Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Cape Hermaeum

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Battle of Cape Hermaeum
Instructions for nominators and reviewers
 * Nominator(s): 

A major battle of the First Punic War: Rome's biggest naval victory of the war; swiftly followed by its worst ever maritime disaster. Yet the primary sources say very little about either. I have, I think, extracted everything there is about it and offer it for your consideration. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:29, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Comments by JennyOz
Hi Gog,
 * infobox - other spelling (Hermaea) intentional?
 * No. Typo. Thanks. Fixed.


 * "Cape Bon" and "Cape Bon Peninsula" - link same, I felt cheated
 * Oops. Fixed.


 * Battle of the Aegates, the final battle of the war, fought fourteen years later - thirteen?
 * I never could count backwards. Corrected.


 * The Romans had had little naval experience - is this a case where 1 x "had" says same thing?
 * Amended.


 * previously felt the need - "felt" a bit iffy, maybe 'considered'
 * Changed to a simple 'needed'.


 * of being rammed oneself. - itself?
 * "oneself" (I think), because the sentence starts "Ideally one would attack ..." I could rephrase as 'Ideally a galley would attack an enemy ship from its side or rear, thus avoiding the possibility of being rammed itself'?


 * grapple - wlink Grappling hook? (pity that page doesn't mention the corvus, hint, hint.)
 * You have lost me Jenny. "grapple" here has nothing to do with grappling hooks. I am explaining, as briefly as I can get away with, but am happy to go into as much detail as you wish, how the corvus works: and it is by allowing a Roman ship to grapple an opposing one. As in Wiktionary's first definition - "To seize something and hold it firmly".


 * approximately 26,000 picked legionaries - wlink
 * Done.


 * Hanno the Great - wlink?
 * D'oh! Again. Done.


 * superior ship handling skills - hyphen
 * Inserted


 * only 16 km (10 mi) from Carthage - the other conversions spell out the metric
 * The MoS says to give in full at first use and abbreviate thereafter.


 * They proceeded directly to Sicily, making landfall at its south-west corner, then proceeded along the south coast. - proceeded x2, maybe 'They sailed direcly...'
 * Good thinking. Done.


 * The Romans sent a fleet of 350 quinqueremes and - need to mention year 254 BC somewhere in this para to match map?
 * Added.


 * city of Kararina - is that another spelling of Kamarina or a typo?
 * No two of my sources agree on the spelling, and none use Kamarina. But I have gone with the version already in use in Wikipedia.


 * the friendly city of Kararina and Capo Passero - was Cape Passero not friendly too?
 * It's a geographical feature, so I doubt it had any views on the subject.


 * 384 warships were sunk - hmm starting a sentence with 384? Maybe 'From their total of 464 of warships, 384 were sunk, ...'
 * Good point. Done.


 * Polybius is critical of what he considers the poor judgement and poor seamanship displayed - 2 x poor, "and poor" could go?
 * Second "poor" removed.


 * mostly on Sicily or the nearby waters - "the" unnecessary
 * Not in my opinion. Removing it suggests "on ... nearby waters", which, to me, is an odd construction. I would say 'on the nearby waters', hence the use of the "the".


 * Sources, Casson/Champion/Casson - alpha order
 * Good spot. Done.


 * File map caption, Apsis x2 - Aspis
 * Indeed. I am not sure if I wrote the caption or not, but I certainly missed that.


 * add author or editor links for: Nigel Bagnall, Lionel Casson, Roger Collins, Fik Meijer, Richard Miles (historian), Jeffrey Royal, Sebastiano Tusa, Howard Hayes Scullard, Peter Jones (classicist), Brian Herbert Warmington
 * All done.

That'll do for now, regards, JennyOz (talk) 09:55, 19 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks Jenny, your usual sterling stuff. Your points addressed above. Does this also count as a source review? Gog the Mild (talk) 20:09, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

All images free, appropriately sourced, etc. buidhe 04:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Image review—pass