Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tiberius III/archive1

Tiberius III

 * Nominator(s): Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  02:57, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

This article is about a Byzantine Emperor who rose to power during a time of intense strife, and reigned for a short seven years before being deposed by a previously deposed emperor. In his short reign he seems to have done much to stabilize the empire, and historian Constance Head remarks that he might have been considered one of the great Byzantine Emperors, if only he had been able to reign for longer. It has recently passed a MILHIST A-Class Review, and I believe it should pass through FAC with relative ease. Iazyges  Consermonor   Opus meum  02:57, 12 April 2023 (UTC) (t &#183; c)  buidhe  04:21, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Image review—pass

Support from Harrias
Overall, very little to fault, good work. Harrias (he/him) • talk 10:46, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't start a sentence with lowercase.
 * Done.
 * As it is a redlink, could you provide some context as to what the Kynegion was?
 * Done.
 * I found the Family section quite hard to follow, which I guess isn't too surprising, given the whole point is that things got a bit confused. Not sure if much can be done, but I found it particularly unclear at first if meant that Sumner thought Theodosius III was the bishop, president and confidante (possibly instead of Tiberius's son) but might have also been Tiberius's son, or that Sumner just thought they might be the same person.
 * Hopefully makes more sense now.
 * Done all. Thanks for reviewing! Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  18:00, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * All good now, I'm happy to support. Harrias  (he/him) • talk 07:53, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Support from Gog the Mild
Recuing to stake a claim. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:06, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Who or what are "the Cibyrrhaeots"? (Sounds like an unfortunate infection.)
 * Done.
 * Does "of the Cibyrrhaeot Theme" mean that he was born there or that he was posted there?
 * Posted there; not sure how best to specify that.


 * "beheaded between August 705 and February 706". By whom, the Bithynians?
 * Done.
 * Brandes, 2003: TREADGOLD should not be in all upper case.
 * Done.
 * "the Umayyad Caliphate renewed their attack". "their" → 'its'.
 * Done.
 * "and declared Apsimar as emperor." Delete "as".
 * Done.
 * "allied himself with the Greens (one of the Hippodrome factions)". Sadly the parenthetical explanation is going to enlighten almost no readers.
 * Done.
 * "Leontius' own dethroning of Emperor Justinian II". Is "dethroning" encyclopedic? Or even a word? Perhaps 'usurpation'?
 * Both Cambridge and Oxford seem to consider it as a formal word; it is used with surprising frequency by some of the sources.
 * Enlarge the map, and put it at the start of "Rule" rather than the end of "Background".
 * Done.
 * "the Anatolian themes". Which would be what?
 * Just for a change I'm not picking at themes. The phrase relies on a reader identifying that Anatolian is related to Anatolia, and then knowing what and where Anatolia is/was. Perhaps you could help them out?
 * Done.


 * Not sure exactly what the question is; has "themes" not been defined enough?


 * "Tiberius is usually referred to as Tiberius III by modern conventions" reads odd grammatically. Would "conventions" → 'historians' work?
 * Done.
 * "that conquered the remainder of Byzantine Armenia". You can't say "remainder" unless you have already discussed what happened to the rest of it. Maybe 'what little remained of Byzantine's territory in Armenia' or 'the Rump of Byzantine-administered Armenia' or something similar.
 * Done.
 * "captured by the Arabs and brought to Syria". "brought" → 'taken to'.
 * Done.
 * "iberius attempted to contain the Arabs at sea by way of creating new military provinces". Is "way of" doing anything?
 * I just think it's neat... removed.
 * "escaped from the theme of Cherson". Perhaps tell us where that is?
 * Done.
 * "according to Byzantist Constance Head"; "scholars Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon"; "Byzantine historian Graham Sumner". False title alerts.
 * Done.
 * "Byzantist"; "Byzantinist". Which?
 * Byzantinist is more modern; standardized.
 * "the date where Tiberius was captured in Sozopolis". "where" → 'when'.
 * Done.


 * Link quarter.
 * Done.
 * "Constance Head comments that although little is known of Tiberius". Delete "Constance".
 * Done.
 * "this son of Tiberius may be later Emperor Theodosius III". Perhaps 'this son of Tiberius may be the later Emperor Theodosius III' or 'this son of Tiberius may have later become Emperor Theodosius III' or similar.
 * Done.


 * "Sumner presents the evidence that both figures". Delete "the".
 * Done.

A nice article. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:59, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Done or responded to all. Thank you for reviewing! Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  13:17, 18 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Looking good. Two come backs above. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:24, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Have done one and responded to the other. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  16:54, 18 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Lovely stuff. Supporting. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:02, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Support from Tim riley
Only two comments, and very minor ones at that: I can't work out your rationale for using or not using false titles. The historian Wolfram Brandes, The Byzantinists Anthony Bryer and Judith Herrin etc, but Byzantine historian Graham Sumner, Byzantine historians Cyril Mango and Roger Scott. And the map of the empire is too small for my elderly eyes to see anything much without clicking on it and navigating away from the article, which is always a pity, I think. Otherwise nothing but praise for a succinct and readable article. To my inexpert eye it appears balanced and well sourced, and it is admirably illustrated. Happy to support. –  Tim riley  talk   10:07, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Both issues should be taken care of now; thank you for the review! Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  13:19, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Image review
 * Suggest scaling up the map, but not using fixed px size
 * File:Tiberius_III_solidus-2_(cropped).jpg needs a tag for the original work. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:06, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks! Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  15:48, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Support from Unlimitedlead
That is all from me. Unlimitedlead (talk) 23:49, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Why does the lead give dates in AD?
 * Done.
 * Link Constantinople in the lead?
 * Done.
 * Why does the infobox say that Tiberius was born "Apsimar", but his name was "Apsimarus"?
 * I think it's a full name-short name thing; like Matt and Matthew; his full name is Apsimarus but he's almost always referred to as Apsimar pre-coronation.
 * Is the Twenty Years' Anarchy really a dynasty? I would remove it.
 * I've adjusted it to period.
 * Anatolia is linked twice is the body.
 * Done.
 * Link Byzantinists?
 * Done.
 * Link Byzantine navy to "naval"?
 * Done.
 * Why does the image say "717 AD" and not just "717"? The rest of the article does not use AD.
 * Done.
 * "Byzantine historian Graham Sumner" implies that Sumner was a historian from the Byzantine period.
 * Done.
 * Ditto with "Byzantine historians Cyril Mango and Roger Scott..."
 * Done.
 * Also, "Byzantine historians Cyril Mango and Roger Scott" may be a case of false title.
 * Done.
 * Done all; on an unrelated note I just took my last final and am moving out today, so I should be much freer to work on our other projects like Christopher Lekapenos. Thanks for reviewing! Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  17:16, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, what I would give to be done with my finals! Congrats, and I'll be happy to support this nomination. Unlimitedlead (talk) 17:30, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Source review
Lots of books here and I don't know much about the literature in this field so I can't comment on omissions, so I can't do a lot of spot-checks. Citation format seems consistent to me. #2, #34 and #21 support the text cited to it. So does #33 but it's literally word-by-word. #14 does not support a lot of the details on the restoration of Justinian II. Most sources seem reliable but J. B. Bury is quite old. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:42, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * - Have these concerns been addressed? Hog Farm Talk 20:02, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Not yet, I'll try to get to them tomorrow. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  04:06, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Have rephrased #33 as much as I think is possible, but happy to take suggestions. #14 is not meant to be the sole ref for that section, a cite to Ostrogorsky got lost somewhere along the way, now restored. While Bury is old, he is foundational for modern Byzantine historical works, and mostly used for narrative details, rather than contentious material. He is widely accepted as an HQRS for the purpose of other Byzantine articles. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  20:18, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I studied under Walter Kaegi and can vouch that he is a high-quality RS. Tiberius III is quite a bit before the period with which I'm most familiar, but I can vouch for Treadgold as well. The journals cited are also highly reputable. I will say that you are inconsistent in the capitalization of your titles; most are in title case, but a few are not.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:17, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Should all be fixed now. Thanks for the review, and my condolences in regards to Kaegi, a true loss. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  20:20, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks good, Support--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:04, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Comments Support from UndercoverClassicist
A cracking article: clearly already has a lot of support here, so I'll pick a few nits in the expectation of being able to add some weight to the pile soon enough. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 15:42, 24 May 2023 (UTC)


 * "an army sent by Byzantine Emperor Leontius to retake the city of Carthage in the Exarchate of Africa": this one's more to raise a thinking point than to make a specific recommendation. To me, there's something odd about the political unit (Exarchate of Africa) here, given that the whole point of the sentence is that Carthage was now outside Byzantine control, and indeed would remain so. Does it create an unwarranted implication that the city was "properly" Byzantine? What's the calculus vs. "North African city of Carthage"?
 * Done.
 * When Apsimar is used as WP:WORDSASWORDS (e.g. in "the name Apsimar"), it should be italicised. The same is true for e.g. "the regnal name Tiberius".
 * Done.
 * "Additionally, it is known that he was a droungarios (a commander of about a thousand men) of the Cibyrrhaeot Theme, a military province in southern Anatolia": it took me a moment to work out how this related to the surrounding material. Do Brubaker and/or Haldon make the link that his physical presence in southern Anatolia adds weight to the Turkic hypothesis? If so, I'd link these ideas a little more explicitly.
 * It doesn't seem to be framed this way for either; it's not really meant to be related, more just a collection of everything we know about him pre-revolt.
 * I do see a connection in the PbmZ source: Möglicherweise war er aus Kurikos gebürtig, sicher aber dort stationiert ("Perhaps he was a native of Kurikos: he was definitely stationed there.}}. As I read the article, it gave the implication that he might have been an officer in southern Anatolia because he was recruited as a local soldier from there: I think you've got enough in the source quoted to make that implication explicit. Perhaps a matter of taste, though. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:16, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
 * "states that Tiberius had some unspecified victories": suggest cutting "unspecified", or rephrasing to something like "won victories": unspecified presumably means "the details aren't in the sources", but that's a comment on the state of our knowledge, not the victories themselves.
 * Done.
 * "In 696, the Umayyad Caliphate renewed its attack": could we have a little detail (and perhaps a main article hatnote?) to give context to "renewed"?
 * Done.
 * "an unnamed contemporary Syriac source": is that c. 700 or c. 1200?
 * Done.
 * "Tiberius was the first naval officer to assume the throne, partly because Byzantines considered the army far more prestigious": perhaps slightly inelegant: the sentence structure would lead towards the second part explaining Tiberius's assumption of the throne, but it really does the opposite, explaining why no previous naval officer had done so. Suggest "Before Tiberius, no naval officer had ever assumed the throne, partly because...".
 * Done.
 * "Patriarch Callinicus": worth expanding to "Patriarch Callinicus of Constantinople, shortly after seizing control of the city"? We haven't met this person yet.
 * Done.
 * "Heraclius' military successes led to a series of punitive Arab attacks, with the Umayyad generals Muhammad ibn Marwan and Abdallah ibn Abd al-Malik launching a string of campaigns that conquered what little remained of the Byzantine's territory in Armenia, which Heraclius was unable to effectively respond to". The relative clause ("which...") isn't totally grammatical here: it needs a noun or noun phrase as its subject, but it's currently got the verb conquered. One fairly straightforward fix would be "Heraclius' military successes led to a series of punitive Arab attacks: the Umayyad generals Muhammad ibn Marwan and Abdallah ibn Abd al-Malik conquered what little remained of the Byzantine's territory in Armenia in a string of campaigns to which Heraclius was unable to effectively respond."
 * Done.
 * Is there a reason why Abdallah ibn Abd al-Malik's name is spelt out in full on second mention, but reduced to al-Malik on third?
 * Fixed.
 * "Cyprus, which had been underpopulated since many of the inhabitants were moved to the region of Cyzicus under Justinian II": could we have a date for that, or perhaps a reminder that Justinian was Tiberius's predecessor?
 * Done.
 * "the creation of the Theme of Sardinia and separating the Theme of Sicily from the Exarchate of Ravenna": awkward to have two balanced phrases but to start one with a noun and one with a participle: suggest either "creating ... and separating..." or "the creation of... and the separation of...".
 * Done.
 * On which, could we briefly explain what a theme was on first mention?
 * Done.
 * We get a lot of "Justinian II" towards the end of the "Rule" section: could he just be "Justinian" after first mention?
 * This was done at the recommendation of another editor in the ACR; I think it's partly useful.
 * Fair enough, and I can see the calculus: there's another (very) famous Justinian; a reader who knows a bit about them isn't likely to be confused, but there's probably a non-trivial cohort of readers who know the name Justinian but not his rough dates. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:16, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Any chance of a map of (the relevant parts of) Constantinople for Justinian's counter-coup? It would be helpful to be able to follow the quite specific geography.
 * Done.
 * "Their bodies were initially thrown into the sea, but were later recovered and buried in a church on the island of Prote": "initially" could be omitted here. Do we know who threw/recovered them?
 * Unknown to history, probably the nearest grunt.
 * "he remarks that": "remarks" might be a bit too factual a word for what is inherently a counterfactual speculation.
 * Changed to "posits"
 * "The period that Tiberius ruled in, the Twenty Years' Anarchy, was so fraught with strife that it is common that not even the names of the emperors' spouses have been retained.": the tenses flow a little awkwardly here. Perhaps something like "Other details of Tiberius's family, including the name of his spouse, are lost: a common consequence of the upheaval of the period in which Tiberius ruled, known as the Twenty Years' Anarchy"?
 * Done.
 * Nudge... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 17:42, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, is that nudge to me? If so, what am I being nudged to do? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 17:47, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Erm, the ping would've been to you if I meant you... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 17:50, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry: I didn't realise it was a ping. All good! UndercoverClassicist (talk) 19:24, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Whoops, will get to this soon. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  20:18, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Done or responded to all; apologies for the wait, and thanks for reviewing! Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  04:19, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks - happy to support. I've left a comment on the Anatolian question: I think the sources will allow you to be a little more bullish, but that's a minor consideration in an excellent article. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 09:16, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 09:46, 2 June 2023 (UTC)