Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lateranus family


 * 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. Missvain (talk) 03:59, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Lateranus family

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I don't think a distinct, WP:NOTABLE ancient Roman family of this name even existed. 4 of its 6 supposed members were not named 'Lateranus' at all, but instead 'Plautius'. The remaining two – Sextius Lateranus and Plautius Lateranus – were probably not related, since no reliable source attests any connection, their actual hereditary/family names (Sextius and Plautius) differ, and they lived 400 years apart. The five people named 'Plautius' did, incidentally, comprise a distinct family. I do not consider the article's main source, which focuses only on the namesake Lateran Basilica and not the subject matter, to be a WP:RS. The creator of the article is banned. Avilich (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Engr.  Smitty   Werben 01:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Italy-related deletion discussions. Engr.  Smitty   Werben 01:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Engr.  Smitty   Werben 01:44, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Delete - A confusing article with little to no relation to the ancient sources. Even if it would be correctly reworked to be a disambiguate of people sharing the cognomen Lateranus consisting of members from the Sextius and Plautius gentes it would fail in this essence, as Avilich points out, only two members on this list actually has the cognomen of Lateranus. (Not sure i added this text in the correct place as this is my first time commenting on an AfD) CutieyKing (talk) 06:24, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Comment -- I'm baffled by this article. On the one hand, the fact a number of Romans shared the same cognomen does not prove they are related. On the other, the concept that there was a family named Lateranus is not some random idea invented by an editor, but originated with an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia. By this, I am not arguing that there was a family -- I don't believe there was, & I've grown suspicious about some of the material in the CE -- but that someone once thought there was one. (I thought "Lateran" was the name of a portion of or a landmark in Rome.) This needs more research. Nevertheless, I don't know if my ambivalence is enough to keep this article. -- llywrch (talk) 07:49, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Comment: a little investigation failed to show the existence of a "Lateran Hill" at Rome in antiquity, although it seems to have been inferred, since that search term is a redirect to "Lateran". It may be that the "hill" owes its existence to the construction of the Lateran Palace and the similarly-named adjoining buildings: according to Platner & Ashby's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, the Domus Laterani underlies the modern church, and gives it its name. The house was presented by Septimius Severus to Titus Sextius Lateranus, consul in AD 197, and the article supposes that it might have been the home of Plautius Lateranus, whom Nero had put to death. If so, then the house probably took its name from Plautius, not Sextius, which would normally suggest to me that Sextius acquired the surname from his house—although this seems to be disproved by the fact that his father was Titus Sextius Lateranus, the consul of AD 154, and his great-grandfather Titus Sextius Lateranus, consul in AD 94; and besides, given his long, extended nomenclature, it seems unlikely he would have needed to add a surname based on his residence, or that anyone else would have needed to bestow it on him in order to distinguish him from other members of his family.

If the house was indeed that of Plautius Lateranus, then it could be that these Sextii Laterani were descended from the Plautii Laterani, in which case Septimius Severus was "restoring" them to their patrimony. On the other hand, they could have obtained the name from living in the same neighbourhood, if that were the original reason for the surname. The imperial Sextii Laterani may well have intended the name to allude to Lucius Sextius Lateranus, since it was fashionable in the late Republic and Imperial times for families to revive ancient and illustrious surnames of their respective gentes, whether or not they could prove descent from the individuals concerned—once disused, these ancient surnames seem to have been treated as "community property" within the gens. But again, the name may have been a geographic designation to begin with, or an occupational one. Latera are bricks, and so Lucius Sextius Lateranus could have acquired the surname either because he (or one of his ancestors) was a brickmaker—or because he lived in a neighbourhood where bricks were made. This might also be the case with Plautius Lateranus, four centuries later, although if it were a geographical designation, it doesn't necessarily follow that it was the same neighbourhood as in the fourth century BC.

In any case, we know too little about the descent of these imperial Sextii Laterani to be sure of whether they were any relation to Plautius Lateranus. Looking into his family, I note there is a subsection heading for the "Plautii Laterani" under Plautia gens, and they do give the appearance of a distinct family, but only one of them is obviously surnamed Lateranus; the "Plautia Laterana" occurring near the end (out of chronological order) seems to owe her appearance to Christian Settipani, whose rather opaque and inaccessible work has been used to justify numerous otherwise unverifiable genealogical assertions about Roman families, and the surname seems to be the only thing potentially linking her with Plautius Lateranus. The heading was created by PrincenMCA when he created the article in 2017; it's not my handiwork, thankfully, since while the connection of Plautius Lateranus with Aulus Plautius and his family seems to be documented, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that anyone else in the family—barring the possibility of "Plautia Laterana"—bore the surname. And while the imperial Sextii Laterani may have intended others to associate them with Lucius Sextius Lateranus (and it's not really possible to disprove that they were related to, or even descended from him), there's really no justification for considering them a single family.

So from my perspective, Lucius Sextius Lateranus has nothing to do with the family of imperial times; at best he could be a remote ancestor to whom their surname was intended to allude. And there's no evidence that they were related to the Plautii Laterani, besides the surname—if indeed there ever were any other Plautii Laterani, which I think is dubious. It's possible that the consul of 197 received the house from Septimius Severus because it had belonged to Plautius Lateranus, but it's not even certain that it was the same house. If it was, it could have been given to him due to the coincidence of his surname, not because he was descended from the Plautii, for which there seems to be no evidence besides the surname. And it's equally possible that the surname originally designated someone who had been a brickmaker, or lived in the neighbourhood where bricks were made at one time, in which case two wholly unrelated persons living in the same part of Rome could easily have shared it. There certainly was a family of Sextii Laterani, from whom the palace and its surrounding neighbourhood might take their name (if it wasn't still named after the former site of brickyards), but without more evidence I would treat it as separate and distinct from the family of Plautius Lateranus, and from Lucius Sextius Lateranus (although of course they're naturally, and unavoidably, grouped under Sextia gens). P Aculeius (talk) 15:12, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * My point above was that the creator of this article, PrincenMCA, didn't just invent the contents of this article from original research (which would make this an open-&-shut case for deletion), but likely took it from Lateran Palace where the "Lateran family" is mentioned (earlier versions of the article make this connection very clear), which in turn was taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia (a source that was not written by experts but by freelancers just as the Encyclopaedia Britannica was), where the "Lateran family" is argued to have existed based on some questionable grounds.However,, you did the necessary research to show there is no need for this article. Any "Lateran family" would have been the Sextii Laterani, who owned the mansion that Constantine granted to the Popes in the 4th century, & who were a stirps of the Sextia gens. And since this article contains misleading information, I concur that Delete is the best outcome for this article. (And hopefully someone can review the articles that links to this one, & correct the information there.) -- llywrch (talk) 19:36, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The only page that links to Lateran family is Lateran, which itself could qualify for deletion. Avilich (talk) 19:48, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That latter page has a number of counterparts in other language Wikipedias. The German WP, for example, is a FA & incorporates material from the Lateran Palace, Lateran Basilica, & other related structures. Its presence & excellence suggests deleting or merging Lateran would create a bigger problem than it would solve. (And it would be a good thing to have some kind of co-ordinating page under that label, even if it were simply a disambiguation page.) I suggest thinking the matter over before nominating that page for deletion. -- llywrch (talk) 20:50, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean to suggest that PrincenMCA invented this article out of whole cloth, merely that he seems to have determined that the Plautii related to Plautius Lateranus were the "Plautii Laterani", something that seems quite dubious to me, given that there's only one Plautius assigned the surname (not to mention one of the last chronologically), unless you count the "Plautia Laterana" cited only to Settipani. And any genealogical connection cited to Settipani raises red flags for me, not because it's inherently unlikely or because Settipani isn't a reliable source (I think the jury is still out on how accurate his conclusions are, for reasons I won't delve into here), but because some of the editors who've cited to him have very spotty track records on Wikipedia.  And if there were no other Plautii Laterani, the chances of these Sextii Laterani acquiring the surname from them are much lower. P Aculeius (talk) 22:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete. Holders of similar cognomina were not necessarily related, especially over four centuries. A very confusing article. T8612  (talk) 03:49, 11 December 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.