Talk:Cornelia gens

Name location usage

Realize "Cornelius" is a name for one of the most important families of Ancient Rome. Was the name "Cornelius" ever used in ancient Middle East, or was it used only in the area of Rome (Italy)? --Doug ^talk 20:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

References

I noticed there is no references to fall back onto, to look up or follow up. Should there be some here? --Doug ^talk 16:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Probable hoax names removed from article.

These entries were added to the article by an IP editor back on November 16, 2005. They all have inexplicable names, and are supposedly consuls in imperial times, but I don't see them in the list of consuls here and don't recall seeing their names anywhere else. Google searches for these individuals only seem to turn up Wikipedia clones. So unless some source can be found, I'm moving them here as a probable hoax. P Aculeius (talk) 22:21, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

• Numerius Cornelius Sulla Felix Faustullus Barbatullus, consul in AD 150.
• Salcus Cornelius Sulla Felix Faustullus Barbatullus Mactator, consul in AD 241.
• Potitus Cornelius Sulla Felix Messalla, consul in AD 312.

Thumbnail at the top of the page

The caption identifies the four men as "Scipiones", but the top left is Lucius Cornelius Sulla and the top right is Gaius Marius. I'm not sure what the other two are, but a quick drop by the pages for either of these men will confirm what I've said, and the thumbnail is not exactly appropriate for this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.156.20.118 (talk) 17:58, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

These identifications with Marius and Sulla were made in the 17th century and are wrong. Filippo Coarelli showed that the two busts were found near the Tomb of the Scipiones, in about the same time as the sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus, and should be the heads of the statues that used to adorn the facade of the tomb. I've added several refs. T8612 (talk) 20:48, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

They're traditional identifications, and since we don't *really* know how either of them looked, they'll do for those purposes. They don't do very well for this one, because even if the *probabilities* are that they might have been Scipios, we can't know that for certain, much less know which is which. They might as well be Sulla and Marius. This might be a decent illustration for the Scipiones in general, but I don't care for the montage as the lead image for this article, and would rather go back to the Pompeian villa. Even though the Cornelius who owned it may be obscure, it's a good illustration for a Roman article, and there's plenty of room for illustrations of individual Cornelii—but no one of them dominates the entire family, and none of these images is entirely satisfactory for the lead, IMO. Keep the montage with the Scipiones if you want, but I'd move it from the lead and put the villa back. P Aculeius (talk) 22:56, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

There is now a consensus that the heads are not those of Marius and Sulla, but their identification with the Scipiones brothers have been recognised by three modern scholars (though one is against it). I feel that it is enough to accept them as such, while still noting the disagreement. After all, almost everything we know from the ancient world relies on very few scholars' works. I don't think there is a single Roman statue made before Caesar for which the identification is certain, so we can't be overly cautious on this. Anyway, I've moved the montage next to the section on the Scipiones, and moved up the picture of their Tomb, which I still prefer as lede picture over the Pompeian villa. T8612 (talk) 19:01, 9 December 2019 (UTC)