Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Galatian War/archive1

Galatian War

 * Nominator(s): Matarisvan (talk) 14:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

This article is about the Galatian War, a 2nd century BC conflict between the Romans and Gauls. I did not expect this topic to be as interesting as it turned out to be. Most modern historians have just accepted the views of ancient historians on this topic without doing critical analysis, the ones who did have offered intriguing insights. If this one passes, I might try to get all articles in either of the templates Ancient Roman or Ancient Greek wars to at least GA status and hopefully FA. Also I might try to write a book on this war if I can visit Turkey anytime soon, try to do a comprehensive critical analysis which hasn't been done yet. Matarisvan (talk) 14:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Image review


 * Don't use fixed px size
 * Removed.


 * File:Asia_Minor_188_BCE.jpg: see MOS:COLOUR. Ditto File:Treaty_of_Apamea.png
 * At the MOS link, they recommend the use of accessible symbols or footnote labels when images with color are used. I do not know how to use these, the links at the MOS page were also not helpful on how to add these. Would it be ok if I describe the color usage in the alt text?
 * Could you explain what you would propose to say? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * For the Asia Minor map, I've used the following alt: "A world map showing parts of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, centred on Asia Minor and Greece. Pergamum is marked in dark blue, Rhodes in navy blue, the Achaean league in dark and light purple, the Achaean League in two shades of light blue; the latter two using the differing colors to show their territorial changes. Galatia is to the top centre of Pergamum." For the Treaty of Apamea map, I've used this alt text: "Political map in color of Asia Minor with kingdoms and states colored in different shades and a legend in German. Pergamum is shown in dark and light blue, Rhodes in dark and light green, the Taurus Mountains in dark grey, the Seleucid Empire in maroon, the courses of the Chalcedon and Maeander rivers are mapped in dark blue, Sarpedon Cape is marked. The Chalcedon serves as a border between Pergamum and the Seleucids, the Maeander as a border between Rhodes and Pergamum. The darker colored portions of Rhodes and Pergamum show their territorial extent before the Treaty of Apamea, the lighter colored portions show the extent after". Matarisvan (talk) 06:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * File:II._Attalos_Heykeli_detay.JPG needs a tag for the statue. Ditto File:Sequani_coin_5th_to_1st_century_BCE.jpg for the coin
 * The Attalus II statue was built by the Turkmen sculptor Meretguly Ouezov in March 2004 according to these links: and . Would a PD tag be justified here? Also, I haven't used the Sequani coin image, is there another one you're referring to?
 * Would the location of the statue meet with the requirements at commons:COM:FOP Turkey? The coin image appears in the bottom Gauls navbox. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the FOP link. It says that "OK only for exterior architecture and artistic works permanently found on public streets, avenues, and squares". Since this is an artistic work on a public square, I think the FoP-Turkey tag also applies here, so I've added it. For the photo of the Sequani coin, I found that the coin is stored at the BnF Museum. I've added that information, along with the collection details to the Commons page of the photo. Unfortunately, the photographer of that image hadn't specified what the collection number of the coin was. I think the PD-France tag is justified here, since a tag or similar isn't available.


 * File:Map_of_Galatia.jpg: when and where was this first published?
 * At this link: I was not able to find any copyright information, or even the use of the word copyright on this site (using the search terms site:u.osu.edu/herodotus copyright). Since it is the website of the Herodotus Project of the Ohio State University, I assumed they had released this into the public domain. Is that an assumption that can be made?
 * No, if that is the original source of the work, they would need to explicitly release it - in the absence of copyright information we'd need to assume it's copyright-protected. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In that case, I have removed that image.

Nikkimaria (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC) Nikkimaria (talk) 03:48, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * File:Treaty_of_Apamea.png: what is the source of the data underlying this map?
 * The Commons page for this image, made by another user, does not have this information. I think the user who made this map used details on the Treaty provided by Livy, but haven't cited him at the Commons.
 * So how do we know the map is accurate?
 * It aligns with what Livy said about the territorial changes after the treaty. See for details. The user who made that map hasn't uploaded the datasource, which another editor has tagged on Commons. If it is ok with you, I could upload this paper as a source or add a citation to Livy's text.

, thanks for your comments, which were useful as always, responses above. Matarisvan (talk) 05:21, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Comments from TompaDompa
Hi and thank you for your nomination! My comments follow.


 * General comments
 * Decide how to refer to Gnaeus Manlius Vulso after introducing full tria nomina once in the WP:LEAD and once in the body, and then do so consistently. I know that which combination of praenomen, nomen, and cognomen ancient Romans are referred to today is not consistent and at times a bit arbitrary (we have Julius Caesar and Cicero, off the top of my head), but this article switches between "Vulso" (mainly), "Manlius" (occasionally), and "Manlius Vulso" (once).
 * All such instances changed to Vulso.
 * The word "note" is rather overused. See MOS:SAID.
 * 3/4th of such uses replaced with the synonyms provided at the MOS page.


 * Lead
 * "The Romans had just defeated the Seleucids in the Roman-Syrian War" – why not "Roman–Seleucid war", the actual title of the article, instead of this redirect?
 * Done.
 * "and had forced them to thereby sue for peace" – needlessly intricate phrasing.
 * Rephrased.
 * "Following this recently successful operation in Syria" – having already said that the Romans "had just defeated" their enemies, "recently successful operation" is rather redundant. The link to Roman Syria is inappropriate as that entity did not exist at the time. This entire clause could (and should) be removed without losing anything of substance (apart from a rough geographical descriptor, I guess).
 * Removed as suggested.
 * "the Gallic tribes of Galatia who had emigrated to Asia Minor almost 100 years before the current military engagement" – emigrated? That puts the emphasis on where they came from, which is not mentioned here. Plain "migrated" would be better. Furthermore, "before the current military engagement" could simply be replaced with "prior" to avoid unnecessary repetition of information (and "current" is a conspicuous choice of word).
 * All 3 done.
 * "had excused the invasion" – "excused" does not seem like the right word in this context.
 * Changed to "justified".
 * "However, modern historians argue that the war had the covert approval of the Senate." – is "covert" the right word here, or should it be "tacit"? That is to say, did they approve of it explicitly but secretly or implicitly? The sentence as a whole suggests the latter (which would be an interpretation, hence "argue"), so if the former is indeed intended the phrasing should be tweaked (to make it clear that it is an inference, e.g. "historians suspect that the war had the covert approval of the Senate" or "historians argue that the war likely had the covert approval of the Senate"). The body allows for both interpretations ("Modern historians thus argue that the Senate was aware of the likelihood of a war with the Galatians, and that it had allowed the continued deployment of the army either to counterbalance the Seleucids or fill the power vacuum created by their defeat." fits with "tacit", while the "Analysis" section suggests "covert").
 * Changed to "either covert or tacit".
 * "the Roman-Seleucid trace" – that should presumably be "truce", and the hyphen should be an WP:ENDASH.
 * The first one was an honest error, done with the second one.
 * "Joined by the troops from Pergamum" – the troops? Omitting the definite article would seem more natural to me here.
 * Removed.


 * Background
 * "the Emperor of the Seleucid Empire of Asia" – "of Asia"?
 * Removed.
 * "Gnaeus Manlius Vulso, elected as the new consul for Asia, arrived at Ephesus in 189 BC" – I am by no means an expert on Roman history, but based on my understanding of Roman consulship this is nonsensical. Consuls did not serve for a specific geographic region (unlike, say, Roman governors) but for a year (two consuls each year). Likewise, "Asia" does not make much sense here. Rome obviously never ruled over the vast majority of what we would now call Asia, and the Roman province of Asia did not exist at this point.
 * I can't remember what source I took this from. I have changed this to "deployed to Asia". Would you suggest stating "Asia Minor" instead, since he never went beyond?
 * "Older historians cite Livy" – the meaning of "older historians" is not clear here. In this context, it could refer to near-contemporary ones, later Roman historians, or anything up until modern-day historians. Similarly, Livy should really be glossed here for clarity; the reader should not have to click the link to find out that Livy was a Roman historian, and some kind of rough indication of when Livy lived and wrote would be very helpful indeed.
 * I have changed "older" to "most". I know that is a weasel word but I can't think of a replacement, since adding up all those who took Livy's account at face value would be OR. Glossed Livy as an "ancient Roman historian".
 * "Older historians cite Livy to claim" – "claim" is very rarely the right word to use (and this is not an exception), see MOS:CLAIM.
 * Changed to "argue".
 * "This war was the first occasion on which a Roman general had started a war" – awkward phrasing. "This was the first time a Roman general had started a war" would be simpler and better.
 * "This was a dangerous precedent and became an example for the future." – this is an opinion and absolutely needs to be attributed. Was it viewed as a dangerous precedent at the time or has it come to be viewed as such later? How did it become an example?
 * I haven't executed the point prior to this and this one as well. This is because there is very little scholarship on this war, the PhD thesis I cite is the only one I could find who talks about this. All the other ones are pre 1900 historians, if other reviewers are ok with including 1 citation to their work, then I can do so.


 * March inland
 * "The combined Roman-Pergamese army" – that should be "Roman–Pergamese" with an en dash, see MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES. You'll get it right most of the time if you use an en dash when the order of the two nationalities could be swapped without changing the meaning and a hyphen when they could not.
 * Done.
 * "about 35000 soldiers" – thousands separator needed, see MOS:DIGITS.
 * Done.
 * "took care to avoid Seleucid controlled cities" – Seleucid-controlled, with a hyphen. It is used attributively as a compound modifier.
 * Done.
 * "had chosen to not ally with Antiochos and the Seleucids and had not sent them troops" – Antiochus. It also seems rather redundant to specify both Antiochus and the Seleucids (and arguably choosing not to ally with them and not sending them troops).
 * Both done.
 * "Vulso had captured what can be assumed to be an Galatian oppidum" – can it?
 * Rephrased a little, that is what the sources say.


 * Battle of Mount Olympus
 * "the Romans and the Pergamenese" – not Pergamese? That's what the rest of the article uses.
 * Changed as suggested.
 * "attacks by the Roman allied cavalry" – Roman-allied cavalry (cavalry belonging to Rome's allies) rather than Roman allied cavalry (allied cavalry belonging to Rome), presumably?
 * Changed to the prior. The troops Vulso inherited from Scipio had cavalry from the Achaean League and Pergamum. I have been divided om whether I should add this or not, wdyt?
 * "The Galatians lost 40,000 people dead or captured, Grainger notes that even Livy, whose numbers are unreliable, had doubted these figures." – this sentence seems poorly constructed. Is the intended reading that the "official" figure is 40,000 but it is believed to be inaccurate, even by Livy? I'm guessing we are to infer that it is an exaggerated figure? Where does it then come from if not from Livy—Vulso? How are Livy's numbers unreliable—is there a consistent pattern to it?
 * If you look at the Analysis section, I have included details on who Livy cited for his account of the war. On how Livy's numbers are unreliable, see the source. I am open to rephrasing this though, give me a little bit of time and I will think of a way to do so.


 * Battle of Ancyra
 * "the Galatian army consisting of 50,000 men, Grainger is sceptical of this number" – there are different ways to introduce Grainger's view here, but a comma followed by "Grainger is sceptical of this number" is not right. A semicolon could be used, or it could be rephrased.
 * Semicolon added as suggested.
 * "8000 Galatians" – thousands separator needed as the article uses it for other four-digit numbers.
 * Done.


 * Aftermath
 * The paragraph about Chiomara seems rather out of place.
 * Well, I didn't want to be caught out on comprehensiveness so I included these details since they are directly linked.
 * "When he returned to Rome, he received much criticism because of his unauthorized war against the Galatians. However, he eventually overcame the opposition and was awarded a triumph by the Senate." – this seems like something one could go into much more detail about.
 * I thought about doing this but those details are more suited for the Vulso or Apamea Treaty article. Wdyt?


 * Analysis
 * "Grainger claims that this theory is proved by the fact that" – this phrasing is needlessly intricate and not really neutral either.
 * Rephrased.
 * "4000 soldiers" – thousands separator needed as the article uses it for other four-digit numbers.
 * Done.
 * "Livy states that the army had marched at the speed of 5 miles a day from Acoridos Come to Beudos. Grainger argues that this is likely to be an exaggeration" – the intuitive meaning of this is that Grainger finds Livy to have exaggerated the speed of the march, but the paragraph goes on to state that Grainger calculates the march to have been nearly thrice as fast on average. I had to read the source to figure out what was going on (the source says "on examination it can be seen that he exaggerates the slow progress of the column").
 * "Exaggerated" changed to "understatement".

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to oppose this at present. My main concern is prose quality, which has a fair way to go before being up to WP:Featured article standards (the above comments are non-exhaustive). I also have concerns about comprehensiveness—for instance, the article states that the war "was a dangerous precedent and became an example for the future", but there is little said about the significance later. Finally, I have my doubts about the status of this as an accurate and authoritative summary of the current academic understanding of the subject matter—the above-mentioned misunderstanding of how Roman consulship works does not inspire confidence. Those are WP:Featured article criteria 1a, 1b, and 1c, respectively. TompaDompa (talk) 11:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, the issues with the prose quality were present when I began working on this article, as I got involved with it I couldn't spot the errors you did, thank you for that. If this list is indeed non exhaustive, could you list out the other issues you spotted? I ask since your comments cover the whole article with no gaps. On comprehensiveness, you have to understand that there is a real dearth of sources. For some reason, there are very few modern analyses of this war, I went through all results of JSTOR, Google Books and Wikipedia Library to find these ones, and also checked all citations of the sources I cited to find more material. I would like to humbly argue that the consulship argument is an honest misunderstanding, that statement was what a source I read had said but I can't remember where it was or if I still am citing to it. As to your point on the current academic understanding of the subject, I can safely say that there is NONE, most modern scholarship just repeats what Livy, Polybius or pre-1900 historians say, and that too in just a sentence or paragraph. Attempting an accurate and authoritative summary of such a nonexistent understanding while also then having to use substantive modern sources is tough work. Could you reconsider your opposition in view of this, ? Matarisvan (talk) 12:44, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

As Tompa has noted above, there are quite a few issues with prose, MoS and grammar. More broadly, I think the article needs to be more judicious in how it handles modern scholarly interpretations: there is currently quite a lot of "slip" between what's presented as someone's argument and what's presented as fact, perhaps erring at times into WP:SYNTH. I'd echo the oppose for now, but happy to come back if the situation above changes. On sources, there are a couple of "obvious" omissions: the Cambridge Ancient History, and perhaps Brill's New Pauly, should be first ports of call for any article of this kind. More broadly, there is a huge bibliography in Grainger 1995 that does not appear to have been widely consulted. I'm sure Grainger 2020 has even more. UndercoverClassicist T·C 08:05, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi @UndercoverClassicist, always a pleasure to have comments from you at an FAC review, especially this one given your extensive knowledge of classics. On your points on the prose, MoS, grammar and misinterpretations, I would be much obliged if you could list out some examples. I understand these issues can make the article tough to read through as it may not flow properly, but I won't be able to know where exactly these problems are present. Since I've worked on the article quite a bit, I may not be able to view it with your or another reviewer's perspective and spot obvious mistakes, I hope you understand.
 * I read through all mentions of "Galatians", "Vulso" and "Manlius" in Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 8, and found nothing new or noteworthy which wasn't already covered in this article. While searching Brill's New Pauly, I only found an entry for Leschides, a poet companion of Eumenes II.
 * I have consulted Bean 1959 and Hall 1986, which I found in Grainger 1995. I am trying to get access to Hall 1994, also cited in Grainger 1995, I will add citations to it in due course if there is any new material in there. All the other citations in Grainger 1995 are incidental and don't have anything on the war, the ones on the first and second page are called mere repetitions of Livy by Grainger himself.
 * Grainger 2020 mostly cites the same sources as his 1995 paper, the only difference is that he gains a little respect for the Galatians and finally evaluates them. In his 1995 paper, he had just deemed them inconsequential as far as I can tell, and instead had focused on the Seleucids. Nevertheless, I will check the Grainger 2020 bibliography to see if I've missed any sources.
 * Also, UC, there is a work by Friedrich Stähelin published in 1924, which is cited by Hansen 1971. It has new perspectives but I'm not sure citing such an old work would be wise here, wdyt? Matarisvan (talk) 19:12, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Coordinator comment
I am sorry, but there seems to be a consensus that this article is not yet ready for FAC. I agree with the reviewers above that it needs further work on prose, MoS, grammar and occasionally source to text fidelity. I shall therefore be archiving it. I look forward to seeing it back here, although the usual two-week hiatus applies.

The article may benefit from a visit to GoCER, would certainly benefit from going through MilHist ACR, and a well attended PR would likely give it much of the "polish" it currently lacks. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:10, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Gog the Mild (talk) 18:11, 11 July 2024 (UTC)