Talk:Pompeia gens

Untitled

This disambiguation page ought to be merged with the page Pompey (disambiguation). Brrryan (talk) 20:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

gens Pompeia

I wouldn't merge it with the Pompey disambiguation. It would be better to create a page for the gens Pompeia to list prominent Pompeiuses and Pompeias. Cashie (talk) 00:26, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Bust

I do not understand why this article is illustrated with some random bust from a park in Warsaw. It is not contemporary with the gens, it is not a famous modern depiction, it's not from a place that has any connection with the man, it's just... some bust. It wears a type of corselet more appropriate for an emperor than someone of the Republican period and it least from this angle it doesn't look much like Pompey. I don't see why it is "Better to have different pictures for different articles, even if they depict the same subject." Furius (talk) 09:12, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

You've raised several different arguments here, but the main one seems to be that "if there must be a picture" (quoting the edit summary) it has to be an authentic Roman-period bust of Pompeius. Assuming that the one in his article actually depicts him—I see nothing to indicate whether the subject's identity is authenticated, or if the bust is merely supposed by modern scholars to represent what they imagine Pompeius looked like, as most Roman busts are. Given that uncertainty, as well as the fact that the Romans were as likely as modern sculptors to use artistic license in depicting their subjects, I don't see the point in insisting on a Roman-era bust merely because doing so would somehow be more authentic.

Generally, encyclopedias don't repeat the same image for multiple articles about related subjects, as though no other choices were available. The constant changes of lead images for other prominent Romans, such as Caesar, or for that matter some important Greeks, attests that a wide variety of acceptable images is available. So if there are multiple depictions of Pompeius, any decent one can be used—and if the Roman-era bust is the best, or most likely to represent the subject, or simply the one most associated with him, then perhaps a different image can be used for an article that mentions him, but isn't specifically about him. As for whether there "must" be a picture, I'm sure you're as aware as I am that illustrations aren't a requirement of Wikipedia, but it seems quite odd to phrase it as though pictures are a distasteful addition to articles, an unwelcome distraction or a waste of valuable intellectual space.

As I said, I'm not certain whether the Roman-period bust actually depicts Pompeius, but we do know the modern one is intended to be him. To me it looks like he's wearing a breastplate with a robe or something fastened over it. I'm not expert enough to know whether a Republican-era general would really have worn such an outfit, but it resembles other depictions of Roman generals, and seems no less appropriate to depict the subject than various other modern sculptures of figures from Roman history. If it's an appropriate image, then it doesn't truly matter whether it's in a park or a museum, whether it's in Warsaw, Paris, Rome, Vienna, or Berlin. Being "some random bust" or "just... some bust" do not present coherent arguments for its being a poor illustration.

There may be better choices than the sculpture currently used to illustrate this article, but "if there must be a picture", it doesn't actually have to be of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus; any Pompeius will do, and he's simply the most famous and easily illustrated. If it's him, it doesn't have to be the same bust used in the infobox of his article, as well as in a slightly different version later in the same article, and in the article on Caesar, and the one on Crassus, and the one on Cleopatra, and the one about the reign of Cleopatra, and the List of Roman generals, and the one about the Pompeian era, and the one on the lex Pompeia de ambitu, etc.

The current illustration is intended to be Pompeius, and it looks like a Roman general. It's not the best lighting. But looking over Commons, I think it conveys the idea of Pompeius better than the Louvre bust, with its lean face and floppy hair (which don't resemble any other depictions) or the youthful version also at the Louvre, or the Villa Borghese bust, with what looks like a hollowed-out nose and frankly looks more like it's meant to be Brutus to me, or the youth in the Munich Antiquarium bust, or the stern, scowling head on a pike (looks a bit like Cato) from an uncertain museum, or the Florence bust with the tiny head (also not resembling any of the other versions) emerging from a huge black robe, etc. There are two versions of the one from Warsaw, and the one currently used is from a more dramatic angle, while the nearly straight-on view is both overexposed and emphasizes the dirt or staining.

So I ask you to consider: is the current image really that bad, given that there are a lot of illustrations that don't resemble each other very much or look a bit silly or malproportioned, or which don't seem to depict a Roman general, or may not depict Pompeius at all? At least the Warsaw bust conveys the idea of Pompeius well, and looks like it might depict the same man as in the bust you favour, while several of the others don't bear much resemblance to either of them or to each other. And "if there must be" some other picture, could it at least not be the same image or the same bust used in a dozen other articles? Well, I've had my say—if you made it through this wall of text, I leave the choice up to you. I just felt that it was appropriate for an article about the gens to have some other decent-quality (and visually interesting) illustration of a Pompeius. P Aculeius (talk) 14:22, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

If the best image to convey "the idea of Pompeius" is a random modern bust and none of the surviving ancient sculptures, then I wonder about the accuracy of that idea. Most notably, the Warsaw bust lacks the Alexander-imitating anastole, which was such a key feature of Pompey's self-representation. I take your point about varatio, however. Furius (talk) 23:33, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I just had to look that up—I saw a mention of imitating Alexander before, but didn't understand what was meant. Some of the busts identified as Pompeius do indeed show something similar—though in wildly varying forms. The Warsaw bust has all his hair swept back in a rather military style. Also I think that the head-on-a-pike one at Commons is actually supposed to be Crassus; it appears to be the same bust I see labeled as Crassus elsewhere, but the image is misidentified as Pompeius. But as I said before, I've had my say, made my argument, and now I'm prepared to defer to your judgment. P Aculeius (talk) 03:54, 30 July 2023 (UTC)