Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fex urbis lex orbis


 * 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 merge‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ to List of Latin phrases (F). czar 18:28, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Fex urbis lex orbis

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Contested prod. Apparently non-notable Latin phrase used in passing in Les Misérables. A review of the first dozen or so pages of Google Books search yields primarily the book itself, with a couple of passing mentions in other books, and the name of an album by a heavy metal band; Google Scholar/News and Jstor are no better. It's also a near-orphan: the only article to link to it is the book in which it appears, and there it's relegated to the "See also" section without mention in the article body. Smdjcl (talk) 23:50, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language, Literature,  and Law.  WC  Quidditch   ☎   ✎  23:59, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete: Sourcing that I find is largely to Les Misersables; I don't think this phrase has been used much outside that context. Delete for non-notability, lack of sources. Oaktree b (talk) 01:39, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
 * So we've been taking the word of a work of fiction for 17 years, over all of the scholarship on Jerome which records no such thing. (The nearest that all of the books on Jerome going back centuries get is probably "Major est autoritas orbis quam urbis" which is a completely different thing.)  This is unverifiable and almost certainly false.  Delete. Uncle G (talk) 14:18, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Merge with List of Latin phrases (F): I agree there's not enough here to write an individual article. However, it's notable enough that it should be merged to the List of Latin phrases. Other than sources that discuss the phrase in the context of the book, which are generally brief mentions, there's one source (p. 59) that applies the phrase to modern capitalism, but I wouldn't call that significant coverage of the phrase itself; rather, it's using the phrase to frame a discussion about another topic. Another source is a brief mention: "As the anonymous revolutionary so succiently expressed the concept of postmodern contingency, 'shit happens', or the Latin variant, 'Fex urbis, lex orbis' (Saint Jerome)." The final source I could find briefly discusses the phrase in the context of discussing Baudrillard: "Fex urbis, lex orbis (Saint Jerome)The law of the world is made out of the feces of civilized life."). On page 46 of that source, there's also a section heading called "Fex urbis, lex sociologis", which is also about Baudrillard's work on the field of sociology. (Side note: I gave a brief listen to the metal album; it's meh.) voorts (talk/contributions) 20:52, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment If search results "yield primarily the book itself", then the search engine is not being used properly. The simplest way to exclude the book, and quotes from it, is to look for results that don't include other parts of the text, such as excluding all results that contain the word "exaspérations" and translations of that word. Like this:


 * Merge without prejudice. So, having run a real search of Google Books, I did find an article titled "Fex urbis, lex orbis: la boue dans Les Misérables" by Chelebourg: . This source might have some relevance. I do not know whether it contains enough material to sustain an article at this page name. There are also a number of other sources that discuss the expression, and Hugo's use of it, such as: . There are a number of books, apart from Hugo, that attribute this expression to Jerome, but I could not find it in Google Books in any book published before 1861. The ideal target for a redirect would be Les Misérables itself, or an article SPLIT from that one, since Hugo may have invented this expression. However, we would have actually add a discussion of Hugo's use of this expression first. Failing that, List of Latin phrases (F) will do, provided that the entry says "attributed to Saint Jerome by Victor Hugo", rather than the other way round. James500 (talk) 01:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC) I take the view that we should attribute the expression "fex urbis, lex orbis" directly to Les Misérables, and not mention Saint Jerome at all. It has become clear that any reference to Saint Jerome, without unequivocal proof that Jerome actually said this, is going to result in perpetual disruptive badgering behaviour, even if the reference makes it perfectly clear that we are not claiming that Jerome actually said this. James500 (talk) 01:24, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * You should crack open that book by Kathryn M. Grossman and actually read what your search turned up. Grossman attributes this to Cicero, not Jerome at all; and cites "ad Atticus I.xvi.11".  Pulling out W. P. Grant's 1811 annotated Epistolarum ad Atticum yields no such thing said by Cicero, however. And Grossman is apparently alone, in a century and a half, in attributing this to Cicero instead of to Jerome as the novel itself says.  So you haven't really turned up a good source, there.  Worse, Grossman is one of the very few who has even tried to locate the original source that the novel claims.  I've seen nothing else re Hugo that even attempts to verify that this was genuinely said by Jerome, let alone point to where it was said, and no writing on Jerome that has it.  As I said, all this is almost certainly outright false.  Uncle G (talk) 10:10, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * (1) There are a very large number of sources (including sources published long before Hugo) that attribute "fæx urbis" or "fæx romuli" or "fæx populi" or similar expressions to Cicero (and to Atticum in particular), eg  . He certainly does say "romuli faece", according to Tyrrell  and Pretor . That is supposed to be the verbatim text. Likewise, he does actually say "faecem populi"     . And he does actually say "sentinam urbis":  cf, including in Atticus: . And he does actually say "faece urbis": . And that seems almost identical to fex urbis. And, most importantly, he does actually say "[sordem] urbis et faecem" in Atticus, book 1, letter 16, section 11:  , exactly where Grossman claims he says something to the effect of "fex urbis". And "urbis et faecem" basically means the same thing as "fex urbis". Quad Erat Demonstrandum. I find "fæx urbis" attributed to Cicero in print at least as early as 1575: . I find "urbis faece" in commentaries on Cicero in print at least as early as 1579:. The point is that Cicero's literary output contains a lot of references to the excrement (or sewage, garbage or dregs etc) of the city, the cesspool of the city, the excrement of the population, the excrement of Romulus, etc, referring in all cases to the dregs of both the city and people (because the city and people are the same thing in this context) of Rome. Hugo has clearly not invented anything when he says "Fex urbis exclaims Cicero", which is clearly what Grossman is refering to. May I suggest that the source of confusion is that Hugo (and everyone else) may be paraphrasing Cicero instead of quoting Cicero verbatim. (2) In any event, the Grossman book would be prima facie reliable for her interpretation etc of the text of Hugo's novel, even if she misattributed Cicero. She is a professor of French, specialising in 19th century French literature , not a professor of Latin or Classics. James500 (talk) 23:00, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * So you don't have anything supporting either that Cicero said this as claimed by one person, or the article at hand saying that Jerome said this, too; your argument for Grossman is that Grossman isn't an expert in the necessary subject, unlike the many books written by scholars on the works of Cicero and Jerome who don't have any of this; and we should source to a novel. Uncle G (talk) 07:06, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Your argument consists of sealioning and misrepresenting what I said. James500 (talk) 00:55, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't read you to be suggesting that we should merge the citations you've found to Les Misérables, but I just wanted to note that I think that adding literary scholars' interpretations of this one turn of phrase to Les Misérables would be unbalanced. Book articles should broadly summarize the literary criticism, not discuss individual aspects of the work at a deep level of detail. Unless there's enough significant coverage of this phrase in scholarly works to write a non-stub article, my !vote is still to merge. For attribution, my !vote is to combine everything as: "attributed to Saint Jerome by Victor Hugo in Les Misérables". voorts (talk/contributions) 19:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Les Misérables will need to be split sooner or later, due to the volume of coverage (including numerous entire books and a very large number of entire articles) that it has. The WP article is 72kB and more than 5,000 words long, and barely scratches the surface of the topic. It seems, for example, to contain little discussion of the themes and ideas of the book. Chapter 3 of Grossman's book is seventy pages of significant coverage of the topic of that chapter. The topic of that chapter is notable and should have at least one WP article. The phrase and concept of "fex urbis, lex orbis" can, and prima facie should, be included in that WP article, once it has been created. The same line of reasoning applies to the topic of the Chelebourg article. James500 (talk) 03:24, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Merge with List of Latin phrases (F). Regardless of who first penned it, it's a pithy phrase and worth keeping for reference. If attribution uncertain, then "attributed to Saint Jerome by Victor Hugo" (or even just "Victor Hugo, Les Misérables" would probably do the trick). -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 11:23, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Merge with List of Latin Phrases (F). Ben Azura (talk) 21:41, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Relisting comment: My original close was that while there wasn't consensus for a merger, a redirect with history was a viable ATD. A question came up on my Talk as to whether that was the best course of action, so I've vacated my close in hope of a consensus here vs. potentially prolonging this elsewhere. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star   Mississippi  23:55, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom, pseudo latin phrase akin to nil illegitum carbordum and the like, hardly encyclopedic content. WCM email 13:16, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Assuming that my bringing it to AfD is an implicit delete vote, I would change my vote to merge to the Latin phrases article (indeed, if I had known that article existed, I would have boldly done it myself and skipped AfD). The phrase is clearly used, and is grammatical Latin, it's just not discussed enough as a phrase to warrant a standalone article. There doesn't seem to be any requirement in the Latin phrases articles that the phrase be used by a classical author, so it wouldn't matter if Hugo made it up. Smdjcl (talk) 04:54, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Merge per Smdjcl. Mccapra (talk) 06:22, 20 February 2024 (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.