Talk:Art collection in ancient Rome

A fact from Art collection in ancient Rome appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 31 August 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Pliny used the term insania to describe a Roman art collector's love of citron tables?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/August. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Art collection in ancient Rome.

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:44, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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... that a Roman art collector spent 100,000 sesterces on two goblets he never used? Source: ^[1]^[2]
- ALT1: ... that a Roman art collector spent 70,000 sesterces on a goblet? Source: ^[3]^[4]
- ALT2: ... that Pliny used the term insania to describe a Roman art collector's love of citron tables? Source: ^[5]^[6]^[7]
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Slapshot (Ray Castoldi song)

Created by Graearms (talk). Self-nominated at 13:39, 19 August 2022 (UTC).[reply]

References

^ Casement, William (2022-04-17). The Many Faces of Art Forgery: From the Dark Side to Shades of Gray. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 218. ISBN 978-1-5381-5801-2.
^ Mommsen (2008-03-01). Mommsen's History of Rome. Wildside Press LLC. p. 322. ISBN 978-1-4344-6232-9.
^ McLaughlin, Raoul (2016-11-11). The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy & the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia & Han China. Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-4738-8981-1.
^ Jones, Nathaniel (2014-01-01). Temple Inventory and Fictive Picture Gallery: Ancient Painting between Votive Offering and Artwork. Brill. pp. 118–129. ISBN 978-90-04-28348-0.
^ Isager, Jacob (2013-04-15). Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny's Chapters On The History Of Art. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-08587-2.
^ Evers, Kasper Grønlund (2017-12-31). Worlds Apart Trading Together: The organisation of long-distance trade between Rome and India in Antiquity. Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. pp. 17, 44, 52. ISBN 978-1-78491-743-2.
^ Ulrich, Roger Bradley (2007-01-01). Roman Woodworking. Yale University Press. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-300-10341-0.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Looking good mostly, another well-done addition to the growing number of articles on Ancient Rome! I've a few nitpicks:

I don't understand the paragraph on women, this sentence and the ones before it: Romans had a negative stereotype of women, who used their jewelry and art to seduce men, rather than accomplish the previously mentioned goals. Romans believed that women should collect art, but not use it to seduce men? I think I get what this is supposed to say, but the "negative stereotypes" doesn't seem to fit here well. I couldn't access that exact source, but I read here that women turned the accusation around by pointing to men's obsession with citrus wood. Again, I get what this is supposed to say, but at the moment it reads as if all women were supposed to collect art, and all Romans thought that all women did so only to seduce men – likely the extent was not so extreme.
In the article it is linked to citron, but in the hook to citrus – which one is correct? (Also, surprisingly neither article has any mention of the wood being used, but that's not important here.)
to describe the populous' affinity – I think you can't use "populous" here, as it's an adjective and not a noun. Did you mean to write "populace" maybe?
Not really an issue, but: Don't you want to use a picture with this? Of all the potential articles on ancient Rome, this one the most obvious candidate imo! We don't currently have a picture in the article, but there are several great examples of Roman glasswork on Commons. Maybe one of these would be fitting pictured as an example (I know we don't have that exact goblet Pliny was talking about)? As a side note, I'm not sure if the appropriate term for the Roman technique would be "murrine" and not rather "millefiori"? I'm not an expert, but the articles seem to suggest the latter.

All in all pretty minor things, I'm sorry I'm just very pedantic :P --LordPeterII (talk) 14:23, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: @Graearms, I just checked and the one book actually mentions "myrra", and als myrrhine. So "myrra" might be the appropriate ancient term, but the technique similar to myrrhine... idk. There's another hook possibility there which isn't yet in the article, on the woman who spent 100x the yearly labourer wage on a single ladle. I also realized they were sometimes talking about "crystal", not "glass", so a picture like this might be appropriate for the goblet hooks (at least the material, fluorspar, matches the description by Pliny for the 70,000 goblet!):

@LordPeterII

1. I rewrote the aforementioned sentence.

2. Citron is actually the correct one.

3. Yes I meant populace.

4. I don't really want to add an image.

5. Don't be sorry, your pedanticism helped improve Wikipedia. Graearms (talk) 20:00, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, reading it again I think it is actually this part that confused me probably: to reinforce the social roles of ancient Roman women. I can't read the source so I'm not sure how it is worded there, but this reads weird (though I'm not a native English speaker so it might elude me). Can you maybe describe me what this means? They should collect art to... what exactly? I understand good what the stereotype is (so what they do, but should not, that is seduce men), but I don't fully understand what they should have done instead. Maybe I'm just stupid here XD

The rest is good, I have only removed the piped link so the hook goes directly to citron. Btw I am fine with any of the hooks. --LordPeterII (talk) 21:05, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@LordPeterII I believe I was trying to say that Roman women would use the goods and accessories they owned to demonstrate their complacency with the traditional social roles. I think the article might need to be renamed to "Material culture of ancient Rome." As the sentence and parts of the article were not about artwork and were instead about normal goods and the Roman's relationship with them. So no, you were not the stupid one here.

If you were interested in what the actual source states, here is the quote.

"Women’s relation to material culture is structured around two traditional female stereotypes: women are either associated with the house, piety and religion (and these are the “honourable” women) or with frivolous activities, consumption of luxury and ultimately the disaster of the social fabric. According to the first of these stereotypes, women can be associated with the domestic environment, the female domain, and the adornments of the house, or religious practices and the objects that are used for these. In this case, they conform to the stereotype of the pious and respectful Roman matron, who is interested in the welfare of her household, and thus fulfils the desired model for a woman. In Petronius’ satyrica, for instance, Fortunata tries, in vain, to persuade the participants in her husband’s banquet, and the readers, that she is a typical noble Roman matron (73,20–24). Similarly, Cicero (in Verrem ii.4,44–52) tries to win the sympathy of his audience by presenting exactly this picture of the good and honourable women of Sicily, who know their position in society, and they develop relations with their material culture based on the objects being parts of religious ceremonies, part of the domestic decoration and inheritance from their relatives; these ideas may not make sense to rational Roman judges, but still provide recognisable and respectable models. The second stereotype that associates women with material culture is, as mentioned above, the one that refers to objects of personal adornment. Material acquisitions of this category, mainly jewellery, offer the model of the woman as a frivolous, vain, time-wasting person, unconcerned with the civic life, who instead presents a danger to society, since personal adornment of this sort aims at men’s seduction, and the making of biased decisions. The women that Plinius presents, Lollia Paulina and Kleopatra, belong to this category (ix.117–121; also xiii.91–95; xxxiii.40; xxxiv.11–12; xxxvii.29), and so does Gellia in Martialis’ epigram (viii.81). In Martialis (vii.13) also we come across a comparison of beauty practices applied by women with connoisseurship (Lycoris follows the same practice for the beauty of her skin that the connoisseurs use for whitening objects of ivory)." Graearms (talk) 22:16, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also I prefer ALT2 as a hook. Graearms (talk) 22:21, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thank you for the source excerpt @Graearms, I finally understand now. The source indeed talks about the subject rather in a complex way (and about more than just art collecting), and your text was also rather complex. I have rephrased that part in the article completely to how I would understand it easier; can you check if that reads okay for you as well?

As for renaming the article, err, idk it's up to you? But I suggest you keep it as it is for now, and you can decide later whether you want to keep it a big article to expand, or make a spin-off called "Material culture of ancient Rome". Anyway, if you are fine with the rephrased sentences, I would sign this off. --LordPeterII (talk) 14:56, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Most of what you wrote is fine, however I take issue with "Sometimes, women used the male desire to collect artworks as a "retorte" against accusations of extravagance in jewelry." I assumed this was trying to imply that women used male sexual and romantic desires for women as evidence that their jewelry was not extravagant. Yet I failed to see how this argument makes sense. I checked the source and I think it was trying to say that women used men's love of citron tables to protect against those accusations. I edited the sentence to reflect this and be more clear. I also changed "jewelry" to "pearls" as the source specified that it was just pearls, not necessarily all jewelry. Graearms (talk) 15:08, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yeah I added that bit, forgot to mention it. I just found it an interesting connection between the women and the section below. You fixed it alright, it's clearer now.

Approving now since all things are fixed. Nominator prefers ALT2, but I am fine with either one. --LordPeterII (talk) 16:05, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Title

Per normal usage, this should be at either:

I don't really mind which. Thoughts? Johnbod (talk) 14:14, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Public collections

In this section the sentence "Emperors and generals commemorated their successes ... person's achievements." is repeated. I wasn't sure how to tweak. JennyOz (talk) 14:50, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Copyedit

Johnbod, "according to Foo" is typically followed by a comma and we don't wikilink like Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (praetor 56 BC) in text per MOS:DABPIPING. If the year is to be retained, then something like "praetor of 56 BC Marcus Aemilius Scaurus should be ok. Brandmeister^talk 15:30, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, what was there was completely ok. You should read policies before citing them (and also false title). Pliny had alreay been introduced, which makes a difference. If you want to fiddle without losing information and introducing more errors, go ahead. Johnbod (talk) 20:43, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Issues

Two years on, and nothing about the looting of Greek art, and no doubt that of other conquered regions. The section on metalwork, glass & hardstone carvings is very confused. Johnbod (talk) 16:54, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Casement, William (2022-04-17). The Many Faces of Art Forgery: From the Dark Side to Shades of Gray. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 218. ISBN 978-1-5381-5801-2.

[2] Mommsen (2008-03-01). Mommsen's History of Rome. Wildside Press LLC. p. 322. ISBN 978-1-4344-6232-9.

[3] McLaughlin, Raoul (2016-11-11). The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy & the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia & Han China. Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-4738-8981-1.

[4] Jones, Nathaniel (2014-01-01). Temple Inventory and Fictive Picture Gallery: Ancient Painting between Votive Offering and Artwork. Brill. pp. 118–129. ISBN 978-90-04-28348-0.

[5] Isager, Jacob (2013-04-15). Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny's Chapters On The History Of Art. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-08587-2.

[6] Evers, Kasper Grønlund (2017-12-31). Worlds Apart Trading Together: The organisation of long-distance trade between Rome and India in Antiquity. Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. pp. 17, 44, 52. ISBN 978-1-78491-743-2.

[7] Ulrich, Roger Bradley (2007-01-01). Roman Woodworking. Yale University Press. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-300-10341-0.

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