Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marcus Lollius (father of Marcus Lollius consul 21 BC)


 * 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. --BDD (talk) 22:17, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Marcus Lollius (father of Marcus Lollius consul 21 BC)

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This individual is not notable; the only certain information known about him is that he was the father of a minor figure in Roman history. The only source for his existence is an inscription giving his son's name as "Marcus Lollius M. f.", i.e. "son of Marcus." The article doesn't suggest any other reason for notability; the only other information offered is speculation that his wife might have been named "Paulina", but this doesn't even reach the level of "probable." It's based entirely on the fact that his son's surname was probably "Paulinus," although in fact no known source calls him that; the surname itself is merely inferred from the fact that there was a grandson with the surname "Paulinus" who had a daughter named "Paulina." In other words, it's a long chain of inferences to the possibility that the subject's son was named "Paulinus," and there's no evidence that he was so named because his mother was "Paulina." There's also no basis for claiming that Lollius was a "nobleman."

I add that the author has incorrectly cited to "Ancient Library" as his source, when in fact the source is the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, of which a copy is hosted at said website; that source contains no information about the subject of this article, being concerned entirely with his son; and it states that the son's surname is uncertain and unattested in any source. The only other citation in this article is a book on Roman inscriptions that can be seen on a walking tour; presumably the bridge with "Marcus Lollius M. f." on it can be seen on a walking tour. P Aculeius (talk) 12:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:07, 11 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete, for the reasons so meticulously presented above. Wisps and phantoms sometimes merit articles, if sources and notability justify it. Not so with this one (whoever he might have been, or not). Haploidavey (talk) 14:39, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

After unsuccessfully removing the AfD notice from the article (despite the warning, "this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed"), Anriz posted this on my talk page. It seemed more appropriate here, since it's the author's response to the nomination:


 * Hello P Aculeius again,


 * Could you please explain why would you want to nominate this article to be deleted?


 * Instead of you being negative towards this article being put on Wikipedia, you should be happy I am writing an article about ancient Roman History. I can't see why you would want to nominate this article from being deleted. For me to put this article together, I had just had enough reliable information to put together to do this article. Everything in this article is cited from reliable sources. I had even provided in the article Latin inscriptional evidence about him from Rome. I have not broken any Wikipedia policies and procedures on this article.


 * There is no article available on the internet nor on Wikipedia, about Marcus Lollius the father Marcus Lollius, the consul in 21 BC. Although this man was a minor nobleman in the Roman Republic, he was the father of a prominent politician and general during the late Republic into the reign of Augustus, the paternal grandfather of a Roman solder, a Roman consul during the reign of Augustus, the paternal great-grand father of the Roman Empress Lollia Paulina and her sister Lollia Saturnina, and was an ancestor of the powerful politician Marcus Lollius Paulinus Decimus Valerius Asiaticus Saturninus of the Flavian dynasty and the early Nerva-Antoninian era and Saturninus' son.


 * Please at least consider in changing your mind about deleting this article.


 * Thanking you,


 * Anriz.


 * The reason for the nomination is stated above, but simply put: the only known reference to to this man is the initial "M" following his son's name in a single inscription. In effect, the inscription says something along the lines of, "Marcus Lollius, the son of Marcus... built this bridge."  Now, the son was clearly notable, in that he held the consulship and had some connections with and responsibilities in the highest echelons of Roman society of Augustan Rome.  There were one or two notable grandsons and a notable great-granddaughter.  But the fact remains that all that can be said about the subject of this article is, "his name was Marcus."


 * It's true that having notable descendants gives the man a sort of factual importance on the unwritten pages of history. But it's no greater than that of his father or his mother; why not have an article entitled, "Unknown grandfather of Marcus Lollius (consul of 21 BC)"?  It would contain just as much information as this one, with the exception of his praenomen.  We can infer that he was a member of the gens Lollia and that he was a noble Roman (if we accept the logic that anyone whose grandson obtained the consulship must have been noble); that he might have been descended from earlier Lollii mentioned on the article about that family; that all of the later Lollii mentioned here are his descendants; that because "Marcus" was the most frequent praenomen (and the only one known in the first two generations), his praenomen was probably Marcus too; that he might have been surnamed "Paulinus" because some of his descendants were... and it goes on and on.


 * All six of the citations in the article point to the same source for the subject: an inscription that mentions the subject only as the initial "M." Everything else in the article is borrowed or inferred from his descendants; the source materials don't say he was a nobleman, and they don't speculate as to his wife's name; that's entirely your speculation.  Being related to notable people does not confer notability; that's explained in Wikipedia's guidelines for notability.  This subject has no other reason for being an article, since nothing else is known about him.  Since our entire body of knowledge about this man is that "his name was Marcus," he doesn't need to be the subject of a separate article on Wikipedia.  P Aculeius (talk) 13:18, 12 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete per others, with apologies to Anriz. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:40, 13 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete - on the information available, this guy is really no more than a patronymic. Not notable. --Nicknack009 (talk) 15:20, 15 July 2013 (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.