Talk:Battle of Plataea/GA1

GA Review

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I had only time to briefly read through the article and make a few remarks marked with fact tags(you can see them when you open the text with the edit function. Done

• "Darius swore revenge..." - hopefully fixed
• "...a force approximating 300,000 might have been possible" - Not my reference; it was already in the article. I would suggest there is no chance of referencing this any better (I can't read Greek, even if I had access to the article), and would be happy to see it removed from the article.
• "a number of 300,000 does not find favour with modern historians" - This was supposed to be more a self-evident statement; if one accepts that the modern consensus is for a total of 250,000 for the invasion force (which I have provided a reference for), then modern consensus must also ipso facto reject 300,000 for Persian numbers for Plataea.

The lead and the background section are too long. You can do a better job summarizing them. Done

• Agreed. I will work in it.
  • Done. Hopefully.

There are several content problems as for why did the main Persian army retreat and why was it a bad idea to attack the Hellespont. Done

How Greek leadership worked should be highlighted because they operated rather chaotic. Done

A detailed discussion why the number of light armed troops was too high should be added. 400 triremes(there were 366–378 triremes at Salamis and that's not disputed) with 150 rowers(excluding reserve rowers!) make up 60.000 men without hoplite equipment. The problem is that then there possibly can't be a sea battle at the same time.  Done

That leads the next and very important issue. You have to add a complete section discussing the primary sources based on the assessments of modern historians. These battles on the very same day are rather suspicious. Done

I strongly recommend using modern sources like Holland, however, the article is almost exclusively sourced with Holland and Herodotus. That raises the concern of POV issues. If you could show that you actually used some more sources for your statements I would be much delighted because than I won't have to read several books on the topic and check for points you missed. If you use a book please give the page numbers. It's also possible that you mark certain chapters with papers with short notes because we have to possibly refine some statements and it's laboursome to look them up each time.

• As you have probably guessed, I have been working primarily from Holland and Herodotus. I have desperately been trying to find a copy of Green's 'Greco-Persian Wars' (an author who seems to generally have a balanced POV), but with no luck. I agree that this narrow reference base would be problematic for any future FA review. However, I don't think that this is a problem for GA. And, IMHO, I think Holland does a good job of being balanced. Nevertheless, I agree more references would be for the best.

I will start a more detailed review in a few days. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:11, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• Comments added above. MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 21:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Very good job shortening the sections. Still missing is the information on how the Greek leadership worked (you find that in the primary sources)

See Battle of Salamis#Sources for a discussion of our main source. You might copy it and add what Holland says on the other minor sources. Done

• • I did originally include the same 'Sources' section in this article, as for Salamis. However, another editor removed it (for reasons that I partially agree with)(see above #sources). I will add a (hopefully) improved version of the sources section back to this article soon.

Please discuss in detail why the high numbers of light armed are impossible for the Greek side. I do have some doubts and think there will be differing opinions if you use other historians. Athens has presumably 10k (Marathon)hoplites, but only 8k (Plataea)at the site. If you add that they had 180 ships with more than 10 hoplites boarding crew, you have roughly the 2k missing as members of the fleet. So regarding the hoplite numbers, it's possible to fight at land and at sea(although not necessarily on the same day). Who could, did fight as a hoplite, while it's assumed that the light armed were given equipment worth a few drachma in total. Athens alone needs 30k light armed to man the fleet compared to the 10k hoplites, making it roughly equivalent to Sparta that didn't really have a fleet, but allegedly contributed 30k to the land battle. The other cities had rather small fleets compared to the number of hoplites at this battle. If you assume similar economic structures, it seems rather probable that there was such a number of non-hoplites available. I have to check on the Greek light armed(on friday, got access to some scientific libraries), but as far as I know they usually outnumbered the hoplites until the introduction of mercenary peltasts in the Peloponesian war. You could help me and check if Lazenby also discusses the number of light armed as unlikely(he wrote The Spartan army, a book I don't have access to, but very useful).  Done

• • I hope I have now satisfactorily extended the discussion as to why the Greeks could have had 110,000 men, but probably didn't.

Wandalstouring (talk) 10:07, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I have now added some maps to the article. I will get to work on the sources. MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 13:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

And I have now added a section on sources which I hope is even-handed, but which does not cast too much doubt on the account given in the article. I have also written a paragraph on the Greek leadership, as requested.MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 07:39, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Assessment

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

3. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

4. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

5. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): (a map of the battle would help) b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

6. Overall:

   Pass/Fail: