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Talk:Aulus Manlius Torquatus Atticus

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GA Review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Aulus Manlius Torquatus Atticus/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Haukurth (talk · contribs) 14:30, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looking forward to digging into this. Haukur (talk) 14:30, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Family background

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Lucius Manlius Torquatus is apparently not the Lucius Manlius Torquatus who minted the coin in the "Family background" section. Is he a notable person and is he relevant enough to introduce here? "Or maybe we should just say "Denarius minted by one of the Manlii Torquati" or something like that?

What's a torque here? It's linked to torque which doesn't seem to help.

"He bore the agnomen Atticus" - a bit confusing since the last person mentioned isn't the subject of the article but his ancestor, and beginning paragraphs with pronouns isn't ideal. Maybe just "The agnomen Atticus is a reference..."

"Several other prominent politicians adopted Greek cognomen" > cognomen has already been linked, and should we use the plural cognomina here?

"The same cognomen was used for the same reason", I note that this is uncited – is it a mild form of original research or can we cite a source that makes the comparison? I do feel it's nice to mention the more famous Atticus.

Censorship

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"with already a long and successful career" > "with what was already..."

"(twice consul in 258 and 254, dictator in 249)" > I think we can omit this. The reader can click on the name for more information.

"Münzer furthermore suggested", I'd go with the full name for this first instance, Friedrich Münzer.

"gens Fabia, and members of" > Commas before 'and' are generally not needed.

"only six censors were in this situation" > This feels a little unclear, what situation? Becoming a censor without first being a consul?

"commanders where needed" > were

"on the field, and several" > another comma before 'and'. There are more instances and I won't make further notes on them.

Judiciously linking to year articles could be useful here in some cases, like 247 BC.

"Besides" is used twice in this section to start a sentence and feels a little colloquial.

"The censors might have appointed Gnaeus Cornelius Blasio as princeps senatus" > Maybe give a little context here? "One of the role of the censors was to..." It's easy to remember that the censors do the census but this is not as obvious.

The word lectio is not explained. Haukur (talk) 15:44, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

First consulship (244 BC)

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"who relied on Livy for his list of consuls" > First mention of Livy so he should be linked.

"Nothing is known on their consulship" > Maybe this could be reworded since we do know some things that happened during this time, even if we don't know exactly what the consuls were up to. Haukur (talk) 15:51, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Second consulship (241 BC)

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"The Augustan pontiff Manlius Torquatus" > Do we know his praenomen?

"Ziolkowski thinks that this is dubious" > Introduce this guy? Give his full name?

"Staveley even considers" > And this guy? Haukur (talk) 16:01, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cerco's and Atticus' consulship was marked by natural disasters in Rome, which according to Orosius "almost destroyed the City". > Are we missing a citation here?

"that it was part of a deliberate strategy" > What does 'it' refer to here?

"The censors of 241 indeed built" > Why 'indeed'? I think I've lost the thread here a little bit.

"on a Faliscan bronze plastron" > What's a plastron?

"Cornell and Staveley" > Again I'd like the full name at first mention.

"This view was nevertheless rejected" > "has nevertheless been rejected"? Also, is it clear that their view is in the minority? I feel like this discussion could be made clearer.

Princeps Senatus

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"made by Ryan" > I'd like the full name.

"a consular named Aulus Torquatus" > What's a consular? A consul?*

"Atticus was elected censor at a younger age than usual" > Wait, how do we know that? Do scholars suggest a range of years for when he might have been born? This is before Sulla, so was there no minimum age for particular offices?

  • Because he was censor before being consul. Ryan, who makes this suggestion, says there is no way of knowing his age. The cursus honorum was only formalised with the Lex Villia Annalis, in 180; before that, there were some weird careers, especially in times of war. I've reworded the paragraph. T8612 (talk) 22:01, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Stemma

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I see this is also at Titus Manlius Torquatus (consul 165 BC). I won't insist but maybe there could be a separate article or "List of..." hosting this information. Haukur (talk) 19:23, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Images

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We're making good progress here. I'm looking at the images now and wondering that since the Fasti are repeatedly mentioned in the article maybe we could have an image or two showing the relevant parts.

Looking at this image, it looks like the first mention of our guy is in the leftmost column at line 17, counting from the bottom. The line reads something like "CENSA.ATILIVS.A.F.C.N.CAIATINVS.A.MANLIVS.T.F.T.N.TORQVAT.ATTIC.L.F.XXXVIII". So here we see that Caiatinus comes first as referred to in the text. I haven't read further but presumably the consul years are there down the line and might be nice to see too. Haukur (talk) 22:36, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

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  • The first citation is to the Fasti Consulares and here I'd like to see a particular edition cited with page numbers. Haukur (talk) 10:13, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Fasti were published by Attilio Degrassi in 1947, but I can't find an online edition; they have been reproduced on Wikipedia here and this is where I took them. I can add the official ref, but I can't mention a page number though... T8612 (talk) 19:07, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hmm. Counting out the previous members of the family from the primary source falls, in my view, under "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source" so is passable under WP:PRIMARY. But I think I should note that I can imagine some editors seeing this as skating too close to WP:OR so be prepared to defend this kind of thing in the future. Now, using Wikipedia as a source is a problem and we really should be using Degrassi 1947 directly. Unfortunately, my university library doesn't have it. If this were FAC I would insist that we order this by interlibrary loan but since it's GAC we can cut ourselves a little bit of slack. There seem to be older editions of the Fasti available online, including, I think, the editio princeps. We could verify the count using one of those and then cite it with page numbers. And then we could cite Degrassi too, without page numbers, just to helpfully point out the standard edition to readers. Haukur (talk) 20:08, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I notice that Zimmermann isn't so sure that Gaius is an error: "toutefois, celui-ci est un document contemporain des évènements dont il est question". Also, is it right to give "C.F." here as "Gaius filius"? I'd expect Gaii filius as a citation form and the phrase is in the ablative so in context I'd expect Gaii filio. Haukur (talk) 23:06, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Flower, the more recent source, is sure it's a mistake (she says the inscription is precisely not contemporary, but was made later to record the origin of the breastplate, hence the mistake). You're right, it should be "Gaii filius", but I've translated it in English; it's better imo. T8612 (talk) 23:26, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • So, the same goes for citations like "Cassiodorus, Chronica" – we should be citing page numbers of good editions and translations. Or web editions of decent quality.
  • I think the general sourcing principles followed in the article are the right ones for obscure historical figures like this. The article makes the reader aware of what the primary sources are and what they say and brings in good secondary sources to interpret them. This is great. Haukur (talk) 23:48, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cicero, De Finibus
  • Livy, Periochae
  • Eutropius
  • Polybius
  • Zonaras
  • Orosius
  • Plutarch, Numa
  • Pliny
  • All right, if we could get similar links (or other forms of citations to particular editions) for the primary sources above I'll file the article as passing the review. I still feel this way of doing things is a little bit eccentric but Wikipedia has so many different citation formats going on that I don't feel I can object to this one. And I do like the article – it gives the impression of thoroughness and expertise. Haukur (talk) 09:29, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bonus ideas

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  • I'm putting some totally optional ideas here, in no way required to pass the GA review.
  • The breastplate is a very interesting object and there seems to be enough literature on it to sustain an article of its own. It would also be great to obtain a freely licensed photograph of it at some point.
    • I don't think there are copyright free pictures. The breastplate is in a private collection. It was shown at the Getty museum in the 1980s (the pics from Zimmermann come from there), and that's it. T8612 (talk) 00:13, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • There probably aren't any now but some might be created. Whoever owns the artifact might, perhaps, be willing to donate some. But, again, I'm not asking you to go to mat on this. There are a million interesting things to try and we can't do them all. Haukur (talk) 00:27, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • In my personal taste, a quote from a primary source can help make an article more exciting. In this case I'd be curious to hear something from Zonaras. Haukur (talk) 23:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not against it, but we have very few mentions of him. Zonaras is the only ancient author to talk about him (a bit), but he died in 1130 AD, 1350 years after Atticus. Though he mostly copied Cassius Dio. He is also not Thucydides; his account is minimalist (4 sentences), you can read it here. T8612 (talk) 00:13, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Glad to see it! I hadn't managed to find it on my own. The current article relays the account closely and in this case quoting it directly wouldn't add much – as you say, it's not written in colorful style. Haukur (talk) 00:25, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pass

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It's a good article and a lot of good work has gone into it. It's definitely well-written, broad, neutral, stable and illustrated. It is also verifiable – it uses a somewhat unusual referencing system but there are lots of systems around and I don't feel it should be failed because of that. I don't feel it contains original research but it is a thorough article on a very obscure figure who doesn't normally get this sort of attention and that does lead it to lean a little heavily on the primary sources in a couple of places. But, to me at least, it never goes over the line into original research. It's an interesting example of what can be accomplished within Wikipedia's framework. I had fun reading it and making suggestions and at this point I'm happy to pass it. Haukur (talk) 21:06, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Do you think it can pass FA? I feel I well exceeded the normal level of details for a GA, and exhausted all possible sources on the subject. T8612 (talk) 22:13, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To satisfy FA reviewers you'd need to get the references into a more fashionable form – the Brothers Poem article is a nice benchmark for an article on a classical subject that recently passed FA review and I'd suggest imitating that referencing style. Beyond that, I don't have enough recent experience with FAC to say. You might try peer review first. Haukur (talk) 22:26, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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