Comments

Adopting Hadrian

A post I left on Stolengood's talk page

Hi there! You mentioned in your last edit to Template:Nerva–Antonine family tree that P. Acilius Attianus "DID practically adopt Hadrian with Plotina". Adoption was a big deal in the Roman world: you didn't just take somebody in, they became absolutely legally your child, they took your name, they joined your tribe and social order, they forfeited their old place in the line of inheritance, etc. After Trajan's (alleged) deathbed adoption of Hadrian, the latter became Imp. Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus (‘Emperor Caesar, son of the divine Trajan, Trajan Hadrian Augustus’): the names Acilius and Attianus appear nowhere in his titulature, and Hadrian didn't openly acknowledge Attianus as a parent. So we can't say that Attianus adopted Hadrian, at least not in any sense the Romans would accept as such... Q·L·1968 ☿ 19:11, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I then reverted the notation indicating that Attianus had adopted Hadrian. Stolengood reverted that change with the comment "Let this stand." I do hope we can resolve this disagreement reasonably and with a minimum of mutual frustration. Stolengood and I might be the only living people who've noticed the tiny dotted line on this template, but it does matter in potentially misrepresenting Hadrian's origins and the circumstances of his accession. The point is that Plotina arranged for Trajan to (appear to) adopt Hadrian, not for her alleged lover to do so (which would have been legally and constitutionally pointless, at least from the point of view of elevating Hadrian to the principate). I'm afraid it's incumbent upon Stolengood to demonstrate that Attianus actually adopted Hadrian, or the dotted line will have to go. Q·L·1968 ☿ 15:27, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Having heard no explanation, I removed the dotted line again. Stolengood restored it with the comment, "Let it stand. Let's discuss this while it stands." Fair enough, I suppose. However, it can't stand forever without justification. I look forward to hearing Stolengood's explanation. Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:36, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You'll have to give me a little time; I remember reading this somewhere -- Attianus and Plotina practically did adopt Hadrian together. It has been a while since I've read it, though, so I'm currently looking through the sources on articles to see where I found it. Much obliged to you for your patience. :-) Stolengood (talk) 02:19, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. It's ancient history, after all; we need be in no hurry. If it helps, the Historia Augusta describes Attianus in several places as Hadrian's tutor (guardian). Could we have another type of squiggly line for guardianship? We might be nearly maxed out with what {{chart}} could do—though we could always play around with different colours... Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:27, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

From my talk page:

I see you've added an {{unreferenced}} template to the Nerva–Antonine family tree. I'm trying to picture how a template like that could have references. Would the <ref> markup work from within the chart? What about pages that don't have a {{Reflist}} or equivalent? Or should there just be two or three references at the end, à la "This chart was compiled from information from the Oxford Exhaustive Dictionary of Obscure Classical Biography and The Cambridge History of the Northern Hemisphere, volumes 17 and 18"? Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Q·L·1968 this is often a problem with ancestry trees (they are usually constructed using the {{ahnentafel top}} etc templates). They are usually unique for each article and they are usually placed before the Notes and References section, but not always. So several times I have modified such templates to use their own self-contained notes system. As it happens I have kept an example in my notes see User:PBS/Notes#Ancestry ahnentafel and notes. It is self contained and uses the <ref group=lower-roman/> markup. But as that is a bit of a handful one can use {{notelist-lr}} and {{Efn-lr}}.

As this is in a template I would suggest making it self contained using the above method. Whether you use general references or inline citations is up to you but of course in the long term the template will have to meet the criteria in the section to which WP:BURDEN links.

My experience with ancestor trees is that it takes surprisingly few reliable sources to fill in such a template because a reliable source will list subject, spouses, children and parents at a minimum, so one source will fill often fill out 4 grandparents, two adults and their children. I suspect it would be similar with this type of family tree, and probably a one good history would cover a lot of the tree. using {{Efn-lr}} with a "name=" parameter makes it not much more difficult to place the source in-line than it would be add general references.

I would he happy to assist you with filling out a few examples in the tree if that would be of assistance. If you provide me with a full citation including the page number for one of the entries I will add the initial citation. If it is not clear you can then ask me questions.

-- PBS (talk) 19:23, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

BTW I am aware of the coincidence of using lower-roman in my example, I am tempted to say that perhaps upper-roman would be more appropriate -- PBS (talk) 19:39, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have just come across an article where this template appears below the sources: Paulina -- PBS (talk) 21:31, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@user:Stolengood you wrote in the history: "References are given in the linked articles. How in gods' name could a reference possibly be given IN the chart? Also, collapsing box is completely unneeded."

Having references in the linked articles is not good enough as any one article will not cover most of the relationships in this tree. Please see WP:CHALLENGE "any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." I am challenging the content of this tree. "In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step" See specifically footnote 3. I have added {{unreferenced section}} which is appropriate in this case.

If you wish to see how references can be given in the chart see for example Charles II of England#Ancestry. The tree should not be visible in the articles. If someone wishes to look at the tree then then can open it.

-- PBS (talk) 01:57, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's only an ancestry chart; the template here shows most of the branches on a family tree. There's no way to cite that properly in the template itself without having it become unwieldy. Also, as it is a template, not a chart, it should not be a collapsing box; it fits into articles better without collapsing it, and provides a good endpoint for every article (for each person on the tree) that includes it. Stolengood (talk) 02:01, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That "only an ancestry chart" is beside the point, it was give as an example to answer your question of "How in gods' name could a reference possibly be given IN the char". "There's no way to cite that properly in the template itself without having it become unwieldy". Are seriously suggesting that content on Wikipedia should not carry citations because "it become unwieldy"? -- PBS (talk) 02:26, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi PBS, thanks for your helpful answer above. So here's one reference, such as it is: Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, v. 2, page 319, can tell us that Hadrian was the son of Aelius Hadrianus Afer, that his guardians were Ulpius Trajanus and Caelius Attianus, that he married Julia Sabina, and that Sabina was a granddaughter of Trajan's sister Marciana. On the next page we read that Trajan's adoption of Hadrian was probably faked by Plotina and Attianus; page 322 tells of his adoption of L. Aelius Verus (who was supposed to have been his lover), alluding en passant to his love affair with Antinoüs, and subsequently of his adoption of Arrius Antoninus, who in turn adopted "the son of Aelius Verus" (not otherwise named here) and M. Antonius Verus (afterwards Marcus Aurelius); the same page mentions his (controversial) divinization by the Senate. One source, some 16 data points. So far, so good. But what about sources that don't cover so much? What about information that's supported in one source but not another? Stolengood has a point, a whole tree like this conveys many kinds of information all at once; it won't necessarily be clear what source is being cited for what particular element of the tree. Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to take up the challenge; I'm just trying to figure out what citations can reasonably go where (and how). Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:41, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I will dig out a better example of a tree with multiple sources. I will start work with the information you have provided, so that you can see how I would do it, it does not have to be done that way but it will be one way it can be done. I can't do it right now, but I will do so in the next 24 hours. -- PBS (talk) 22:37, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Take your time with it; we can discuss this at leisure. It is ancient history, after all, as Q-L has said. :-) Stolengood (talk) 01:41, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An example of a fully cited ancestry tree is Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland#Ancestry. Although this was a good article, last year the ancestry tree had no citation. Now it is fully cited. I find the names used by William Smith and those in the tree confusing. But you will see from the few that I have labelled how it can be done. If you give me the Janet and John version between Smith and the tree I'll fill in the rest. I have labelled the year "1870a", because it is possible that you will use more than one volume by Smith with that year. If not we can remove the "a" from the date. As to the issue of "Trajan's adoption of Hadrian was probably faked" that is something that you will have to decide whether to note it in this tree, or leave it to the article(s). -- PBS (talk) 11:33, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for your helpful response, PBS. So it strikes me that we have the choice of two paradigms: the one you've illustrated here, which makes explicit how each person is related to a given person X (in effect citing the end points of each connecting node), and the other in the Henry Percy tree, where every person gets a citation. I was thinking this over, and it occurred to me that we might try citing not the end points, but the starting point. In other words, we should aim for a citation that covers all of person X's connections outwards (probably any entry in Smith's Dictionary, the Oxford Classical Dictionary or Pauly-Wissowa should be good for that); if it doesn't, we get another citation, and explain in the footnote what each note is for. In the end, there should be one footnote (or more) for every person who appears; but any such footnotes can also be shared (e.g. the note for Aelius Caesar's parents and grandparents would be the same for Aelius Caesar himself). What would people think of such an approach? (I can show you what I mean in the template if you think it would be clearer.) Q·L·1968 ☿ 17:00, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Paradigm 2 is now illustrated in the template. I'm in two minds. We'll have about a hundred "notes" and relatively few "references" if we do it this way. Might cancel out some of the simplicity of what PBS was originally proposing. However, it still makes more sense to me to put the cites at the centre points rather than the end points. Q·L·1968 ☿ 16:04, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An ancestry tree is read from left to right, so providing that each node contains reliable source(s) to the parents, then the whole tree can be easily shown to be valid. This type of tree is more complicated because unlike an ancestry tree most entries have three or more nodes, mother, father, and one or more spouses. So one or more citations in the tree node needs to cover parents and spouses. Providing that is done then one can navigate from any point in the tree with confidence that the relationships are covered (a note explain this would help clarify the relationship between footnotes and nodes). Having parents validate children is much more complicated to document because they can have many children and it can take many sources. So I would suggest that "ii Smith (1870), 'Julius Servianus'" needs to be placed on the node "Julia Serviana Paulina" as that covers all her relationships apart from her children. There will have to be another citation in the node "C. Fuscus Salinator II" to cover his parents. If this is done then the the node "C. Fuscus Salinator I" will not have to have one, although adding "ii Smith (1870), 'Julius Servianus'" although surplus would do no harm. -- PBS (talk) 21:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How does what I've been doing lately by way of footnoting look? Notes validate parentage except where otherwise stated. I've been using previously published trees for maximum footnotability (as it were!). Q·L·1968 ☿ 19:12, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Q·L· think your edits are a net improvement. Well done and thank you. -- PBS (talk) 12:59, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thank you. I'll keep filling in gaps, then eventually we'll get to a stage where we'll say, "Huh, does this really belong here?" I guess I'll flag those things on the talk page here and let them marinate for awhile before cutting them. Q·L·1968 ☿ 05:51, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Who to include

Why are Gordian III's wife and father-in-law listed? If Gordian himself had a connection with the Antonines, great, but surely his in-laws belong on a Gordian family tree, not a Nerva–Antonine one... Q·L·1968 ☿ 19:12, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The current version of the stemma is even less defensible. Its inclusion of Gordian III is based on a dodgy passage in the notoriously unreliable Historia Augusta. While the existence of Ceionia Plautia & Q. Servilius Pudens -- as well as their marriage -- is certain, I have yet to find any evidence that they had children. Except for a dubious citation of Settpani. I'd remove this branch from the stemma until further evidence for this relationship can be provided. -- llywrch (talk) 21:20, 29 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Adding the Legend Template

I added Legend Templates at the bottom of the chart. the changes appear when I view this page, but not on the main article Hadrian. Can anybody help? Bigtk (talk) 12:40, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is it a caching problem? Have you tried refreshing the Hadrian page and/or clearing your browser's cache? The legend looks good when I see it either on the template page or Hadrian, but maybe there's something I'm overlooking... Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:23, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I actually tried refreshing a couple times yesterday, but it didn't work then. However it is working now, so i guess shutting down and reopening the computer solved the caching problem or whatever caused it, thanks! :) Bigtk (talk) 08:01, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A biological impossibility

I admit I missed this at least a few times before now, but if you look at the box of Marcus Aurelius' grandfather, Libo Rupilius Frugi, you will see that it asserts by a marriage to one Lucius Mindius (a male name) he had a daughter, Matidia Minor. I know of no other instance where two men are claimed to have given birth to a child. (FWIW, Annelise Freisenbruch, Caesar's Wives (New York: Free Press, 2010), pp. 160, 165 states Matidia Minor's mother was Salonia Matidia, herself the daughter of Trajan's widowed sister Marciana. Freisenbruch does not provide a name for Salonia Matidia's father.) -- llywrch (talk) 15:43, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is no error, just a misinterpretation. The diagram does not claim that Libo Rupilius Frugi and Lucius Mindius are the parents of Matidia Minor, even though it may look like it at first glance. The two were just successive (second and third) husbands to Salonia Matidia, here called Matidia. Matidia had three children (Sabina, Matidia Minor and Rupilia Faustina) with three different men, and the diagram indicates who the father was. By means of the biological impossibility of any other interpretation, the motherhood of Salonia Matidia is implied for all three of them. Renerpho (talk) 21:49, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

llywarch is perfectly right. This is a wrong, misleading, representation.--188.25.26.135 (talk) 18:01, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it was previously unclear. I've tweaked the chart slightly to attempt to clarify; unfortunately this is pretty much at the limit of what this template can do, and any more substantial changes would I suspect involve redrawing the chart with another system entirely (possibly doable with tables; possibly would necessitate drawing an svg image) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:54, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Caeciliusinhorto: I would just like to add that Rupilia Faustina's mother is not actually certain, there are arguments against Salonia Matidia being the woman (see the note on one of the sources on her article), and Christian Settipani has argued for it being Vitellia instead.★Trekker (talk) 09:57, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@StarTrekker: Ugh, Roman prosopography is the worst. It looks to me as though there might be several points of disagreement here: whether Salonia Matidia married Libo Rupilius Frugi at all, if Rupilia Faustina's mother was Salonia Matidia or someone else, and possibly the order of Salonia Matidia's marriages. Am I understanding that correctly? I'm happy to defer to people who actually understand the dispute as to how we should lay out the table; I just wanted to make it show what we intend it to show! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 10:17, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes @Caeciliusinhorto: that is all true. Its a very complicated question and there seems to be no consensus. Personally I think that Salonia was not Rupilia's mother (a small support for this can be seen for example on the coin on her article, she is depicted with two not three daughters there), but that is just my opinion. Personally I think maybe it would be best to leave Rupilia Faustina on the template without a box for a mother at all, just a line to her father Frugi.★Trekker (talk) 10:29, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay :) How does it look now, @StarTrekker:? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 10:39, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I think this is very good. Thank you @Caeciliusinhorto:!★Trekker (talk) 10:41, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]