Talk:Constitutional reforms of Sulla

A fact from Constitutional reforms of Sulla appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 August 2008, and was viewed approximately 2,415 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that while Sulla's reforms in 82BC attempted to constitutionally strengthen the Roman Senate, it was his rule by dictatorship that ultimately became the model for Imperial Rome?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/August.

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The Fate of the Sullan Constitution

This section seems to rely mainly on Abbot's interpretation depicting a two party struggle, the optimates vs the populare however Gruen's The Last Generation of the Roman Republic interprets the three decades following Sulla as the optimates simply relaxing the Sullan constitution as its stricter protection of the aristocracy was no longer needed. The best example is the restoration of the Tribune under C. Cotta, a central figure in the Sullan establishment and he could not have done so without support of the Senate. Also, the judicial record of the 70's implies the aristocracy had returned to the usual factional politics. This would not be the case if they were defending the establishment from democratic reform. looseBits (talk) 14:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Who added this?

This article is chock full of errors, unsubstantiated "facts" and supposition - unfortunately I do no have time to attempt at revision. User:Sulla16, my addition

This arguably is atleast belonging to the article talk page. Not on the mainspace where I found it. Gsmgm (talk) 11:04, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Optimate "Party"

I don't think there is much evidence to suggest that there were political parties in Rome at this time... "Optimate" and "Popularis" are fluid terms used in the ancient sources in a variety of different ways and for a variety of different purposes, for example, Cicero called himself a popularis politician at one point but strongly believes in the auctoritas of the senate (which is perhaps thought of as more of an optimate sort of view). You also get political figures instituting typically "optimate" sort of reforms by typically "popularis" methods - (like Caesar in 59)... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.158.17 (talk) 18:14, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The source is what?

I was puzzled by how far the article was from what I knew about Roman history, but then it was all "sourced". Except the source is this:

"Abbott, Frank Frost (1901). A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions. Elibron Classics (ISBN 0-543-92749-0)."

1901 for God's sake? No wonder it's all entirely incompatible with modern understanding of Roman history. The entire article requires some serious rewrites - everything depending on sources like that is highly suspect.

Tiberius Gracchus and the Populares were not any sort of Democrats opposed to aristocratic rule - they were Senatorial elites and were mostly trying to revert destitution of citizen body which was the result of decades of long campaigning, not turn Rome into some sort of Socialist Sweden.

Could someone with access to better sources please rewrite it? (and probably other articles about Roman history) Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.170.126.96 (talk) 13:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to try to get to this--I gave a stab at some of the sections just now, but I haven't re-sourced. A good corrective to some of this is L.R. Taylor, *Roman Voting Assemblies* and her other stuff too; it's old, but still valid. And recently, there's a pretty good overview in the textbook by Boatwright, Talbert et al. There are more scholarly sources, but the authors of this textbook are prominent as historians, and the textbook contains good notes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.68.145.181 (talk) 15:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of the problem also has to do with the fact that literally the entire article cites that one book. — Ifly6 (talk) 03:56, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion - Too much lead-up

There's too much on the lead-up to these reforms (mostly on the Gracchi) compared with the amount on the reforms themselves. Like a lot of the Roman history pages, it needs a good re-working. - Eponymous-Archon (talk) 23:35, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The vast majority of many of these pages is fluff that may as well be integrated into single pages and have their content centralised and easily re-used through WP:Transclusion. A significant rework certainly is necessary. Ifly6 (talk) 03:55, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Sullan reversion of the comitia centuriata to the Servian form

It's been tagged {{cn}} for a while now. Are there any reliable sources which aren't really just that one offhanded remark from Appian which says Sulla reverted the centuriate assembly to its Servian organisation? Ifly6 (talk) 04:56, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See here (3rd paragraph), but I didn't expand too much on this. Appian is obviously wrong, but what Sulla did is not precisely known (innovation or return to a mythical past?). By the way, the article should mention that Sulla had already passed this constitutional program in 88. T8612 (talk) 11:31, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]