Talk:Allia Potestas

More details

I really like your organization and your use of specific quotes from the poem - though a few more could be useful to illustrate some of your finer details. Is there any information available about Allia Potestas's slave status and/or former owners? That may shed some insight on both her personality and character, as well as upbringing. Please consider also linking to information on traditional women's epitaths (such as the more conservative ones we discussed in class) or writing a sentence or two. Very nice article! - Eugenia Gabrielov 129.105.4.184 15:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I really liked how you included the meter and structure of the epitaph. Also, it seems like Allia Potestas did not have a husband or traditional family. If this is the case, you might want to just make it a little more clear. Also, you might want to provide some very brief historical context so the reader can better understand why such praise for a woman was so noteworthy. More specifically, just one or two general sentences on women in Roman society would suffice. If possible, an actual image of the grave would be a very nice touch. -Jonathan Simrin 5/14/07

Thanks for the comments. I'll try to add some information (or link to it) on women in society.

Picture

If anyone happens to be reading this talk page and has an image of the tombstone which you would be willing to release into the public domain, please add it to the article. DavidBild 08:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

You raise an interesting copyright issue. I would venture that a photo of the eulogy would be in the public domain, since for all intents and purposes the epitaph is a two dimensional work. In that case, any of the images available online could be used. However, I could be wrong. I'll check into this for you. nadav 08:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

This article is very well organized and does a great job describing both the structure and content of the epitaph. If a picture of this actual epitaph is unavailable maybe a picture of a tomb that includes an epitaph could be used just to provide the reader with a general idea of what the tomb might look like. Also, there is a link in the references section that could be formatted so you can click on it to reach the website, and you might want to identify what this link is.Asaunders906 16:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)Alexandra Saunders

This article does a very good job of providing a complete, comprehensive overview of the subject. I found the section detailing what makes her epitaph unique when compared to others from the period to be especially interesting. Agreeing the other critics, a copy of the epitaph would be nice, but I don't find it to be necessary as the article provides an adequate summary of the content. Furthermore, the fact that you linked to an external website which had a complete copy of the text is also helpful. It might be useful to include information about the normal, expected epitaph of a woman as a way to highlight the ways this particular one is unusual. Stephanie Sutter, May 15, 2007

Age

This article begins thus:

Allia Potestas was a freedwoman from the Roman town of Perugia who lived in the 1st–4th centuries CE.

If she was born just before the end of the 1st century and died just after the beginning of the 4th century, then she lived slightly more than 200 years. Could it be that what was meant was that there is uncertainty about the dates? If so, this should be re-phrased. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:53, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

sexual translation?

One passage currently reads:

The erotic physical description – Allia "kept her limbs smooth" and "on her snow-white breasts, the shape of her nipples was small."

It isn't clear who translated this, but I'm assuming Horsefall.

Contrast to the translations of the second passage above from other discussions about Potestas:

her breasts, white as snow, showed their slight form

- The Epitaph of Allia Potestas, Ella Bourne, The Classical Weekly Vol. 9, No. 15 (Feb. 5, 1916), p. 115

The curve of her breasts was small on her snow-white bosom

http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-mensopinions47.shtml

My concern is how Wikipedia's chosen translation is (in my opinion) considerably more explicit than what is apparently the alternatives (I know no Latin myself), and how this choice could have been made in order to support the thesis "this is unusually erotic". Not that any of this is necessarily wrong. But still. CapnZapp (talk) 08:46, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see the original Latin at the provided link, but a 1916 translation would be likely to downplay the erotic element... AnonMoos (talk) 08:57, 20 April 2015 (UTC)