Talk:Trojan War/Archive 4

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References and form

By now the text should be complete as of mythology. I haven't added all references yet, but I will perhaps tommorow. I have not been able to find original references for some thing I wrote that I discovered on secoundary sources. I will add a subsection here pointing which lines they are. I'd love to add a section on the Trojan War according to some writers of the imperial era in which the Trojans won. When I discover this text I will. I intend to add 2 or 3 more paragraphs on the historicity section, one on the political situation according to Hittite sources and one on tactics. Then I'll put this up for peer review so that we can have more people coomenting, and just us three...Ikokki 12:46, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

References

One would think that after 200+ references the whole work would be complete. It is not. Generally I used the resources at Perseus, at theoi.com and at OMACL for referencing, which is why most are to Apollodorus or Proclus. I am aware that they are very repetitive and inconsistent at times, Proclus' work is described at Chrestomathy, Chrestomatheia or Chrestomathia and since it is on paragraph 2 that most of the Epic Cycle is summarized there is conflicting referencing there. I chose Greek and early references rather than Roman and late but I was not able to find references for these:

• Eris attended invisibly the marriage of Peleus. All 15 or so original sources at theoi.com have her stopped at the door. However I've seen this in secondary sources
• Helen chose her suitor. For Apollodorus it was her father. Most secondary sources (say Shakespeare) have Helen in order to make it more dramatic.
• Achilles was destined to either die young and far in a battlefield or insignificantly and old home. Theoi.com even has a a quote from the Iliad without saying book,line
• Aias the Great campaigns. The reference that I put was from a classical dictionarry

More may come laterIkokki 10:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Article is 76k long

The article is now 76k. On any standard, that's too long.

So, here are some things that should be done to reduce the size of the article (and improve readability):

1. reduce the length of quotations. Most of them don't give crucial information, and many could be eliminated.
2. condense the Trojan Horse section, since there's a main article. Speculation on how many men were in the horse and its origin as a piece of siege equipment can be moved to the Trojan Horse article; let's just stick with a concise description of the narrative as found in the ancient sources.
3. shorten the Odyssey and Aeneid sections, since there are main articles for both of these.
4. shorten the Historicity section. Most of this stuff can go in the Historicity of the Iliad article. There's stuff that at the very least needs better sourcing, and perhaps shouldn't be included. For instance, the argument that the Trojan allies have names similar to those of the Sea Peoples needs a citation from scholarly literature, not a website; the Dorian Invasion is very controversial, so it's not right to say "the interpretation forwarded by most scholars" in regard to anything about it.
5. eliminate the "Battle tactics" section. It's mostly about the Iliad. It has several long, undigested quotations. The nature of Homeric warfare is disputed, and the origin of the hoplite phalanx is also disputed. Properly treated, Homeric warfare could be a good section of the Historicity of the Iliad article, or there could even be a whole Homeric warfare article, but the Trojan War article doesn't need it.
6. cut the catalogues of minor characters. Does the Wikipedia reader need to know all the suitors of Helen, or that "Prothous from Magnesia settled in Crete"?
7. get rid of the big quote from the Agamemnon and the stuff about the signal fires. This is not a crucial part of the story, and it's quite likely that Aeschylus invented it.
8. get rid of other minor details, e.g. that Lemnos was inhabited by Minyans in some non-Trojan War traditions, or the capture of Lykaon (in the "Achilles' campaigns" section).
9. copyedit. Some of the text is awkward and confusing; revision will tighten the prose and eliminate repetition.

--Akhilleus (talk) 03:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I'm late to react,I am on vacation. Thanks for the copyediting. My english gets lousy sometimes.

1. The Agamemnon quotation is indeed too long. I'll put up in two days when I'll work on his again a summary of the path of the message. Omiting the message is a loss, on every book I've read on the Trojan War it is always mentioned.
2. That the Trojan Horse article is incomplete in that it includes little speculation on what it truly was does not mean that the section here should be made incomplete just to conform with it. If a man has a broken leg, that does not mean that everyone should break his leg in order to make him feel better. Speculation on what the Trojan Horse was belongs here, if not in that section then in the Historicity section.
3. The Odyssey section (which is mislabeled now, since it includes part of the Telegony) and the Aeniad can be shortened. I tried to include in as few words as possible all of Odysseus' adventures. The Aeniad is as I've founded it. If they can be condensed without losing content do it.
4. The historicity secion needs improvement but not reduction. Historicity of the Iliad is about a 51-day book of a 10+ year war. It is indeed our only source on battle tactics but that does not mean that a tactics section does not belong here. After all we are talking about a war. On the Dorian Invasion in order to repel the Nazi interpretation that does not mean that we need to go to the other end. In any case better sourcing and more neutral POV is always welcome. My resources are limited and, like Tzetzes, in many cases I quote from memory (and what I can find on the web).
5. On minor characters, things like Calchas' end are not even mentioned here. I don't have a problem with reducing their mention here if we were to start articles,say Returns of Heroes from the Trojan War or List of Helen's suitors which would list their role with more detail. The WP:SIZE guidelines should be followed
6. I tried to give the first nine years space worthy of their duration. This is why, along with the necessary (Philoctetetes, Protesilaus, Aias and Achilles campaigns) I added as many details as possible.

In any case, if it was not that I am on holiday I would have already submitted it to WP:Peer Review so as to have more opinions than those of us two. As soon as I get back to regular internet availability I promise I will but please do not eliminate stuff yet. After all it is easy to destroy and hard to create. I am also reducing references by using tags so that double quotations have the same numbers, thus reducing size.Ikokki 19:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Replies on a few points (using your numbers).

1. The signal fires in the Agamemnon aren't mentioned in most of the books I've read about the Trojan War. I don't think they're in the Cyclic epics. They're not mentioned in the Odyssey, which spends quite a bit of time narrating Agamemnon's return. Taking them out is an easy way to reduce the size of the article without losing anything vital to the story. If you disagree, perhaps you can supply a source which claims that the fires are an essential detail of the Trojan War.

2. If you think the Trojan Horse article is inadequate, moving material from this article to that one might be a good way to start improving it (and it sure needs improvement). The basic principle here is that where there's a main article, the treatment here needs to be short.

4. The overwhelming majority of scholarship discusses the historicity of the Trojan War in conjunction with the Iliad. This is apparent in this article by Manfred Korfmann, where the question is "if Homer's Trojan War really happened." Korfmann, of course, was the director of excavations at Troy, so he's a pretty good indication of how experts discuss this topic. It's also worth considering Joachim Latacz's rather combative response to a book review, and an article by Peter Jablonka and Brian Rose, "Late Bronze Age Troy: A Response to Frank Kolb", American Journal of Archaeology, 108 (2004) 615-630, which begins:

The clash of interpretations regarding the scope and significance of late Bronze Age Troy is hardly

new: both Herodotus and Strabo, among others, questioned the validity of the Homeric accounts of

the Trojan War... The intensity of the discussion is a testament to the extraordinary appeal of the

Homeric traditions, and such contention will undoubtedly figure prominently in all future field

projects at the mouth of the Dardanelles.

As this quote implies, any discussion of bronze age Troy or of the historicity of the Trojan War immediately involves Homer. In this context the Iliad is obviously more important than the Odyssey, so what we mean is that discussion of a historical Trojan War necessarily involves the Iliad. Discussions of how the Hittite letters relate to a historical Trojan War again involve discussion of the Iliad (see for instance Denys Page, History and the Homeric Iliad). The "tactics" section is entirely based on the Iliad (well, there's also some poorly-sourced speculation). There's no reason why this material can't be moved to Historicity of the Iliad, and summarized here. Again, the principle is where there's a main article, the treatment here should be short.

6. Just because tradition says that nine years of war preceded the Iliad doesn't mean that this article needs to include irrelevant detail. In an article about the Trojan War, do we really care that some sources said Lemnos was inhabitated by Minyans? Isn't there an article about Lemnos that can tell us that? Another thing that can be eliminated is the material based on Thucydides, for instance:

After the initial landing the army was gathered in its entirety again only in the tenth year, due to lack of money as Thucydides deduces. They raided the Trojan allies and spent time farming the Thracian peninsula.

As the text says, this is a deduction that Thucydides makes. It is not part of the story of the war itself, and can be eliminated. The following sentences about Troy never being besieged completely, are also a deduction rather than part of the story itself, and can be eliminated. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

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The article is now 76k. On any standard, that's too long. Actually the Eastern Orthodox Church is 83kb long and it is not FA yet. There is no complain there about the size there. As it says at WP:SIZE the size should be determined by the need to cover the content while retaining readability. Also it says that any cropping should be done in a way that neutrality and content is preserved. This article is IMO partially incomplete in that it does not talk about the importance the Trojan War like the famous quotation (by Thucydides if my memory does not fail me) that the formation of the alliance of Corinth of 481 BC would have been impossible without te Trojan War.

I agree some details are superflous. Calhas' Achilles divination is mentioned twice, Protesilaos' wife tale is not part of the Trojan War, I did wrongly to add the looting of his tomb by the Persians here (it belongs to the Persian Wars) but some ought to stay like the Minyans in Lemnos because it demonstrates that the Myth evolved. I'll remove some tommorow but in the interest of readibility, not because the article is too big. Proper article size ought to be determined by the great Wikipedian community when this goes on Peer Review (more below)

On the signal fires my immediate reference is Karykas' 2003 book, because I own it and can easily reference it. I believe if you read it you will disagree with many of its conclusions, like that Homer lived much closer to the true events and wrote originally his poem in Linear B (he accepts Wace's theory that writting in Greece was never forgotten) but it is a very interesting book on Warfare at Mycenian times. A large part of tactics comes from his book (I'll reference him tommorow) along with another article in a military history magazine on the weapons on the Iliad (which I'll also reference tommorow). I've also read another book on Mycenean civilisation some years ago which also gives principal importance to the optical wireless telegraph which is located in the Piraeus municipal library but is much more dated (from the 60's). All texts mentioned here are unfortunately in (modern) Greek, access to english-language books on the Trojan War in this country is difficult for someone not on the faculty of Philosophy (on which I am not, I'm an agricultural engineer with a strong interest on history).

It is outside the scope of the historicity of the Iliad article Achilles' and Aias' campaigns which however are critical on the historicity of the Trojan War. Of course most academics discuss the Trojan War in conjunction with the Iliad because it is the most famous work that describes it. Proclus or Apollodorus' epitome on the Trojan War are little more than 100 lines each, while the Iliad is 20,000+ verses (if I remember correctly) with great details given on everything. Thucydides along with Agamemnon, Proclus and Apollodorus are (along with Homer) used as the main sources in most Historicity discussions I've read, especially Thucydides is used as the rationaliser of this war which is why I've tried to quote as much as possible from him. Thucydides along with the other descriptory contents I've added (like that Troy was never surrounded) are used to give context to the war to the Wikipedia reader who will wonder how come Troy did not fall for ten years and how did they manage to constantly get new allies, especially after the Iliad. If these questions are not relevant part of the story of the War, what is?

The Trojan horse section is two paragraphs while the article is about three times that size (it is not in paragraphs). The section is short, especially compared to the article. Like I said speculation on what the Trojan Horse was should be part of this article. Even pure mythology books (or at least Robert Graves' and Kakridis' books) include speculation on what the origin of the myth is.

In any case since we are two people we will constantly get in arguements without a third person to cast a decisive vote on disagreement. This is why this article needs to go to Peer Review to get more input. Alas I am on vacation till the end of the month with spare time on the web, after tommorow do not expect me before next week back on the web. Being on Peer Review requires someone to answer on people's comments and until the end of the month I am little available. If you wish you (and have the time) can be the peer review caretaker. Questions I would ask peer reviewers aree:

a)If the warbox is necessary. I would add it first, just for the peer review, so that people can see what we are talking about and then everybody (and not just as the three earlier comentators) can give his opinion on whether is should exist or not and thus form a final, definitive opinion that will reflext the entire Wiki community before this is to be nominated for FA (and IMO with so many references it is close to FA status)

b)Whether this should be part of the newly formed Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Ancient_Near_East_task_force

c)If it is of proper size and what should be removed or added

d)Whether there is a proper ratio here on pure myth and speculation

e)What should be here and what on other articles like Historicity of the Iliad

Before this is to go to peer review feel free to add more references and POVs on historicity or other sections (but please do not delete the existing POVs or the Hittite stuff), condense the Odyssey or the Aeniad sections but please do not take advantage of my absence to destructively reduce this article. Since I started working on this article you have been mostly deleting what I've added rather than add yourself new material.IMO this is because what I add semms to disagree with your vision which from your action I deduce that it is that this should be a pure mythology article with little mention of the historical events it underlies. Lets let the wider Wikipedia community decide what the scope and size of this article should be.Ikokki 21:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

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Why should I add material if I think the article is too long? No matter whether other articles are 80k or more: WP:SIZE tells us that with longer articles readability is a paramount concern. And I think that at this size, the article has readability problems. Note that WP:SIZE recommends that a long article "probably should be summarized with detail moved to other articles (see Wikipedia:Summary style)." And that's most of what I'm proposing: moving the content that belongs in main articles, with a summary here.

WP:PR says that the peer review process is intended for "is intended for high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work, often as a way of preparing a featured article candidate." I don't mean to be insulting, but I don't think that this article is there yet; right now there are too many long quotes and lists, too many minor details, and naive speculation; in addition there are some awkward bits of prose; it needs more copyediting at the very least. At any rate, I think it would be better if you could actively comment during any peer review process, as you have been the main contributor to the present form of the article. So, I think any peer review should wait until your vacation ends. However, there are some other options for getting more editors to comment; we could place a {{copyedit}} or {{cleanup}} tag on the page, or submit it to requests for comment to get input on what this article ought to contain. I think an RfC would be the most productive move at this point.

I will not, as you put it, "destructively reduce this article," but I will make the Odyssey and Aeneid sections more concise, and cut down the length of direct quotes, since we both agree that these are good steps to take. I will also try to copyedit more.

Let me say, though, that what we're arguing about is basically the same dispute that we had about the warbox. You're taking it as a given that a specific, historical conflict gave rise to the myth of the Trojan War, and that the myths give us information about particular historical events in the late bronze age. This is not a mainstream view in Anglo-American scholarship, and I don't think it's the dominant view in continental scholarship either. Many scholars would agree with Ian Morris' view, whom I quote above, that the epics are mainly about the 8th century, though many would also agree that the epics preserve some genuine bits of bronze age culture, and are distantly inspired by historical events. But most scholars would also agree that the myths tell us almost nothing about the military history of the bronze age. To put it simply, myth is not history.

I'm afraid my modern Greek is not up to reading Karykas (and I can't find anything on his book on the web, and I don't think it's in any libraries in the US) but from your description it sounds like his opinions are quite far from scholarly consensus. Actually, I'd describe the idea that Homer wrote in Linear B as kooky. You don't seem to be very familiar with Homeric scholarship, or classical scholarship in general, which is certainly no vice. However, you seem to be unaware how complex the study of myth is, and how complicated the study of the historicity of Homer or of the Trojan War is. For instance, your assertion, apparently based on Kakridis, that the Trojan War myth is post-Mycenaean because the palaces don't have mythological frescoes, is quite naive, for reasons I have explained above. The relationship of Greek myth to Indo-European and Near Eastern mythology is a very active field of research: three convenient citations are Calvert Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon (Oxford 1995), Gregory Nagy, Greek Mythology and Poetics (Cornell 1990), and Stephanie W. Jamison, “Draupadi on the Walls of Troy: Iliad 3 from an Indic Perspective,” Classical Antiquity 13 (1994) 5-16. This research shows that the Greek myth, including myths of the Trojan War, have a common ancestry with Indo-European and Near Eastern material, and this is not merely shared forms like meter and formulas, but mythic themes--that is, the content of the myths has a long ancestry. The essence of many Trojan War scenes long predates any event that could be considered the historical Trojan War. My point here is that several of the things you want to put in this article--historicity, military tactics, the origins of the myths--are all complex enough that a good NPOV treatment will require a separate article. This is especially so because the summary of the myths is taking up so much room. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

My assertion on the Trojan War is that we actually talking about two events: The historical 13th/12th history war and the mythological Post-mycenean war. This seems to be the view of the editors of the History of the Greek Nation, the most monumental work on Greek history ever written by Greeks (during the dictatorship,thus it is a bit dated) who place a section on the Trojan War in the first volume (From the beggining of time to 1100 BC) at History and another section on the Trojan War in the second volume (1100 BC-479 BC) on Mythology (there is also another discussion on tactics of the Iliad in the military tactics of the second volume where the writters, the most promiment university professors of the 1960's-1970's assert that the tactics of the iliad are those of the 8th century BC). I have been trying to make the historicity section here worthy of something on the first volume of the History of the Greek Nation (without of course copyright infrigment) in other words an attempt to draw conclusions on the real conflict based on what little mythology and Hittite/Luwian sources provide. The Trojan War is unique in that, more than other mythical tales (say Europe's kidnapp by Zeus in bull form), it combines both myth and history and this article should reflect that. I agree that a good NPOV treatment of historicity, military tactics and origin requires separate articles but that does not mean that nice 2-3 paragraph summaries of those are not worthy of being entered here, before being expanded in new articles. I put up here what I write as a start for expansion or rewording into NPOV based on what sources I have available. After all Wikipedia is a collaborative effort.

If you wish to find Karyka's book on the web all you need to put on Google his name on Greek characters (Καρύκας) and you will soon get this: [On sale at the Protoporia bookstore]. He gets loony at times (I agree, linear B is unsuitable for poetry) but he displays,on this and others of his books like Αρχαίων Ελλήνων Τέχνη Πολεμική 6000 π.Χ-146 π.Χ. (Military art of the ancient Greeks 6000 BC-146 BC) or [this one] or [this one] great knowledge of history and military tactics which is why his book gets quoted often on articles written in Greece after 2003.Ikokki 10:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Now it is 73kbs

I think this article will remain one of the biggest in Wikipedia despite removing the suitors' list to the Helen article, reducing fall of Troy quotation and removing Agamemnon. BTW I have yet to read a Greek writer that accepts a Proto-Indo-European interpretation for the origin of Greek myths (and thus the Trojan War). On the other hand I have read several certifiable nuts that believe in a pre-Columbian America connection to the Greek myths and interpret them that way, for example the Wandering Rocks of the Argonauts being Fulton Bay. Most modern Greek writers interpret myths like Kakridis, which I must say is not a naive theory. If naivette is to be attributed here attribute it to me, for naively writting here his arguementsIkokki 16:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Zeus wanted to depopulate the Earth and get rid of some of his descendants?

The sentence

"Since there were too many people populating the earth already he came up along with Themis with the idea of the Trojan War in order to depopulate the Earth, especially of his demigod descendants"

is unsupported by the citations given. Proclus, Chrest. 1, says only that

Zeus plans with Themis to bring about the Trojan war,

while Apollodorus, Ep 3.1 actually contradicts the above sentence saying that

… Alexander carried off Helen, as some say, because such was the will of Zeus, in order that his daughter might be famous for having embroiled Europe and Asia; or, as others have said, that the race of the demigods might be exalted.

Paul August ☎ 17:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The "depopulation" motif is accurate and is supported by a scholium to Iliad 1.5, which among other things quotes the first 7 or so lines of the Kypria. I'll supply the text soon, but please don't change this. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's the opening of the Kypria:

`There was a time when the countless tribes of men, though wide-

dispersed, oppressed the surface of the deep-bosomed earth, and

Zeus saw it and had pity and in his wise heart resolved to

relieve the all-nurturing earth of men by causing the great

struggle of the Ilian war, that the load of death might empty the

world. And so the heroes were slain in Troy, and the plan of

Zeus came to pass.'

This doesn't directly support the "Zeus wanted to kill his descendants" idea, and I would in fact rephrase somewhat: "Zeus wanted to cause the death of many heroes", because some of the men who die are the sons of other gods like Ares, Poseidon, etc. There are several articles which discuss the Trojan War as Zeus' plan to cause the deaths of heroes, e.g. K. Mayer, Helen and the Dios Boulē, American Journal of Philology 117 (1996) 1-17. The underlying motivation for killing many heroes is not just that the earth is "overpopulated", but that Zeus wants to bring about the end of close contact between men and gods. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

References again

Proclus' work is usually referred to as the Chrestomathy in English. However, when works of scholarship refer to Proclus' summary of the epic Cycle, they don't follow the format currently used here (Proclus, Chrestomathy 1). Instead, they refer to fragments as published by a particular editor, e.g. Kypria fr. 4 (Bernabé). This works reasonably well for specialist works, but doesn't seem appropriate for WP. So, I propose that we preface the summary of the myths by saying something like "The following summary follows the order of events given in Proclus' summary of the epic cycle, supplemented with details drawn from other authors." Since we make it clear at the beginning that Proclus is our main source, we won't need to refer to him in footnotes, which will shorten the notes section quite a bit and eliminate some of the superscripts that are peppering the main text. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Being on vacation I have been unable to work on this though I intended to do this yesterday. In the Wikipedia language if you wish to reference constantly at one source you use: <ref name = ''name''>reference here </ref> and then just using the name you get everywhere the same number. I've already done it here with Karykas who, if you notice at the bottom, always gets the same number no matter what everybody else gets. I'll do the same with Proclus as soon as I can. And BTW I am somewhat aware of Homeric scholarship since this was part of the school curiculum. I cannot claim though to be fully aware.Ikokki 11:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't like this solution. I already found the footnotes confusing, and now that the reference marks in the text don't go in numerical sequence, they're even harder to follow. Let's says I'm reading the "First Gathering at Aulis" section, and I click on footnote 5. I jump down to #5 in the "notes" section, and see the cryptic reference "abcdefghijk Proclus, Chrestomathy 1". How am I supposed to get back to the main text? Do I click on a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, or k? Or should I just scroll back up through 76k of text?

Further, the reference "Proclus, Chrestomathy 1" is not very useful, because there is no standard system of numbering the summary. That's why references to Proclus are usually keyed to a particular edition, each of which has its own numbering system. A recent article (J. Marks, "The Junction betweeen the Kypria and the Iliad", Phoenix 56 (2002) 1-24) refers to the summary with the following format: "Proklos p. 38.1-4 Bernabé", indicating that he's following Bernabé's edition. Wolfgang Kullmann, Realität, Imagination und Theorie (Stuttgart 2002) uses a different numbering system. Other editions use no numbering at all (see e.g. the translation of the summary in Burgess 2001, or the Nagy translation linked in the "ancient sources" section, which does not use in-text numbering. A citation like "Proclus, Chrestomathy 1" isn't helping our readers find the source.

However, if we follow my suggestion above, and indicate in the main text that we're following Proclus' summary, then we don't have to have individual references to Proclus--it's already been made clear how we're using him. I would also suggest that we organize the article along the lines of Proclus' summary--that is, we can make it clear that the episodes in our sections "Background" through "Nine years of war" were found in the Kypria, then followed the Iliad; after that, our "After the Iliad" section combines the Aithiopis and the Little Iliad; the "Sack of Troy" section corresponds to Iliou Persis; and the "returns" section to the Nosti. This would make it clear that the basic skeleton of the summary of the myths is Proclus' sumary + Homer + Vergil. This arrangement will help the article achieve an important goal, helping the reader understand the sources for this diverse collection of myths. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:24, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

2nd para of lead section

I changed it to this:

The war sprang from a quarrel between the goddesses Athena, Hera and Aphrodite, after the goddess Eris gave them a golden apple with the inscription "to the fairest." The goddesses went to Paris, who judged that Aphrodite, as the "fairest", should receive the apple. In exchange, Aphrodite made Helen, the most beautiful of all women, fall in love with Paris, who took her to Troy.

It seems good to include the golden apple, since it's well-known. I also didn't like the old wording, since Paris wasn't exactly "forced" to judge between the three goddesses--in fact, in some versions, he is the judge because he is famed for making good judgments. (Obviously that all goes downhill once he chooses Aphrodite). I would welcome a rewrite, though, since I think the lead section is still short of what it should be. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Multiple "ref"s

Why do we have multiple "ref"s, as for example in the following sentence?

Another prophecy said of the sea-nymph Thetis, with whom Zeus had an affair, that her son would be greater than his father.

It is more economical and easier on the reader, I think, if we combine these into a single "ref", as follows:

Another prophecy said of the sea-nymph Thetis, with whom Zeus had an affair, that her son would be greater than his father.

Paul August ☎ 13:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Notes

I did this because there are at times multiple references to the same passage. If you see for example Proclus' Chrestomathy 1 gets referenced 6 times. Since there are still cases where there are multiple references without the same tag, lets leave them separated until every passage gets referenced with only one number. There is also another advantage (small though) that the reader sees that many sources prefer this version over the otherIkokki 15:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I made a suggestion for reducing the number of references to Proclus above. Otherwise, combine references into a single tag by all means. I think, though, that some judicious use of in-text citation would be good. If we have a sentence that says "According to one story they blew a horn, and Achilles revealed himself by seizing a spear to fight intruders rather than fleeing", why don't we be more specific, and say "According to Apollodorus (Library 3.18.8), they blew a horn, and Achilles revealed himself by seizing a spear to fight intruders rather than fleeing"? This way, the reader doesn't have to go down to the "notes" section to figure out who relates this story; we've clearly said that it comes from Apollodorus. Keep in mind, too, that most readers don't look at footnotes, and they are even less likely to do so when there are 200 footnotes. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Akhilleus here. Paul August ☎ 17:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I used the nubering system at the Berkley site. In Firefox at least (and I assume in Explorer) when pressing the back button you are returned to were you were reading earlier (after seeing the footnote). At Retreat of glaciers since 1850 (a 76 kb FA article) they have a great system of footnotes where instead of numbers they have the name of the author, but I don't know how to pull this coup. I agree that it wold be better if possible to have in the text the reference, I did it for Pausanias and Achilles conquering Skyros when I was referencing everything but preferred to keep original text as much as possible which is why I did not usually do it. Proceed this way if you believe this will improve readability. I believe that footnotes are intended so that most readers do not have to read where whatever cited is coming from...Ikokki 10:27, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The text of Proclus found at the Berkeley site is only one of the possible texts of Proclus, and not all use the same numbering system. A reader who's not aware of this is going to be misled by the way the article refers to the summaries of the Epic Cycle.

One can return to the main text from a footnote by pressing "back". But I'd like to be able to select any footnote in the article and find the bit of main text it corresponds to, and with the current system, that's not possible.

The footnotes in the glacier article you mention are an adaptation of a system used in scientific journals, and that works well for that subject matter, but this article should follow the conventions used in humanities articles, specifically those on the classics. For secondary sources, numbered footnotes are used, and the footnotes cite particular pages within a source. For primary sources (i.e., ancient Greek texts), in text references and footnotes are both used, depending on the publisher and the author's preference. Here I think we should try to use in text references to reduce the number of footnotes, and because I thought one of the goals of this article was to give readers an idea of what the primary sources were and what parts of the myths they related. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Be careful with "<ref name=xxx/>" syntax

Please be careful when using the "<ref name=xxx/>" syntax, Since leaving off the ending "/" will cause the remaining text to be "swallowed" utill a following "</ref>" is found. For example the following text:

Some preceeding text.<ref name=PC1> PC1</ref> Among the loot from these cities was [[Briseis]] who was awarded to him and [[Chryseis]] who was awarded to Agamemnon.<ref name=PC1> Achilles captured Lycaon, son of Priam<ref>Apollodorus, Library 3.12.5</ref> while he was cutting branches in his father's orchards. [[Patroclus]] sold him a slave in Lemnos <ref name=PC1> where he was bought by Eetion of [[Imbros]] and brought back to Troy. Only 12 days later Achilles slew him again (after the death of Patroclus).<ref> Iliad Φ 35-155</ref>

produces:

Some preceeding text. Among the loot from these cities was Briseis who was awarded to him and Chryseis who was awarded to Agamemnon. while he was cutting branches in his father's orchards. Patroclus sold him a slave in Lemnos

S uch an error can be very difficult to spot. I've come across this error three times now, in this article.

Paul August ☎ 18:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Notes

I wrote the reformatting in a hurry a few days ago, and missed a few spots. I intended to do it carefully at the university but work cropped up. If you put up <ref name=PC1/> it has the same effect. Sorry for the sloppiness, alas I've got greater priorities and the political situation does not helpIkokki 13:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Be careful to not copy text from sources, without quoting

Be careful to not copy text from sources, without quoting. Recently, in the section "Penthesilea and the death of Achilles", referring to Memnon's arrival at Troy, I came across this bit of text:

He came not directly from Ethiopia but either from Susa in Persia and from the river Choaspes, having subdued all the peoples that lived between these and Troy, or …

The reference cited was Pausanias 10.31.7. The text above was clearly copied from Jones' translation, given on the Perseus cite as:

"He came to Troy, however, not from Ethiopia, but from Susa in Persia and from the river Choaspes, having subdued all the peoples that lived between these and Troy." 

If our text was meant to be a quote, then we forgot to add quotes. If rather it was meant to be a paraphrase, then it was still too close to the original. I have now reworded this passage as follows:

He did not come directly from Ethiopia, but either from Susa in Persia, conquering all the peoples in between, or …

Paul August ☎ 18:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Notes again

As I say above, the footnotes for this article ought to follow the conventions of classical scholarship. I do not think that references of the form "^ IKakridis (1988), Vol. I." are helpful. If I want to verify that Kakridis thinks the Cyclic Epics were composed in the 7th-6th century BC, I don't want to read through all of volume 1, especially since my modern Greek isn't very good. Specific page numbers, please! --Akhilleus (talk) 05:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Note that WP:CITE says that "The more precise one's use of a source, the more precise the citation should be. When citing books and articles, provide page numbers when possible. Page numbers must be included in a citation that accompanies a specific quotation from, or a paraphrase or reference to, a specific passage of a book or article...Page numbers are not required when a citation accompanies a general description of a book or article, or when a book or article, as a whole, is being used to exemplify a particular point of view." All or nearly all of the references to primary and secondary literature in this article are to specific passages, so we need page numbers. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry! It's just that I don't have a copy of Kakridis available right now. He says that due to their timing (Kypria ends right before the Iliad and the Aethiopis right after) they were probably written after the Iliad though this is not a very satisfactory supposition. The real gem in volume 1 is that using example from Serb legends about the battle of Kossovo and an Albanian epic poem composed in the 1920's (and recorded by that American which demonstrated that balkan epic singer remembered huge poems) that epic poetry is an unreliable source for historical events. When I get access this book again I'll put up both references with page numbers Ikokki 20:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Ikokki, thanks for your response. I'm not sure that we need the page numbers for the particular points you mention--a lot of scholars believe that the Cyclic Epics were written after the Iliad, so we don't need to cite Kakridis for that (the article currently cites Burgess). Many scholars also talk about the historical unreliability of epic poetry, so again we don't need to cite Kakridis for this particular point. I don't mean to insult Kakridis--he has made very important contributions to Homeric scholarship, but Ελληνική Μυθολογία is almost impossible to find in the U.S. (amazon.com doesn't sell it, and it's in very few libraries here), and I imagine the situation is similar in other English-speaking countries. WP:CITE also tells us to cite scholarship in English wherever possible, since this is the English language Wikipedia.

The point about specific page numbers is of course not confined to the citations from Kakridis. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

No offence taken. I do try to cite English language sources but alas they only one I own is Graves (which I cite by chapter). Kakridis along with his student Maronitis are the only Φιλόλογοι of the 20th century that managed to gain popular fame in Greece. [Volume 1 for sale at Papasoteriou], if you wish ISBN is 9602131535 but I doubt that you could find it at Amazon.com since amazon does not sell Greek books (search Papasoteriou or Protoporia for them)Ikokki 21:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Request for Comments or Peer Review?

Since I have returned home and it seems that I will have internet access for at least the next two weeks I decided that it would be best to get more comments. I looked up Request for Comments and Peer Review and I feel that WP:PR is best for our needs since RfC seems more like a dispute resolving forum than a the Peer Review which will also give hints on what is necessary before FA status. I would like to hear arguments on why RfC is a better forum. Also mythology does not seem to belong to any sections thereIkokki 21:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes WP:PR is what you are looking for. I'm still in the process of making my own copyedit and review of this article. (I am about halfway through). It may be more useful to wait till I've finished first. It is usually best to wait until you think the article is more or less finished, before you take it to PR. So I think PR may be a bit premature. Paul August ☎ 22:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Paul that peer review is premature at this point. It would be great, though, to get more editors involved in this article.

I think we do have a dispute here, or perhaps several disputes: about how much should be included in this article, and whether some content should be split off into main articles, condensed, or eliminated entirely (e.g., I think the "historicity" stuff belongs in Historicity of the Iliad, and that "battle tactics" belongs in a separate article, perhaps Homeric warfare; that most of the content can be condensed, especially through the elimination of minor details found in late authors, and that some material should be eliminated entirely like the fire beacons that open the Agamemnon).

It seems to me that RfCs are designed to get comments on disputes of this type, and in fact the request for comment page says: "Note that peer review is not for content disputes." An RfC for this article probably belongs in "Media, art, and literature" or possibly "History and Geography". I'm not very happy with the RfC categories, and in fact I'm not that happy with RfCs in general, because they don't seem to attract very many comments. So in terms of WP policies, the RfC seems more appropriate right now, but if PR would get more comments, then I'd support that instead. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

We do have content disputes here, I aknowledge that. RfC is indeed better for those but indeed does not attract comments. At PR we would get commentary on condensing and such but little on content disputes. I've discovered there is a WikiProject:Mythology, I'll leave a request there for comments on the discussion page.Ikokki 09:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Fire beacons announcing Troy's fall

I don't think that the chain of fire beacons described at the beginnning of the "Returns" section should be included. The beacons are only mentioned by one source, Aeschylus' Agamemnon; most scholars don't think that the beacons were a traditional feature of the Trojan War story, but were introduced by Aeschylus, perhaps in imitation of beacons used in the 5th century. Aside from the citation from Vice Admiral Konstas, I have not seen anyone argue that the beacons were actually used in the "real" Trojan War! I studied the Agamemnon in a graduate seminar, and the beacons are universally regarded as Aeschylus' invention. See, for instance, T. Gantz, "The fires of the Oresteia," Journal of Hellenic Studies 97 (1977), p. 31; W.M. Calder, "The Geography of the Beacon Passage in the Agamemnon," The Classical Review 36 (1922), pp. 52-59; J.H. Quincey, "The Beacon Sites in the Agamemnon," The Journal of Hellenic Studies 83 (1963), p. 122; A.J. Beattie, "Aeschylus, Agamemnon 281-316", The Classical Review 4 (1954), p. 81.

Certainly such a system is feasable, but there is no evidence that the Greeks used such a system, either in the Bronze Age or in classical times; what evidence we have for Greek fire signals indicates that they were quite simple (e.g. Thucydides 2.94, 3.22.8, 8.102; Polybius 10.43-47) and not suitable for passing on complex information, nor usable over long distances. On the other hand, the Persians did use a complex system of fire relays (Ps.-Aristotle, De Mundo, 398a31-32), and Stephen Tracy ("Darkness from Light: The Beacon Fire in the Agamemnon", The Classical Quarterly 36 (1981) p. 259) argues that Aeschylus' beacons are based upon signals that Mardonius used when he captured Athens in 479; Aeschylus has reversed the direction of the signal, but uses the same sites where the Persian beacons were located. I don't know how widely accepted Tracy's argument is, but I find it compelling.

Since 1) the fire beacons are only found in Aeschylus, and aren't found in any other archaic/classical account of the war, and 2) modern scholars almost always regard the beacons as Aeschylus' invention, and not part of a historical Trojan War, I think we should take out the description at the beginning of the "Returns" section. That will streamline the section, and remove some speculation about historicity ("It seems more likely than not that this wireless optical communication network existed throughout the war and worked both ways rather than being set up just to bring the message of the fall") from a section that is devoted to a summary of the myths. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection with moving the fire relays on the Historicity section and more NPOV. I falsely attribute the comment to Admiral Konstas though it belongs to Karykas, who is the least academic (and more military) of the cited sources. I have read on fire relays on books and articles about ancient Greek communication technology. A fire relay system is well documented to have existed in Byzantine times in Asia Minor and help relay order during the long Byzantine-Arab Wars (see History of the Greek Nation volume Η) and in Informatics class in the 1st semester our professor told that the Agamemnon fire-relay system sites are used today by OTE (the telephone company) in the telephone network of the Aegean for wireless links between the islands because due to geography they are must-pass sites.

In general I have no problem in condensing and removing material from the Returns (like the fire relays or the minore characters) if we were to form a Returns from the Trojan War article. Considering that there are articles for the Judgement of Paris or the Catalogue of ships it seems fitting to create one. Otherwise please keep mythological material there for no other reason that they are mentioned anywhere else together in the WikipediaIkokki 10:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Expert opinion agrees that the beacons are a creation of Aeschylus and aren't found in the story of the war before the Agamemnon, as the citations I gave above show. Furthermore, no classical scholar thinks that the beacons were used in the "real" Trojan War. Not even a minority of classical scholars think that the beacons go back to someting that happened in the Bronze Age.

Karykas and the other people you name don't seem to be philologoi, rather military historians or specialists in communications or information theory. The NPOV policy says we shouldn't give undue weight to minority opinions: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." In my opinion, including the idea that the beacons were used in the "real" Trojan War is giving undue weight to a view that isn't held by experts on mythology or on the Bronze Age, but by a minority of scholars whose expertise lies elsewhere. I don't think the beacons belong in the article at all.

I also think this a good example of the kind of minor detail that can be taken out of the article without depriving the reader of essential information about the mythology of the Trojan War. The beacons are essential to the imagery of the Oresteia, but they're hardly significant to the bare-bones plot of Agamemnon's return to Mycenae/Argos. In just the same way, the reader of this article doesn't need to know that some sources tell us that Lemnos was inhabited by Minyans, or that some mythographers thought that Dardanus was Arcadian. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

For all the reasons cited by Akhilleus, I agree that we should remove the references to the beacon fires. Paul August ☎ 18:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

If there is no objection I will set up in the morning (it's the middle of the night here) a Return of the Heroes of the Trojan War article so that this section can be reduced without Wikipedia losing interesting content. Otherwise if you all agree do it earlier and simply copy what we have here now and then condense the section to your satisfaction. Still though I do not think that the reader should leave the page with the impression that Lemnos was uninhabited at that time.Ikokki 23:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Ikokki's plan to create a new article sounds good, but "Return of the Heroes of the Trojan War" is awkward. I suggest "Returns from the Trojan War", or even just "Returns from Troy". Whatever the new article is called, it should include a link to Nostoi. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I have created a Returns from Troy article. I agree, it needs a Nostoi link, but because I am in a hurry I did not do it yet. Condense our section here at will.Ikokki 10:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I expanded the Returns from Troy article in order to turn it from a fragment into a full article. I added the Nostoi link but it is still somewhat rough. I intend to increase there the tales of the minor characters, but have no more increase here. Condensing is the order of the day. Our other disagreements here are:

a) just how fine detail should be included here

b) the size and scope of the 4-paragraph Historicity section

c) whether the warfare section should even be included.

Are there other disagreements?Ikokki 20:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Serious problem: Copying from sources

Compare this passage from the "Prophesies" section:

After his the death his brothers Helenus and Deiphobus quarrelled as to which of them should marry Helen. Deiphobus was preferred and married her against her will. Helenus left Troy and abode in Mt. Ida. But as Chalcas said that Helenus knew the oracles that protected the city, Odysseus waylaid and captured him and brought him to the camp.

with Frazer's translation of Appollodorus:

After the death of Alexander, Helenus and Deiphobus quarrelled as to which of them should marry Helen; and as Deiphobus was preferred, Helenus left Troy and abode in Ida. But as Chalcas said that Helenus knew the oracles that protected the city, Ulysses waylaid and captured him and brought him to the camp.

Our passage was obviously copied from the above passage from Frazer. Such copying is not allowed!

Ikokki, I think you added this, I think you also added the text I mentioned above at "Be careful to not copy text from sources, without quoting". I don't think you meant to be deceitful in any way, and I'm assuming this was an accident, or that you are unaware that copying like this is wrong. But you need to understand that such copying is unacceptable. I now think that Ikokki, and the rest of us need to examine all of the text for problems like this.

Paul August ☎ 02:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I never intended to be decietfull and tried to change the wording if I was copying from sources. Aparently I was not sucsessfull at time. Ikokki 10:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I never though you were ;-) Paul August ☎ 15:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I found another three passages that were not sufficiently different from Frazier and changed them. I'll try more later Ikokki 11:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Ikokki, for looking back at some of your additions. As I said above we should probably check the whole article. Also please understand that just changing a few words, or even phrases, to synonyms, is not really the right way to fix things. Rather the correct procedure, is to read the sources, internalize what they have to say, then write in our own words, in our own style. I know this can be very difficult, especially for a non-native reader and writer of English, (which I'm guessing you are). I will have a look at the passages you've identified and see how I might rewrite them. Just to be clear, I think you are making very valuable contributions to this article, so please do continue with your efforts. Paul August ☎ 15:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. I am a native Greek speaker and writing good prose in English is difficult for me. The biggest thing I ever wrote in English was my thesis, but it was is "Scientific English", the kind that does not require good prose. In the first sections of the article, that were relatively well developped, all I needed to add was a couple of words and a few references. But going down the text would get very light. I attempted to remedy this by copying somewhat from a source but then adding to the quotation more information from another source, enough to make it original. Apparently I did not sucseed, it is at points too close to the source. I'll try differentlyIkokki 19:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)