Talk:Gnaeus Manlius Vulso (consul 474 BC)

Sources

The only contemporary Gnaeus Manlius mentioned in William Smith's DGRBM[1] was consul in 480 BC with M. Fabius Vibulanus. Broughton (another source misused here) clearly called the consul in 474 BC, A. Manlius Cn.f. P.n. Vulso. In fact, of the many praenomen proposed for the consul of 474 BC by ancient sources, none of them are Gnaeus, but instead are: Gaius (Livy, II. 54), Marcus (Diodorus Siculus, XI. 63), and Aulus (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IX. 36.1), the last of which Broughton and the Fasti favored and so I refer to him as. Psychotic Spartan 123 17:34, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll wait for comments, because I might have missed something, but in the meantime I created the page Aulus Manlius Vulso. It's about the consul of 474 BC, decemvir 451 BC. Psychotic Spartan 123 17:49, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Consider checking the actual text of the DGRBM, which addresses whether the consul of 474 and the decemvir could reasonably be the same person, based on the relationships between the various members of the family and their chronology. Livy apparently considered them different persons, although "Gaius" in manuscripts of Livy is probably a mistake for "Gnaeus", since the Manlii did not use Gaius, and the filiations in later generations of the family seem to indicate that there was a Gnaeus corresponding to the consul of 474, at least chronologically. Broughton isn't "misused" here, because he's the reference for this consulship and provides further references from antiquity. The fact that he considered the consul of 474 to be the same as the decemvir doesn't mean that nothing he says about him is useful or relevant here. It just means that he accepted a different explanation for the various discrepancies. P Aculeius (talk) 00:42, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I did read his entry, and I find it odd that William Smith rejects the notion of A. Manlius Cn.f. P.n. Vulso as consul of 474 BC, as the Fasti Capitolini suggests and most modern writers accept. In the link you provided he claims that A. Manlius Cn.f. P.n. Vulso is the son of no. 2, which is himself - and also that because his son was consul 77 years later he must not have been decemvir a mere 23 years after his consulship? I'm not saying it's likely he was the father of no. 3 and no. 4, but only that there is no evidence of a Gnaeus Manlius Vulso ever having been consul during this time, and yet there is abundant evidence that, at the very least, there was a A. Manlius Vulso who was politically active during this time. He may be right, but modern sources like Broughton (1951, p. 28)[2] affirm the Aulus narrative. Psychotic Spartan 123 01:24, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I meant to say "I did read his entry now" - the Perseus site does fail to mention this. Psychotic Spartan 123 01:43, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Since "most modern writers" don't "accept" but rather "copy without thinking", it's not particularly relevant how many instances there are. Can you find a single writer who discusses in depth whether they were or weren't the same person, and why one alternative is likely or the other unlikely? In the absence of any other details, there would be nothing implausible about an individual holding the highest offices of the state twenty-three years apart; it would be unusual, but not unheard of. But as we know that the consular tribune of 405, 402, and 397 was the son of the decemvir, it becomes highly improbable that the consul of 474 and the decemvir were the same person.

Think about it logically: by the later Republic, the consulship was held by men who had attained at least the age of 42; even if we assume that in Vulso's time it might have been possible to achieve the office by 30, the consul of 474 would surely have been born no later than 507 BC, and been pushing 60 when he was decemvir. Nothing implausible about this, but the odds are that his sons would have been between twenty and forty by then. It's not very likely that a man who held the post of consular tribune three times would have achieved the office for the first time between the ages of 65 and 85, particularly if in order to make such a scenario plausible, his father had to have attained the consulship by 30.

Looking at it another way, a typical generation would have averaged about thirty years; less with elder sons, who were the most likely to follow their fathers into high office. It wasn't unheard of for an elder statesman to be followed by his son after only a brief period. In order for the consular tribune to have been the son of the consul of 474, the gap would have been nearly seventy years. That's very, very improbable. The much likelier explanation is that Livy was correct in identifying the consul and the decemvir as two different people. We know that the decemvir's father was Gnaeus, and we don't have any other examples of a Gaius Manlius; so it seems that Gaius in manuscripts of Livy is an error for Gnaeus. Can you find any respected sources that discuss this matter in at least this much detail, and yet arrive at a different conclusion? P Aculeius (talk) 05:30, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I changed the article Aulus Manlius Vulso to reflect differing opinions among sources. We do know there was an Aulus who was decemvir in 451 BC, and that he might have (however unlikely) been the consul in 474 BC as well. Originally, I wrote the article assuming he MUST have been consul as well. William Smith we know to be a highly reliable source, and the issue of whether or not the consul may have been Aulus is mentioned. When I first posted here, I didn't feel like other sources I've read were being properly represented, but alas they don't have much to say on the subject other than basically "Aulus 474 = Aulus 451, because why not?" Broughton gives a small explanation in the footnote, but nothing that accounts for Aulus' children. Also, I hope he's reliable as a good portion of the article List of Roman consuls, and the articles linking from there, revolves around him as a source. Psychotic Spartan 123 19:45, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

I regard both the DGRBM and Broughton as highly reliable, as well as many other sources. But when one source calls attention to a discrepancy, and discusses the possibilities, and posits a reasonable explanation for it, and the other sources just go along with something else without really examining the problem, then I think it's safe to go with the one that goes in-depth as long as its conclusions make sense, noting, however, in the article, that it's not conclusively proven, and what the alternatives are. That's what I tried to do when writing this article. "This man is probably not the same as the decemvir, although frequently listed as such, because... but these are the alternatives/discrepancies".

I add that there's no source that's 100% reliable, when we're dealing with hundreds or thousands of individuals, many of whom are only known from second- or third-generation copies of original records that could themselves have contained mistakes. Each source has to pick between different alternatives, and with that many uncertainties it's inevitable that some guesses will be wrong. While working on the Julii Caesares a few months ago I was pointed to a scholarly unraveling of a confusing set of relationships that tripped up Drumann, and I'd say he's normally reliable; but in this case he was mistaken (as many others have been). It's too bad that there don't seem to be any English translations of Drumann's work on Roman families on the internet, as that would be of considerable benefit here. P Aculeius (talk) 20:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)