Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 March 24

= March 24 =

Oaxes
Is Oaxes a character from Greek mythology, or only a Greek character who shows up in Roman mythology? The article cites one Greek author (but he lived in the fifth century of the Christian era) and a bunch of Romans. It also mentions a reference to him by Apollonius, but as there were a good number of men by that name, I'm not clear who's meant. The sources on this article don't have any answer to the question, which doesn't surprise me as Oaxes seems to be a thoroughly minor figure, and Google persistently gives me results for axes. Nyttend (talk) 04:00, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The Appolonius page you linked says (as you may already have seen) that Stephanus cited one Apollonius of Ascalon (presumably concerning Oaxes) but that gets us no further forward since he's also little known (such that we have no article or other mention of him).
 * Oaxes is sufficiently obscure that Robert Graves makes no mention of him in The Greek Myths. My guess (FWIW) is that any folk-etymological origin myth attributing to him the founding the city of Axus/Oaxos/etc., most likely named after an adjacent river, was sufficiently local to or within Crete that any other, earlier Greek references to it have not survived. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.138.194 (talk) 09:37, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Apollonius in this case is Apollonius of Rhodes, who mentions Oaxes (or Oaxus) in his Argonautica. But in Greek it says "Oiaxian land" and it simply means Crete, in the story of Anchiale and the Idaean Dactyls. The reference to Oaxes being the son of Anchiale and Apollo comes from Maurus Servius Honoratus. Stephanus says Oaxes is the son of Acacallis (and grandson of Minos but doesn't mention Apollo or any other father. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:24, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Okay, thank you. With Category:Mythological Greek characters being proposed for merger into Category:Characters in Greek mythology, I was checking articles that mentioned Virgil or the Aeneid (an original-to-Virgil character is a Greek character who shows up in Roman mythology, not a character from Greek mythology), and Oaxes was the only one whose status I really couldn't determine.  The link to the correct Apollonius and the correct spelling of his epic (it was Argonautics in the Oaxes article) allowed me to resolve it easily.  Nyttend (talk) 20:55, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Philosophy examples.
What are some examples of.

1. If you say you're A, you have to also say you're not B, because if you don't, people are gonna accuse you of being (A and) B at the same time.

2. People assume that if you if like A, you have to be against B, and if you like B, you have to be against A. But the analogy is, you can hate both A and B at the same time. 67.175.224.138 (talk) 10:50, 24 March 2019 (UTC).


 * Our articles at false dilemma and Law of excluded middle may be of help to you regarding search terms and examples. Matt Deres (talk) 13:28, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

For how much Money did the Watchtower Inc have sold the "Gilead" building & Kingdom Farm in South Lansing, NY?
According to this pdf document http://www.manitobaphotos.com/theolib/downloads/Kingdom_Farm_and_Gilead_School.pdf it was 600 acre big. --46.167.62.33 (talk) 11:46, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Nobody?--46.167.62.33 (talk) 01:56, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

In what case was being called a Federalist considered libel?
I know, according to this site here: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/AJA2972.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext, in Indiana on 9/3/1857, a man was accused of being a Federalist, sued for libel, and won a thousand dollars. The site describes "Joshua Harlan, plaintiff, and John Allen, defendant. Judge Sparks was at the time President Judge, but was not on the bench until after the verdict was returned. The case was tried before the Associates. General James Noble was counsel for the plaintiffs, and John Test for the defendant." The only thing I can't find is the name of this case, and which court it was tried in. Presumably, the name would be Harlan vs. Allen, but I've searched for that online and can't find anything. This leads to my confusion over which court it was tried in- obviously not the Supreme Court, but I don't know if it was in a county court or the Indiana state court, since I can't find the case name to search for it. Others on history Q&A forum sites (stack exchange, for example) have suggested it was in Franklin County, Indiana, but I still can't find the name. Thank you so much for any help you can offer! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.19.99.189 (talk) 20:21, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * IN early times there was tried in the Franklin Circuit Court an action for libel... "Franklin Circuit Court" definitely means Franklin County, because a trial in Franklin, Indiana would have been held in the Johnson County courts. Let me see what else I can find.  Nyttend (talk) 20:57, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I've checked History of Franklin County Indiana : her people, industries and institutions, https://books.google.com/books?id=QVE0AQAAMAAJ, and found circumstantial evidence but nothing solid. Page 244 includes a list of the presiding judges of the county circuit courts, a list with nobody named Sparks, but note the comment near the top of 243 about the paucity of records.  Page 235 notes that justices of the peace (some lawyers; some uneducated men, like farmers or tavern keepers) played a significant role in the county's early courts.  Conversely, an Elijah Sparks was the first member of the county bar, page 236.  The 1857 date is definitely wrong, since "in early times" wouldn't make much sense for an event that occurred more than forty years after statehood (1816), and more importantly, General James Noble was counsel for the plaintiffs, and James Noble died in February 1831.  We can narrow the date further because the defense counsel was John Test, who was in Congress from 1823 to 1827 and from 1829 to 1831 (session ended in March), so presumably it happened before 1823 or between 1827 and 1829.  Moreover, one of the speeches refers to the impeachment of Judge Chase, and Samuel Chase was impeached in 1811.  Nyttend (talk) 21:28, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * He could have practiced law while serving in Congress. Congress only met maybe four months of the year then.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:37, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you; I didn't remember that. So we're back to 1811-1831 [another 1811-as-minimum matter: the county was organized in that year], but "in early times" suggests to me the territorial era or the first few years after statehood when everything was still primitive and undeveloped, as does the atmosphere of the story, with all the backwoodsmen called to the bar to define "federalist".  Remember that the Federalist Party died out in the mid-1820s, and defining a Federalist as being a tory, an enemy to his country wouldn't make a lot of sense during the Era of Good Feelings, in contrast to the era of the War of 1812, when Federalist-dominated New England talked of seceding from the Union so it could avoid the other states' desire for war.  Finally, note that I checked the cited source and the Biographical and genealogical history of Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin counties, Indiana volume 2, https://books.google.com/books?id=LClEAQAAMAAJ.  There were no Joshua Harlans, and the only Harlands [a common variant] were George and Joshua Harland, who appeared in a names-only list of taxpayers in 1811 (History of Franklin...).  John Allen is a prominent figure for having laid out much of the county seat of Brookville and building the first mill, but this incident wasn't mentioned in either book.  Herndon doesn't appear in the biographical record, and while the county history mentions a Herndon who migrated from Kentucky and became one of the county's earliest settlers (which would make sense for someone who came to the Territory of Indiana before the army under Gen. George Roger Clark marched upon Post Vincent; see Illinois campaign and Fort Vincennes), there's basically nothing else on him.  I also checked volume 1 of this book and found nothing more.  Nyttend (talk) 21:57, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
 * In 1840, Whig presidential candidate William Henry Harrison was accused of being a supporter of John Adams. Adams had appointed or commissioned Harrison ... like five of the first six presidents. But saying you were a Federalist or an Adams supporter was really the same thing, you supported the Alien and Sedition Acts and were generally an opponent of the divinely inspired (or so it was widely believed) American system of government. This was in an era when the only wall hanging would be a print of Stuart's Washington or an engraving of the presidents so far ... People like Adams were seen as villains. Adams recovered as people died who remembered him and his policies, and as greater villains came along in the 1850s and 1860s.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

By the way, note that the author of this book, Oliver Hampton Smith, was a prominent figure in his own right, sitting in Congress for eight years; this isn't the smalltown tall-tale-teller that I expected. His time in southeastern Indiana appears to have been limited to a few years in Dearborn County (next south of Franklin County) and a few years in Fayette County (next north of Franklin County), but at least in the latter place he was prominent enough to live in one of the area's grandest houses, not some ordinary little house. Nyttend (talk) 00:41, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Catholic symbol
During Saint Patrick's Day I was reading the topical article to someone when I noticed this image: file:St Patricks Day Inter Church Procession, Downpatrick, March 2010 (03).JPG and particularly the symbol at the middle of the cross. It resembles a dollar sign but with three vertical strokes rather than one or two; could it perhaps be a stylised monogram, such as a christogram? The same symbol is visible on a depiction of a monstrance on a stained-glass window in an ex-church near me. What is the significance to Catholicism? Thanks in advance. Arlo James Barnes 23:42, 24 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's a Christogram. This one.  In the gallery of illustrations, note the third one. --76.69.46.228 (talk) 02:51, 25 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks much! I found the category commons:category:IHS in Ireland and have added that photo to it; I will do the same (but "in the United States") for a photo I plan to take of the window. Thanks again for the assistance. Arlo James Barnes 19:45, 25 March 2019 (UTC)