Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Seleucus VI Epiphanes/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 23:30, 26 December 2018 [1].

Seleucus VI Epiphanes

Nominator(s): Attar-Aram syria (talk) 07:06, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A king so horrible that he was burned alive by his subjects. Thats what ancient historians wrote about Seleucus VI, and this reputation became dominant and many modern historians believed it. Whether this was the case or not, we will not know for certain since we have fragmentary sources and some coins to establish the career of Seleucus VI, who, non the less, was able to put an end to his uncle and rival to the throne; a feat that Seleucus's father could not achieve during a civil war that lasted 17 years. The article is short due to the scarcity of sources. I made sure to include any piece of info that is available in academic sources. An editor from the GOCE did the copy editing. Hope this will be an interesting article. Attar-Aram syria (talk) 07:06, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support comments by Sturmvogel 66

No DABs, external links OK
Overlinked Cilicia
and himself prepared for war Delete "himself"
marched against his nephew but lost and was killed awkward
He was resistant to allowing the cities He resisted allowing...
Lede says Tryphaena was probably his mother, but that's not repeated in the main body.
Priene met Seleucus VI probably in Cilicia Priene "probably" met...
this was not widely accepted by scholars "has not been"...--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:09, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. I created a section for your comment. I hope this was not inappropriate. If it is, please revert me. And thanks for taking the time to review this.

No, not a problem.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:28, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FunkMonk

As usual, I'll have a look soon. FunkMonk (talk) 21:31, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You could link the terms and names mentioned in captions, and explain their relation to the article's subject (something I've forgotten to suggets in earlier FACs).
"Antiochus VIII married the Ptolemaic princess" Was he monarch at the time?
Link Seleucid dynasty (and everything else) at first mention outside the intro.
"sought to emphasize his descent by depicting himself on the coinage with an exaggerated hawk-nose in the likeness of his father" How do we know he didn't simply have such a nose?

All is fixed. Antiochus VIII was king (his first year). I believe Seleucus's actually had this nose, but not as huge as the one appearing in the infobox photo. this coin shows him with a normal nose actually. Another point is that his brothers (such as Antiochus XI Epiphanes, Antiochus XII Dionysus, Demetrius III Eucaerus) appeared with that same nose. Historians dont think this is a coincidence especially that Antiochus VIII was surnamed "Grypus" (hook-nose), and in a country where the lines of Antiochus VIII and IX were fighting, it was important for the sons of Grypus to remind the people that they are the sons of the legitimate king (for ten years Antiochus VIII was the sole king until his brother Antiochus IX decided to rebel.) I have no source for this explanation so I cant add it. The only thing mentioned by the source is that the sons of Antiochus VIII emphasized their descent through their noses

I think you could introduce Antiochus VIII as a monarch at first mention then. Otherwise it isn't clear he was that until the quote.

Done

"and confined his nephew's to" His nephew's what?

Forces. I think the copy editor thought that readers will make the connection. I deleted the 's because its enough to say that Antiochus IX's forces confined Seleucus VI

You could link Antiochus VIII, Antiochus XI and Philip I in the image captions.

Done

"King Antiochus IV allowed" What was their relation?

Oh too distant. Antiochus IV was the uncle of Seleucus VI great grandfather

"erected by the island of Delos" On the island?

fixed

"reconstructed by Théophile Homolle" Give year?

done

Does this statue still exist, and are there photos?

No sadly. Only the base and I could not find any photos of it

"Egyptian wife Tryphaena" in the intro and "Ptolemaic princess Tryphaena" in the article. I know the two terms could be considered interchangeable here, but might be best with consistency.

done

Support - looks good to me, with such a flurry of confusingly similar names, it is good to link and present them all in image captions henceforward (I should had brought it up during earlier FACs too). FunkMonk (talk) 17:15, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support comments by Mr rnddude

I don't know all that much about the Seleucid empire, other than that it was founded by one of Alexander's trusted generals after his death, but I'll help out with some notes for a start.

Sources:

Several sources have been flagged as missing "pagenums for book chapter". In order: Adrian Dumitru (2016), Eugenia Equini Schneider (1999a and b), Hope W. Hogg (1911), Arthur Houghton (1992), Marion Meyer (2001), Claudia Tempesta (2013), and Nicholas L. Wright (2011).
A bunch have also been flagged for "missing archive link", but perfect is the enemy of good here.

Thanks for this thorough review. I added the pages numbers, but Im not sure what do you mean by "missing archive link"

It's the most common of all error prompts, at least for me. It's mostly about the possibility of links breaking and there not being a back-up. I don't know about creating archive links, and it's too minor to worry about. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:22, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Citations:

There's two instances of p/pp errors:

Citation 38: p. 72, 73 should be pp. 72–73 Use an endash when pages are in series, and a comma when they are not.
Citation 58: Lorber & Iossif 2009, p. 102, 103 should be pp. 102–103.

I appreciate your use of links where possible to allow readers, reviewers, and anyone else to navigate directly to the page to check the source themselves. That's neat.

corrected

Images

I note that none of the images (except in the infobox) have alternative captions. These are vital for our visually impaired readers who cannot see the image.

With the image "Seleucus VI's statue.jpg", you might consider transliterating or translating the text for the alt caption. I suspect that most readers, particularly laymen, aren't going to be able to read the Greek text with any ease.
With the image "Syria under the Seleucids 95 BC.svg" you might very well just use the "image description" for the alt text.
With the coins, since they are all obverse and reverse, just describe what is being shown. E.g. for "Antiochus VIII.jpg" perhaps something like portrait of Antiochus VIII on the obverse; depiction of Zeus holding a star and staff on the reverse. Preferably in more detail though.

Done

Four of the six images are of coins, which isn't a great variety. However, I do appreciate that it is difficult to obtain likenesses of many ancient figures except in mint struck form.
I checked, briefly, the copyright status of each image. I didn't detect any issues. Each image is tagged with an appropriate license.

That's the basic "errors" based check for now. I'll start doing a prose review next. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:34, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

Note 10: was accepted by many scholars - was, being past tense, implies no longer, and so should be has been.

Here Im not sure. it was accepted at the time by some scholars. Those scholars are dead now but they kept their acceptance until they died. But modern scholars still accept this attribution. So what should be written here?

Has been is perfect present tense, so it means: it was true then, and it continues to be true now. E.g. Work has been an accepted part of human life since the dawn of agriculture. In our context it means that Homolle's original identification continues to be accepted by scholars. Hope that clarifies. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:22, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Corrected

Note 8: was the most-eastern point - Uh, eastern-most isn't it?
Note 8: However, it is known that following - While I understand what you're attempting to do here: indicate, without outright declaring, that Haym is wrong. It's unnecessary to tell the reader that a fact is a fact. Remove it is known that. The reader should be able to piece the facts together.
Note 7: autonomous coins issued by the city - Coins have autonomy? autonomously issued coins or coins issued by the autonomous city.
Note 5: 0.5 g.reduced - remove the second period.
Note 4: Historian Jan Willem van Henten suggested that the intended king was Seleucus VI rather than Seleucus I, but den Dulk rejected this hypothesis as the author of 4 Maccabees mentioned that "Seleucus Nicanor" reigned before the time of the Jewish high priest Onias III, who is separated from Seleucus VI by almost a century, making the identification of "Seleucus Nicanor" with Seleucus VI difficult. - At 64 words this is a very long and strenuous sentence to read. You can split this sentence in several places, though I'd propose: 1. ... rather than Seleucus I. Den Dulk rejects this hypothesis [as/because] .... 2. ... almost a century. This makes the ....
Note 2: The name Zaleucus is etymologically related to brightness; the historian Frank Adcock agreed with the linguist Otto Hoffmann who considered Seleucus and Zaleucus different pronunciations of the same name - Why is there a semi-colon after brightness instead of a full stop? The two statements don't appear to bear any connection to each other.

Done for the rest of the notes

Death and Legacy

The city of Athens shared a close relation with the Seleucid kings and statues of Syrian monarchs set up by Athenian citizens on the island of Delos testify to that - I had to read this two or three times to get the correct meaning. I would put a comma after Seleucid kings.
... the first, and oldest ... - 1. Normally I'd expect the list to include "the second, by Appian" and "the third, by Eusebius". 2. By the laws of logic, the first account is, by necessity, going to be the oldest. Hence remove the first.

Done

Reign in the capital and the war against Antiochus X

Seleucus IV only controlled Cilicia and Syria Seleucis (Northern Syria) - I only control my house. So by no means does Seleucus IV get to complain about the size of his domain. That is to say, remove only as a subjective term.

Done

the archaeologist Alfred Bellinger believed that the king prepared for his coming war against Antiochus X in Elaiussa. In 144 SE (169/168 BC), King Antiochus IV allowed - Antiochus IX is defeated by Seleucus in 95 BC. You've just set the stage for the coming war between Selecus VI and Antiochus X (son of Antiochus IX). Then, in the next sentence, we're moving back 75 years to the time of Antiochus IV. Suddenly I'm thrust out of impending war, into city politics. For me this segment belongs in a separate later paragraph, or even in the following section: but not before the end of Seleucus VI's reign - So after his death?

You are right. I rearranged the paragraph and re-wrote some sentences. Hope its more logical now.

Sure that works. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:22, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Antiochus X's quest to avenge his father led him to face Seleucus VI - 1. Stating the obvious. We've already established that Seleucus VI killed Antiochus IX, and that Antiochus X is Antiochus IX's son. It follows then that Antiochus X and Seleucus VI are at conflict. 2. quest to avenge - Belongs in a novel, not an encyclopedic article.

Done

I have no serious comments about prose in the earlier sections of the article. It's both concise and clear. Mr rnddude (talk) 07:18, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a second sweep and haven't noted anything else. I check about a third of the linked references, and they all checked out for me. Happy to support. Mr rnddude (talk) 02:13, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

Well this one has kind of fallen through the cracks -- I note Mr rnddude has commented on sources and images but I'm not sure that we've had the reliability of the references assessed, nor the licensing of the images. If not, we should list requests for those at the top of WT:FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:07, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I asked on the talk page.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 11:17, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Images seem OK to me although I have to wonder why File:Syria under the Seleucids 95 BC.svg shows 20-21th century dams. Regarding sources:

Josephus did not really live in the 19th century, did he?

Well no, he didn't. That's why there's an "orig-year" next to the publishing year: Josephus (1833) [c. 94]. That particular edition of the ancient work was published in the 19th century. The same as for the ancient sources of Appian and Eusebius, and for Libanius except in 1992. Mr rnddude (talk) 12:07, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is it normal that the sources are so heavily weighted towards numismatics? I know that coins are a major source of information for that time and Google Scholar'ing "Seleucus VI" seems to support this notion.

They are our only source aside from short sentences in ancient literature. So it is inevitable

Are "Modern Library", "Fontemoing & Cie" and "Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava." good publishers?

Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava is the title of the series; Brill is the publisher. Fontemoing & Cie is the publisher of Pierre Roussel in 1916; whether it is a good publisher or not is not relevant here as Im using the work published by them because Roussel chose them as his publisher and I have to use this source to cite Roussel's reading of the inscription (In any case, works published by Fontemoing & Cie are cited by many modern scholars, as a search on google books will show). The work published by Modern Library is by Peter Green, a respected historian. However, I replaced the work of Green

Didn't do any spotchecks but source formatting seems OK to me.

Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:51, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Replying to ping: I made a few comments on the sources and images relating to formatting. I looked briefly at the image licensing, for any red flags, but I don't have the necessary competence to do a proper image review. As for a source review, I'll give it a closer look when I get the chance. Mr rnddude (talk) 12:29, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

All images appropriately licensed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:41, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 23:30, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.