Talk:Oresas

Proposed deletion, 19 May 2023

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This nomination is faulty, as it misidentifies the author (it was written by Charles Peter Mason, not William Smith) and fails to address the second source cited (Bibliotheca Graeca). It does not clearly state which editions of Stobaeus were consulted. Unfortunately I have also been unable to locate the reference in either source, but it is not plausible that the entry was, as alleged, "made up". The more reasonable explanation is that, not having the correct editions to review, or the older editions being indexed/catalogued in manners that are difficult to comprehend without greater familiarity, we're just having trouble finding the correct volumes and pages. This requires further research, which will not occur if the article is deleted now. If further research can verify that there are no such references—very improbable, IMO—then deletion will be appropriate.

However, I may have found an explanation in PW, which has an entry under "Orestadas" for a Pythagorean of Metapontum. Iamblichus lists him amongst the Pythagoreans of that region, which is not in itself enough for an article, but I suspect that "Oresas" and "Orestadas" might refer to the same disciple of Pythagoras. It could be that Charles Peter Mason emended "Orestadas" to "Oresas", in the belief that the latter was the correct form of the name, or it could be a typographical error in the DGRBM. The problem with this explanation is that it leaves us with two references to other sources in the original article, which we have not yet been able to confirm, and one confirmed source not mentioned by the article.

In either case, I don't think that proposed deletion is the best procedure here: this is not likely to be a person made up by the scholar who wrote the article. It is likely to be a matter of finding the right editions and pages—if indeed 'p' means 'page' in the reference to Bibliotheca Graeca, because in the edition I found online, 'p' referred to some order or pagination other than the page numbers as we would regard them. So pending further investigation—surely the references led somewhere when they were new, and can be updated now—I am deprodding the article. P Aculeius (talk) 15:55, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Well, I've found the reference in Bibliotheca Graeca at last—seems to be from the Fourth Edition, vol. I, page 860. But this only leads back to Stobaeus, and I'm having no luck locating it there. This source does suggest that Oresas is not the same person as Orestadas of Metapontum—at least, Fabricius listed them separately two lines apart, and did not equate them. Will have to keep looking in Stobaeus—but this certainly absolves Charles Peter Mason or the DGRBM of "making it up". There is a fragment somewhere in Stobaeus, but we haven't located it yet. P Aculeius (talk) 16:32, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

So I think I've found the reference in Stobaeus in 1575 edition; I had initially checked Meineke and the author index in Wachsmuth (which postdates DGRBM but has an index and could be used as a reference) and then nominated for deletion. However, it looks like DGRBM is referencing the page number in 1575 because there's an entry there by a pythagorean on page 105.

However, it's attributed to "Aresas" - "On the nature of man" in the earlier edition of Stobaeus, who has both a separate wikipedia page and a separate entry in DGRBM, which curiously attributes a Stobaeus fragment that matches the one in the 1575 edition to either Aresas or Aesara, but no mention of "Oresas". I also checked Thesleff's Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period again, who follows the 1575 edition and attributes this fragment to Aresas. So I think we're justified in taking the fragment away from "Oresas" at the very least.

So that leaves us with just two passing mentions to possibly the same person (Orestadas/Arestadas) in Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus from Bibliotheca Graeca, so I'm skeptical that this is notable enough for its own page. I don't think Charles Peter Mason woke up one day and invented a pythagorean on purpose out of malice, but it seems like the existence of this page might be entirely attributable to his own confusion and over-enthusiastic amendation, which I don't think justifies the page on its own.

I suppose redirection might be an alternative to deletion here? But if someone looks up Oresas in the DGRBM and then goes to see the wikipedia page, being redirected to a page with a separate DGRBM entry would be confusing. And realistically I don't see anyone looking up "Oresas" on wikipedia - it's just not a common enough misspelling. Then again, redirection would preserve this talk page's history, which might hopefully clarify any confusion.

If redirection to Aresas is fine with you, I think we should do that and maybe take it to AfD if anyone objects, but if you have other suggestions, I'm open to them as well. - car chasm (talk) 18:01, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that! I wasn't looking forward to scouring different editions of Stobaeus again! I think that redirection is the best course of action, on the assumption that "Oresas" is an error—or perhaps less likely, an alternative orthography—for "Aresas". Mason may have been using Bibliotheca Graeca to keep track of different Pythagoreans, and either adopted "Oresas" as the correct orthography, or supposed they were two different persons, because he didn't see them at the same time and realize that they came from the same name in Stobaeus. If someone goes looking for Oresas, they'll wind up at what we're pretty sure is the right article.

BG lists Orestadas separately two lines after Oresas, with a different source, so I don't think they're the same person. It was just a hypothesis I came up with before I was able to locate either reference for Oresas, since I found Orestadas but not Oresas in PW—Mason or perhaps the typesetter leaving out the middle of the name. But as we've now found the references, that no longer seems like the best explanation. I haven't seen Diogenes Laërtius, so I don't know whether Orestadas could have his own article or merely be listed somewhere with other Pythagoreans. That's all you can do from Iamblichus, which you can read here: just one name from a list of disciples of Pythagoras at Metapontum. Iamblichus says that the persons he names are the "most celebrated" of the Pythagoreans, but doesn't provide any details—if we knew what he knew, perhaps there'd be something to write about! If Diogenes Laërtius has something more detailed to add, there might be a case for an article, but otherwise just a name in a list. P Aculeius (talk) 19:14, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Looks like the Diogenes Laërtius reference is also very minor, it's just a mention in passing in the biography on Xenophanes. So it looks like "Orestadas" isn't notable enough for an article; I'll redirect this article to Aresas.

Thanks for all your help and advice! - car chasm (talk) 23:39, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

As one last mea culpa, the error I made here that led me to PROD this article was assuming that the Index in Wachsmuth's edition of Stobaeus was accurate or represented the content of previous editions - while "Oresas" is not listed there, Aresas is also missing from the author index, because Wachsmuth attributes this passage to Aesara. - car chasm (talk) 23:54, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

I suggest copying this discussion over to the talk page there, emending the title of the discussion to "Proposed deletion of Oresas" or something along those lines. That will make it that much easier for anyone confused by the name and redirect to figure out why it leads there. A hatnote in the article might also be appropriate, although I'm not sure what it should say. P Aculeius (talk) 03:26, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.