Talk:Tiridates I of Armenia

Comment
Don't really think it's really that good, nominated to get potential help to make it better.--Eupator 01:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * It certainly meets the criteria - well written, referenced, illustrated, stable, doesn't seem to omit any major facets etc. You should probably go to peer review if you want to get help on improving the article - GA is for short articles that can be considered 'finished' (inasmuch as any Wikipedia article is finished - they can always be expanded to reach the sort of size required by WP:FA).  Worldtraveller 21:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Severe crud
Prior to my edit of today, the article was pushing the view that Tiridates had something to do with Roman Mithraism.

>> Modern historians also speculate that Tiridates and his entourage popularized or perhaps even imported Mithraism to Rome. (three "citations" follow).
 * "Modern" historians do not speculate this, unless one considers Cumont (the first cited source) as "modern" and the present-day consensus (which refutes Cumont) as invalid. Moreover, the second quoted source was a rip-off of an entry in the Encyclopedia Iranica, which had then been "modified" to suit a particular POV. This is indeed standard-operating-procedure for the "CAIS", which attempts to present itself as a serious source (by stealing articles from elsewhere) and then sneaking bull between the sheets.

>> Being a chief priest of the Mithraic religion, Tiridates traveled by land, avoiding the sea, since Mithraism and Zoroastrianism prohibits desecrating water with any refuse of the human body.
 * Tacitus, Annals 15.24 says no such thing. Neither does Annals 15.24 say Tiridates was a Mithraic priest, nor does it say that he went by land, leave alone why he might have done so.
 * Indeed, the original sentence the author used as a source reads "Trdat himself being a chief Magian of the Zoroastrian religion, avoided the sea route and traveled by land, Mazdeism prohibited spitting in the water or desecrating it with any other refuse of the human body". AND this is not from Tacitus, but from Vahan M. Kurkjian.
 * The author also attributes another cut-and-paste from Kurkjian to Dio Cassius 63.5.2. This too needs checking.

>> According to Pliny the Elder, Tiridates initiated Nero into the Mithraic cult.
 * Another piece of creative rephrasing. What Pliny actually said was Tiridates *introduced* Nero to magicis cenis, "magical feasts" (more properly "magian feasts").

-- Fullstop 17:02, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Saint Drtad?
Is this the Saint King Drtad mentioned in the Calendar of Saints (Armenian Apostolic Church) for June 30? John Carter 18:47, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Tiridates & the Biblical Magi
Text deleted from first paragraph: This is about the same time that the Gospel of Matthew recorded a journey of wise men from the east to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem. This may lay behind the later Christian legend of the Three Magi.

I have removed this sentence because it is ambiguous. If "about the same time" refers to the time of the events recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, then it is factually incorrect, as the events of Christ's nativity occurred somewhere between 8-4 BC, not AD 66. Matthew may have been written aound AD 66. If this is what the sentence means, it should be clarified. I do not have access to the cited reference, so I have not rewritten. If the reference asserts the second option, then it might be nice to have additional references to Biblical studies, instead of just a history of Armenia.--Iacobus (talk) 02:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Tiridates in popular culture
I think the section Tiridates in popular culture should be expanded. What kind of character is Tiridates in these operas? – Ilse@ 07:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Client kingdom / client state / satellite state
The lead described Armenia as a Roman client kingdom, with a link to Satellite state. However, the Satellite state article suggests the term is primarily a Cold War NATO vs Warsaw Pact term, and a subset of the more general Client state. I have therefore changed the link appropriately. (Also, as a kingdom is a type of state, presumably a client kingdom is therefore a client state by default). Wardog (talk) 09:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Dates of Reign
The opening paragraph of this article states: "was King of Armenia beginning in 53 AD"; however the infobox lists 63AD as the beginning of his reign?. --dashiellx (talk) 10:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The footnote explains that 63 is the beginning of reign sans interruption.--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 15:15, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Tiridates I of Parthia
this king is " Tiridates I of Parthia " i don't know why you have created a new article for it? if you follow the king you arrive in parthian history (part of Iranian history !). ارژنگ (talk) 14:56, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Speculation
I find this passage problematic:

The visit of Tiridates I, an event that greatly impressed contemporaries, apparently was adapted by Christians to become the story of the adoration of the Christ Child by the Three Magi.[37] The Christian legend changed Rome into Bethlehem, the birthplace of the Ruler of the coming Kingdom of God, and replaced Tiridates I with that contemporary king who was already connected with Christianity through the Acts of St. Thomas: Gondophares, otherwise known as Kaspar.[38]

It implies scholarly consensus that we "know" that the story of the magi was adapted from the visit of Tiridates. It is an interpretation that has been made by some scholars, but I don't know that scholars can say with certainty that the visit of Tiridates was the basis for the story in Mathew. It presents speculation as fact.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 00:01, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You can reword it so that it's clear that this is merely a theory.--  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 06:36, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Much better, although ideally there would be another source that specifically discredits the above theory. --  Ευπάτωρ   Talk!! 20:48, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Armenian ancestry?
The article presently states that "Tiridates I was a Prince of Armenian, Greek, and Iranian ancestry." As far as I can tell by following the linked Wikipedia articles, he seems to be only 1/32 Armenian, through his Orontid Armenian great-great-great-grandfather Mithridates I Callinicus. It's possible that he is another 1/64 Armenian, through his great-great-grandfather Ariobarzanes I of Media Atropatene, whose maternal grandfather may have been the Artaxiad Armenian king Tigranes the Great. I don't think I've seen any other Wikipedia biographies that assign ancestry according to the 1/32 (or 3/64) fraction of descent, especially when the descent isn't straight down the paternal line (i.e., retaining patrilineal primogeniture or the patrilineal surname). I know there is an urge to identify Tiridates I as part Armenian since he was a king of Armenia, but wouldn't it be more accurate to say that he was an Iranian-Greek prince of Parthia who later ruled Armenia as its king? Ketone16 (talk) 21:33, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Most of his grandparents, great grandparents, and so on are unknown, so we don't know what his exact ethnic background was. The Armenian, Parthian, Pontic, Seleucid, etc. noble families were very intermarried so there's no point guessing fractions. We can only state the facts, and he has three known ethnic backgrounds. --Steverci (talk) 02:22, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm just going by the genealogy stated in the Wikipedia articles, which says he has a Greek mother (so he is 1/2 Greek right there), a Parthian paternal grandmother (1/4 Parthian), and many of his paternal ancestors are known and are not Armenian. There's no way to give him a significant Armenian ancestry without speculating things like "Oh, his mother wasn't really Greek, she was part Armenian, etc." -- which wouldn't be going by the known facts.  Yes, he has three known ethnic backgrounds (if you consolidate the Iranian groups into one background), but the Iranian and Greek backgrounds are much larger than the Armenian one, which I would characterize as insignificant.  So, I still feel it would be more accurate to say that he was an Iranian-Greek prince of Parthia who became king of Armenia.  Ketone16 (talk) 03:13, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * We don't even know for certain who his mother is. It's speculation that his mother was Greek, assuming he had the same mother as Vologases. And either way we don't know her exact ethnic background. That's over half his ancestry unknown! Iranian-Greek would be used to describe a Greek who lived in Iran. --Steverci (talk) 03:21, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Again, though, not knowing his mother's ancestry is much, much different from knowing that her ancestry is in fact Armenian, so I don't understand what your point is. The known Armenian ancestors are at the 1/32 level with an additional 1/64 contribution.  That is not significant Armenian ancestry and you have not introduced any facts (or even speculations by historians) to indicate that he had any significant Armenian ancestry.  The Arshakuni dynasty is pretty much universally described as the Armenian branch of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty, so Tiridates was a prince of Parthia who is also a notable Armenian by virtue of being appointed king of Armenia -- not by being ethnically Armenian.  The sentence in the article that is in question deals with Tiridates' ethnic background, and it seems confusing (and somewhat chauvinistic) to press the Armenian ethnic descent.  I'm fine with calling him an Armenian king everywhere else in the article, but not in the sentence about his ethnic ancestry, since I think calling him Armenian there is a distortion of (known) history.  Also, I'm not sure what your background in English is, but "Iranian-Greek" doesn't have to mean "a Greek who lived in Iran".  I think you're inaptly trying to apply a particular grammatical construct that was popularized in the U.S. in the past few decades (e.g., "[Nationality]-American"), which of course does not govern the universal use of hyphens in English.  The grammatical construct is unimportant, though -- another sentence with the same semantic content could be substituted.  Ketone16 (talk) 03:47, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * But we can't say for fact either she was Greek, let alone 100% Greek. And even if she was, He would've been culturally Parthian and later Armenian and never a Greek citizen, so I don't see how Iranian-Greek or Greek-Iranian would be fitting. It's as you said early, the fact he was given the title King of Armenia makes his distant confirmed Armenian ancestry something to point out. But originally I just wanted to remove this sentence as a whole because the ethnic background of royal dynasties is always very mixed and impossible to say accurately. Would you be willing to go this route? Steverci (talk) 07:35, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It is true that royal dynasties are often mixed and confusing to disentangle. I think the existing second sentence, "He was one of the sons born to Vonones II of Parthia from a Greek concubine" (with the footnote about his mother retained) would make a fine lead sentence.  If we remove the existing lead sentence, which refers to him as a prince, then the existing second sentence might be clearer if we pointed out that Vonones II was a king himself (of Media Atropatene and later of Parthia), just to emphasize up front that Tiridates was the son of a king. Ketone16 (talk) 12:29, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Statues of Tiridates I
The article presently is illustrated with two statues that are identified with Tiridates I: one in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, and one at the Louvre. I did some research on both statues and it appears that neither one is believed to be a depiction of Tiridates I. I am not sure, however, how best to incorporate that information into this article.

I'll first address the statue at the Louvre. The Wikipedia article includes an illustration of this statue taken from Kurkjian's "A History of Armenia". This statue appears to be item MA 1019 / MR 357 in the Borghese Collection of the Louvre's Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities. The excerpted text in the cited link is from "Roman Art from the Louvre" by C. Giroire and D. Roger (2007). This book, along with an Italian-language book that I found ("I Borghese e l'antico" by A. Coliva (2011)), both say that the statue is of an Asian, Dacian, or possibly a Parthian. The body of the statue is thought to be of the 2nd century A.D. and the head is a separate ancient sculpture that was grafted onto the body sometime later. Other major parts of the statue are modern restorations. The Giroire and Roger book does not mention the statue being associated with Armenia or Tiridates at all. If I understand the Italian correctly, the Coliva book says that the assignment of the statue to Tiridates of Armenia (and before that, to Massinissa of Numidia) was the work of fanciful "philological archaeology" of the 18th century. The statue was, however, known as "Tiridate, re d'Armenia" when it was at the Borghese Gallery in Rome before being transferred to the Napoleon Museum (a.k.a. the Louvre) in 1808-1809. The modern scholars do not associate it with Tiridates. I do not know how the statue is called in the Louvre museum.

The Wikipedia article also includes a photo of the statue on the South Ramp of the Gardens of the Palace of Versailles. This statue is a late 17th-century work by Antoine André (sculptor under Louis XIV), who copied an ancient (2nd century A.D.) statue, which was one of the famous "Farnese Captives" that were formerly held in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Here is a  of the ancient statue, which is now in Naples. The statue apparently was sometimes known as an "Armenian king" in the 16th and 17th centuries.  The Farnese Captives are now believed to represent prisoners from Dacia, or at least that's how the museum in Naples is calling them. I do not know when the ancient statue came to be associated with Tiridates, or indeed whether it ever was associated with Tiridates. André's copy, however, somehow got the name Tiridates associated with it. I'm not sure if that was before or after André sculpted it, however. I also do not know whether it's still called "Tiridates" at the Versailles Gardens, although I suspect that it probably is, because I can find recent photos on the internet by people who call it Tiridates. (Note: I think that the Versailles Gardens also have a statue that is associated with Tigran II of Armenia, which may be the "Farnese Captive" that formerly was called a "Parthian king").

To sum up, it appears that neither statue is believed by modern scholars to represent Tiridates I. The associations with Tiridates I appear to date to a couple hundred years ago. I do not know whether the Louvre or the Versailles still refer to these statues as Tiridates I (I suspect no in the former case, but yes in the latter case). In the case of the Versailles statue, it is possible that the sculptor believed he was copying a statue of Tiridates I, and thus the statue could rightly be called a statue of Tiridates I, but I cannot verify that. I am not sure how to modify the Wikipedia article, except the caption of the illustration of the statue of the Louvre needs to be changed: the statue certainly cannot be known to be "erected in Rome in honor of [Tiridates'] visit" given that the statue is thought to be of the 2nd century A.D. and not a depiction of an Armenian king at all. Ketone16 (talk) 15:55, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The Versailles statue is most certainly Tiridates, he's depicted wearing the Armenian Mithraic Cap that became popular in France at the time, and the statue is widely associated with him across many sources on the internet, so it seems to have due weight. --Steverci (talk) 02:10, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that you read what I wrote. You are conducting original research with your speculation that the Mithraic cap proves that the statue depicts Tiridates.  First of all, the "Mithraic cap" was not unique to Armenia:  this style of cap was also worn in Phrygia and Dacia, among other places.  Second, André's statue at Versailles is documented as being a copy of an ancient statue believed to date to the 2nd century A.D. (the century after Tiridates lived).  You can look at the photo of the ancient statue yourself -- it has the same style of cap, so this is not a question of what was the fashion in 17th-century France.  Modern researchers do not believe that the ancient statue is of Tiridates or even Armenian.  You can look up the literature on the "Farnese Captives"/"Dacian Prisoners" yourself.  So, according to modern scholarship, the statue at the Versailles is most certainly not a depiction of Tiridates.
 * The question at hand is whether André intended the Versailles statue to be a depiction of Tiridates because that's what he believed the ancient statue depicted. I do not have an answer to that question, but based on the references I cited above, I believe that he likely intended his copy to depict an Armenian king because I know that some writers of the 16th/17th centuries identified the ancient statue an unidentified Armenian king.  I do not know whether André intended his copy to represent more specifically the Armenian king Tiridates I, as opposed to that identification was made sometime after he made the sculpture.  I was not able to find extensive scholarly research on André's copy.  At any rate, the internet sources seem to suggest that this copy is still known as a statue of Tiridates, so absent any contrary information, it seems fair to call it a statue of Tiridates in the Wikipedia article.  (I would, however, caution against placing too much weight on widely-proliferated claims on the internet, since I have found many cases in which a single poorly-sourced claim gets spread all over the internet, yet is demonstrably false.)
 * A final note on the centuries-old scholarship that seems to be the source of these problems: the Wikipedia article on the Borghese Gladiator notes that "there are numerous examples of fanciful 16th to 18th-century identifications [of statues]" because "antique sculptures gained immediacy by being identified with specific figures from history".  In other words, a few hundred years ago a scholar of antique statues might think:  "This statue probably dates to the time of Nero and the clothes kind of look Armenian, so the statue must depict Tiridates of Armenia."  That is not, however, the standard for modern scholarship.  Ketone16 (talk) 13:57, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Addition: As of 2011, the Versailles sculpture (inventory number MR 1748) was still called a statue of Tiridate (Tiridates). Ketone16 (talk) 00:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Addition: As of 1922 and 1967 the Louvre sculpture (inventory number MA 1019) was called "Tiridate, roi des Parthes et d'Arménie".  The modern sources I found call it a "Barbarian warrior" (Giroire and Roger, 2007) or "a Dacian warrior, Massinissa (king of Numidia), or Tiridates (king of Armenia)) (Coliva, 2011).  The detailed descriptions in both sources call the statue "an Asian, Dacian, or possibly a Parthian", but do not specifically assign the statue to Tiridates I.  The head of the statue appears to have been added to the damaged headless body by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi in the 18th century.  Ketone16 (talk) 00:35, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It's only called a Phrygian Cap to those who are ignorant that Phrygians were Armenians. Does Louvre's official naming not fall under due weight? An established narrative for over a century cannot be replaced by publications a few years ago by historians with no known credibility. Steverci (talk) 06:39, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Phrygians are Armenians?!?!? What the ... Your quoted source is from some fringe-author who maintains Etruscans are Armenians - not a Reliable Source. I see you were later topic-banned on all things related to Armenia. 104.169.24.168 (talk) 07:56, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The last publication I found from the Louvre that named it "Tiridate" was published in 1967. Of course the statue was once known as Tiridates, so the Louvre called it Tiridate, but that name was based on flawed scholarship from hundreds of years ago.  Giroire and Roger, who wrote one of the books I cited, are curators in the department of the Louvre that houses the statue in question.  They call the statue a "Barbarian Warrior" and do not mention Tiridates at all (except perhaps obliquely when they say the statue is an Asian, Dacian, or possibly a Parthian, given that Tiridates was a prince of Parthia).  Coliva, who wrote the other book I cited, is the director of the Borghese Gallery, which housed the statue before the Louvre acquired it.  I'm not sure what more credibility you want.  The statue was headless when people started calling it Tiridates -- are you sure you want to stick with the Tiridates interpretation?
 * I'm not sure that your comment about Phrygians being Armenians merits much of a response. The author you cited considers the two peoples to be "closely related", but certainly they were considered by everyone to be separate peoples by the time of Tiridates I.  They were considered separate peoples even hundreds of years earlier in the time of Herotodus, who speculated that the Armenians were descended from a colony of Phrygians.  So, if they had a common ancestry, that was before recorded history (and before anyone wrote about a Phyrgian/Armenian/Mithraic cap).  And that is just one theory of the origin of the Armenian people -- there are other theories, even in (or perhaps especially in) Armenia.  Anyway, the statue in question is more likely to be a Dacian than a Phrygian -- are Dacians also Armenians in your mind?
 * I know you mean well, but your methods are sloppy, and I think that when it comes to articles about Armenia, you have some biases. Ketone16 (talk) 03:35, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Ketone, you are correct, and Wiki Commons should be updated to reflect what modern sources state. As it stands, the article is in glaring contradiction to historical consensus.  Ugh. 104.169.24.168 (talk) 08:02, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

"The Esoteric Codex: Zoroastrianism"
Section 3.19 ("Tiridates I of Armenia") of the book "The Esoteric Codex: Zoroastrianism" by Gerardo Eastburn is basically just a copy of this Wikipedia article. The whole book seems to be a "curated collection" of open content. Please do not cite this book as a source for facts in this article -- that is completely circular. Right now this book is being used as a "source" for the unsourced statements that Louis XIV believed Tiridates I to be an important figure and ordered a statue of Tiridates I to be made for the Versailles gardens. Ketone16 (talk) 15:55, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Tiridates I of Armenia. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060903004436/http://www.satrapa1.com/articulos/antiguedad/corbulon/corbulon.htm to http://www.satrapa1.com/articulos/antiguedad/corbulon/corbulon.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 13:28, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Tiridates I of Armenia. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070325105207/http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-1109103-213211/unrestricted/Poirot_III_thesis.pdf to http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-1109103-213211/unrestricted/Poirot_III_thesis.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 07:18, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Removed unsourced content
I removed this from the article: The event at Puteolis also marked the first attested appearance of female gladiators. It was cited to Cassius Dio without any secondary source. (A statement like this would need a secondary source identifying it as the first attested appearance). This article was promoted to FA in 2006 and has seen quite a bit of editing since then. I'm a bit busy with other things at the moment and only came across it while reading up on gladiators at the main article, but based on this I think the article would benefit from a review. Seraphim System ( talk ) 22:42, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

WP:URFA/2020 review
I have conducted a review of this article as part of WP:URFA/2020, and initiative to evaluate and bring featured articles back to FA standards. After taking a quick look at this article, I have some concerns which I outline below:


 * The references are disorganised. Sometimes the book information is given in the citation, othertimes it is listed in the Bibliography. These should be standardised.
 * There are lots of sources in the Bibliography that are not used in the article. Are they high-quality sources? If so, they should be used in the article.
 * The Visiting Rome section is quite long with lots of details. Is all of this information necessary? Can it be summarised?
 * There are some long sections with single-sentence paragraphs, which are discouraged per WP:PARAGRAPH. I think this article needs a good copyedit by a knowledgeable editor to fix this and other prose problems.

Is anyone willing to fix up this article? Z1720 (talk) 16:40, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi. I plan to fix this article in the near future. --HistoryofIran (talk) 16:45, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I just made a few edits to work on the language and organization. I agree that the visiting Rome section is too long and detailed, but I haven't touched that yet. - Eponymous-Archon (talk) 18:38, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * are either of you still interested in addressing the above concerns, or is this ready to go to FAR? Z1720 (talk) 15:28, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Not at this moment unfortunately. I do think its FA status should be removed. --HistoryofIran (talk) 15:40, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Question about the Armenian name
, could you explain the issue with the Armenian name? I can't see how it's anachronistic, as it is a name used by all Armenian sources. I see how making claims about his ancestry would be anachronistic but I fail to see how including a name significantly repeated in sources is. And thank you for your time and patience. - Kevo3 2 7 (talk) 17:15, 13 January 2022 (UTC)


 * "I can't see how it's anachronistic, as it is a name used by all Armenian sources."
 * "ANACHRONISM: a person, thing, or idea that exists out of its time in history, especially one that happened or existed later than the period being shown, discussed, etc. " (Cambridge Dictionary)
 * Armenian sources in the Armenian script are first attested in the 5th century AD, long after the death of Tiridates I. Hence, using such spellings and scripts is anachronistic and they therefore don't belong in such articles. - LouisAragon (talk) 20:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)