Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Cretan War (205-200 BC)

Cretan War (205-200 BC)

 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page. 

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/April 29, 2015 by — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:13, 5 April 2015 (UTC)



The Cretan War was fought by a coalition lead by King Philip V of Macedon against the forces of Rhodes, Attalus I of Pergamum and their allies. Philip, wishing to eliminate Rhodes, formed an alliance with pirates who began raiding Rhodian ships. Philip also allied with several important Cretan cities. With the Rhodian fleet and economy suffering from the depredations of the pirates, Philip believed his chance to crush Rhodes was at hand. To help achieve his goal, he formed an alliance with the Seleucid Empire against Ptolemy V of Egypt. Philip began attacking the lands of Ptolemy and Rhodes' allies in the Balkans. In 201 BC, Rhodes, Pergamum and their allies defeated Philip at the Battle of Chios but shortly afterwards, Philip's fleet defeated the Rhodians at Lade. While Philip was plundering Pergamese land, Attalus went to Athens and secured an alliance against Macedon Philip did not remain inactive; he assailed Athens. Rome warned him to withdraw or face war. After being defeated again by the Rhodian and Pergamese fleets, Philip withdrew to Greece. Philip rejected the Roman ultimatum to stop attacking Greek states and the Romans invaded Macedon. This left the Cretan cities with no major allies. Faced with this situation, Philip's Cretan allies were forced to sign a treaty favourable to Rhodes.
 * Most recent similar article(s): 21 January 2015 (Second Arab Siege of Constantinople) was the last time an article pertaining to either ancient or medieval warfare featured on the Main Page. An article about an ancient war has not appeared on the Main Page in the last year.
 * Main editors:
 * Promoted: 24 November 2006
 * Reasons for nomination: This article holds a special place in my heart as it was my firstborn Feature Article. Obviously, it is quite old but I believe that it still retains the requisite quality. Moreover, the fact that it is a Featured Article in both Catalan and Greek and a Good Article in Spanish and French indicates that it is of some international interest.
 * Support as nominator. Kyriakos (talk) 12:20, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Definitely going to schedule this unless consensus is against it, but the harv errors in the footnotes and the dab page to Heracleides need to be fixed. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:08, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It's come to my attention that this article is listed at User:Dweller/Featured Articles that haven't been on Main Page as unsuitable for referencing concerns. Those issues should be addressed first. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:35, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I just had a read of those comments regarding ancient sources. Unfortunately, with such an obscure topic it is difficult to find modern sources that broadly canvass the topic. I have one source in mind which I believe will be of use. I will also reformat all of the footnotes as they appear to be somewhat antiquated. Kyriakos (talk) 20:35, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Reply to concern. I have just gone through the article and modify the citing system to give the article consistency. Furthermore, I have supplemented the ancient sources with modern sources wherever possible, dramatically increasing the number of citations in the process. The only parts that have a major reliance on ancient sources are those which relate to the details of the major battles. Unfortunately, most modern sources do not deem it necessary to give that much information. Hopefully this address the issue. Thanks, Kyriakos (talk) 22:56, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Pinging Dweller, as the editor who first raised the concerns. I note that the Harv errors have actually increased in number. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:34, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm seriously impressed by the amount of work that's gone into this, and the speed of it. I think I'd go with it now, ' comments about sourcing for the battles taken into account. I wouldn't mind another pair of eyes though..., do you have a view? Is there a specific anniversary in mind for this? --Dweller (talk) 13:36, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Reply. I will be able to go through the article on Friday to standardise the citations . Kyriakos (talk) 07:34, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Alright. I agree with Dweller; the article is in considerably better shape now, and I have little concern with running it. Refs do need clean-up, though (Detorakis doesn't have page numbers, for instance) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Citations. I have gone through the citations and modified them. Are they looking better? Also,when I used the Detorakis book whilst writing the article, I forgot to record the page numbers when I used it for citing. I have been unable to get a hold of it since, meaning it has been impossible to insert numbers. That issue was considered in the article's FAC. Whilst doing more research in the topic I have attempted to supplant Detorakis with other sources due to this issue. Kyriakos (talk) 01:41, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Kyriakos, Harv errors for Walbank are being caused by issues with dates: is Walbank 1969 (as in your harv templates) or 1967 (as in the citation at the bottom)? Polybius' harv errors would be fixed by using a template like and standardizing the use of dates. You can use loc= in the harv templates to cite chapter and verse. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:42, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Crisco 1492. How is it looking now? Hopefully I have resolved the issues raised in your above post (fingers crossed). Kyriakos (talk) 07:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Kyriakos, I've fixed the short footnote references as best as I can; the links should all work now. In doing so I picked up a couple of problems (one ref had Hammond as 1967, for instance); please verify that my fixes were correct.
 * I've added 3 CN tags; once those are addressed that'll be it from me. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:02, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I had a look at the changes and they all look to be correct. Thanks for that! I went and added citations for the sentences were I could and removed the information where I could not find a reference to it. Hopefully it is all good now. Kyriakos (talk) 08:31, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * All good for me. Bencherlite, do you have any objections? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:05, 3 April 2015 (UTC)