Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Faustus Cornelius Sulla (grandson of Sulla)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Consensus is that there is too little to say about this person to keep or even merge.  Sandstein  12:41, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Faustus Cornelius Sulla (grandson of Sulla)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

The article presents two sources on this subject: the first contains a passage which says his father (also called Faustus) had children, and the second merely says that his father had descendants. No evidence is anywhere presented for the existence of a son called "Faustus", and, as it stands, there's no good reason to believe this specific individual even exists. I was unable to find anything in reliable sources that would prove otherwise. If he does somehow exist, then he fails Wikipedia's notability standards, since nothing of his life is known, by the article's own admission. Avis11 (talk) 15:15, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I'll add that this article was created by an IP (back in 2005) with what seems to be a mass of unsourced fabrications. Discussions on the talk page throughout the years have since led to the elimination of all the original content and caused the article to shrink to its current size. Avis11 (talk) 15:23, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  16:12, 21 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete On the one hand a Cornelius Sulla, grandson of Sulla, did exist. Ronald Syme (The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford: 1986), pp. 261 & 265) mentions him twice. However, he is nothing more than a genealogical link between one notable person (Sulla) & a pair of other notable men (the Cornelii Sullae who were consuls in 31 & 33); more could be said about his son, Sulla Felix, who is at best borderline notable. (An argument could be made for Sulla Felix, but I wouldn't be convinced by it.) Most importantly, notability is not inherited: his strongest claim for notability otherwise is that he might have been a member of the Roman Senate. (Augustus twice purged the Roman Senate to reduce its numbers from over 1,000 to 600 members; this Cornelius Sulla might have been expelled at one of those times. We have no way to know.)As a last note, I considered the option of "Merge", but there is nothing here to merge. And I tried to find a way to do just that: the easiest explanation for how the two consular Cornelii Sullae are related to their famous ancestor is to say "direct descendant" thru their father; it would be awkward & pointless to mention this person in their articles. -- llywrch (talk) 01:42, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Essential just a name in an ancient genealogy. We know too little about this fellow to write an actual article about him.  GNG is not met. Hog Farm Bacon 02:54, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. That he existed seems certain enough, but absent substantial scholarly writing about him (even an investigation of who he was), there's no need for him to have an article of his own; he can rest comfortably at "Cornelia gens", surrounded by his family, and mentioned as appropriate in the articles about his notable immediate relatives.  I don't know what the basis for his praenomen is, other than a generally unwarranted assumption that he would have had the same praenomen as his father.  While this would have been the case more often than not, the meagre epigraphic evidence doesn't support it as far as I know.  If the filiations of his presumed descendants are correct, his name was probably Publius.  Which is not to say that there couldn't have been a son Faustus—but lacking more evidence, clearly-stated scholarly opinion, or even proof of how the supposed grandsons were related to him, I'd call it a stretch.  P Aculeius (talk) 14:50, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
 * As a post script, I'd like to point out that the Italian Classicist Borghesi argued that the grandfather of the Cornelius Sulla, consul 33, was Lucius Cornelius Sulla; first Groag then Syme argued (more persuasively) for the existence of Cornelius Sulla. So one could argue the existence of Cornelius Sulla is not rock solid. (IMHO, I beleive Groag & Syme are closer to the truth.) -- llywrch (talk) 22:52, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Merge to his father or grandfather. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:20, 22 November 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.