Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thraco-Roman


 * 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   keep per near unanimity of respondents; sole delete preference was per nom. Editors are advised that AfD is not cleanup and WP:PROBLEMS are not grounds for deletion. Skomorokh 23:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Thraco-Roman

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In its current form, there's no point of this article to exist. The whole article is written from a strong Romanian nationalist POV. It assumes some very bold claims, which are usually not accepted by mainstream historians, such as:


 * the Thracians, Getae and Dacians were the same people
 * these people were the same people as the Romanians (the source language of substrate of Romanian is not clearly known)
 * many claims like Saint Andrew is known locally as the Apostle "of the wolves"  which are nothing but nationalist propaganda
 * it assumes that every Roman Emperor born in the Balkans is a Thraco-Roman.
 * I agree, if one uses a sensu stricto meaning of Thraco-Roman concept, although some of the them have a certain Thracian/Dacian origin i.e.: Regalianus, Galerius, Maximinus, etc, .--Bluehunt (talk) 07:56, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe one day, an article should exist about the actual Thraco-Roman culture (which existed in Bulgaria, not in Romania), not as an anachronistic word for "Romanians in the Roman era". bogdan (talk) 18:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per nomination. - Francis Tyers · 18:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

the article may be POV and may need corrections, but your position is biased:
 * Keep I do not agree, the article should not be deleted--Bluehunt (talk) 07:13, 17 June 2008 (UTC):


 * Herodotus names Dacians as part of Thracians
 * But modern linguistics considers that affirmation as dubious. bogdan (talk) 20:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * your "modern linguistics" (which ones?) did live in the same epoch as Thracians? Herodotus did. Is Thracian or maybe Dacian language known so one can have a ferm opinion? Bluehunt (talk)
 * well, Herodotus certainly has never been to Dacia or Thrace and he based his book on what he heard from travelers, especially traders who went to those places and were likely not experts in languages. Some modern linguists (for instance, I. I. Russu) agree with Herodotus, while others (like V. Gheorghiev) consider them to be completely different languages. In any case, neither version is certain, so claiming one version over the other as true is against the rules of WP:NPOV. bogdan (talk) 23:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Nowere in the article is claimed that Dacian and Thracian were identical languages.


 * The whole article is written based on that assumption. The article is about Thraco-Romans, but it talks mostly about Dacians, Getae and Moesians. bogdan (talk) 09:16, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * because Dacians/Getae, Moesians are all Thracians / Thracian tribes —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluehunt (talk • contribs) 14:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * if the romanized Gauls are called Gallo-Roman how would you call the local, Thracian romanized population of Balkans? --79.114.19.33 (talk) 10:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC) --Bluehunt (talk) 10:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * But that is not important, what is important is that ancient peoples North of Balkans were romanized and stand at the origin of Romanians. This has nothing to do with presumed continuity between Dacians and Romanians. Further, if Herodotus is wrong so is Strabo too: in "Geographica" Book VII, Chapter 3, 10 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/7C*.html) “in the country of the Thracians and of those of their number who are Getae”.
 * We should not asume that the ancient Greek travelers were less inteligent compared to modern imigrants, whom can easily certify that Italian and Romanian are related languages. The work of V. Gheorghiev is seen by many as a marginal trend of the whole Thracian revival movement in Bulgaria, promoted by Todor Zhivkov. --Bluehunt (talk) 07:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * the article asumes not that Dacians are the same people with Romanians, but presumes that the latinized Balkan peoples, north of Jircek line are at the origin of Romanians
 * the article does not claim Saint Andrew is known locally as the Apostle "of the wolves" . Hippolyte of Antioch (died ~AD 250) in his On apostles, Origen in the third book of his Commentaries on Genesis (AD 254), Eusebius of Caesarea in his Church History (AD 340), and other sources, like the Usaard's Martyrdom written between 845-865, Jacobus de Voragine in the Golden Legend (~1260), mention that Saint Andrew preached in Scythia Minor.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluehunt (talk • contribs) 20:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * from that link: "His travels spanned into Ethiopia, Scythian Russia, Asia Minor and Greece". So, which part of the Balkans is in Scythian Russia? bogdan (talk) 20:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * do not deservs a comment Bluehunt (talk)
 * What I mean is that Andrew's voyage to Romania is just a Romanian nationalist myth, invented quite recently. All the ancient sources talk about Andrew's voyage to Scythia, which is indeed in Russia and Ukraine, nothing about Dobruja/Scythia Minor. You can read about this and other Romanian national myths (which are very present in this article) in History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness by Lucian Boia. bogdan (talk) 23:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The article is not talking about Andrew's voyage to Romania, as you imply above, or to Scytia Minor. The archeological evidence of early christianty in Scytia Minor and Transylvania is much more important. And again, we cannot talk about Romanians or Romania, at that epoch.--Bluehunt (talk) 07:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Again, it talks about Christianity in an area where there were no Thracians nor Thraco-Romans! The assumption that the Getae were Thracians is just one POV. bogdan (talk) 09:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that you accept only authors with your POV: "Further, if Herodotus is wrong so is Strabo too: in "Geographica" Book VII, Chapter 3, 10 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/7C*.html) “in the country of the Thracians and of those of their number who are Getae”. We should not asume that the ancient Greek travelers were less inteligent compared to modern imigrants, whom can easily certify that Italian and Romanian are related languages. The work of V. Gheorghiev is seen by many as a marginal trend of the whole Thracian revival movement in Bulgaria, promoted by Todor Zhivkov." copied from above --79.114.19.33 (talk) 09:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)--Bluehunt (talk) 10:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not accepting just one POV: I'm just acknowledging that there are more points of view and that the article assumes only one is true, which is against the Wikipedia standards. bogdan (talk) 10:15, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * if so, I'm inviting you to write and improve the article, to raise its quality to the equivalent Gallo-Roman--Bluehunt (talk) 14:09, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Thracians, Getae and Dacians
After Herodotus, several sources from Antiquity claim the ethnic or linguistic identity of the two people Dacians/Getae. In his Geographia, Strabo wrote about the two tribes speaking the same language (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/7C*.html#3.13). Justin considers the Dacians are the successors of the Getae: Epitome of Pompeius Trogus: "Daci quoque suboles Getarum sunt" (The Dacians as well are a scion of the Getae). In his Roman history, Cassius Dio shows the Dacians to live on both sides of the Lower Danube, the ones south of the river (today's northern Bulgaria), in Moesia, and are called Moesians, while the ones north of the river are called Dacians. He argues that the Dacians are "either Getae or Thracians of Dacian race" (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/51*.html#22.7) but also stresses the fact that he calls the Dacians with the name used "by the natives themselves and also by the Romans" and that he is "not ignorant that some Greek writers refer to them as Getae, whether that is the right form or not" (67.6)(http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/67*.html#6.2).--Bluehunt (talk) 14:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Just because ancient sources say something, it doesn't mean it's the truth. Jordanes thought that the Goths and Getae were the same people, but we now know for sure that the Getae were not Germanic like the Goths. Anyway, the current scholarship (and the debate on whether Dacian and Thracian were the same language) is summarized in this paragraph in the Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture:
 * Until 1957, it was normally presumed that Thracian might also embrace Dacian, the language spoken north of the Danube, and the term Thraco-Dacian occurs widely in linguistic works. Reasons for questioning the ascription of all east Balkan tribes to a single language is the toponymic evidence which shows considerable disparity between terms employed south of Danube and those found north in historically "Dacian" territory.
 * J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, 1997, Taylor and Francis
 * As such, assuming that Thracian and Dacian are the same language is just one POV of modern science. Disregarding the other POV, (which is quite notable), is against the Wikipedia policy. bogdan (talk) 22:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Wikipedia is not concerned with establishing the truth of national identities, just reporting what can be found in sources. It seems clear both from the article and the discussion above that the national concept that is the subjct of this article has been referred to widely for a period of millennia. That's enough to justify an article.DGG (talk) 19:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think you understood my point:
 * The article assumes that Dacians are Thracians, that the Getae are Thracians, that the people from Scythia Minor are Thacians, that the Moesians are Thracians, and even that the people from Pannonia and Illyricum are Thracians. It uses the word "Thracians" as an all-encompassing term for "Ancient pre-Roman people in the Balkans". It's POV and OR. bogdan (talk) 19:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand perfect well. You disagree with the accuracy of the content. That's a content dispute, and does not affect the validity of having an article, if any sources, now or two thousand years ago, have been calling it this. DGG (talk) 22:10, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep, there are 64 Google books and 17 Google Scholar hits for the term. This means that it was not made up for Wikipedia, and if the article over-reaches the sources, there are other ways to resolve the issue besides deletion. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 07:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong KeepThis is the universal and accepted view of Balkan history everywhere in the world, the author which nominated this article for deletion resembles an anti-romanian editor which continusly disrupts romanian related articles Rezistenta (talk) 21:53, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. If we do have the article Gallo-Roman about the latinized Gauls (Celts), why shouldn't we have an article Thraco-Roman about the latinized Thracians? They are scientific works about the Thraco-Roman culture. I don't see a good reason to delete the article. --Olahus (talk) 19:44, 18 June 2008 (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.