. We'd need a ref on that to avoid a presupposition of original work.Botteville (talk) 14:34, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

The creepy young Caesar
"In winter 82-81 while preparing and then beginning his dictatorship, Sulla organized the dispatch of four special commanders to take over all the more important and largest provinces. These huge agglomerated commands were apparently designed to last just the one year until the senior magistrates of 81 could complete their offices in Rome and begin a regular succession of provincial commanders ex consulatu and ex praetura in 80. These stop-gap, specially tasked commanders were carefully chosen and given large armies in order to mop up residual Marian opposition as quickly as possible. C. Annius was sent to Spain to get rid of Quintus Sertorius and given Gallia Transalpina in addition, whence C. Valerius Flaccus (cos. 93) was called home (after the longest continuous provincial command in the whole history of the Republic), to have a triumph for various successful operations against the Gauls, and previously in the highlands of Celtiberia (but above all for refusing to deploy his veteran army in the civil war on the side of the Marians). Young Pompeius was sent to Sicily and Africa to take on Papirius Carbo and Cn. Ahenobarbus, P. Gabinius (pr.89) to Macedonia and Achaia to permit L. Lentulus to return home. Murena too was summoned home to celebrate a triumph for his successes in the First Mithradatic War and as a reward for his belated obedience in finally putting a stop to the second one (83-82), begun on his own initiative and contrary to Sulla's express instructions and likely strategic planning, which presumably required the east to remain an unencumbered safe-haven in case the civil war in Italy went pear-shaped.

One of the new praetors in office, M. Minucius Thermus, former Marian legate to L. Valerius Flaccus (cos.suff.86) had apparently defected to Sulla in 85 following Fimbria's assassination of the consul, and was now sent out to replace Murena in Asia and Cilicia. He was also tasked to besiege Mytilene, whither recalcitrant Fimbrian officers had fled and lain low, later inciting the local authorities to declare for the Marians (about summer 83) once the civil war had got underway in Italy and Murena had committed himself to the second Pontic war. Just to be sure that Thermus remembered which side he was on (Marius' nephew, the creepy young Caesar whom Sulla had recently and reluctantly pardoned, joined his staff) Sulla instructed Lucullus to remain in Asia for a further year as Thermus' acting quaestor and to command the sea-borne operations against Mytilene. "

Bypassing for the moment the characterization of anyone as "creepy," (editorial?) I think this material is in the irrelevant space. The article's title includes with words "First Mithridatic War". Granted the inscriptions were carved in the second, but they concern events of the first. This article is about explaining the inscriptions relating to the first war. We are interested here in documents showing rank and position.The material above might be relevant to a discussion of the Mithridatic Wars as a whole, but I'm redoing that one too and I can't use it as it is. Too opinionated.Botteville (talk) 14:57, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

The dislocated Messenian inscription
"The main additional evidence reinforcing this proposition is the rebellion of some of the Peloponnesians against Roman hegemony in 88 when they sided with Archelaos' invasion of Greece, combined with Plutarch's notice, that during the siege of Athens in 87 Sulla sent Lucullus into the Peloponnese to strike coinage, where he minted the silver currency called Luculleian by the Greeks after him. Furthermore with a titulus from Messene in the far SW Peloponnese honouring Murena, yet again as imperator translitterated as in the Rhodian inscription from several years later. "

Thanks for the refs, I can use those in another write-up. This write-up is pretty unclear. What is the editor suggesting? It seems to have been that Murena was commander years earlier. I've already addressed that in the section on Commander Murena. In this situation where you have an odd circumstance sticking out there are usually a lot of speculations that can be made, and this editor makes them. They are interesting after all, and they are in the direction of what scholars do. I hope the editor has gone on to there, as this was written years ago. But, we here need a speculator to make speculations. Otherwise one concentrates on presenting the problem not the speculation. Maybe Murena was a commander even before he was Legate, maybe he did have his own command within the command of Sulla in the same camps. Maybe he did have the Quaestor trotting along with him as he subdued the Peloponnesus, invited, no doubt, by the inscription copied years later at Rhodes. Maybe the moon is made of green cheese also. I want to concentrate more on the problem.Botteville (talk) 12:41, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Ehrenkater's review
Hi. I'm using this talk section to respond to your review. First of all, I'd like to point out, I'm far from done on this article, with major changes possibly yet to come. However, one thing at a time. Second, my policy is, unless I have reason not to accept your change, to accept it.

Later. Well, I see I can't accept everything. I don't believe you are a bad editor, despite your sarcasm. If you can give that up you will be a better. I see some comments relating to unfinished boxes, etc. I say again, I'm only half done. If you want to take some of these things in hand, write or format it yourself, go ahead. Your only format effort so far was a flop. I think I should tip you off, writing is only part of the game here. You have to know a large part of the scholarship, when to simplify, when to gloss over or omit, and when not. If you can do it, go for it. So far it has been me restoring meanings that you changed. This will be basically a problem-solver article. The inscriptions don't necessarily correspond to the historical content. Why not? If you want to do it, read Plutarch, Appian carefully. You can usually get both the English and the ancient language. Then you need the comments of the scholars. I don't expect we will be done any time soon. I'm still keeping your changes if they do not impact the meaning, even though I think mine was just as good. I have to go now. I'll beworking up your list of changes before I pick up the thread again.Botteville (talk)

SPQR
Reverted. This is too relevant. This is an official war declared by the Senate for a casus belli. There was plenty of fighting beforehand and plenty of conflict and plenty of ireful Romans. SPQR is not the "Romans". It is the Roman government, the whole Roman government, and it has declared war in the name of the SPQR.Botteville (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Capitalization and article
No reason not to accept these editorial changes. Probably, whatever you do there is welcome. Thanks.Botteville (talk) 00:50, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Sponsoring government
No, that is not what I said. The period of the civil wars was caused by the failure of government to address the conflict between magistrates, which had gotten out of hand. In the Mithridatic Wars the government should have behaved in the way it previously did. The problem developed into the civil wars. The statement is completely appropriate. "sponsoring" is not only weak English but is wrong. What do you think war is, a commercial on television? Now let me see, the Nazis "sponsored" WWII, the Russian government "sponsored" an invasion of Nazi Germany etc. The worrd is not right for the context.

I just noticed also your wisecrack about what I wrote possibly being copied, a clear hit back at my previous discussion on whether the article as it was was copied. You act like you wrote it or knew who wrote it. It sounds like some kind of petty vengeance. I don't think vindictive wisecracking has a place on WP. I don't like it! This article was so bad no one could read it, which is a good thing, because everything it said is wrong. Now, on the sponsoring government paragraph, I agreed with most of your changes. On the whole they made a better paragraph. I have not yet gone through all your changes. I notice however you have a tendency to denude the writing of significant meaning substituting insipid vocabulary. Well. Let's see how it goes. If that is all you do, it isn't so bad, provided you quit with the sarcastic remarks. If you have a problem with the clarity of the article, I suggest you do what others are doing, point it out.Botteville (talk) 03:45, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

the deal
This is not unencyclopedic language, it is the English language. Moreover, I don't see any irrelevant content. The whole government operated on the quid pro quo. You tried to get the best deal you could. Often that was not very good. Let's not write Roman history out of Roman history. Again, it is the watering down issue. I restored the meaning. We're not talking about gentlemen scholars following the old boy ethic or any of the imitators in foreign countries. We speaking of magistrates that slaughtered 30,000 men over what we would consider a minor political disagreement. Well, but we have that too. We're supposed to be relating history, not making it up.Botteville (talk) 04:26, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Changes to the commanders
I see some writing changes with which I can agree. Too bad there was not some way you could distinguish between writing and content. I used to run into this as a tech writer. Editors made changes, most of which were for the better, but sometimes they changed the content. It had to be re-addressed. I see you have read some of the Greek. I will make no comment. However, since you have brought it up, which I considered doing, for the benefit of readers who read a little Greek we should state that what they see is not the usual Attic Greek so that they will not be further confused.Botteville (talk) 05:12, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Anomiebot's review
Hi. I'm taking your review seriously. I will use this section to respond.

the letter of the text
Yes, you are right. It isn't too clear, is it? I knew I was going over that too fast. Well, I will address it now. It won't change until I am ready.Botteville (talk) 00:37, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * OK. I clarified that. Good catch. Review it again if you wish.Botteville (talk) 02:53, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Widths on boxes
The boxes are my idea. The previous editor copied the upper-case inscriptions from somewhere, I do not yet know where and he did not say - there are a lot of books on inscriptions. These have been rendered into lower-case and are mostly available on-line. The caps, however, are what the original have. They seem to be the same, except the caps are in Doric dialect; the lower-case not. The Rhodians were Doric speakers. I think we are better off with the caps - more authentic. His sources are all right, it is mainly his conclusions that are wrong, as well as his trying to write like the scholars, and not making it. When he transcribed the inscriptions he broke the lines with a br. Those are intentional. Without them the line wraps, much less authentic. I'm not against the use of px for box widths, but you should make sure the lines do not wrap. Wrapped lines might conceivably alter the sense.Botteville (talk) 11:54, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Requests for clarification
I agree, these all ought to be clarified. I'm moving past who put the requests in. If you see a need, put as many in as you like. I am only addressing the ones on material I wrote or revised. Sooner or later that will be everything. Sections I have not yet worked on will no doubt be full of them, in case you want to get ahead of me.

Historian clarification request
Writers of antiquity are generally put into categories by subsequent scholars according to the scope and intent of their works. "Historian" is one of those categories. As every classicist known, Herodotus is the father of history. But for us, that does not do it. We can't expect the readers to be classicists or even vaguely aware of classics. So, the request for clarification of "historian" is justified, even though its explanation is a little off the topic. It is on the general topic of suggested classics background. I am therefore going to put in a note addressing it. For the editorial changes - well, bilingualism is to be admired, but the English "but" is not really the same as the German "but." Our "but" is specifically oppositional to something just said: Argument A, but Argument B does not mean Argument A and then Argument B, it means Argument A, NOT Argument B or vice versa. It isn't a general connector, so there will be a little re-editing.Botteville (talk) 10:50, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Heavy-weight coins
Restored heavy-weight from "large". Coins are measured in grains, a unit of mass. Sometimes grams are used. The question as the professionals put it is whether Sulla minted standard coins that were a little heavier than standard to please the soldiers receiving the Lucullean currency. "Large" is not the meaning. From one soldier's point of view, maybe the coin is larger because it is a fraud, an imitation made of less valuable metal. On the other hand if it is genuine and is a heavier coin then it buys more goods if the vendors are savvy (they usually were) or else can be shaved for the extra gold or silver. The coin people assume this is the reason why the coins were singled out as Lucullean. The coins started with Lucullus so they cannot be compared with the previous, but judged from the average weight of all coins of those denominations, coins that can be reasonably assumed to be Lucullean DO weigh a tad more, but nothing like the 25% originally claimed for them. We might not be seeing the coins of 100-200 years ago. It is an item easily stolen and often fraudulently imitated. People like to hide coins especially as buried treasure. Man is a treasure-burying animal. I suppose a lot of excavated treasures have found their way into the ground again. The money goes before its owners to test the ground. Hah. But this is a topic all by itself I was not going to cover it. Now, after writing about it here, I think I will add a footnote, since the terminology obviously caught your attention.Botteville (talk) 23:55, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Translations
WP does not seem to care much who translates what. A lot of us have done some impromptu translation. In fact in the case of articles from another WP translation is encourged. Inscriptions however are not always easy enough to translate ad hoc. There might be fine points that escape the attention of the ordinary person inclined to translate. So, I have been inclined to place a known scholar between me and the translations of the inscriptions; i.e., I use the translations found on the Internet, provided the source is reputable. I think that is a good idea, don't you? Sometimes no English is available. In one case I found the German and translated that. That seems to offend the sense of symmetry of at least one editor, who would like to see only Greek (or Latin) and English. So, what I propose to do is place the intermediate phase in a footnote.

Original suppositions
"Aulus Terentius Varro was probably legatus on L. Murena's staff for the entire period of his eastern command (87-81), and it was either during this time or in 81 after their return to Rome that he wed Murena's daughter. The marriage is not on record, but may be safely assumed as providing the propinquitas which occasioned the eventual adoption of Varro's homonymous son by a Murena, who should be[clarification needed] C. Murena the aedilis cur.ca.66 and second son of L. Murena pr.88 (and of the Lucullan Licinia).[clarification needed] Oddly, Aulus Varro legatus does not appear anywhere in the surviving literature on the Mithridatic Wars, but is better represented in the contemporary epigraphy than any other senior officer of the time, with the exception of Sulla and possibly Lucullus.[25] Two of these tituli are remarkably unusual.[clarification needed]"

I'll be taking this out as soon as I get another one worked up. This is a clear example of the editor's then conviction that he could use WP to throw his own opinions and interpretations in. The key indicator is "may be safely assumed." Nothing here can be assumed. The problem is evidently lack of experience with scholarly writing. The scholars explain all their "assumptions." This article only lasted so long because no one understood it. By now undoubtedly he has matriculated and knows better.Botteville (talk) 10:58, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Light edits by JJMC89
This user made a light edit on the whole article, changing things such as the number of br's, the length of the dash between years, and so on. I think I managed to look at them all but I can't be sure. They might possibly have been done by software. In any case, there appear to be no content changes; in fact, as far as I can see, there are no displayable changes at all. Purely internal changes. I was a bit puzzled as I did not see the point. In any case I will take it for granted that there is one, such as some sort of standardization. More will be required I think as the article still has a long way to go. I do not know yet whether to thank JJMC89, as I am not certain what the intent was. If he should be thanked then I thank him. On with the show.Botteville (talk) 23:17, 31 March 2018 (UTC)