Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Archive 26

Titles of gens articles: re Annaea gens
Not everyone in this project gets project alerts, and of course we all have our own areas of specialization, so we don't always comment on everything. But a recent spate of page moves/requested page moves has me hoping there's sufficient interest to comment on this issue: should we hold to a standard title format for all articles about Roman gentes, or have varying titles based on what other articles exist with similar names?

When I started writing/updating these in 2009, I applied the same format to all of them: "Aemilia (gens)", "Baebia (gens)", "Caecilia (gens)", etc. This seemed satisfactory for a few years, and then one or two editors from outside the project began moving some, but not all gentes to the bare nomen. We already had articles about women named Aemilia and Caecilia, but none about an Annaea, so that page was moved to "Annaea". I'm sure I protested at the time about all of the articles having a consistent title format, but I was unable to convince the editor in question. Some time later, I realized that if I'd simply used the format, "Annaea gens", like some standard reference works do, it probably wouldn't have attracted the attention of the "unnecessary disambiguation" advocates. So a few of the articles got moved to that format, with the only inconsistency being whether there were parentheses or not.

After years of working on these articles, and refining the format as I go (some of them were pretty clumsy in the beginning), I've pretty much concluded that it would have been better to avoid the parentheses. But they should still all be titled the same way, in my opinion. And I suspect that most people who are active in this WikiProject either agree or don't have a strong opinion one way or the other. What does everyone think? If we agree, then I think it would make sense to comment on the "Annaea gens" talk page, as that's the current battleground. P Aculeius (talk) 07:49, 23 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm coming to this discussion after it was closed, as usual. While I'll admit that I'd prefer a different format for the various gentes, since most of them are of the form "X (gens)" it would make sense to rename it "Annaea (gens)" for consistency sake. Performing that move, IMHO, is a minor & uncontroversial decision. And a bare "Annaea" would confuse a tired or inattentive user who was looking for an article on the phylum that includes the earthworms. Anyway, some thoughts for when this issue is raised again. -- llywrch (talk) 17:35, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Media involving Rome + Greece?
Should movies, games, books, etc. (e.g. Gladiator (2000 film), Total War: Rome II) be added to the wikiproject? The Verified Cactus 100% 22:55, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
 * At least some of them (Wonder Woman, for example) are; I have no idea how consistently this is applied. There have been previous discussions on this talkpage about the scope of this project (e.g. here) but I can't see any which specifically address popular media. Personally, I suspect that members of WP:CGR are no more interested in Wonder Woman, or Rome Total War, than the average editor, and there is no point adding them to the project, but I don't care enough to try to change things either way. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:13, 27 December 2017 (UTC)


 * IMHO, in most of these movies & games, the attempt to be faithful to the facts of the ancient world as we know them range from poor to nonexistent. For novels & other fiction, it is often fairly good (for example Steven Saylor's "Roma sub Rosa" series), yet even the best known has otherwise little connection with Classical studies. By this I mean to say, none of it influences the study of ancient Greece & Rome in the way Science Fiction has influenced related fields in scientific rsearch & engineering. So I don't see any reason to add those works to the wikiproject as a general rule. -- llywrch (talk) 17:50, 2 January 2018 (UTC)


 * It would appear that there's no firm rule. Spartacus (TV series) is in, but I, Claudius isn't (I think I'll fix that).  My suggestion is that if antiquity is central to the work, than it belongs.  So Gladiator would be in, but Wonder Woman wouldn't (only tangential to the story).Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 21:56, 10 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Personally, I see no problem adding these to the project if you feel they're worth it, and have some idea of how they fit in. And frankly I'm delighted that Wonder Woman is considered part of the project, even though I admit that the connection is less obvious than with most of the sword-and-sandal genre.  I'm sure that's just sentimentality on my part, but I don't see any reason for it to go.  Let's avoid contentious debates about whether to remove topics that have at least some justification for being in the project, and focus on adding those that ought to be in, and removing only those that have no obvious connection to our topic (for example, there's no reason to include Doctor Who, even though there have been a few episodes involving or taking place in ancient Rome and its environs).  P Aculeius (talk) 22:08, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Proposed rewrite of Meditations
Please see this proposed rewrite of Meditations.

Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 22:36, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Added detailed section on the history of the text
 * Added list of those he thanks in book I
 * Re-ordered quotes
 * Separated "notes" from "references"


 * I think you should reconsider this rewrite. While the current article could still be improved, it's well-organized, concise, and the language flows reasonably well.  The proposed rewrite seems to get bogged down in minutiae before it reaches the meat of the article: the "overview" section mixes together details of the contents in the first paragraph, followed by multiple short paragraphs on the structure, composition, history, purpose, and historical significance all jumbled together.  Much of this is then repeated in subsequent sections.


 * In the current article, there is a three-paragraph lead, covering much of what you've put in the "overview" section, but it reads more clearly and summarizes the topic nicely. It then progresses to the structure and themes of the work, treating the organization, style, purpose, and circumstances of its writing in one paragraph, and then using two more to discuss the themes and philosophy expressed in it.  The proposed rewrite not only separates and disorganizes the lead, but then follows it with sixteen paragraphs broken into eight subsections on the history and speculations about the history of the work since the time of Marcus Aurelius, before it reaches the "structure and themes" section.  Along the way, the original organization and title, or lack thereof, are mentioned or discussed multiple times in different places, and you've taken time to comment on the comments that other scholars had about the work at various points in time, which seems premature given that the contents of the Meditations have yet to be discussed.


 * The "structure and themes" section as rewritten dwells primarily on the physical structure of the Meditations; the lines, the line breaks, the titles, etc., and on the rhetorical devices used; metaphor, quotations, etc., all of which give us a rather vague picture of how Marcus Aurelius was writing, but not what his point was. The actual philosophical concepts and discussion from the original article have been replaced by descriptions of the way the emperor used language.  There's then a summary of Book I, which suggests that it was written as an afterthought, although there's no summary of any of the other books; is a list of persons thanked and an explanation of why each of them is thanked really necessary detail for this article?


 * The "reception and criticism" section in the original article could have stood more balance, as it comes out rather heavily weighted toward criticism; but the only changes you've proposed making are removing the sentence on Maxwell Staniforth (why? Is the opinion of a major translator of the work not relevant?), and excising all but the punctuation in the paragraph about the series of novels at the end (probably a good call).  It might have benefited more from some additional positive points of view by modern scholars and philosophers, or perhaps some rehabilitation following the two long negative paragraphs.


 * Under "quotations" you've retained all but three of those from the original; I can't tell why you threw those three out and added one rather convoluted new one at the end. I see you've arranged all of the quotations in sequence; I can only assume the original order wasn't random, so why is placing them in sequence an improvement?


 * At the end of the original article was a section discussing the history of the Meditations' printing, but in the rewrite, part of that has been broken off and added to another section much earlier in the article. Does it really make sense to have this type of information in different places, instead of all together at the end?


 * In all the original article seems to be better organized, and it certainly reads more clearly. It goes into some specifics with respect to the underlying philosophy, which the rewrite does not; the proposed rewrite is drowning in details that aren't really necessary here, but could stand better organization and perhaps a more appropriate location in the article; useful and interesting material has been removed for no apparent reason; and there are other issues; for example, in the infobox you've confused the date of composition with the date of publication, and confused Richard Graves with Robert Graves.


 * My suggestion would be to take the new material on the history or provenance of the work, and any detailed structural analysis of the contents, and either summarize them in one or two paragraphs that could form a section between the "quotations" and "editions" section, which should stay largely as they currently are, or make a separate article on just these details, and link to it from the existing article. P Aculeius (talk) 05:35, 11 January 2018 (UTC)


 * your insights always find their way to the heart of the matter. I will take these suggestions and run with them.  Thanks.  Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 16:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't mean to come across as harsh. But it looks like the present article is the product of a great deal of collaborative editing up to the present, and the product of this work looks pretty good, so I don't think a wholesale rewrite is a good idea.  I think the best choice would be to create either additional sections to the existing article, covering the new information and insights you have, or create subsidiary articles linked to the main one in appropriate places.  I'm not saying you're not doing good work, just that it probably shouldn't replace the existing article in these circumstances.  P Aculeius (talk) 16:35, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Sexuality in Italy listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Sexuality in Italy. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. 70.52.11.217 (talk) 05:16, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Capitalization: Pontifex Maximus RM (and others)
For those of you who haven't got WP:Classical Greece and Rome Alerts on your watchlist, there's a debate going on about whether to move Pontifex Maximus to pontifex maximus, on the grounds that some sources don't capitalize it, and the MOS requires lowercase titles except in the case of proper names. I think the case is rather ambiguous, since there are quite a lot of sources that go either way; and this is far from the only such title in our project. For example, we have Roman Senate, although many sources do not capitalize "senate", and Tribune of the Plebs, even though I usually treat this as a common noun. I think that the names of offices and institutions tend to be amphibious when it comes to capitalization; when addressing someone by their title, it's natural to capitalize, but when using the title as a description it seems more appropriate to use it as a common noun; I might write "Servius Tullius, the sixth King of Rome" or "the sixth Roman king"; here the way it's worded makes a difference to me.

Pontifex Maximus seems to me like one of these titles that seems less like a common noun, but I've probably written it both ways, and perhaps not even consistently. I don't see why we should try to enforce consistency in cases where something could be capitalized or not, as long as it's used logically and consistently within individual articles. But what do you think? Is it important to move this, if it's often capitalized? Or do we just go with whichever capitalization seems to be the most common? And if so, how do we determine this? The ngram suggests that usage has gone from majority capitalized to about even. Which books do we prioritize, and which exclude? Not sure this is an issue that can be easily resolved. P Aculeius (talk) 22:24, 10 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't know if I can be of much help in that discussion. Partly because I consider arguments over Wikipedia style issues to be an infertile swamp that ends up alienating good editors while encouraging useless ones. (They shouldn't be, but that's how things have evolved on Wikipedia.) Partly because I have no strong preference either way, something you also admit to in the discussion linked. And in part because I can't find an authority I acknowledge that makes a pronouncement on this matter. (My usual go-to authority, the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th edition, doesn't cover this issue.) FWIW, the 3rd edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary, which should otherwise serve as a reliable standard on style issues, doesn't capitalize this title, but they don't capitalize a lot of titles that I would, e.g. "Emperor"; I suspect that British English also deprecates capitalization of titles. About the only statements I can make on the issue are: (1) it appears that there is a consensus to deprecate use of capitalization in titles as much as possible (which, IMHO, appears to be current British practice); & (2) I resent anyone who isn't part of this Wikiproject -- or has not demonstrated some expertise in this subject -- telling me whether or not how to use capitalization in articles on ancient history. And I admit point 2 isn't helpful in coming to a durable consensus on the matter. -- llywrch (talk) 20:02, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Flora
What a shame, there is no article on the Roman deity....!Aldrasto11 (talk) 05:18, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * There is Flora (mythology) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Merger proposal
There has been a merger proposal at Talk:Dacian Draco which is relevant to this WikiProject, and which has been open for more than five months now with no input other than the proposer. It would be good to get some more opinions there. Thanks. Richard3120 (talk) 00:24, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

A link to a DAB page
Lucius Cassius Hemina links to the DAB page Mucius Scaevola. Can anyone here help solve the problem? (My ill-informed guess would be Gaius.) Narky Blert (talk) 12:48, 22 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Given the timing, my first impression was the consul Quintus, given the wording "career" in the reference. However, it does seem to have been Gaius.  Found a clear reference in The Fragments of the Roman Historians, p. 221.  Reworded a little to make the sentence clearer, and detagged.  Incidentally, the article could use quite a lot of expansion, if anyone wants to work on it.  There's a nice piece in the DGRBM here, which could be revised and expanded upon with the FRH material, here, although it gets a bit technical and would need to be explained carefully.  P Aculeius (talk) 23:30, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Narky Blert (talk) 16:13, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * If anyone feels like having a go at beefing up Lucius Cassius Hemina, there are five printed citations with full bibliographical details in de:Lucius Cassius Hemina. Narky Blert (talk) 20:04, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll add quickly that while Forsythe is modern and in English, some of his conclusions with respect to the dating of Hemina are dubious. See the Fragments of Roman Historians chapter mentioned above for more information.  P Aculeius (talk) 21:09, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * makes a very good cautionary point. The fact that an off-Wiki source says something doesn't mean that it's right; only that it should probably be mentioned. What a source says must be weighed against all the other evidence. (A draft article in my sandbox includes 40+ citations. I haven't yet worked out for all of them which are WP:RS, and which either are parrots or are just plain making stuff up.) Narky Blert (talk) 01:05, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

A-Class review for Tetricus I needs attention
A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Tetricus I; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 09:45, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Date formatting (for Soranus of Ephesus and in general)
Soranus of Ephesus gives his date range as fl. 1st/2nd century AD. That doesn't seem like a great format, but I'm not sure how best to substitute it. Apparently we only know that he lived during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian (A.D. 98–138). Is it best to say exactly that?

The topic name doesn't reflect my current concerns, but there's a bit of discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers. I'm not sure if any further discussion should continue there, but I do think that that section of the Manual of Style (especially Uncertain, incomplete, or approximate dates) could use some more input from classicists. Languorrises (talk) 20:04, 17 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I would say "late first to early second century", with or without "AD". If he was active in Trajan's reign, he must have been alive in the first century (since Trajan died in 117), and if he was active in Hadrian's reign, we know he was alive in the second.  I never use slashes or n-dashes to indicate spans in running text; "from", "to", "and" and "or" are your best friends here.  If it's in a parenthetical, like at the beginning of an article or in an infobox, an n-dash would be okay, but I still usually avoid using numerals for centuries.  But that's personal preference; lots of people see nothing wrong with using numerals or punctuation even in running text.  Go with what makes the most sense to you, as long as it's allowed by policy, and not likely to confuse anybody.  P Aculeius (talk) 21:20, 17 February 2018 (UTC)


 * It's likely he was alive in the first century, but I'd reserve floruit for the time someone was active, eg Christiaan Barnard (fl. 1945-1983). We might, with a little WP:OR, say Sorenus lived from the first to the second century but if we stick to the source we can only say that he flourished in the second and possibly the first. 79.73.243.152 (talk) 09:24, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's OR (or perhaps SYNTH) to say that a physician active at some point in Trajan's reign (AD 98 to 117) must have been alive in 100; that's just calculation. But as for distinguishing between floruit used to mean "lived" or "was active", since both are valid uses, I would think the broader usage is preferable, if the two could produce different results.  But that's just my opinion.  If the article itself discusses his dates, rather than merely giving them as a parenthetical, then it might not matter.  P Aculeius (talk) 18:36, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I never encountered floruit meaning "lived", but always specifying the period when someone was active (i.e. doing notable things). The OED has three examples of the use of floruit, one of which happens to be relevant here, though I don't know who the subject is: "Professor de Groot puts his life at A.D. 65–135, and his floruit in the reign of Trajan" (H. W. Watkins, 1890). Anyway, I would agree that it's not OR to say someone who floruit under Trajan was born in the 1st century: it's a necessary consequence of the meaning of the word. Andrew Dalby 12:28, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The direct source for Soranus's date is the Suda, which says (in translation) "He spent time in Alexandria and practised medicine in Rome under the emperors Trajan and Hadrian" (Suda, find sigma 851). So that's definitely "floruit", in the sense that it's usually understood. One notes, incidentally, that medical studies (or hanging around the taverns) in Alexandria might be what occupied him in the early years of Trajan. Andrew Dalby 12:54, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The online Oxford dictionary agrees with you that floruit can mean "lived", so I'm reeling at the realisation I'm an old fogey, spluttering "they can't redefine Latin!" I rather like keeping it as vague as the sources, just in case he was extraordinarily precocious, but yes, he was almost certainly alive in the 1st century. 92.19.27.156 (talk) 23:41, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see, thanks for the link, the online Oxford goes far beyond the OED (also online). If in the online Oxford we click the example sentences under "floruit (verb)" we see that "floruit" can be not only redefined but conjugated: you get "he was floruiting" and "[it] floruited".
 * So far as I can see, none of the examples support the redefinition of "floruit" to be a synonym of "live" -- and I can't honestly see why anyone would use "floruit" in preference to "live" if the two are synonyms -- but the online OED Oxford is no doubt a reliable source in itself, so that's it. I think I'll go back to Vicipaedia now :) Andrew Dalby 16:20, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Two links to DAB pages and one poor link
In Amulius, it is said that Dionysius of Halicarnassus cited Fabius, Porcius Cato and Piso in relation to Amulius. Fabius redirects to Fabia (gens); the other two are DAB pages. Can any expert here help solve these problems? Narky Blert (talk) 11:43, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Fabius would be the historian Quintus Fabius Pictor; Porcius Cato is Cato the Elder: Piso is Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 133 BC). See Cornell, T., The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c.1000–264 BC), Routledge, 1995, pp. 5 - 7 passim, 123, 125, 259, 375 etc. ISBN 978-0-415-01596-7 Haploidavey (talk) 12:01, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Very fast answer! I would have said the same if I'd seen this in time.  Meanwhile, since nobody's made the edits since this was posted, I went ahead and did it just now, and detagged.  P Aculeius (talk) 13:08, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Good on you... I'd normally do the same, and detag; but a glance at the Amulius article was enough to tell me that once I started down that road, I'd be picking at it for months. Haploidavey (talk) 13:16, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Applause! The level of knowledge in this WikiProject (among others) never fails to impress. Narky Blert (talk) 20:56, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Another link to a DAB page
Cyrus (architect) links to the DAB page Quintus Mucius Scaevola. This seems to need a citation, which I have not been able to find. It seems unlikely that Cyrus' great-grandchildren were acquainted with anyone who died before he did... Can any expert help? Narky Blert (talk) 21:10, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * This material on Scaevola's Cyrus's great-grandchildren was added by an IP editor, about a year after the stub was created; it might be based on a misunderstanding or misreading of a genuine source - who knows? Anyway, I've searched the works of Cicero for any connection between Cyrus and Scaevola's family, and found none. The first version of the stub was sourced to Cicero's works, and was an entirely Scaevola-free zone. I'll remove Scaevola from the article. Haploidavey (talk) 10:19, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Good WP:BOLD work, there. Disproving is at least as difficult as proving (and perhaps even more important). Narky Blert (talk) 21:29, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

A-Class review for Marcian needs attention
A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Marcian; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 11:44, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

A-Class review for Gordian dynasty needs attention
A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Gordian dynasty; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 01:31, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Another link to a DAB page
This one is a real puzzle. According to Remmia gens, "Remia Secunda, the daughter of Maximus, was buried at Breg (Rotium) in Venetia and Histria, aged forty." (I've unpiped the link).

This could be Breg, Croatia, which has the advantage of being in Istria. However, I cannot connect it with Rotium.

The Romans called Roč (also in Istria but some distance from Breg) Castrum Rotium or Rocium. That too could be a candidate.

Of course, neither of those might be right. This looks like a case of tracking down an obscure funerary inscription. I've failed to find it online. Can anyone help? Narky Blert (talk) 15:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I checked the original inscription, and the database including it shows a map identifying the location with Breg, Croatia. The best explanation seems to be that there was more than one Rotium; Castrum Rotium may have been a different settlement further inland.  Given the map, I'm going to assume that Breg is correct unless I see something to suggest an error in the identification.  Already fixed, although I did it twice, first assuming that Roč must be correct, before checking the map and realizing they couldn't be identical.  If someone has access to Inscriptiones Italiae, maybe they could check for more information about the inscription's location.  P Aculeius (talk) 22:16, 20 March 2018 (UTC)


 * TY. I'll certainly buy that, most especially with a positive identification from a map. I'm no Latinist, but "Rotium" feels a touch generic to me, and could be a name for more than one place; perhaps even of a vicus or two near something else. There's no guarantee that provincials spoke Latin wot like Cicero spoke. Narky Blert (talk) 02:43, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Another link to a DAB page
Alexander (artists) links to the DAB page Doni. The full text in DGRBM I:123 reads "There was also a M. Lollius Alexander, an engraver, whose name occurs in an inscription in Doni, p. 319, No. 14", so this looks very much like a reference to some book or other. There seems to be nothing relevant under Lollia/Lollius DGRBM II:197-8. I suspect that it might be something by it:Anton Francesco Doni, a polymath. Can anyone confirm or deny this conjecture? Narky Blert (talk)
 * Mystery solved. It was Giovanni Battista Doni, better known for his musical scholarship, who published a collection of Roman inscriptions.  I've located the book, verified the inscription at the page and number, and disambiguated the reference with a link to the book.  P Aculeius (talk) 17:42, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Doffs cap. Narky Blert (talk) 22:48, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Still another link to a DAB page
According to the article on Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, he was the grandfather of Galla (which is a DAB page).

Of the two who have articles and were around at the right time: (1) Galla (wife of Theodosius I) was the daughter of Valentinian I (son of Gratian the Elder and an apparently nameless wife) and Justina (empress) (daughter of Justus of Picenum and another apparently unnamed wife); and (2) Galla Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius I (son of Theodosius the Elder and Thermantia) and the other Galla.

I can find nothing relevant in DGRBM (Flavianus, Galla and Nichomachus linked for convenience). I suspect that the truth, whatever it is, will be found in one of the three ancient sources listed at reference 1 in the Virius article.

Can anyone solve this puzzle? Thanks in advance. Narky Blert (talk) 18:34, 29 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Preliminarily, it looks to me like the Galla referred to is neither of the above, but the daughter of Nicomachus Flavianus (son of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus) and Galla (daughter of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus). Galla Jr. would then seem to have married her uncle, Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus.  this hit indicates that Nichomachus Flavianus' daughter was named Galla, and I have found no indication that he had a niece.  While it could be stated more clearly in the book, the fact that Symmachus Sr. seems to have written Stilicho about possible charges of incest seems to support the hypothesis that it was his son and granddaughter who were married.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to locate the letter in question in English.  Possibly it's vi. 32.  P Aculeius (talk) 19:19, 29 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I too didn't believe that it was either of the better-known Galla's. I think you've found her. Using your source, I've started taking preliminary steps towards writing what will never be more than a stub article about this one.


 * I integrated your find as best I could (as an alternative to what the article already said) into Nicomachus Flavianus (son). While doing so, I came across Symmachi–Nicomachi diptych, according to which "The most likely candidates are the daughter of Senator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus and Nicomachus Flavianus, the son of his colleague Virius Nicomachus Flavianus, although it has also been suggested that the panels may instead commemorate the marriage of Symmachus' son, Q. Fabius Memmius Symmachus with the granddaughter of the aforementioned colleague." Weitzmann, 1979.


 * If that is right, then Q. Fabius was her cousin, not her uncle. This is beginning to look like a Cousin marriage: rare but acceptable under the Empire – but banned by Theodosius I in 381. That would explain why it's in the record: pagans like the Nichomachi and Symmachi, while supporting the idea of an Augustus, wouldn't have understood what the fuss was all about.


 * Please watch my back. There are risks of falling into WP:OR and WP:SYNTH on this sort of topic. Narky Blert (talk) 21:02, 30 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Actually, as I read the Weitzmann passage, it doesn't say that Memmius might have married his cousin. It says that the diptych probably depicts either the marriage of Nicomachus Jr. and Symmachus' daughter (the elder sister of Memmius, who here is being called "Galla" (although I'm not sure whether there was a source for that), or the marriage of Memmius to the granddaughter of Nicomachus Sr. — who would be the daughter of the aforementioned Nicomachus Jr. and Galla, the daughter of Symmachus — hence Memmius' niece.  Which is exactly how we're interpreting it.  Or have I misunderstood you?  I'm wouldn't worry about synthesis or original research here.  We're just presenting the information found in our sources as best we understand what it says.  If we're wrong, someone can come along and correct it later (providing a source or some logical explanation, of course).  P Aculeius (talk) 23:47, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Cleopatra
I'd like to inform the members of the WikiProject that I have nominated Cleopatra for Featured Article status, after a recently successful Good Article candidacy. If you are interested in making comments or offering suggestions, please feel free to visit the FA candidacy page. Pericles of Athens Talk 14:36, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Editor making unsourced changes in titles, etc
See as an example Talk:Zenobia and the contributions of. It looks as though he's using this book as a source. It's not an RS as it's by an amateur, but other edits have no sources at all. Found this at ANI. Doug Weller talk 07:08, 11 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks; I've left a comment or two at that talk page. Haploidavey (talk) 10:56, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, even when he used the book, it didnt support what he claimed. Other worrying thing is what he wrote at the Zenobia talk page where he wondered why his opinion isnt being given the right spot in the article!! I think he wrote the book he is using considring that he believes his opinion to be on the same level with established scholars. It is really damaging for Wikipedia to allow him to make such edits and giving readers false info. Maeonius is an article about a fectional person yet the editor gave him full imperial titles!.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:00, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The work was first published by Pen and Sword books, some four years back. It's not usable for Wikipedia but it seems carefully researched and well-written, not based on personal logic, opinion and thin air. Imo there's no connection to Slapnut1207. Haploidavey (talk) 12:22, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, probably I judged fast. Yet his tone, regarding how important his opinion is, made me doubt. In any case, he need, at least, to present reliable sources as he edited probably all the articles on Roman emperors.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 13:20, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The only thing I did was simply rearrange their regnal titles or I just gave them the usual titles given to a Roman usurper and Emperor. into the proper regnal titles section. Because every Roman usurper or Emperor during the second, third and fourth century usually had the regnal titles of Imperator Caesar (name) Augustus. The book has speculation on some decisions made by people. (because sometimes the authors of latin or greek works sometimes do not seem to mention some important things or the reason behind the choice. Ask any Scholar on Roman Emperors and ask them, did the Emperors after the Julio Claudian Dynasty usually have the name of Imperator Caesar (For example: Lucius Domitius Aurelianus) Augustus with sometimes Imperial victory titles? The only errors really present in the book are the information concerning the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 4th century in a timeline and a lack of mentioning the other theories on Gordian's death besides only including the possibility of Philip the Arab and his soldiers killing him. Just read the book and ask some certified scholar on Roman History. That means buy it, read the entire book and reread it again. Because I am not sure if you have read the book. Because Wikipedia's employees or whoever manages this should literally read every source and also allow some basic exemptions for really basic things like Imperator Caesar Augustus. Besides Saloninus' titles were literally in the note section. slapnut1207 —Preceding undated comment added 23:58, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * "Just read the book and ask some certified scholar on Roman History" isn't how Wikipedia works. We don't have to read or review the book ourselves; it could be brilliantly well-written, but we still can't use it to build or source articles. We can't use it because it hasn't been written, or reviewed, by any "certified scholar in Roman history". I'm not sure why you're not getting that. Have you actually read Wikipedia's guidelines and policies on sourcing and editing? Haploidavey (talk) 00:26, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, having given this some thought over the course of the day, I thought I'd weigh in. As far as I know, there aren't any strict criteria for judging the qualifications of an author before his work can be cited on Wikipedia.  Much of history has been written by talented "amateurs".  Most of us in this project are amateurs too, but we get to write articles on the topic for Wikipedia!  Obviously the work can only be cited for what it actually says (I note that according to analysis above the source doesn't say what it's cited for), but unless the work is generally rubbish, it should still be usable up to the point at which it's clearly wrong or contradicted by a general consensus of scholarly opinion.  Reviews of this book by people who do seem to have a knowledge of the subject point out its faults or limitations, but within those limitations they have praise for it.  Plenty of imperfect history books are valid sources for Wikipedia articles.  Are there any perfect ones?  I don't think we can dismiss this one out of hand because the author isn't an acknowledged expert, or because the publisher isn't an academic press, or because we don't have a lot of peer review (yet), as long as the claims make sense and aren't contradicted by reliable sources.  The work still needs to be judged on its own merits.  P Aculeius (talk) 02:13, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * A thoughtful, reasoned and sensitive response. Thank you. I don't disagree at all with most of what you say; and I probably come over as more dismissive than intended. Editors with a classical background (including yourself) might well be qualified to make sound, informed judgments on the quality and acceptability of works not yet peer-reviewed, published by non-academic presses and written by, um... "gifted amateurs" (perish the term); some of those works will be at least as good as, and many better than, some peer-reviewed works written by recognised academics, and issued by scholarly publishers. Nothing and nobody is perfect; some things are definitely less perfect than others. Just to get personal for a moment - because I believe it all boils down to people, in the end - I count myself as a considerably "less perfect", somewhat ignorant amateur historian and encyclopedia editor who just wants to find things out and communicate those findings as straightforwardly, verifiably and reliably as possible. So like most of us, I read a lot, and edit a little. Having no expertise myself, I must rely on the expertise of others. I find your attitude admirable, and would respect your judgment in this as in many other matters; but I can't seek to emulate it. Verification of most non-controversial, commonly accepted material only requires reference to standard works. All work should be judged on its merits; this one seems well written and thoroughly researched. But it doesn't meet two other basic requirements for Wikipedia sources. That doesn't mean it won't do so in the future. It might be moved to another publisher; or Wikipedia's requirements might change. Haploidavey (talk) 11:47, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * P Aculeius: I can provide an answer for what this book cited; the editor in question wanted to give Zenobia of Palmyra a Roman imperial title claiming that she considered herself the legitemate imperial authority. Thats when things go wrong as this book can not support such a statement and does not even claim that Zenobia was an empress of Rome or an empress of Palmyra (if such a thing existed since the term Palmyrene empire is modern name to designate lands conquered by Zenobia). The book do speak about Zenobia's motives behind claiming the title of Augusta (but Zenobia herself provides us with no evidence as she didnt connect her title to any geographic place and no contemporary ancient historian spoke about it), but those motives are one of the most debated issues between scholars interested in Palmyra and its relation to Rome. I have summarised those debated in this section from the article "Palmyrene Empire". Now, with all those "big weights" professors arguing, the editor wants to use the book to establish that Zenobia claimed Rome itself as a fact ! I mean, even the most respected scholars in the world can not give a definitive answer to this due to the lack of evidence, but the editor insisted he knows better.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 17:46, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * As I said, the book could only be cited for what it actually says, and if an editor misinterprets what that is, then it's perfectly fair to revert. I was simply making the point that the book itself can't be dismissed because the author or the publisher don't have a lot of serious academic qualifications (it would be different if the book made a lot of false, erroneous, or otherwise dubious claims, or if the publisher were a vanity press).
 * For what it's worth, however, I think pretty much any Roman emperor would regard the assumption of Augusta by someone claiming to rule a portion of the empire as a claim to be the rightful ruler of the empire. Throughout the history of the empire, from beginning to end, Augustus was the principal title of an emperor, not Imperator or Caesar.  It didn't exist anywhere else, or in any other context (as a title).  So if I see the statement that someone proclaimed herself Augusta while controlling or attempting to control part of the empire through military means, I think one could fairly characterize it as a claim to be the rightful empress—noting, however, that while there were lots of Roman empresses over the centuries, not one ruled in her own name.  It may be unclear if she meant to claim the whole empire, or just as much as she could hold, but that it was a challenge to the emperor in Rome is clear, assuming that she in fact claimed the title.  P Aculeius (talk) 18:33, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, some historians do share your view. But other historians do not share it because of various reasons summarized in the Palmyrene Empire article. Since this is debated, then we cant present any title as a fact in Wikipedia.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 18:41, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm concerned that the contributor, whether accurately quoting this book or not, is calling Zenobia an empress. At best it's an anachronism, & at worst just plain wrong. For one thing, my (often fallible) memory remembers her style as being a queen, viz. "Queen of Palmyra". Another, perhaps more importantly, there were no empresses (or Augusta) in her time; only men could be an emperor directly. Women were at best regents for the legal emperor (usually her son), & at worst just the woman attached to the emperor; women had few legal rights in her time. Yet I could be wrong about all of this if the primary sources of her period referred to her as augusta or used a similar title. That is where I'd find the decisive argument. Although if the author of this work did call her an empress -- or say she was what we moderns might call an empress -- one could write something along the lines of "Zenobia, whom the writer John F. White calls an empress" as long as one supplied the reasoning White provided to justify labeling her an empress, & the argument might convince a prudent person. -- llywrch (talk) 23:37, 12 April 2018 (UTC)


 * There's the crux of the issue, or at least one of the issues. The article cites another source, at least outwardly respectable, for the statement that Zenobia eventually took the title of Augusta, thereby claiming the Empire.  So to the extent that that's in dispute, as another editor says above, the claim appears to be correct.  Just skimming the article a bit as I searched for occurrences of Augusta, I note that in places the article looks like an argument about the Historia Augusta and could use some more neutral wording, at least.  I saw in one place four consecutive sentences beginning with "The Augustan History..."  I get it.  It's an important source, but not always reliable.  No need to keep hammering away at it as if there were no other way to relate what it says.  P Aculeius (talk) 02:20, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * P Aculeius already said this, more or less: Agreeing, I believe, with P Aculeius above I'd put it like this: That she claimed to rule at least some of the Empire is conclusively demonstrated by a combination of two facts: (a) she took the title Augusta, e.g. on the Roman coin issued under her authority and illustrated in our infobox, legend ZENOBIA AVG (b) she invaded and held a large part of that same Empire. When we write a proper Zenobia article on Vicipaedia all that, at least, will be no problem to us!
 * The problem purely in English is whether we translate Augusta into "Empress", and whether we therefore say that she was Empress or claimed to be Empress; and perhaps there are similar questions about her titles in other languages. It's a translation issue, but if the most respectable English sources differ on it, we can use the title "Augusta", untranslated, in the introductory paragraph and discuss it fully, giving her names/titles in Latin and other languages, lower down. A discussion by us that doesn't mention the original titles would be no use to anyone. Therefore secondary sources that don't cite the original titles from the primary sources would in this case be no help to us and not worth citing. Whether that applies to the book that started this whole discussion, I don't know :) Andrew Dalby 09:49, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Harold Mattingly (cited only at second hand on our page) long ago gave a handy survey of the coinage, which I've just read. [Available on JSTOR. It's a reminder that calling herself Augusta equated her with female relatives of emperors (including their wives and mothers). Sure enough, she was the wife and mother of males who took the title Imperator. I haven't heard that she called herself Imperator/-trix, and Mattingly certainly doesn't call her Empress. As Llywrch says, "Queen" is better sourced. That title (although Kings and Queens were disliked by Romans, as Mattingly says) is alluded to on the reverse of the same Roman coin we have in our infobox, whose reverse legend is IVNO REGINA "Juno [is] Queen". Surely no coincidence. Andrew Dalby 12:32, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem is not just the title "Augusta". It is what this title designated. Augusta of Rome? Augusta of Palmyra? Augusta of the East (like her husband declared himself king of kings of the East). No one can attach a geography to her Augusta title because we do not know her motives and no material evidence survives for them and that why all modern scholars are arguing on whether she claimed Rome itself or wanted a new independent empire that she established. The whole problem on the Zenobia article started when an editor decided to call her Empress of Rome and then Empress of the Palmyrene Empire without an evidence. Your comment about Mattingly is really convincing to me but other scholars would interpret the Augusta title differently and there is no academic consensus and thats why we cant have the title Empress of Rome or Empress of Palmyra in the infobox. There is another problem that led to this section of the talk page: the editor added imperial titles and names to nearly every Roman emperor page but did not provide any source.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:38, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * From all I've seen, I agree with you that "Empress" definitely doesn't belong in the infobox. If we must synthesize titles for infoboxes at all, "queen consort" and "queen mother" are fairly acceptable, but why we should do so, I don't know.
 * So far as I know, the name Augustus -a has no geographical reference. Andrew Dalby 15:07, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * One factor to consider about a possible geographical reference is to look at contemporary practice. For example the Gallic Empire, commonly considered a "break-away" empire, had its own senate & its own line of consuls. And in the early 4th century, when control of the Empire after Diocletian's retirement was disputed between Constantine & the other Caesares, each claimant would appoint his own consuls as an exercise of legitimacy. So did Zenobia do the same? Or, more in line with Wikipedia protocol, does anyone who argues augusta should be understand as "empress" instead of "queen", consider whether this argument is valid & if so if she had? I'm unaware of any Palmyrene consuls, or a Palmyrene senate (as opposed to a body of decurions). The use of aug(usta) on the coin could simply be the result of a coiner with an inadequate grasp of Latin. -- llywrch (talk) 19:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * As I understand it, however, all of the regional usurpers claimed to be the rightful ruler of the entire empire, even though they may have lacked the support to gain that end. Up to the third century, anyone who was proclaimed Augustus, whether by himself, his supporters, the soldiers, or the senate, expected to triumph over his enemies or be slain in the attempt by one of his rivals.  The "Gallic Empire" was the major exception, in that it persisted as a separate entity for a while.  But that was still a matter of a standoff between rival emperors.  The use of Augustus was exclusively Latin, and Roman, and never applied as a title to anyone but claimants to the empire, so I would say that by declaring herself Augusta, Zenobia was claiming to be the legitimate ruler of the empire, even if it was always doubtful that she could exercise control over more than a portion of it, and would eventually have to defeat a rival in order to maintain that position.  If you look through any of the historians who treat dynastic succession in the imperial period, you'll notice that being proclaimed Augustus by someone was crossing the Rubicon for any potential claimants; once it was done, whether the "claimant" initially sought the empire or not, there was no going back.  P Aculeius (talk) 23:59, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That's true, but there is the -a. Surely no one with the -a suffix had ever claimed to rule the empire in her own right. Several, no doubt, starting with Livia, quite fancied ruling it through others. That didn't make them "empress". By taking the name or title Augusta, Zenobia was, in Roman historical context, claiming to be part of a ruling family (which she dominated and fully intended to continue dominating). A recent example is Julia Soaemias: Augusta, but never empress. Her infobox, I notice, doesn't currently give her any title of office. Which made me look at Julia Maesa: she had the name "Augusta", and, oh lord, she doesn't get an infobox at all, and not much text either. Andrew Dalby 08:56, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It's true that none of the other women who took the title of Augusta ruled in their own right, but we do generally call them "empresses", as the wives of the emperors; perhaps this is a matter of translating Augusta into English—although it's probably context-dependent, as good translation is, since I don't recall the same gloss being given to mothers or daughters of emperors who happened to have been accorded the title Augusta, which sometimes happened. However, I don't think that any other translation would be suitable for Zenobia; Augusta certainly doesn't translate "queen", and "princess" wouldn't be applied to a ruler in English (again, not certain if we make exceptions for principalities normally ruled by sovereign princes who don't use another title, such as "king" or "duke", or if it's even come up).
 * Of course whatever title is used would need explanation under the circumstances. But I don't see any better alternatives to "empress", which certainly can be used, like "queen", for either a ruling sovereign or a sovereign's consort.  Just because no woman ever governed the Roman Empire in her own right doesn't mean that the concept of doing so was inconceivable to the Roman mind, or that a new and different word would have to have been fashioned for it; I feel quite confident that Augusta would have been used had it occurred.  I don't suppose any of the historians or antiquarians or philosophers ever mentioned the theoretical possibility, did they?  Finding the reference could be a job if they did.  P Aculeius (talk) 11:04, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The question came up many centuries later, when Theodora briefly assumed rule in her own right, 1055-1056. There was a lot of disapproval (or at least Psellus disapproved: he was very good at expressing it). The sources for that period are Greek. Psellus refers to her autokratoria (= imperium) but the title he gives her is basilis (= regina = queen). The feminine words Lat. imperatrix and Gr. autokratorissa seem never to occur in real workaday historical contexts. NB: I can only easily verify literary sources, not inscriptions.
 * Lat. Augusta and Gr. sebaste were indeed used, but, as you say, they were used not just for consorts but for other female relatives too, so to translate them "empress" just when it happens to suit us seems a tiny bit bold. Note Richard Stoneman's title "Palmyra and its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt against Rome". I haven't read the book but if he calls Zenobia "empress" that would be a strong secondary source (NB he's a visiting professor now, which probably makes him an academic author :=. In the reviews of his book that I can see, she is called Queen, never Empress. That may be pure chance, but my own hasty impression is that "queen" is better sourced. Andrew Dalby 12:26, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Via Google Books I find Stoneman uses the term empress 6 times, and none of them seems to be a straightforward attribution to her of this historical title. One of them, moreover, is at least misleading: he ascribes the phrase "empress of the Saracens" to the Byzantine historian John Malalas, but when you check the text of Malalas you find he called her basilisses ton Sarakenon "queen of the Saracens" Text in Greek with Latin translation. Stoneman might be able to justify his terminology here, but Malalas, in plain terms, has got Zenobia's local title right, and it wasn't empress. Andrew Dalby 13:04, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I will discus two points. First, did her Augusta title equal Empress. Yes, if we are looking for a strong secondary source then we have the book of Udo Hartmann. In page 368 her translates the title to Kaiserin (German for empress since the book is in German). Malalas is notoriously unreliable and he was not contemporary and the title he gave her does not have any archaeological evidence.

The second point is that this discussion seems to take it for granted that by calling herself Augusta she aimed at Rome just because the title was Latin and used up until then for people aiming at Rome. However, this is just one side of the discussions between different scholars regarding Zenobia. The academic world is split between scholars who share the view of most of the editors who commented here, and scholars who think that Zenobia was creating a new empire. The Palmyrenes used many Greek offices to run their city, but a closer look will reveal that they merely used the names of those offices not the actual structure. Palmyra had a "senate" and they called it Boule but in reality it wasn't like a Greek boule; it was a gathering of tribal leaders, hereditary and for the elders, which is an eastern institution. By claiming the title Augusta, she might have just used the familiar Latin term to claim supreme power in her Eastern empire (Her husband called himself king of kings of the East). Thats why we can safely say that she claimed to be an Empress, but we can not write what she was empress of (Rome or the East).--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 14:50, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with your last point (as I said above, "Augusta" has no geographical reference) but I still doubt "Empress". I accept that Hartmann would be a strong secondary source, but he apparently uses this term about Zenobia only once in the text of a long book: that's not exactly putting it in the infobox, is it? Cf. Stoneman. Andrew Dalby 09:08, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * As to the best translation of "Augusta" (for a ruler, or consort of a ruler) I think there's no question that "Empress" is the obvious choice. She chose Latin (the Lingua Franca—or Latina? of the Empire), and if she'd wanted to express that she was "Queen" of whatever dominions she possessed, she would have used "Regina".  While the Romans themselves abhorred the notion of being ruled by a king, they had no objection to subject/allied dominions being ruled by kings or queens.  They had left them in place in Judaea, Armenia, and (at least for a time) Britain, and unless and until the said monarchs became impossible to deal with, that was fine.  The one thing a king or queen wouldn't find easy was to claim the rightful government of Rome itself, or the empire as a whole; for that the necessary title was Augustus (or Augusta, if as here, the claimant were female).  I think it's a secondary question whether Zenobia saw herself as Roman empress, if only she could muster enough support beyond her own dominions, or merely empress of part of the Roman empire, which she might style the "Palmyrene Empire" if no further conquest could be hoped for.  Because both are really just gradiations of the same thing.  She was empress, and would stay empress until she died, or some other emperor came and took her empire away from her (which would likely come to the same thing).  P Aculeius (talk) 12:31, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe we won't agree; well, that's life ... but we shouldn't dismiss Queen. "Queen of Palmyra" is the best supported title of any, both in primary and secondary sources. Andrew Dalby 20:32, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Standardizing Roman Emperor names in lede/infobox
Currently there is a huge variation in how names are presented in the infobox and lede. Therefore I ask that we agree to a standardization. I have a list of suggestions for this standard, none of which would require changes to templates.


 * The Infobox should have the following:
 * For their full name, without any imperial titles:
 * For their regnal names, with imperial titles: can be either  (emperors) or   (Caesars)
 * The lede should start with  then the language section afterward, which gives their name in latin, should have   only.

Responses

 * Comment: undecided on the details, but I agree that some degree of standardization is appropriate. I just went through the gamut of emperors from Augustus to Romulus Augustus, and saw a variety of styles.  I made a few edits not directly related to this proposal: removing macrons that had been added to a few names, and applying the i/j distinction consistently in the "Latin" version of names; we usually render "Julius", "Julianus", "Jovianus", and "Trajanus" with a 'j', even when writing in Latin (I left it as 'i' in notes giving the strict Classical Latin orthography, using 'v' in place of 'u').
 * I would say that the full name needs to go in the lead sentence, whether in boldface as in some articles, or italicized as "Latin" (although I think it's unnecessary to specify that it's Latin, or to include extensive notes on Latin orthography and pronunciation; the leads seem to be too complicated to me). I think we could drop "Imperator", "Caesar", and "Augustus" from the lead, if they stay in the infoboxes (except for Augustus and Romulus Augustus, of course).  I would also drop filiations from the lead; I know I sometimes include them in biographical articles, but they're not usually shown with emperors, and since most of the earlier emperors who had filiations used the full nomenclature of their adopted fathers and predecessors, they wouldn't have traditional Roman filiations.
 * I note there seems to be some uncertainty about what the proper names (regnal or otherwise) of many emperors was. Even early on, Augustus was born "Gaius Octavius", and as far as I know never used Thurinus as part of his nomenclature; although he's conventionally referred to as "Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus", or simply "Octavian", prior to 27 BC, (when the title "Augustus") was bestowed on him, he doesn't seem to have used Octavianus on his own inscriptions (although other sources use it regularly).  Inscriptions do call him divi filius, but also Gai nepos (abbreviated, of course), which we're not including.  And for many other emperors there's variation or doubt as to their full nomenclatures; for instance, should Germanicus come before or after Augustus?  Normally Augustus is the last element in an imperial nomenclature, but for Caligula it's given at the end.
 * As far as the lead goes, I would probably write something along the lines of:
 * Titus Flavius Vespasianus, usually known in English as Vespasian . ..
 * Without much further elaboration. Full titles, birth names, regnal variations, etc. can go in the infobox or in a separate sentence or paragraph about the emperor's names.  But I would keep the lead sentence simple and accurate, without lots of notes about language, orthography, or pronunciation.  Anyone who studies Latin can easily equate 'j' and 'u' with 'i' and 'v', and there are multiple pronunciations for Latin, but in English we generally pronounce all of these names as in English, so additional notes seem to add an unnecessary and cluttery level of detail.  P Aculeius (talk) 23:34, 23 March 2018 (UTC)


 * With a caution that one reason we don't have a uniform style is that the Romans didn't - not over the five (arguably 15) centuries of the Empire. For Augustus, Imperator is a praenomen; for Julian or Theodosius, not so much. Conversely, do we really want to deal with the late-antique Flavius? Maybe, but we don't want to impose it before it was used. I would suggest consulting and following the Oxford Classical Dictionary (which I can consult, if necessary). Or leaving the present disorder alone. In particular, late antiquity clearly did not use the tria nomina of the Republic.


 * We should not assume our readers have any familiarity with Latin. Some will, and not care if we say Julius or Ivlivs (some, like myself, will think Ivlivs a bit silly); many will not - we are intended to be readable by both. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:18, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Quite right. I thought of mentioning that about the names myself, but I figured it would be obvious enough if this went ahead.  However, I would still omit "Imperator" even if it's called a praenomen, since it really wasn't one, and Augustus had one he just didn't seem to like (although other Romans used it).  I would include "Flavius" whenever it's found in a scholarly source (unless it can be clearly refuted by another).  Also agreed with "IVLIVS" and its ilk looking rather odd.  Yes, it can give an article a little flavour to show a name as it might have looked in a Roman inscription, but in the lead or in an infobox it can get quite cluttery, and it's not really all that helpful.  Would much rather they read, "Flavius Claudius Julianus was..." than "Flavius Claudius Iulianus (IPA: flɑːwiəs klɑːwdiəs juːliɑːnəs) (Lat: IMPERATOR CAESAR FLAVIVS CLAVDIVS IVLIANVS AVGVSTVS) (note 1) was..."  On a personal note, hi there, Septentrionalis.  Haven't seen you in a while!  P Aculeius (talk) 19:53, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Just dithering about occasionally. But I can usually be reached on my talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:46, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. nice to see you!
 * I haven't seen pages where these graphs are used in the lead sentence or in ordinary text, so I'm writing in the dark. I'd have said "IVLIVS" would only be used in an English encyclopaedia article when transcribing a coin legend or inscription, and not in the lead. "Ivlivs" would be wrong in all circumstances I can imagine. Perhaps my imagination is too circumscribed :)
 * I just now glanced at Augustus. No such graphs are seen in the brief first paragraph, which looks ideally readable to me ... except that it has four footnotes of two different classes. That's a real let-down. The general style guide deprecates footnotes in the introductory sentences, or it did when I last looked. Four? In two different locations? I'd say that any standardization of leads ought to attempt to cover this. Andrew Dalby 08:46, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Looking over it again, I'd drop both footnotes; we don't really need a pronunciation guide for Augustus, much less three, and there's absolutely no confusion about his dates. The source citations are okay, as they come at the end of sentences/paragraphs.  The lead is very long, however, and most of the contents could probably go in the body of the article.  A lead should be a brief summary, and this takes up a lot of space!  That'd be an extensive revision, and I hesitate to delete anything someone worked hard on in the first paragraph, like those notes, in an article that's basically top priority and probably got a lot of very involved editors.  Most of my work is on background topics that don't receive as much attention, and I don't want to get in a battle with a dozen other editors who all have their own takes and have worked more on this particular article, to which I've only ever made minor edits.  P Aculeius (talk) 12:02, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:LEAD doesn't actually deprecate refs in the lead, and I think never did. But it is clear they are not required (except for quotes etc). Most FAs don't have them (see a current furious row at FAC talk). Johnbod (talk) 14:31, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Then clearly I must never have looked! Possibly I dreamed it. Sorry about that. Thanks for the link to FAC talk ... worth reading. Andrew Dalby 20:04, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I like this model in general, but flexibility is necessary in individual cases, like Augustus, where I would push for "Imperator Caesar Augustus, usually known in English as Octavian or Augustus". What we should avoid is presenting versions of Imperial names that aren't actually attested, like "Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus" - I'm not clear that Gaius was still his praenomen after 27 BC (Suetonius is able to say that all Julii with the praenomen Gaius had come to a bad end at the end of his Caligula). Furius (talk) 00:25, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it seems like a reasonable proposal. I'm generally in agreement with Furius. I do think we should provide IPA for the Latin names, and I'm absolutely against listing the names in all caps as the "Latin version" of the name, as is currently done on the Julius Caesar page. This is simply not how Latin is transcribed in the modern day. By the same logic Constantine should have his name listed in both all upper case and lower case letters to reflect inscriptions and uncial, Charlemagne should have "carolus magnus" in minuscule because the Carolingians didn't really use capital letters, Albrecht III of Habsburg in some version of Gothic script, etc. Not to mention that writing the emperors' names in all caps contradicts the practice for other classical figures in Greek and Latin.Ermenrich (talk) 13:37, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Conveniently, we transcribe the consular fasti. Augustus was ''Imp. Caesar divi f. C. n. Augustus''. His praenomen was Imperator throughout his reign. (Caii nepos)  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:54, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I note that while Gaius was generally abbreviated with a 'C' (although 'G' is also found), when written out it was usually written with a 'G', and in either case one 'i' was normal in the genitive, rather than two. And while modern sources (probably backed up by something) call "Imperator" a praenomen in the imperial name, it certainly wasn't a praenomen in the sense that anything else was.  Augustus seems to have discarded his own praenomen, but Tiberius was generally known by his actual praenomen, as was Gaius, and pretty much every other emperor; while praenomina were sometimes changed, none of the other emperors lost one by becoming emperor.  And even Augustus has variable nomenclature; I said before he avoided "Octavian" even though the Roman historians used it, but there are inscriptions calling him "Augustus Octavianus" or "Octavianus Augustus".  Perhaps he must be treated sui generis.  But in any case, insisting that every article on a Roman emperor should begin with (or identify him in the infobox as) "Imperator Caesar" seems a bit pedantic to me—as if we insisted that the first name of every President of the United States was "Mister".  P Aculeius (talk) 03:45, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If a Wikipedia-reliable-source says that Imperator was his praenomen, and no Wikipedia-reliable-source says that it wasn't, then I guess, for the lead, that's it. An awful lot of dates of birth have become magically certain by just this route. On the other other hand the Fasti are a primary source, and it isn't up to us Wikipedians to interpret an abbreviation in prime position as a praenomen (even if it's true in every other case). I'm just being a jobsworth here, obviously. If I were being a social historian, I'd say, OK, that's his praenomen if his intimates used it to address him. Andrew Dalby 08:45, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Some belated comments.
 * I, too, find the appearance of the "Latin" version of name (viz., "IMPERATOR CAESAR FLAVIVS CLAVDIVS IVLIANVS AVGVSTVS") silly. We routinely modernize the spelling of countless names. If we include these "Latin" versions, then we should also include the long s for all names before 1790 (when that form was dropped from the sets of letters typecasters sold). Or pick one of the contemporary spellings of William Shakespeare's name. I don't see any value to going down that path, for it sounds like something a pedantic high school student alone would insist on. (I haven't said anything about this until now because I have more important fish to fry & little time as it is.) Add: I fell the same about pronunciation guides: most such guides are based on one theory or another of how Latin is properly pronounced. -- llywrch (talk) 19:02, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It can be tricky insisting on using one name for some emperors, some who bore names very similar to previous emperors (i.e. the Hadrian-Antonine, & the Severan emperors), some who bore several different names through their lifetimes. The prime example is Marcus Aurelius, who had several different names over the course of his life: he was born with one; upon adoption he assumed another; I believe he changed it a third time before assuming the purple; & upon becoming emperor bore still another. This makes me wonder what name his closest friends saluted him by, for these names he used were quite different. (The Wikipedia article lacks a section on this, so I'm going by my memory of Anthony Birley's biography here & he may actually have borne only 3 different names.) Any article about one of these emperor needs to show some thought in how it refers to the subject.
 * Andrew Dalby refers to the Consular Fasti as a primary source. The problem with that assumption is, speaking as someone who has looked into the matter to some degree, there is no one authoritative version of the Consular Fasti. The Capitoline Fasti is sometimes thought to be authoritative, but it only covers the Empire up to AD 13, & is frequently lacunose; the Fasti Ostienses covers the years from 44 BC to about AD 160, but it also has many gaps; & the less known versions are likewise incomplete. Further, the Capitoline Fasti refers to Augustus as "Imp. Caesar Divi f. Augustus" & I suspect the "Imp." was simply a title reflecting his status, as "Fl." (for "Flavianus") was in the later 4th & 5th centuries. (FWIW, I suspect this is why Ronald Syme frequently refers to Augustus as "Caesar's heir".) The Latin text of the Res Gestae -- which is based on his own express wishes -- refers to him as divi Augusti, or "the deified Augustus", while the Greek calls him "Sebastou theou", or "the deified emperor". In his Annales Tacitus calls him simply "Augustus". So even here there is no solid consensus in the reliable primary sources. (And as a bonus, I see that the Oxford Classical Dictionary puts their article for Julius Caesar under "I". So I doubt even the modern secondary sources would present a consensus we could agree to.) And lastly, in revising our List of Consuls, I haven't enforced a consistency in the names of the consuls for the Imperial section: in more cases than I could count (or want to admit to), unless I could not ignore the problem I simply accepted what had appeared before. I have been more concerned with getting the individuals matched to the correct dates & disambiguating between men with the same name, a problem I am still working on. (And the navigation boxes at the bottom of the pages often refer to an emperor by his more familiar modern name than his official style.)
 * My final point is that I wouldn't mind some consensus on this matter. Last thing I want to spend my time on is an edit war with someone over a dispute similar to calling the man "Julius Caesar", or "Gaius Julius Caesar", or "C. Julius Caesar", or "C. IVLIVS CAESAR". I'm willing to concede my preferences in style to achieving a consensus that prevents petty disputes like this. -- llywrch (talk) 18:19, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, yes, I do regard the Consular Fasti as a primary source, and I don't think the complexities of the text really change that. But (for me) that's a side-issue here, because I would say in our introductory paragraph we should choose names commonly used in reliable secondary sources in English. Augustus is quite unusual because modern secondary sources are likely to call him in successive periods Octavian and Augustus, also mentioning his birth name, so for him that could be at least three names in the first paragraph. (On Marcus Aurelius I'm not so familiar with the details.) For most emperors, the very short common name could be enough for the first paragraph. Exactly what was suggested at the outset, I think.
 * To me the infobox question is a snare. Many Romans were adopted, many were given additional names during their lives. What real use is it to anyone to give a very long full name, or a series of long full names, without some explanatory text? And the birth name (which might often be the easiest to specify without controversy) would be the least useful. Andrew Dalby 11:50, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I overlooked the point about the Oxford Classical Dictionary. OK, they are writing principally for classicists, and they want to file him under "I". Pauly and Der kleine Pauly do the same. We're writing for a much broader readership, who, if they read English outside Wikipedia, will encounter him in practically all reliable modern English sources as Julius Caesar or just Caesar. That's where we're starting form. Andrew Dalby 12:10, 10 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for raising this. With few exceptions (i.e. Caligula, Hadrian, Phillip II, Vespasian) All the emperors are commonly known by their Latin names, so firstly, let's remove the language parens in all but those.  Secondly, Unless any of their full names (birth, regal, etc) are themselves notable, let's remove them all to the infobox.  Finally, let's reserve their titles for the infobox as well.Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 09:33, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * To be clear, I'm suggesting their common (usually) single names for the lede, i.e., Nerva, not Marcus Cocceius Nerva.Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 09:42, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * In that case, strongly oppose. The lead is supposed to contain things like the full names of individuals, within reason.  There's no need to give long lists of alternative formulations in the lead sentence, but there's absolutely no justification for burying an emperor's proper name somewhere in the body and pretending that whichever cognomen or pair of cognomina or random piece of nomenclature with a popular epithet or ahistorical numeral was his proper name.  You might notice that non-classical biographies pretty much universally give each individual's full name in the lead, no matter what the person is usually called.  I'm certainly not in favour of deviating from this policy simply because a number of emperors had more than three names, or different names at different periods of their lives.  The example that you gave presents a perfect case; pretty much any biographical source is going to give Nerva's name as "Marcus Cocceius Nerva" in the lead; in fact he's rarely if ever going to be found with any other nomenclature, except perhaps with "Imperator", "Caesar", and/or "Augustus" tacked on pedantically.  So the decision to call him just "Nerva" in the lead on Wikipedia, and do the same thing for every other Roman emperor, runs directly counter to general practice, as well as scholarly practice, and is simply misleading.  Under no circumstances would I be in favour of this proposal.  P Aculeius (talk) 11:27, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Roman aristocracy
I am tidying up Good Article mismatches and came across Roman aristocracy.. It was redirected three years ago to Social class in ancient Rome. It has stood unchallenged, as far as I can tell, since that time. I am not overly familiar with the topic, but it seems odd that we would redirect a Good Article version before redirect into one that is obviously in poorer condition without at least saving (merging) the information. I know it happened a long time ago, but though I would double check that this is in fact the consensus before I procedurally delist the Good status from the redirect. I will open a discussion at Talk:Roman aristocracy. AIRcorn (talk) 21:44, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, a very odd situation, which you are right to raise. Skimming the talk of the old Roman aristocracy, there were clearly problems, but it was a pretty long article that is now redirected to a pretty short one on a much broader subject. There was no merging of content in 2015. It's hard to believe there was nothing worth merging - the issues raised with the old article seemed to be pretty top-level, and one of the longest talk sections just seems to recommend a change to the start of the article. The use of "knights" for the equites, and confusions between what was a "class" and what an "order" seem the main issues. It's difficult to think there isn't some salvage work that can usefully be done here, by someone who knows the subject. We also have Patrician (ancient Rome) and Equites, which may share some material with the old "aristocracy" article. Johnbod (talk) 23:11, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Whoever does it would need to make sure that the content wasn't diverted to other articles. One of the criticisms on the talk page was that different concepts were being mashed together; the page began as "Roman equestrian order", and then other material was folded into it when it was renamed to "Roman aristocracy".  But there's an extant article on the original topic, "equites".  Until tonight I assumed that was the article that had previously been at the awkward title "Roman equestrian order".  Even if it's not, perhaps it contains most of the relevant material on that topic from "Roman aristocracy", while some of the other material was shunted to the relevant areas.  I'm not saying that there shouldn't be an article at this title, but I think what we need to do is assess what topics need to be addressed and which different articles are necessary to cover them, perhaps by comparison with what currently exists.  With respect to "Patrician", I'm currently working on some revisions for that article, but I'm reasonably sure we'll want to keep that in some form, rather than merging the content into another page.  P Aculeius (talk) 01:04, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I certainly wasn't suggesting losing either Patrician (ancient Rome) or Equites. Johnbod (talk) 13:47, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you had. P Aculeius (talk) 17:47, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The text of equites is nearly identical to the text of Roman aristocracy before it was turned into a redirect except that 'aristocrats' has been changed to 'equites' vel sim. in a few places. Should Roman aristocracy be recreated, it would have to be written from scratch as something distinct. Furius (talk) 17:07, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That's probably a good thing, since "Roman aristocracy" was the original "Roman equestrian order". The current title is an improvement over both, IMO.  Anyway, it means that the content of "Roman aristocracy" hasn't been lost due to the title redirecting to "Social class in ancient Rome".  P Aculeius (talk) 17:47, 21 April 2018 (UTC)]
 * appears to have done a copy paste here from the Roman aristocracy article to equites. About a year later they redirected Roman aristocracy to Social class in ancient Rome. Still a little odd, but fixable with a change of redirect and a history merge. Is everyone happy with doing this, at least in the short term to get the attribution sorted? AIRcorn (talk) 20:14, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, thanks! Johnbod (talk) 20:36, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed, that seems like the ideal solution. P Aculeius (talk) 21:36, 21 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi. From recollection the Roman aristocracy article was originally created by someone moving all the text from the Equites article, and combining it with details about patricians.  This was very confusing, as the concepts were all mixed up.  Patricians and plebeians were birth-classes in ancient Rome and had no official role in government by right - both could be elected, although the patricians had more eminence.  The social class article should focus on patricians and plebeians and their relationship.  By contrast senators were a governing body of current and former elected officials, with a property limitation.  Equites also had a property limitation, and had a large role in commerce and some (limited) role in the Roman government, such as serving on juries at certain historical stages, and collection of taxes.  There was no basis for combining the whole article on equites into a "Roman aristocracy" article, with some added detail about patricians.  The concepts need to be kept separate.  If someone is desperate to create an article on the Roman aristocracy then it needs to cross reference all of those topics with a proper explanation.  I'm not entirely clear what is now proposed?--Urg writer (talk) 22:24, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I should add, at a conceptual level it isn't necessarily incorrect to describe the Roman republic as having an aristocracy, even though it was a democracy. The empire was a monarchy, still with a limited aristocracy.  Again, these things all need to be spelt out in some detail if there is to be an article on the Roman aristocracy which isn't misleading.--Urg writer (talk) 22:27, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * thanks for response. Can you please check the text at equites to make sure I have explained the history merge situation accurately. You can add to the template if you wish. AIRcorn (talk) 18:49, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * sorry if I'm being a bit dense - I checked the Equites page and the Equites:talk page, and couldn't find your comments. Where exactly are they?Urg writer (talk) 22:10, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * my request for a history merge was rejected. I am not sure what the next step is now. AIRcorn (talk) 20:32, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Just a procedural notice to say I have added merged-from/merged-to templates to the article talk pages and delisted the redirect. I think this satisfies the attribution requirements. As far as I can tell the article was moved from its various titles to the Aristocracy one so there is only the one copy paste move to deal with. I will leave deciding what to do with the articles to editors here. Thanks everyone for responding. AIRcorn (talk) 22:20, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, there is supposed to be a text merge, but if much of RA was lifted from E in the first place, that should be quick/not necessary. For example the para starting "In the "Polybian" Roman army of the mid-Republic (338 - 88 BC), ..." seems identical in both, apart from knights/equites, and a link that may be somewhere else in E. So maybe the situation can be left as it is. Johnbod (talk) 01:04, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That's right. There was originally an Equites article.  Someone took the text of that article and created Roman Aristocracy using the same text (with a redirect) and added some information about the patricians, which is already contained in the patricians article.  So there was nothing useful or original in the Roman Aristocracy article.  If someone wants to recreate it, it will involve a lot of work as this is a complicated topic.  To be honest it is a process of trying to squeeze a bunch of Roman concepts into our current understanding of 'aristocracy', which doesn't really work.Urg writer (talk) 22:17, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, it would be better called Roman elites or something, which would potentially be an interesting article, especially for the later Empire. Johnbod (talk) 03:01, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Not sure that would be an improvement. "Elite" is the very definition of a vague description, and it sounds very informal; at least with "aristocracy" you have a clear sense of what the scope of the article would be, and you're using a term likely to be found in scholarly literature.  The issue is that "Roman aristocracy" needs to treat multiple subjects from different periods of time.
 * Under the kings, there seems to have been a dichotomy between the nascent patrician class and the probably non-patrician kings (and their families?), in which the role of "everybody else" is a complete mystery; during the early Republic the patricians were the Roman aristocracy, but in the middle Republic they were joined by the "plebeian nobility", the plebeians who gained wealth or political influence, and found themselves more aligned with the patricians than with the poorer citizens. Then in the late Republic we have the rise of the equites and the division of Roman politics between the Optimates and the Populares.  In imperial times we have the equites and a senatorial class that comes to dominate Roman politics, competing for the favour of the emperors, and the opportunity to succeed them.
 * This article would need to treat all of these shifting notions of who the Roman aristocracy was at different points in time; for instance, the patricians remained an important concept long after they ceased to have a monopoly on political power, and after other groups became dominant forces, not vanishing away until the third century, and the equites may have existed long before they constituted a major force in Roman politics. But ultimately the article would lead to separate, and mostly extant articles that would treat each of these topics in greater depth.  P Aculeius (talk) 12:30, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I said it would be potentially interesting. But the single largest problem with our encyclopaedic coverage, to my mind, is the strong tendency to fragment subjects, and have better treatment of small subjects than large ones. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with your summary P Aculeius, perfect!Urg writer (talk) 21:29, 26 April 2018 (UTC)


 * , from my experience writing articles in different subject areas, I'm not surprised that the "small subjects" receive better treatment than large -- or more general -- ones. It's a far harder challenge to write an article on a general topic, say The philosophy of Plato (which doesn't yet exist), than more specific ones, say an article on the story of Atlantis Plato presents in his Timaeus and/or Critias, which is different from later versions of the story. To write a good version of an article about Plato's philosophy -- let alone a Good or Featured Article -- one would need to not only carefully read & understand all of his works, but also identify, read & understand all of the important secondary literature explicating his philosophy, as well as have a good grasp of Plato's influence on Western philosophy. That would take years of full-time effort! That would-be writer might as well forsake Wikipedia by getting a Ph.D. in the field, securing a tenure-track position at a college, & writing a book on the subject; it would pay better & bring the would-be Wikipedian the attention & credit that she/he would not receive for writing a Wikipedia article. That said, I hope that by writing many specific articles, some better than others, someone down the road will enjoy a solid base on which to create good large/general articles. (If I ever finish the task of cleaning up the List of Roman consuls, that would provide a solid base for writing an article on the history of the Roman aristocracy, for example.) Assuming this possible Wikipedian does the common-sense thing & review all of the related small articles before tackling this large one. -- llywrch (talk) 20:48, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Of course that is the ideal, but there is a considerable middle ground between that & what tends to happen on WP instead - an big topic article mainly written by one or two people with a smattering of knowledge & little grasp of the subject, plus random small additions. Classical articles are I think better than those in many other areas (philosophy I wouldn't know about) but for example although I know very little about archaeology, I find that little is enough to quite easily make significant improvements to most very high level (and highly-viewed) articles on Eurasian subjects, as they are so poor, lacking or getting wrong important basic information (see Mesolithic or Hallstatt culture for example). We shouldn't let the best be the enemy of the good.  Johnbod (talk) 00:57, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * "Mesolithic" is a tiny bit like "Roman elites": a concept that not all scholars in all the relevant fields accept, and those that accept it wouldn't necessarily agree on the definition, let alone how that definition would fit with the data (primary sources/archaeological finds). If that is the case, it's really hard for us to write a good general article without a lot of synthesis. Andrew Dalby 09:02, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That's true of most such big archy concepts, also that they are only applied to some parts of the world. It is at least quite easy to say broadly what the M looks like when it is said to have existed, and to sketch the very broad outline of where the debates about when, where and what lie. Typically the version (little changed over the years) that had been getting some 900 views a day failed to do this at all clearly, or in the early parts of the article, though a careful informed reading between the lines might detect many of the key points. I tend only to do anything on archy articles when I am frustrated as a reader, but that is pretty often. Johnbod (talk) 12:49, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Some online map resources
I stumbled across these two websites, & figured someone else here might have a need for these resources:
 * A digital map of the Roman Empire. Created by a group called Pelagios, it is an interactive map of the territories comprised by the Greco-Roman world, showing the location of cities, forts, & other geographical objects. Offered under a Creative Commons 3.0 license. A more extensive write-up can be found here.
 * Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilization. Hosted by Harvard University, this is more of a GIS application than a map. That is, it provides information in a geographical format, & offers downloads of the entire database. This is offered under a Creative Commons Non-commercial sharealike 4.0 license.

Both of these are strongly influenced by Richard J. A. Talbert’s Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (2000), which sounds like a wonderful atlas to own if you have an interest in the Classical World. That is, if you happen to have $150 lying around that you don't know what to do with. The rest of us will have to content ourselves with these resources. -- llywrch (talk) 18:13, 1 May 2018 (UTC)