Talk:Thirty Tyrants (Roman)

Lists List‑class

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles
List	This article has been rated as List-class on the project's quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Biography

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles

Classical Greece and Rome Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, a group of contributors interested in Wikipedia's articles on classics. If you would like to join the WikiProject or learn how to contribute, please see our project page. If you need assistance from a classicist, please see our talk page.Classical Greece and RomeWikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeTemplate:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeClassical Greece and Rome articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Military history: Classical List‑class

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

List

This article has been rated as List-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion not met

Associated task forces:
/
	Classical warfare task force (c. 700 BC – c. 500 AD)

Edit 3 Feb 06

Feminism is all fine and well, but it too can be POV; just because it is in the Zeitgeist of our own times does not make it any less so. I reverted the intrusive excursus on women, while keeping the gist of it, that the HA is indeed misogynistic; but if, except for a tossed-off comment, the writer of the HA could include women among his subjects without separation or preaching, why should we do any less? Bill 22:10, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot see what misogynism has to do with an accepted tendency in the historiography of a certain period that the lives of women are not an appropriate topic for a historian to expound. It does not imply hatred of women (misogyny< (greek)misos: "hatred"+ gune: "woman"), it simply implies that the position of women is not in the pages of a history book according to the perceptions of the historian. It is still POV to claim that HA is "misogynistic"; it is forcing a modern category onto a text whose author would probably have no idea what he was accused of. Therefore I removed the bit about HA being misogynistic, not only because it is spurious, but also because it does nothing but provide the POV of the author based on modern sensibilities which do not promote knowledge about or understanding of the HA at all.Lucius Domitius 02:53, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Present version of the text does not account for the two extra tyrants (32, while the title only mentions 30) - I see no other explanation than that the two women were not counted. Whether that results from misogyny in the strict sense can indeed be debated. That the author(s) of the HA had misogynic treats in a broad sense (as probably was *customary* in the time) can not be denied: the text is explicit on the point. --Francis Schonken 10:16, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the text is explicitly "misogynistic" (even if the comment is just in passing, it's a striking one). Yes, there are 32 people mentioned, yet the title is 30 and it so happens that 2 of the 32 are women. On the other hand, I'm rather with Lucius, forcing modern thought and categories onto old texts is the classic "ahistorical error". On the third hand, it's just enough of interest to us moderns that in throwing out the longish excursus on women, I did leave the nub of it, the word "misogyny", which is informative if not good historiography. But to lay the 30-32 business on misogyny is not right, for three reasons: (1) the "Thirty Tyrants" title is quite clearly merely to make them parallel with the 30 Greek tyrants; (2) the Historia Augusta is such a hash in so many ways that I couldn't attribute one more mess (the miscount) to any particular cause; but mostly because the author, 31.7, explicitly states (talk of making a hash of things!), after covering 30 people, including both the women, that he's going to add two supernumeraries, and then he does, Titus and Censorinus, both men. It cannot therefore be argued that misogyny is responsible for the bad count: Titus and Censorsinus are. Bill 10:47, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I don't believe that every single thing that strikes a modern person, deserves to be put into a review about an ancient quasi-historical tome. The author obviously does not very much like homosexuals, should we add that he is a homophobe? These things are irrelevant to a general and NPOV review of the HA. What the reader should be told about in the Wikipedia are commonly accepted facts about the work. You might think that the HA is expressly misogynistic, I claim "misogynism" is not even a category one can seriously use to refer to a work so old. Ideas and notions are born in specific contexts, they are not valid in every place and time. Lucius Domitius 00:25, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]