Talk:Roman Empire/Archive 8

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I went ahead and made one of my suggested changes.

I've reworded that one sentence, figuring it wasn't a big change and that no one would object. I'm not sure what to do about the rest. That second statement (re: the non-Christians who don't care about Christian persecution) is an extraneous mess, but this isn't my article and it's not my job to fix it. Rosekelleher (talk) 16:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Romulus Augustus abdication causing a collapse?

Romulus Augustus forced abdication causing a "collapse"? That wouldn't be a quite accurate picture, I think. Romulus Augustus was the last independent Western Roman emperor over an empire that had "collapsed" now and then for internal trouble and external invaders. The deposing of Romulus Augustus rather caused a pop in a bubbling evaporation of the Western empire, some small restorations occurred both earlier and later, but the deposition should not be described as a "collapse", rather somethink like a final blow upon a waning empire. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:28, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Fixed.--Tataryn77 (talk) 14:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Transition from "Dominate" to "Byzantine" periods

The text says this: "Of the many accepted dates for the end of the classical Roman state, the latest is 610. " Does anyone have a citation for that? Because it is completely incorrect. While there are historians (especially church minded ones) who use earlier dates (like the founding of COnstantinople in 330 or the loss of Italy in 476, etc.) most use a cluster of events and dates immediately following 619: The adoption of Greek as the official language in 620, the assumption of the title of Basileus in 629, the Battle of Yarmouk in 636 with its cataclysmic loss of the Middle East, Egypt and North Africa, or the subsequent sweeping away of the Diocletian system and reordering of the Imperial military and administration between 640-660. I am not aware of any historian who uses 610 and a great number (the majority of recent scholars) who use dates later.

I think this text should be changed from 610 to 660. Does anyone have an objection?

TheCormac (talk) 16:16, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Provide a couple of sources for the later dates and you can make the change. I suppose this is related to the debate of when does Late Antiquity end? Dimadick (talk) 07:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Legion size

Caesar's legions had 4 000 infantry plus 1 000 cavalry. Augustus' legions were 5 600 -strong (5 120 infantry plus 480 cavalry), thus 28 legions equates 156 800 men; 25 legions would be 140 000 men. However, as there were usually same number of auxilliaries, Augustian army would have 280 000 - 314 000 men, not counting non-combatants who were also part of the military. 31.216.214.43 (talk) 09:35, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

That seems about right. A common estimate in reliable literature for the complete standing army during the early empire is 300,000 men. For instance Marcus Junkelmann gives that figure, when discusses the numbers for the total on p. 89-92 in his book "Die Legionen des Augustus". But there should be ample of English resources with the same info as well. I'm not quite sure about the reason for thos posting though. Do you want to have the 300,000 figure explicitly in the article?--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:47, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

P.S.: More details in WP can be found in more specialized articles like Imperial_Roman_army#Army_size_and_cost. However the overal sourcing of those articles could still be improved.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:54, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Poor sourcing still a problem

Since Seagram just removed some content from rather questionable sources, it might be a good idea to take a look at the sources overall. While most sources are ok and inline with WP standars there are still a bunch of sourcers which at least at first glance look rather questionable for such a central article.

footnotes

• The source seagram rightfully complained about is still in use at another place (arbitrary odf of n author whose scholarship is unclear: Farber, Allen. "Early Christian Art: An Introduction" (#37)
• Use of non scholarly website: "WebseiteJudaea - Palaestina - Province of the Roman Empire* (#45)
• A 1909 publication of theological jornal: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3155063 (#50)
• Gibbon (see below): The content sourced with Gibbon seems rather uncontroversial, so there probably no issue regarding the correctness. Still there should be ample much more recent sources that could be used instead. (#55-58)
• Abbot (see below): used all over the article, while probably uncontroversial in most cases relying to large degree on 100 year old source is still somewhat problematic, for the reason alone that it does not consider all the (new) archeological evidence of the last 100 years.

General references & further reading

Frank Frost Abbott, John Bagnell Bury,Edward Gibbon although all 3 were important scholar during their time (and are now from historic perspective and for the reception history), they are all roughly 100 or more years old (Gibbon even 230), meaning archeological evidence and scholarly revision of theories/themes/interpretations of the last 100 years are missing. That makes them a somewhat inappropriate reference for non experts (having no way to know what's really outdated/false and what's not) and further more a bad suggestion for further reading/general reference. But most importantly there is absolutely no good reason to rely on them for this article. The Roman empire is fairly well researched subject with a large variety of recent scholarly work, hence there is absolutely no reason to rely on such ancient scholarly sources other than the convenience of individual authors (online availability due to copyright expiration). However while the convenience argument may be reasonable for first versions of articles (having writing up some useful information at all), it doesn't really hold for later revisions of articles in particular high profile ones. For the latter we should use the best sources and not some which barely/borderline aceeptable.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:05, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

There's a difference between references and further reading. I never use Gibbon as a source per se, but when summarizing the history of scholarship on a point, it's appropriate to include his view. Gibbon is a classic of historiography, and still read for his own sake. You still see him referenced popularly in the New York Times or New York Review of Books. So I'd argue that in a "Further reading" section, he is perhaps the one historian who's essential to list in this article. His influence on the historiography of the Roman Empire, and how later historians have written about it, is so extensive that any section in the article that explains the historiographical tradition would be remiss not to name him. And Mommsen, of course. J.B. Bury is worth a mention too. See for instance Wikipedia:Further reading#Reliable, which takes note of "historically important publications." In fact, I'd recommend a section with a paragraph on historiography of the Roman Empire, with a list of classic works. That recognizes the intellectual context from which current scholarship derives, while segregating possibly outdated views. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:09, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

First of all Gibbon is used for specific references currently (see further up). There is no doubt that Gibbon is an important or influential figure, but this an article on the Roman Empire and not an article on Gibbon (and his influence). General reference or reading recommendation should imho primarily offer reliable up to date scholarly coverage on the subject roman empire itself and that doesn't really apply for any of three. Gibbon is of interest, when you to trace the origins and reception on our current knowledge of the Roman, but that is something completely different. This is an article on the roman empire not an article on scholarship about the roman empire. If you want to introduce a separate historiography section or "reception/perception"-section, that's a different story, there Gibbon would be mandatory and the two probably should be mention as well. We currently don't have such section though.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:52, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Could you cite a diff where someone said this was an article about Gibbon and his influence? It would be illiterate to have an article about the Roman Empire without mentioning the influence of Gibbon and Mommsen (a Nobel laureate) on how the Roman Empire has been been perceived. To put it bluntly, what makes you think you know more about the Roman Empire than Gibbon and Mommsen? And we could probably head off some of the unnecessary hostility if you check out my user page. I think you'll see from my articles that I know perfectly well how to use modern scholarship, and as a gesture of good faith you might entertain the possibility, however slight it may be, that I or some other editor knows as much about ancient Rome, scholarly methodology, and the historiography of antiquity as you do. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:20, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for my indignant tone, but it really isn't helpful in creating a working environment if instead of addressing the actual points raised (the continued currency of Gibbon in discourse on the Roman Empire; that Gibbon merits a place on a "Further Reading" list as distinguished from use as a source in the footnotes), editors just assume everybody else in the world who might want to contribute to the article just doesn't know scat. I mean, clearly you didn't understand what I was talking about, or just didn't bother to think about it. Because I didn't say to use Gibbon as a source, or Bury or Mommsen (though all your modern scholars still regularly cite Mommsen); I said their contributions to the field should be acknowledged. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:29, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

No worries - misunderstanding happen and this seems to be one indeed. As I said before I have no issue with Gibbon and Mommsen as important figures. I just don't think they are the best sources for actual WP content today, since we have much more recent scholarly sources available. However I think I actually understood you quite well in your posting. The problem was, that it wasn't really related to my first posting (or at least its intention) and it argued against things, I didn't claim in the first place (see below for details). Hence my somewhat puzzled reaction. As far as "knowing squat" is concerned, WP has fair amount of expert authors, that however is no good reason for them to cite rather old and potentially at least partially outdated material, just because they know that for the specific content in question the old source still works fine. Finding a more recent source is particularly easy for such expert editors and it avoids misunderstandings with other editors and potential mistakes, hence it is imho the sensible thing to do. It is also better for readers of our articles, because they do not not know whether the article was written by expert correctly using old scholarly sources or a lay person uncritically incorporating outdated information. So it is clearly in the benefit of our average reader and our fellow editors, if we use more recent scholarly source when possible. It sort of increases the transparency to them as well, because they with a recent scholarly source they immediately see that it is outdated material, where in the case of an old source they simply don't know at first glance, i.e. it is opaque to them.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:20, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I think you are confusing issues and making this personal for no good reason. I never said I know more than Mommsen or Gibbon nor did I make any comment regarding your knowledge or work in WP. Nor do I question the statue and importance of Mommsen or Gibbon. Claiming that I might operate the notion that I might know more than you or other editors is frankly not only incorrect bur rather offensive. It also makes me wonder whether you actually really understood what I was talking about further up. I'm getting the impression you are reading that posting as attack on you for some reason.

So please let's get back to the actual issue at hand. I merely pointed out that for sourcing purposes WP should rely on more recent scholarly rather than very old ones and that an overall good article has some (minor) sourcing issues, that should be fixed. I'm not sure, what your issue is with that exactly. Can you give me one good reason why we need cite Gibbon on some content rather than recent reputable scholarly source?

Now as far as the (historical) importance and influence of Gibbon and Mommsen is concerned, I already said above that I don't disagree on that nor do I object against that being mentioned in the article. But if you want express the (historical) importance/influence of Gibbon and Mommsen for scholarship on the Roman Empire then do so by writing a historiography section or a section on the development of scholarship on the Roman empire, but not indirectly by simply using them as a source where more recent sources would be much more appropriate.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:59, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not convinced there's much difference between the two of you. Cynwolfe, could you specify what it is that you disagree with in Kmhkmh's recent posts? Dougweller (talk) 16:39, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

map of largest extent (117 ad)

larger area in the arabian peninsula

smaller area on the arabian peninsula. more in line with older published maps but possibly outdated

newest version

There sees to be a disputed regarding the best map and the exact extend of Roman control on the Arabian peninsula.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:44, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I had previously posted on Tataryn77's talk page that I proposed a comprimised map that would show in a solid colour the Land controlled by Rome as in almost universally considered under Romes control, and presenting in a different shade of the colour the lands in dispute. It would allow him to show his view, without creating a map that contradicts what many scholars have always shown as being Roman. And again we have little knowledge of the nature of the military presence, and Kevin Butcher states in his book "Roman Syria and the Near East" that the presence was likely there for a more special reason. So I proposed this compromised map until a moer uniform conclusion can be made by Historians. ~Akiatu~ (talk) 20:54, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Btw. regarding the dispute about Hegra and Dumatha. Wikipedia itself offers already some information on it (see the linked articles), it both cases it claims that they were part of the Roman Empire respectively the Roman province Arabia. At least for the Hegra it seems well sourced as well, whereas the sourcing Dumatha is a bit iffy.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:06, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

That is the problem I have with the larger map. Hegra fits well into the more conservative map, whereas his map is based off the sourcing for Dumatha, which as you say is iffy, meaning that the best answer I personally believe is to wait until a more solid and accepted source comes to show Rome actually controlled Dumatha as a part of the Empire. But again I'm still willing on the compromise map if Tataryn77 is willing to accept. {EDIT} Might I also add I did check Dumatha, and it does say that it was integrated. Yet doing a quick check, I spotted that the one who put in that statement was Tatarym77, so to use that as an example is simply using your own works to support your ideas, rather then using others work as references. ~Akiatu~ (talk) 21:18, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

The "iffy sourcing" referred to the WP articles, not to the available scholarly knowledge on the subject, which I'm admittingly not particularly familiar with. However browsing around on Google Books quickly reveals a variety of scholarly books talking about a Roman presence in Dumatha/Jawf/Wadi Sirhad. There seems evidence that the Romans even built a road to Dumatha and some authors (in particular Parker citing Speidel) talk about Roman forces deep inside the arabian desert and attempting to control the entire Wadi Sirhad (Wwith Dumatha/Jawf being at the southeastern end). Also I somewhat disagree with you reading Butcher, when he speaks of a "more special reason" for a particular assembly of troops, it is not be understood as "special reason" instead of occupation for Roman troops in the area in general.

• Millar
• Bowersock
• Ball
• Butcher
• Bennett
• Young
• Parker

Personally however I don't really like purple map due to it lack of geographical features/markers (no rivers), I'd rather go for an updated/imprived version of the green map. But in any case regarding the exact borders I suggest to wait for additional feedback from people watching this article.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:22, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I do agree with your comment about the map not showing rivers. I am making a new map right now. However, the borders are accurate in the purple map. Therefore, the map stays until it is replaced by something equally accurate and/or better. About Dumatha, there are many sources for the Roman presence at therer from the Antonine period to the Severan period - hardly "iffy". Also, I don't understand Akiatu's odd remarks about the "nature" of the military presence. That doesn't matter. Roman Arabia has nothing to do with the US being in Germany or Japan. There were Roman soldiers stationed at Dumatha and Hegra for a century or more in sparsely populated region. Akiatu makes it seem like there were a few Roman soldiers surrounded by a large non-Roman populace - so therefore the territory was "not Roman". The reality is that the entire region was sparsely populated and nearly every inhabitable way-point was controlled by a Roman fortress. If anything, the region probably had a very high ratio of Roman soldiers compared to the overall populace of the region - similar to the Olt valley in Dacia - essentially uninhabitable land dotted with Roman forts to monitor the region. Julian Bennett says Dumatha and Hegra likely constituted the limes of Arabia Petraea and Anthony Birley goes into detail about Severan construction and refurbishing of many forts extending all the way to Dumatha. The map stays (or a new map depicting rivers but with the same borders). The map has been around for many months. Every single user on wikipedia interested in the Roman Empire has seen the map by now. It stays.--Tataryn77 (talk) 02:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

There is a small pickle though. Proof for the Antonine and Severian periods is no good for a 117 ad map. Meaning we need (enough) reliable sources explicitly stating Roman control/occupation for 117 AD (Trajan/Hadrian). Btw if you are willing to make a new map anyhow, it might be a good idea to wait for further feedback before going ahead. If you add additional features to the map, then aside from rivers, it would be nice to show important cities and fortifications (the various limiti) as well. Another desirable feature (if possible) would be the map itself being larger and possibly in a vectorized format (svg). There might be some generic svg maps for the region that on commons that could be used as a basis.-Kmhkmh (talk) 07:51, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

By no means is that how a Dispute resolution works Tartaryn77. We wait until others have spoken. And if they decide against you, I will not allow you to enforce your map. And if they do decide against you and you decide to ignor them, I will personally go to someone higher up to deal with you. Now wait until a good number of people have spoken before assuming you alone may make such decisions. Akiatu~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.4.240 (talk) 03:56, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

The new map will have cities as well, and will be larger and higher quality. Also, I only mentioned the Antonine and Severan periods to demonstrate that the Romans were there for decades. Julian Bennett goes into great detail about fortifications in the region being built during Trajan's preparation for the conquest of Parthia and for the control of trade routes through the desert to Charax. This is all quite logical anyways because the road through the northeastern Arabian desert runs through Dumatha to the Persian Gulf. I've provided references even in the description of the map. I'm open to all the feedback available, though. Also, Anthony Birley goes into detail about Severus building new and refurbishing old fortresses up to Dumatha, for much the same reasons as Trajan did before.

As for Akiatu, it seems you're upset for some reason? Maybe you have an emotional bias to the topic at hand? I'm not sure who you'll see "personally" to "deal with me", but unless you can provide sources saying the Romans did not station soldiers at Dumatha and Hegra during this period, and as long as I provide sources saying there were soldiers at Dumatha and Hegra during this period, then I will resume making my map. Also, I did not mention the wikipedia article on Dumatha, Kmhkmh did, so I didn't "use my own works to support my ideas, rather then using others work as references". Threats won't get you anywhere, Akiatu, but reading a book will.--Tataryn77 (talk) 09:39, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Based on what I have read so far, I am not yet convinced that the current map is a good choice.

1. It may not be correct for the Trajan period. The only undisputed evidence of a Roman military presence in Dumata dates from the third century. Any presence in AD 117 is hypothetical. Bennett himself uses a cautious "may well" when referring to Trajan (p. 181).

2. Even if a Roman presence in AD 117 can be proven, the map may overstate that presence. Parker (p. 544), based on Speidel, notes that the praetensio of the inscription derives from the verb praetendere, which is translated as "to be stationed out in front, beyond the main line of defense" (in fact "to stretch forward"). This is more suggestive of a precarious outpost deep in foreign territory than of an entire region being firmly under Roman control, which is what the map suggests.

Iblardi (talk) 19:42, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Julian Bennett says the "known site" at Dumatha dates to the Antonine period and may well have Trajanic predecessors. So what did you mean about "the only undisputed evidence dates from the third century"? I would assume you're commenting on Severan era forts? So are you saying there should be no maps showing Dumatha under Roman control any time during the 2nd century? What about the 3rd century? Do you consider the Severan era forts to be satisfactory enough Roman presence to warrant depicting those forts on a map? --Tataryn77 (talk) 19:56, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I've removed Dumatha from the map because it is now contentious, clearly. Are there any other areas of the map that need fixing?.--Tataryn77 (talk) 20:17, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

east of dacia

What did happen to the coastline in Arabia (from the green map). Also it might wothwwhile to take a closer look at Dacia (area directly east of the province), since the province moesia got extended as well (not sure whether that happened already under trajan and whether it was more a clientel region rather than part of province, but there were roads and settlements/fortifications)--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:33, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

The coast on the Red Sea changed because many are not sure where exactly Leuke Kome was, so I reduced the border to the most common position and least assuming location. Dacia is tough sometimes, I'll look into it more today. The area you're talking about is Ad Moesiam, which I believe was abandoned by the time of Trajans' death. I'm not positive, though. Anything else?--Tataryn77 (talk) 20:53, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I added Egra Kome or the "port of Hegra".--Tataryn77 (talk) 22:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Picture

Woman playing a kithara.

Add this picture to the section on music. The current image has been deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.206.36.241 (talk • contribs) 20:59, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Size

I change, the number of the peak extension in 117 AD, according to the sources are about or near 6.5 million km2,this is not the first time I correct this mistake,there is someone who returns the figure to 5 million km2 constantly, please Report this person, user,or Ip,

this guy constantly erase good contributions to this article, he dont know that 2,509,664 sq mi are = 6.500,000 sq km, beacuse only change the digits shown in sq km. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.251.141.243 (talk • contribs) 01:24, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistency

The article starts with "...was an ancient empire centered around the Mediterranean Sea, commonly dated from the accession of the Emperor Augustus in 27 BC through the abdication of the last emperor in 476 AD" which by itself is wrong. A couple of paragraphs later it says "The empire in the east (known today as the Byzantine Empire but referred to in its own day as simply the "Roman Empire") continued in various forms until 1453 ". So, the empire went until 476 or 1453? We know that the correct answer in 1453 and I wonder why there are a few who insist on the same mistake of trying to regard the Roman Empire in Ancient Era as something unrelated to the Roman Empire in Middle Ages. --Lecen (talk) 11:12, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

These statements are all historically accurate. Historians establish somewhat arbitrary cut offs (such as, did the empire begin in 27 BC with the handing over by the senate of its power to Augustus, in 31 BC with the Battle of Actium, 44 BC with the assassination of Caesar, 49 BC with the crossing of the Rubicon, etc) and this article is to show how historians describe the history. They set the dates of the Roman Empire as 27 BC to 476 AD, with the next 1,000 years constituting the history of the Byzantine empire. There are legitimate questions of whether this is the best way to describe the history of the Roman and Byzantine empires, and these problems are discussed in this article and in others, but Wikipedia articles are not forums to debate whether the commonly accepted history should be changed or not.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 16:48, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Those "arbitrary cut offs" can be discussed in a later section, but the lead can not contradict itself. You must correct it, either chose 476 or 1453, but not both. --Lecen (talk) 18:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't contradict itself. The Roman Empire ended in 476, its successor state the Byzantine Empire in 1453.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 05:23, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Successor state? It never changed its name. It was not another state born of a previous one. It was the Roman Empire until 1453. The lead is badly written and it needs to fixed. --Lecen (talk) 10:20, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

This is pointless discussion. The description in the article has to follow that in modern (reputable) literature and you find both variants in literature, so in that sense there is no "wrong" or "right" here. Whether the lead already gives the full detailed picture (including contradicting views) or just a simplified version with the details in a later section is in doubt just a matter of taste.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:05, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

The intro seems fine to me. This is a matter of article scope, which seems properly delimited here by the bifurcation in the 5th century. The article recognizes the continuity of an imperial authority in the East as the Byzantine Empire, which some might regard as the restoration of Greek self-rule within a Greek-speaking community. I do wonder, however, whether it's useful in the infobox to give the dates as 27 BC–AD 476/1453. Since the article only covers through the 5th century, the 1453 is potentially confusing. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:23, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

The date 1453 needs to remain in the infobox of an article called "Roman Empire" (and we actually have a section "Eastern Roman Empire (476–1453)"), and I also believe the lead introduction should not state that the (whole) Roman Empire ended in 476 (this date can, of course, represent the end of the Western Roman Empire, although even in this case another candidate would be 480, when Julius Nepos was assassinated). It is a well known fact that the "Byzantine Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire" (not just a successor state), and there are sources explicitly stating that the "Roman Empire did not come to an end until 1453". (Alternatively, this article could be renamed to "Ancient Roman Empire".) Cody7777777 (talk) 19:27, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

The Roman Republic and Roman Empire have separate articles, and share a far greater continuity of culture and political structure. The eastern empire continues as part of the Greek-speaking world, and we have a separate article on the Byzantine Empire. This is a matter of article scope; we have a summary section that explains the east-west breakdown and the continuity in the eastern empire, but this article is emphatically not about the Byzantine Empire, which has its own article. Unless you're proposing that we merge the two articles, this article only covers antiquity up to the 5th century, with a forward-looking summary of what came next. You're confusing the vexed question of terminology with article scope. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:34, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

This article deals with the empire that began in the late 1st century BC and ended in the late 5th century BC. This is how historians define "Roman Empire". If we are going to consider successor empires, or those who claimed to be "Roman", then we will have to include the Holy Roman Empire and even the Russian Empire.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 00:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Except that the latter argument is disingenuous: Byzantium shared a degree of continuity quite unlike anything that the Russians or Germans could claim. Unlike them, Byzantium was a continuation, not a successor state. Plus the argument on cultural continuity is also problematic: it would be impossible for a state to remain the same over 1,000 years (it's like comparing the Roman kingdom with the late Empire), and it was chiefly due to a unique cataclysmic event such as the Muslim conquests that the east Roman state was transformed into what we think of as "Byzantium". The common cut-off date for the "Roman Empire" may be 476, but there needs to be an explicit acknowledgement of the continuity of Roman imperial government in the East. Infoboxes are unsuited to finer nuances, but I too think that "1453" needs to be somewhere there, and the present status, where the end dates of the western and eastern halves are marked together, seems satisfactory in that regard. Constantine ✍ 05:57, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion there is no problem with the introduction chapter of the article. It's sure that Byzantium was a follow-up of the Roman Empire in the East as we remember that it was divided into the West and East. So no problem with the 1453, which was the end of the East Roman Empire (Byzantium). Thanks. Barayev (talk) 15:36, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible that Cplakidas and I are making a not dissimilar point? I don't think anyone's seriously arguing that we merge Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. If not, then it seems that as a matter of conventional periodization (Harriet Flower has a good discussion of these conventions in Roman Republics), the scope of this article is the late 1st century BC through the 5th century AD, with an existing summary section that points toward the next phase, just as Roman Republic points to Roman Empire. The infobox notation, however, is confusing (476/1453: what are readers to make of that at a glance?), and could be remedied simply by designating the one date as the Western termination, and the other as the Eastern. Again, all periodization is arbitrary, and just a convenient way for historians (and us) to organize the material. I'd bet if you looked at what articles linked here, 95% or more would be looking for the Roman Empire from Augustus through Theodosius. One of the links above points to Vasiliev's History of the Byzantine Empire 324–1453,[1] with Bury's argument that the Byzantine periodization should be extended back to Constantine. The point of this line of argumentation is that the period from Constantine to Theodosius was a time of transition from the Roman Empire in its usual sense, to the Christian Roman Empire. Christianization is a profound cultural change that marks the epoch rupture—although "rupture" implies a sharp break, when this kind of shift always occurs transitionally over time. What the sources cited above point to is that the period from Constantine to Theodosius is a transitional phase, and hence pertinent to both concluding this article and to charting origins in the Byzantine article. Again, it's a question of article scope, and clarifying the infobox notation. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:17, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Bury actually denied the existence of a "Byzantine Empire". Christianization marked indeed a profund cultural change, but this change didn't meant the end of the Roman Empire. And, even if this article covers largely the period until the 5th century, we should avoid stating that the (entire) Roman Empire ended on 476. "476/1453" was a compromise reached, after several edit-wars and debates regarding this issue, and it has been stable for more than 4 years. I do not think it is really difficult to understand what it means (and if some readers have problems, they'll understand by reading the article), but based on your suggestion of mentioning one as the western, and the other as the eastern, I would not be opposed to changing it to something like "476 (W) / 1453 (E)". Cody7777777 (talk) 18:47, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the introduction line, the description of Romulus Augustulus as "last emperor" should be removed (there are sources describing Constantine XI as the last Roman Emperor, and as said earlier, he is contested even as the last Western Emperor), and it should be stated clearly that the Empire continued in the East until 1453, despite the 476 convention. I would actually prefer a previous wording of that intro line, which avoided stating when the Empire ended. Cody7777777 (talk) 18:47, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Cody7777777, for fixing the intro. I was about to fail this article's good nomination. Ignoring the Eastern Roman Empire makes little sense and it would contradict several other articles on Wikipedia. --Lecen (talk) 00:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

No, the last emperor was Romulus Augustulus. This isn't the place to try to re-create the western hisoriographical framework.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 16:50, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Roman religion

I wanted to disentangle this from the broader discussion on the infobox.

I'm arguing that the infobox should not identify the religion of the Roman Empire as "paganism." The WP article paganism is mainly a history of the term. The article we want to link to is Religion in ancient Rome. The question is what does the parameter "Religion" mean? Does it mean:

• What was the official religion of the Roman Empire?

Or:

• Here's a snapshot of religious life in the Roman Empire.

In either case, it seems that all agree that we need a link to Religion in ancient Rome, not "paganism", an article which would tell readers next to nothing about either the religion the Romans regarded as their own (the ancestral religion of Numa) or the varieties of religious practice and belief under Roman rule. If paganism is not the link we want, why would we place "paganism" in the infobox?

Further, there seems to be a misconception above that the Romans had no state religion. The Romans had an ancestral religion with rites (sacra) pertaining to the spheres of both public and private. It was a systematic religion with a theology, and it was central to Roman identity. There were state-supported temples and priesthoods. Government offices such as the treasury and the grain dole were located in temple precincts. The Roman calendar was structured around religious festivals. It didn't require exclusive adherence, but the perpetuation of the rites on behalf of the Roman people as a whole were thought to be essential to the survival of Rome as a state. The maintenance of the hearth by the Vestals is perhaps the most famous example. This system was adapted by the emperors, but late sources such as Macrobius and Festus emphasize the continuity of Roman religious traditions.

Here is just a small sample of relevant RS that refer to the "state religion" of Rome:

• Nicole Belayche, in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 276, notes that the state religion of Rome received public funding, and further notes (referencing John Scheid) that "collective cult, in particular public cult, was the 'essence of Roman religion.' Roman religion was a civic one: (1) individuals felt concerned in it as members of the res publica; (2) the rituals performed related to the group, and violations that occurred had consequences for the group."
• Valerie Warrior, Roman Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2006), refers throughout to the "state religion"
• Gary Forsythe, Time in Roman Religion: One Thousand Years of Religious History (Routledge, 2012):[2] "Jupiter … was recognized as the king of the gods; and his preeminent position was shared in the Roman state religion by his priest, the flamen Dialis" (p.28). On p. 69, reference is made explicitly to "Augustus' revival of many obsolescent aspects of the Roman state religion." From p. 84, the integration of the Magna Mater into state religion is discussed.

Really, I could sit here all night and type in examples. It's that much of a commonplace in the study of Roman religion to refer to the "state religion". It's irrelevant whether WP editors have a definition of "state religion" that would not characterize Roman public religion as such (that's OR), and it's irrelevant whether there are some religious scholars who define "state religion" in ways that would exclude Roman religion (that would be synth). Unless there's a preponderance of RS that explicitly state "ancient Rome did not have a state religion" and contradict the above sources (and many others I could cite), we need to stick with what sources on Roman religion actually say.

So here are a couple of alternatives for describing the pre-Christian Empire for the Religion section of the infobox:

• pluralistic, subject to Imperial cult (if we think "Religion" means "a snapshot of religious life throughout the empire")
• Roman state religion and Imperial cult (if we think "Religion" means '"official religion")

Neither seems satisfactory, so please feel free to add other suggestions to the same list above, so we can keep our options together in one place for discussion. Again, however, I see no informative purpose in linking to "paganism". I'll be taking a break from WP for a while, so I leave it in your hands. Cynwolfe (talk) 02:34, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Since this article isn't about a particular location (Rome) but an empire with diverse form of beliefs and worship it wouldn't be accurate to use option two imo - and I don't come with any bias (as best I know) on this issue. I raised this point above but nobody has explained away this objection. If I am being dim please don't be afraid of pointing out the obvious objection to this point in order to spare my blushes. Yt95 (talk) 15:12, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

No blushing required. It depends on what you think the "Religion" parameter is supposed to mean. (I myself don't know what's intended by it.) If it means only "what was the official religion of the pre-Christian Empire?", then the second option is somewhat accurate. Other forms of religion were practiced locally, or even widely dispersed throughout the Empire, but the original archaic state religion of Rome as reinterpreted and perpetuated by means of Imperial cult was practiced (one might say imposed) throughout the entire Empire, as one of the ways of creating a shared identity and loyalty to Rome. Although I'm not satisfied with "pluralistic," I don't know how you could realistically list all the varieties of religion practiced under Roman rule, and at least we link to Religion in ancient Rome, which provides some sense of that larger picture. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:04, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

The parameter is currently labeled "Religion" but if it was changed to "Official Religion" then I take your point but then, even if you don't agree, some would object that using the word religion isn't apt - not that it bothers me. Yt95 (talk) 13:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Infobox

I'd like to open a discussion on the infobox in general, now that I've forced myself to look at it more closely. Could I get some input on the following points:

• The explanation of the capital is too discursive, written in full sentences. The purpose of an infobox is to give info literally at a glance; if the reader has to read through an explanation, there's no point to the format. I propose:
  • Rome until AD 286, with other political centres during the Tetrarchy; Constantinople from 330, with a western counterpart in Milan and later Ravenna (the footnote would be still be included)

• Again for concision, under Language I propose:
  • Latin official until 620 AD, then Greek in the Eastern empire

• The state religion of pre-Christian Rome was never called paganism; the Church Fathers referred to Romans who hadn't converted to Christianity as gentiles or pagani, but unless I'm mistaken they never formed an abstract noun paganismus. The Romans called it various things, including the "religion of Numa" and religio romana. Since Religion in ancient Rome goes to great lengths to make clear why "paganism" is a misleading and uninformative term, and since the paganism article explains it as a "blanket term" for all manner of polytheistic religion in antiquity, I propose:
  • Religio romana until 380, replaced by Christianity

• Under currency, I'm unclear about the purpose of (a) (b) (c), which is visually confusing: do these just serve to mark elements in a list? Or do the letters stand for something or represent a numismatic designation? If not, since the section is already dense and hard to read, could we use bullets to mark the items in the list instead?

Thanks for your consideration. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:25, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Claiming that the Roman Empire had a "capital" is imposing a modern definition on something that can barely be said to be true of ancient empires. The Persian empire, for example had 3 "capitals", which like Rome, were more principal cities and symbols of imperial hegemony. I think for that it would be best to rename the word "capital" or delete it. The principal city certainly had high importance, but the Roman Empire never had anything we would today define as a "capital". The closest it had to a "capital" was the location of the emperor, which after the time of Nero was increasingly somewhere besides the city of Rome. As for "official language", it had no such thing. It might be more accurate to call it a "principal language" or something, but "Latin" (which was numerous dialects at different times, rarely the Ciceronian Latin we like to think of) wasn't even spoken by most at anytime outside of central Italy. Latin and Greek were the official "languages of empire" but certainly not the language most spoke. I agree on your point on religion, except for your date. Christianity didn't become the official religion until 405 AD when Theodosius made it official.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 05:11, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

First, my goal was to make the infobox more concise and usable, based on the info already there, which I assumed had been generated by consensus. I'd delete the whole box if it were up to me, and just keep the map at the top. The date is what was already in the box, and I'll leave it to others to dance angels on the heads of pins to pick another. I do find it baffling that you would say Rome never had a capital, though. What is "Rome", then? I mean, why do we talk about "Romans" in the first place, when most inhabitants of the empire weren't from Rome? The Romans certainly thought of and defended the Capitoline Hill as a capital in the Republic. There is an identifiable political center from which Roman expansionism originally issued. What you say about the authority of the emperors is true, but the infobox accounts for that dispersion. There was a reason it's "Rome" in contrast to "Persia". As for language, it's certainly the official language if law is passed in it; in the East, even in the Republic laws might be published in Greek dually. Although other languages were spoken locally, the existence of the Romance languages shows the extent to which Latin was spoken in the West; even in the 1st century BC, southern Gaul was known as trilingual, with Greek, Gaulish, and Latin all spoken. One of the main differences between Latin and Greek is that Greek has a number of dialects, but if you can read Caesar and Cicero, you don't need any additional language training to read anybody else's Latin until medieval usage and orthography. Just some stylistic differences. There's a far greater difference between Chaucer and Shakespeare than any Latin I know of from Ennius to Sidonius. It's my impression that inscriptions in Etruscan and Italic dialects stop appearing before the period we designate as the Roman Empire (I could be utterly mistaken). The situation is different in the East, where Greek was an international language as a result of Alexander's invasions before the coming of the Romans. But no other language comes remotely close to the importance and pervasiveness of Greek and Latin beyond local use. My main concern is that the infobox not be crowded with details and explanations; if it can't provide a useful snapshot, it needs to be deleted. I agree with the comment following that the currency section is TMI. But I'm happy to leave this to others. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:28, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

First we must define "captial". In the current sense, it refers to the seat of national (often elected government or at least government that wants to be seen as elected) that is much less than the state as a whole. This is quite different from the idea of a "captial" even in early modern Europe, where there was no concept of "nation" as there is today: the "state" was the king, not (as today) the broad population living within a set boarder with set leadership and with some vague national ideology. Outside of the west, concepts of "capital" before the 19th century were even more different. The idea of a "capital" has had many different manifestations in different places and times, and in Rome, it was very foreign to our idea. So much so that to refer to Rome as the "capital" is to imply something (a modern-like capital) that isn't accurate.

"What is Rome?" Good question. The idea of "Rome" changed countlessly throughout its history. The "Roman Republic", for example, was never anything more than the city of Rome itself. Even by the late republic, Roman refusal to accept (what are now) the suburbs of Rome as "Rome" led to the Social War. The "Roman Republic" wasn't a nation with Rome as a "capital" driving some kind of expansionist agenda, but the city of Rome entangling itself with peoples throughout the Mediterranean world. Rome was to the Roman Republic what the United States is to NATO: the hegemonic "first among equals" in an alliance. This changed at the dawn of the empire, as the city became less unique and more symbolic. In the 1st century AD it was more like a national capital, as the senate still had some importance and it and the emperor mostly stayed in Rome. From the 2nd century on, power increasingly rested in the emperor (who was increasingly away from Rome, and by the 3rd century on rarely in Rome) and in the generals in the provinces, who were almost never in Rome. From this point on the city of Rome became more like a modern national ideology: a significant symbol but nothing more. This is why the Byzantine empire and Holy Roman Empire (and to a degree the later Russian Empire) called themselves the "Roman Empire" and they (and the Carolingians such as Charlemagne) called their emperor the "Roman Emperor" though none included the city of Rome in their position. "Persia" is something we today call the empire started by Cyrus the Great but what was referred to by the Greeks at the time simply as the "Medes".

The language issue is similarly difficult to pin down to a simple statement. Latin was the language spoken in Rome, but even this is a complex issue. Though the "dialect" of the elite in Rome was Ciceronian, most others spoke "Vulgar Lain" ("Vulgar"=common in Latin, hence the official Latin bible translation, the "Vulgate") which was quite different and far easier to use. Ciceronian Latin didn't change (even through the present) but this is exactly why no one actually spoke it as their native language. Vulgar Latin was changed drastically over time, much as English. Even within Rome many (maybe most) didn't speak Latin from the middle Republic on since it became such a cosmopolitan city. Outside of Rome, the elite often knew Greek, and the language of trade and government was Latin or Greek, but outside of this most did not speak Latin or Greek. Thus to call Latin the "official language" is deeply misleading. "Romance languages" don' appear until after the end of the western empire, and even then mostly in southern Europe.

I agree that the infobox shouldn't contain all this detail, but it also shouldn't oversimplify to the point of misleading.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 16:29, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

The difference between "official" language and what people speak lies precisely in what language is used to write and promulgate law. I'd love to see some sources that says the majority of people living in Rome stopped speaking Latin after the middle Republic. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:50, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

You won't find that, nor will you find any sources saying that most spoke Latin at any point, since the ancient writers never commented on the topic.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 01:19, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Your proposals on these points look ok to me. Regarding the currency, the (a),(b) and (c) seem to mark the periods of monetary reforms, respectively (a) the period until Diocletian's reform, (b) the period between Diocletian's and Constantine's reforms, and (c) the period after Constantine, but most of these details are probably not necessary in the infobox, and in this case, I think it could just show the names of the various coins used (and leaving the details for the article's "Currency" section, and the coins' subarticles). Cody7777777 (talk) 19:51, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Cynwolfe, agree about "pagans" not referring to themselves as pagans at the time. Pietas collides with paganism as the latter was, as best I know, always used perjoratively. That being said is it not the case that virtually all modern scholars use the term "paganism" without meaning any slight? I remember when this came up years ago in another article a scholarly source I found pointed out that the other major alternative "polytheism" was not only inaccurate (i.e monotheistic strands of religious thought had been present for a long time) but also that it carried with it a greater weight of opprobrium in the estimation of Christian apologists at the time[3]. I think the your idea of Religio romana as the description of the State religion is fine but maybe somebody could object that this article is about the Empire. What do you think of "pluralistic" as a descriptor? The short section on the druids might seem to contradict this but that should be expanded to give the reason why they were suppressed - from memory it related to the issue of human sacrifice, or at least that is what was claimed at the time. Yt95 (talk) 11:35, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Good points. It depends on what the parameter "Religion" means. (I always liked infoboxes as a graphic device until I actually started reading them and learned why some editors call them "disinformation boxes.") If it means "state or official religion," then we could go for:

• Religion: traditional public religion and Imperial cult; after 380 replaced by Christianity

Meaning, the "religion of Numa" or religio romana continued from the Republic as the official public religion of the Empire (late writers such as Macrobius and Festus make it clear that the Romans regarded this as a continuous tradition), amplified by Imperial cult. "Imperial cult" is an excellent article and deserves a place in the infobox. But if the "Religion" parameter means "Here's a snapshot of religious life generally during this period," we could go for

• Religion: pluralistic; after 380, Christianity

Or:

• Religion: pluralistic, subject to Imperial cult; after 380, Christianity

That "subject to" may be awkward. Other phrases that occur to me are "unified by," "organized by," "within," "within the hierarchy of" … to express the idea that you could do what you want as long as you paid proper respect to the emperor.

I don't want to digress into what I see as trends in scholarly usage regarding "paganism". (We could talk about that on some other talk page of your choice, if you like.) I'm not opposed to "paganism" because it's pejorative (though it is; the Church Fathers tend to use pagani only when they're addressing fellow Christians, not their fellow citizens of the Empire in general, and Ambrose for instance uses gentiles even when he's smacking down Symmachus's request to maintain the ancestral religion), but because it's non-informative and misleading, as is "polytheism", as you note. These are categories by means of which modern scholars analyze religions, but not religions per se. If I started talking about the druids, we'd be here all day; but they're not the exception they seem. (I'll discuss it on my talk page if you want.) Cynwolfe (talk) 13:37, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

The best is just "See Religion in Ancient Rome". "Pluralistic" means nothing and has a slight POV. Roman religion changed too much and had too many manifestations to pin it down to a single term or trait. "Pagan" doesn't start appearing until long after the fall of the western empire. It is a Latin word meaning "rural dweller", and used pejoratively it is the same as the modern term "redneck". This was because, by the middle ages, most people who still adhered to pre-Christian religions lived in rural places. It has since lost most of its pejorative meaning and so scholars use it to refer to these people.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 16:40, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

"Country bumpkins" doesn't exclude the other more perjorative associations. St Augustine wrote that pagans pray to devils.. From the earliest days of Christianity the asscociation between gentile (aka later as pagan) deities and "devils" was made explicit in the Greek LXX version of scriptures (ps 95:5)[4], the one used by Christians., unlike the Hebrew text which was much more circumspect (as was St Paul who probably found it expedient to moderate his words to avoid persecution). See the article Demonization for links. Yt95 (talk) 16:51, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Christians, at most points in history, have believed that a "devil" was anything that led you away from God. The pagan gods were "devils" under this definition. Paul didn't have to worry about his words causing him trouble (his actions did that) as his writings now found in the New Testament were not publicly circulated until a generation after his death. Also, the Christians of the first couple centuries used the LXX, though after that they used Jerome's Vulgate and the LXX fell into disuse.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 01:25, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

"Christians, at most points in history, have believed that a "devil" was anything that led you away from God". Early Christians believed in the Devil as a person. Even a superficial reading of early Christian texts vouches for the reality of Satan/Devil in the minds of early Christians. "Also, the Christians of the first couple centuries used the LXX, though after that they used Jerome's Vulgate and the LXX fell into disuse." In fact Jerome followed the LXX in translating the psalm as "devil" and not idol. It appeared in bibles right through into the modern period (e.g Douay–Rheims Bible) I gave you examples of Augustine using the latin tranlation i.e devil so your opinion is just that with little learning to support it. Yt95 (talk) 16:37, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Our conception of hell/satan comes from Dante (on hell) and early modern conceptions on Satan. This view didn't exist during the late Roman Empire. The concept of the devil was very different then, and had been since the devil emerged in the inter-testamental period. He doesn't exist in the Old Testament (the creation narrative refers simply to a snake, while the antagonist in the Book of Job is "hasatan" or "the adversary"). The concept becomes more concrete in the century before Jesus' day, and becomes Christianized after that. They didn't view him as we do today, but rather (the devil, demons or idols) as one that leads people away from God. You can't read any book, let alone the bible, without being heavily influenced by your own cultural biases and assumptions, and what may be a superficial reading of the bible would mean something completely different to someone today than it would to someone 1600 years ago. They certainly thought the devil was real, but not in the same way that we might today. Yes, the Vulgate was partially based on the LXX, which was why the LXX fell into disuse afterwardsQuarkgluonsoup (talk) 04:45, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

"They thought the devil was real" o.k we can at least agree on that since it conforms to ancient sources and modern scholarly opinion. The rest is hot air and not relevant to the point I raised. “In Christianity, a polarizing situation – one that brings internal contradictions into overt conflict – arises when the enemy who is supposed to be loved becomes identified as Satan, or demonized.” “An old Christian ascetic [watching his father offering a sacrifice] ..saw Satan and his entire army standing around him.” “”Pagan” is what they called those rites, which were “sacrilegious” and “of the Devil.” “In addition, because they were surrounded by superhuman beings of evil intent, Christians made use of various devices to protect themselves.” “It found expression in Saint Paul's words, already quoted, where he exhorts his readers to “take up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the Evil One” and so on. The same spirit animated a view of wickedness in the world that saw, all around, demons and their terrestrial agents ever at work against good Christians, in the service of Him-Who-Hates-the-Good (misokalos, common epithet for the Devil. Apologists spoke in these terms; so did Origen's fellow Christians. But I have noted , too, how Christians, at least by the first half of the second century, had established a reputation for themselves as blasphemers....” Firmicus Maternus urged Constantine “There remains only very little of your laws to accomplish, whereby the devil may lie prostrate and overthrown...” “the monks earned their reputation through being 'prize fighters' against the devil.” “To combat this assault, he ultimately evoked a parallel tradition of Christian battle against evil. Did Christ turn the other cheek to the demons, he asks? Or did he not even persecute “with bodily chastisement those whom He drove with scourges from the temple?” With this as his entry Augustine then creates a rationale for coercion that will haunt Christian thought for the next fifteen hundred years..” Yt95 (talk) 16:18, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I would favor your second option. The first seems too Rome-centric and doesn't capture the variety of cults that existed in the cultures that formed the Empire. I think the third option gets complicated due to the exceptions, e.g Judaism was exempted from the Imperial cult requirements and to introduce the concept of state religion brings associations that have their origin with Theodosian period, and which persisted right through until the 20th century in certain places, but which never existed with pre-Christian "state" religion. Pluralistic doesn't suggest, at least to me, anything goes. Clearly it didn't at times in the case of Christians, Manichees and presumably any other cult they viewed as destabilising society, e.g those predicting Rome was going to fall, the world was coming to an end soon, provoking riots with their neighbours, but it does capture that there was a variety of religious expressions practiced within the limits of what they considered civilised behaviour. Paganism is by far the most widely used term in the books I have read but it is usually explained in the context of the different "religions" then practised - as a convenient catch all term with nobody suggesting there was a religion called "paganism" as such. Yt95 (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

You are right. I will just say that "state religion" is a term with many definitions. By some, the imperial cult could count, by others, it wouldn't, by others, it never existed anywhere. It implies some kind of legitimization by authority, but the concept of authority has so many forms in history that "state religion" is almost impossible to as sin a single definition.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 16:46, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

On one point I must correct you: Rome did very much have a state religion before Christianity, which they regarded as having been "republicanized" after the overthrow of the monarchy. That's what "religion of Numa" means, and that's precisely why I object to "paganism." The same men who held political office were priests, for instance. Government offices, such as the state treasury and the grain dole, were located at temples. Judaism was emphatically not exempt from Imperial cult requirements: it was accommodated in a way that didn't require Jews to worship a god other than their own, which is rather different. Jews might offer prayers for the wellbeing of the living emperor, and pay the Fiscus Judaicus instead of making offerings. It's important to emphasize that while pre-Christian Rome was always pluralistic, the governing elite was very clear about whose religion was at the top of the hierarchy—which is why I think "subject to" is accurate, if not entirely satisfactory. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:22, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

This all depends on how we define "state religion", and rather than explain it through a simple principle that is always applicable, we should refer to the reader to the article on the history and development of Roman religion.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 16:48, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

"Subject to" seems right. As head of state, the emperor was an object of cult in his own right. And he was also the pontifex maximus. Haploidavey (talk) 21:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

What I mean is that "State Religion" of Christianity means something different from "State Religion" as you describe. State religion as it developed in the Christian era involved suppression of variant christian religious beliefs, the suppression of paganism, and limited toleration of Judaism. The Theodosian decrees, at least from a Catholic historical persepctive, were influential in the excesses carried out through the inquistions. In Franco's Spain, where Catholcism was the state religion, a baptist had to be buried at night in plowed earth. "Error has no rights" came with Christian state religion and it was only in the mid-1960's (largely though the disasters of the era of dictators) that the Church recognised that whilst in principle "error has no rights" human beings do.We will have to agree to differ on the the requirements of Jews to be subject to the Imperial cult. The sacrifices in Jerusalem were not offered up to but on behalf of the Emperor so there was no "idolatory" involved. That is what I meant by exemption. On the other hand I would be interested in reading any material that contradicts this assertion, i.e Jews or Christians treating the emperor as a god on any widespread basis other than through coercion. Yt95 (talk) 13:42, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

There was no Christian "state religion" but a common ideology and set of values (like in ancient Rome and today) that set certain behaviors as socially taboo and unacceptable. Religion can better be thought of a as an ideology (which it literally is) and its social consequences and social/political functions are similar to those of various ideologies and social behaviors. The decree of Theodosius had no impact on the inquisitions, which were much later. Treatment of groups whom the church deemed hostile was much more complex (the history, the motives, and the guilt or innocence of accuser and accused) than you are suggesting. This is why it is so problematic to try to understand ancient events through a modern lens (such as equaling a modern national capital to Rome as the "capital of the Roman Empire").Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 16:57, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes (if differed from what went before) and no: Paul Johnson writes "For all these reasons the Imperial State found itself obliged - it was not unwilling - to become the enforcement agency of Christian orthodoxy. By the time of Theodosious, in the fifth century, there were over 100 active statutes against heresy and heretics." ("A History of Christianity", p. 87) He contrasts the "State religion" of Christianity with "State ritual" of what went before.(p. 89) He backs up his opinion, as do other scholars, with the usual examples e.g the Bishop of Milans influence over the Emperor, public humiliation, the reversal of an Imperial edict.(p. 104) Harl's essay (Past & Present N0 128) gives examples of of the tacit Imperial approval for religious violence (p. 21) and notes "Theodosius II, out of his own religious sensibilities as well as to please the episcopate, ordered that the writings of Porphery and other pagan critics be burned along with the hertical works of Nestorious." (p. 22) See also Lambs into Lions, H. A Drake, N0 153, Past & Present, expanded in his book "Constantine and the Bishops: the Politics of Intolerance". I don't want to get sidetracked into Christian sectarian squables about which side of the Empire was more "heretical". The West was premodinately pagan so just based on demographics..... and even taking account the far more Christian East the empire at the time of Theodosius's death , and based on the best modern accounts, well over half the population was pagan. (Past & Present, 128, p. 15) You might also recall that one of the most notable "heresies" was Pelagius. I have seen it also described as the "Imperial Church" with a side by side relationship between the secular and church powers. The Church expected, and received, the States support in enforcing orthodoxy, the stamping out heresy and paganism. In faith and morals it was in charge. (See the texts of Ambrose to Theodosius). It expected freedom from the influence of the state in spiritual matters and in this slanted one way relationship there was, I suppose, a kind of separation of Church and State but not such that it undermines those who describe Christianity as the "State Religion" or "Imperial Religion". Also please note what I wrote above wasn't my opinion - I gave citations to support the text so could you please support your refutations in a similar manner. 16:16, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

What you say is only vaguely true about the reign of Theodosius. We remember him mainly because he made Christianity the state religion, which only matters because no future emperor did anything else on the matter. This matters more to historians than it did to the average Roman at the time. In other words, he made it the state religion (near he end of his reign) which only was binding while he was emperor. He was also the only emperor who engaged in systemic persecution of pagans, and even most of this was limited to closing their temples. Roman law by the late empire was whatever the emperor said, and so Roman law on religion was nearly schizophrenic from the time of Constantine through the end of the western empire. Constantine decreed religious tolerance while his rival eastern emperor was persecuting Christians for political reasons. This was only a couple years after the worst persecutions of Christians in the history of the empire, under Diocletian. After Constantine, some emperors were Christian, others were pagans who persecuted Christians, one (Theodosius) was a Christian who persecuted pagans, and some tried to start their own religion (see Julian the Apostate). Theodosius was the last strong emperor, and the only strong emperor after Constantine's later years. You can' confuse what went on under one emperor (Theodosius) for what was going on under 2 centuries of emperors.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 01:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

"What you say is only vaguely true.." In what way precisely? I give sources, you make assertions without anything to back them up and at face value they seem... Persecution of pagans didn't begin with Theodosius I because such a claim is contradicted by ancient sources, e.g the decrees of Constantine's family. See Ramsay MacMullen "Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (1997) ISBN 0-300-08077-8. The persecution of "heretics" began with Constantine e.g Arians and Donatists. What distinguishes Theodosian I period is the law which prescribes the death penality for private worship in a persons home. The effectiveness of the persecutions is of course still subject to debate but at the end of the day there is no functional Temple of Isis or any of the other of the ancient deities to visit and whilst some Christians may think it was all due to the spirit of religious conversion modern objective history paints a different picture. As Peter Brown wrote "Paganism, therefore, was brutally demolished". Yt95 (talk) 16:14, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Your source isn't accurate, and finding sources that demonstrate this wouldn't be hard. There was no persecution of pagans during the time of Constantine, which would have been impossible in any case since about 90 percent of all people living in the Roman Empire at the time were pagans. Constantine issued the famous edict of Milan which was an edict of religious toleration, which mostly helped Constantine's Christians as they were just coming off of their worst persecution in history at the hands of Diocletian. The only persecution during Constantine's time was of Christians by his eastern co-emperor, who saw Christians as closeted supporters of Constantine. Arius and his followers weren't persecuted (though Santa Clause aka St. Nicholas did punch Arius' representative at the Council of Nicaea), though they did cause social tension at a level rarely seen before, which was the sole reason for the Council of Nicaea (to refute Arius). He was exiled, not persecuted, in the end because of the social and political trouble he had caused. There was not even an attempted extermination of pagans during the Theodosian age, as over half of all Romans even then were pagan and so this would have been impossible. Christians then were in a highly precarious position, as they had been for the last century as the difference between Christian prosperity and persecution since the time of Constantine depended on little more than the whim of whoever happened to be emperor at the time.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 04:36, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

What sources do you have that says the Donatists or Arians were never persecuted?. “Constantine's publicly proclaimed edicts against “Arius, wicked and impious” (A.D 333), and whoever hides Arian writings “shall be condemned to death”; and the course of action that then followed was, as we have seen, entangled in deathly struggles.”“Mustered under one of Constantine's “most savage laws, against the party of [Bishop] Donatus.” by 317 it had filled the well outside the chief Donatist church in Carthage with the bodies of the slain, long afterwards to be discovered by excavation.” “Eusabius records an edict [of Constantine] addressed to “Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, ye who are called Cataphrygians and all ye who devise and support heresies..” here the emperor clearly renounced his policy of toleration...in favour of coercion...Ordering these groups to be stripped of their right of assembly, he also confiscated their meeting-houses and encouraged them to join the catholic chutch...It was a pivotal position, and not just for its comparison of deviant belief to disease – an analogy that would have a long and unfortunate influence on western thought.” “In A.D 356, worship of images was also declared a capital crime. The law was promulgated at Milan. Perhaps it was obeyed for a while;” Once again you put up nothing in the way of modern scholarship in order to persuade. I'm beginning to think you are just a troll who is here to close the door to anyone who is interested in Christianity. Yt95 (talk) 16:29, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I think we're saying the same thing about Judaism. But you may be conflating "state religion" with other issues of tolerance and hegemony. To the Roman mind, there's no inherent contradiction in celebrating a state religion and assuring its perpetuation and dominance, and allowing peoples to also attend to other religious concerns. I'll go ahead and make the non-controversial changes to the infobox that are matters of mere wording. Since Haploidavey has done so much work on Roman religion under the Empire, and I've concentrated far more on the Republic, I'd like to hear anything he can offer on wording that difficult parameter. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

"conflating" ? yes, that seems a good descriptor that distinguishes the state religion of the pagan empire with what followed. Would "Imperial cult" decrease or increase the ambiguity? I should also add I don't know the precise origin of the phrase "error has no rights" but it does describe accurately the states position at the beginning of the Christian empire, though I would be interested in other viewpoints. It's worth pointing out also that the Church today has changed in how it interacts with other religions and none of the above should be taken as representive of it's modern outlook. It's of no great importance to me what is chosen - I like reading the comments of informed editors like yourself who contradict with good sources so I learn something in the process. Yt95 (talk) 13:52, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Though I would love to discuss this elsewhere (it too is a major interest of mine), I will just say that your statements on the treatment of the Christian church towards those it deemed hostile was much more complex and nuanced than you are implying. They typically didn't have any problems with non-orthodox views (partly because so few in western Europe held genuinely non-orthodox views) unless they started causing trouble. Confusion partly comes from the fact that a common charge was "heresy", which today means holding non-orthodox views, but during the middle ages had a meaning more like today's term "schismatic". This was due to the complex (and by modern standards very different) entanglement of religion and government, and so "heretic" typically was a charge against someone challenging the established political order.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 17:04, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I could fill this page with how the Church treated "heretics" and "pagans" using the Imperial arm of government. Even when Theodosius II tried (because it was probably politically expedient) to issue an edict that would leave pagans and Jews alone in peace the uproar of the Christian monks was so much that he had to withdraw it. Symeon Stylites invoked the wrath of God. (Past & Present N0, 128, p. 26) Yt95 (talk) 16:36, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Most of the "persecutions" of pagans happened under Theodosious (the only one you cite), and much of this was confined to closing their temples. And the monks (or others) never had a desire to persecute pagans, and certainly never begged an emperor to do that. When Theodosius was emperor, more than half of all people in the empire were pagans, which made persecuting them impossible.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 01:46, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

"And the monks (or others) never had a desire to persecute pagans, and certainly never begged an emperor to do that." The shortest verse in the NT comes to mind. The following is from my notes prepared last year for an article that hasn't as yet materialised: Drake (2002) notes that any voices of moderation that sought to limit the violence unleashed through Christian coercion was muted through the influence of the bishops and monks. He places the bishops at the centre of Christian coercion with the monks at the forefront and notes how the story of Christian coercion from the mid 4th century is “punctuated by accounts of rampaging monks roving at will through town and countryside, systematically destroying shrines and monuments and terrorizing local populations. He argues that the monks should not be simply viewed as “storm troopers” of the Christian movement, with their power founded solely on the violence they exercised, but rather as authoritative voices whose opinions were, (according to Sozomon), universally received and respected within the Christian community. The killing of Hypatia of Alexandria is often cited as an important marker for the passing of the pagan world and the beginning of the new Christianized Roman Empire. Mojsov (2005) writes: “The persecutions of the pagans continued and culminated in the killing of Hypatia in 415. She was the daughter of Theon, director of the Platonic school, and had succeeded her father at the academy. She was a Greek, a pagan philosopher, and an educated woman. None of these things were acceptable any-more and she was torn apart by the wild, black robed army of monks. 'human only in their faces'. With her cruel, public murder, the Hellenic spirit of Alexandria expired forever.”. Drake describes this killing and the attacks on the Serapeum in Alexandria by Christian mobs as “two of the most spectacular acts of this age” and blames Saint Cyril for provoking the particularly gruesome death of the philosopher Hypatia. Libanius records how the monks gave pagan priests the choice of “silence or death”. Rufinus described how the destruction of pagan shrines continued “throughout every Egyptian city, fort, village, rural district, riverbank, even the desert, whatever shrine could be found or rather, tomb [of the “dead” gods], at the urging of every bishop”.. When pagan landowners protested at monks ransacking his home in search of idols their leader responded "There is no crime for those who have Christ". Peter Brown writes "Paganism, therefore, was brutally demolished from below" and regards these events as signalling a deeper change that reflects Christianity asserting itself as the majority religion of the Roman Empire. According to a Roman Catholic historian Theodosius I “stamped out the last vestiges of paganism” and that he “took severe measures against the surviving remnants of paganism. In 388 a prefect [Cynegius] was sent around Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor for the purpose of destroying temples and breaking up pagan associations; it was then that the Serapeum at Alexandria was destroyed (Socr., V, 16).” However, the violence of the monks was such that Theodosius banned them from the cities and limited them to “desert places and desolate solitude”. Yt95 (talk) 16:23, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

While I don't know if your author has an ax to grind or simply has a skewed view of late Roman history, I do know that his claims are wrong. It is interesting that his examples are all a handful of sporadic cases from he Theodosian age, and even then they are distorting (or even fabricating) history. While it is possile you had a few violent monks, most monks, by their nature (see St Benedict) were pacifists and ascetics who sought to seperate themselves from the world. It was only at this time that you saw the first major introduction of Christians into the Roman army, as prior generations had taken Jesus' command to love ones neighbor to mean that all violence was against God's will. The moral problem of Christians killing wasn't solved until the early middle ages, and this solution involved the monk's atoning for the violence of secular rulers through their own pacifism and hyper-morality. Certainly the monks weren't the center of any (ahistorical) systemic persecution scheme. Nor did people obey the commands of monks for any reason. This is a highly inaccurate view of even the Theodosian age, and completely fictitious for the rest of late Roman history, where Christians were more likely to be persecuted (in particular under emperors like Diocletian and Julian the Apostate) than persecute.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 04:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Which author has the axe to grind? I quoted several above and could add several more. The rest of what you wrote is so much hot air. Yt95 (talk) 16:48, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

That's true that the Roman religion wasn't called paganism, but this is how present-day scholars call it. Bart D. Ehrman, in his TTC courses, states that pagan means someone who was neither Jew nor Christian, and as it is used by scholars, it has no pejorative meaning, giving the counterexample of his next-door neighbor being quite a pagan in ordinary parlance (he states that scholars don't use the term this way). See e.g. http://www.stjuniashouse.com/html/sj_pdf/ehrman_Bible_forgeries1010.pdf (search the file for "derogatory"). Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:02, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

You are right.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 01:46, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Same author, same idea at http://progressivechristianalliance.org/books/TTC%20-%20Bart%20Ehrman%20-%20The%20Historical%20Jesus.pdf , p. 6. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:15, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

The argument isn't that paganism is pejorative. It's that it's non-informative, as are "polytheism" and "emperor worship." These are not names of a religion, but general descriptions. In the infobox for Medieval France, do you think the designation of "Religion" should be "monotheism" or "Abrahamic religion"? The infobox specifies "Roman Catholicism," not "Christianity," because at that period in history "Christianity" also meant Eastern Christianity. All these arguments seem based on fundamental misconceptions about religious life in Ancient Rome. I would feel more comfortable discussing the topic if I could be assured that everyone voicing an opinion had at least read the introduction of Religion in ancient Rome to see what the historical issues are, and maybe take a glance at Glossary of ancient Roman religion to understand that there was a specific religious tradition particular to ancient Rome that they called the "religion of Numa," or religio romana, or just generally cultus deorum. And Imperial cult (ancient Rome) explains why "emperor worship" isn't a particularly useful way to think of Roman Imperial state religion. "Paganism" is a convenient label for modern scholars to use, but here's one of the best discussions I've seen of why the label is problematic, from Maijastina Kahlos, Debate and Dialogue: Christian and Pagan Cultures c. 360-430 (Ashgate, 2007), p. 18 online:

"Paganism was never a religion and there were no pagans before Christianity. Christians invented paganism, not only as a term, but also as a system." And: "These people indeed exist as the category of 'pagans' in Christian discourse" [boldface mine].

The use of the word reflects a consciously chosen POV in Khalos's book. She finds the term necessary for the very reason that the book is framed by a Christian/non-Christian dialectic. She also discusses why "polytheism" is similarly unhelpful. Because she's dealing with the us vs. them dichotomy that Christian discourse created, she finds "paganism" useful, while pointing out that understanding Roman religious life on its own terms is a different matter. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:42, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

First, my view is that if "paganism" is good enough for Ehrman, then it is good enough for Wikipedia, precisely because paganism means many different religious practices. Ehrman says that there were many different pagan religions which tolerated each other, since worshiping Jupiter did not exclude worshiping Venus or any other god.

Recent research shows that the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II probably died of tuberculosis. But according to Latour, this is impossible because the tuberculosis bacillus was only discovered by Robert Koch in 1882. "Before Koch, the bacillus had no real existence." To say that Ramses II died of tuberculosis is as absurd as saying that he died of machine-gun fire.

— Searle and Relativism, Volume 56, Number 14 · September 24, 2009

Second, I feel that the discussion is going the way Latour said that Ramses II could not die of tuberculosis. For Latour it is a serious question, but some people find it amusing. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:02, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I confess that I have no idea why Ramses and tuberculosis are relevant to this discussion. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar. He is not an authority on the pre-Christian religious practices of the ancient Romans, and his work does not seem to deal with this topic. It is quite true, however, that even the most authoritative scholars will use the shorthand "pagan" and "paganism". But since our link will not be going to our article paganism, which deals mainly with the history of the terminology, it seems better to use a label that reflects more accurately the scope of the article that actually deals with Religion in ancient Rome—which I'm supposing you've read. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:38, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I meant "there were no pagans before Christianity" argument is quite like "there was no tuberculosis before Koch" argument. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

To further clarify my point "there were no pagans before Christianity" conflates the modern usage of the word "pagan" with its ancient usage. It is true that the word "pagan" meaning someone who is neither Jew nor Christian was coined by Christians and had a polemical usage which previously did not exist, meaning the pagans as a category were the invention of Christians. But nowadays it is employed by scholars in a non-polemic way and it also applied to people before the apparition of Christianity. It would be too tedious to speak of "pagans which were not pagans because the Christians did not invent the word yet" and "pagans which were called pagans by the Christians", when as a shorthand the word "pagan" is good enough. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:11, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if you're writing from a Christian POV, as Kahlos notes above. "Pagan" appears once as an adjective in this article (no other forms of the word occur), in a usage that I wouldn't argue against as a shorthand unless I could think of a better way to put it. It refers to Julian's restoration of "pagan temples." Since they were indeed "pagan" from the newly dominant Christian POV, and since "pagan" distinguishes these temples from Jewish temples (which were also involved in Julian's efforts), this is a convenient, easy-to-understand shorthand that isn't terribly misleading. However, since we're not linking to paganism in the infobox, and since the article Roman Empire neither explains nor uses the term "paganism," and since the term is grossly misleading as a way to summarize Religion in ancient Rome, why would we use the term for our snapshot-infobox that we don't use in the article? Cynwolfe (talk) 18:09, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Religion again

Pro di immortales, would the disputants who are enlarging the Infobox section above just stop it? What has any of this to do with the infobox? Put references for your personal use on a user page, and take this discussion to one of the articles on persecution: Religious persecution in the Roman Empire, Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, Persecution of Pagans by the Christian Roman Empire, where such hopeless POV wrangling is endemic. This is not helping sort out the main Roman Empire article at all. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:26, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry for having annoyed you. References show that a person isn't shaping their own distinct perception of reality but that which is drawn from reliable sources which can then be weighed for balance and accuracy. There was no dialogue above. "This is so because I want to believe it" was, efectively, the reply. You could have stepped in with any contrary evidence founded on modern scholarship that describes the period when the empire becomes Christian and I would have gladly learned from that. The matter in question isn't simply about info-boxes as you suggest - it is relevant to the development of the article as whole (worth at least a good sized paragraph in view of it's importance down through the centuries). If its something you would rather gloss over then that is your pov but whole books have been written on the subject. From my understanding nobody in modern scholarship disputes that paganism and heretics were suppressed. Shaw's recently published book "Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine" (Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521196055) can be reviewed at this link[5]. Some Christians don't like to think that they became persecutors but would rather whine about how they were persecuted as poor innocent victims by a cruel empire. Modern pagans can do it in reverse. To say nothing is the easy cop-out but it doesn't impress me at all as it only encourages those whom you call pov disputants. You can archive this page and start afresh but as a courtesy to other readers who might want to check out the references given above don't just delete. Thanks Yt95 (talk) 16:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

History/Military History

The section "Military History" is mostly pasted from what I take to be a somewhat earlier version of Campaign history of the Roman military. It duplicates the chronology and a great deal of information of the "History" section, and I find it very confusing to read one history, and then start back at the beginning with another. I am going to:

1. Delete the "Military History" section.
2. Immediately replace the "History" section with a version that combines the existing section with information taken from the current "Military History" section, except I'm not incorporating the post-Theodosian "Military History" material. I encourage another editor who's interested in that period to review the material and integrate it into the "History" section.
3. Add back images, templates, etc.
4. Probably rearrange some of the other sections in the article.

At this time, I am not going to verify any content, nor attempt to improve the writing style, or much of anything else. Hope others will, as this material mostly reads like annals instead of history. I expect to perform these tasks over the next hour, and appreciate your patience. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:19, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

GA review

I hate to rain on any GA review happiness, which I am sure was undertaken in good faith, but as it stands I do not believe this article has yet achieved that status. To name a couple of issues there are a large number of unsourced statements, many of which might the challenged and the citations system is not consistent. An article of this importance and size really deserves a full review that sorts out the major issues. I would have put these concerns on the GA review page, but the review was so quick that I did not have time. I would suggest that the review needs to be reopened.--SabreBD (talk) 20:36, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a good article, but not a GA, if you follow me. In particular, I wonder whether the best possible images have been chosen. I'm less concerned about the formatting of the citations than the quality of the sources. Abbott (1901) is over-cited, for instance. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:59, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't disagree with any of that and I suspect there are other issues. The point is that a thorough review should help the article to move from being a "good article" to a GA.--SabreBD (talk) 08:39, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, agree. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:28, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Taking this further we have the options of an individual or community review as per Wikipedia:Good article reassessment. Any views on which is most appropriate?--SabreBD (talk) 18:10, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

I do think this is a GA, as it meets the criteria for GA status. The standards are fairly straightforward, and this article quite easily meets those standards. A GA article isn't a perfect article, or even an article without any room for improvement. Even FA's don't meet that standard. What makes an article a GA is if it meets these fairly objective standards, not if it "feels" like what one might think a GA must "feel" like.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 01:14, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I am well aware of the GA criteria and honestly this article does not meet them. This devalues the status and deprives the article of an opportunity for improvement. I know you might be pleased to have achieved the status, but there are more important things. The truth is that this article was promoted by someone with less than 300 edits in their first review and the process was far too rapid and not up to the usual thoroughness of a GA review of what is, afterall, a very important article.--SabreBD (talk) 07:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree. The article shows considerable imbalance in its sub-topic coverage. For example, the political and military stuff seems reasonably well covered but the treatment of economy, trade and agriculture is extremely sketchy. And while there's a lot about government bigwigs, there's virtually nothing on the plebs; nor on how the development of citizenship segued into early feudalism. Haploidavey (talk) 13:12, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Well the event/political history is always easier to write and tends to less controversial. Getting the other stuff right is usually the toughest task. Another reason might be that some of the current somewhat dated sources (see discussion further up) tend to focus on event/political history anyhow. So for fixing those issues, the article needs an injection of broad arry of more recent scholarly sources.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:19, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

It easily meets the GA criteria. The issues raised here concern it not feeling like what a GA should feel like by the standards of various editors. GA status requires that the article meet a set of objective criteria, and the fact that an impartial editor approved it for GA status so quickly demonstrates this. If it had material problems, such an editor wouldn't have so easily and quickly approved it. Editors need to not think that a GA must be perfect or lack any need for improvements, as even the best articles on Wikipedia don't fulfill this criteria. GA status requires that the article meet a set of straightforward, objective criteria, such as the lack of edit warring, and this easily meets that. On Haploidavey's comment, you admit that several of the topics are well covered, but not economy and trade. The point of any article (GA or not) is to reflect scholarly views and research, and unfortunately our knowledge of the ancient Roman economy, trade and agriculture is limited. Of what scholars do know, this article covers well. We are lucky even here though, as the economies of many other pre-modern societies are understood even less than Rome's. It would be great if we understood all economies and trade methods in all cultures throughout history as well as we understand our own, but we don't. Our understanding of Rome's economy is at best vague and sketchy. Again this is an example of using a subjective criteria of how a GA must feel, rather than the objective criteria Wikipedia requires of a GA. The article does a good job, as it should, of covering scholarly views on the topic. But a topic, like Rome's economy, that isn't well understood by scholars can't be depicted here as being better understood than it is. There isn't much on the development of the plebs because their development occurred mainly during the republic, not the empire. Social history during the republic could be understood in part as pleb vs patrician, but in the empire the social history moves beyond plebs, as the distinction de jure disappeared 300 years before Augustus, and it disappeared de facto around the time of the Gracchi a couple centuries later. As for feudalism, this doesn't develop until several centuries after the fall of the western empire, so it isn't has no place in this article. On Kmhkmh's point of more recent sources, much of the article has fairly recent sources. Unfortunately, Roman history is not an area of highly active scholarly study today (certainly not in the way that, say, American history or 17th century British history is) and much of the best scholarship on the topic is actually much older than the sources here (such as Mommsen and Gibbon) as this topic was more in vogue in the 18th and 19th century than it is today. It might actually be improved by adding some more of those older sources, but this isn't entirely necessary.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 03:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit puzzled from where you get the idea that there is no active research on Roman history. The notion that Gibbon or Mommsen is best avaible scholarship on the Roman empire is somewhat ridiculous. Even if you don't look at recent publication history or archeology journals, you can simply use Google Books to find plenty of recent academic Books on the Roman history.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:50, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the observations of Haploidavey and Kmhkmh. I can't see this as meeting the GA criterion "coverage". It omits some important aspects, is inaccurate in its coverage of some aspects (mainly in the "Culture" section), and goes into too much detail on others. Coverage is also affected by structural defects. To point out one symptom of structural problems, we have a section called "Senate", followed by one called "Senators and equestrians," which is further divided (unnecessarily) into "Senatorial order" and "Equestrian order." Presumably, "Senate" juxtaposed to "Emperor" is meant to be political, while the section on "Senators and equestrians" is meant to be more broadly about standing in society (as determined by the census?)—in which case, it shouldn't be confined to senators and equestrians, but should rather describe the ordering of Roman society as a whole, which is arguably more complex in the Empire, with distinctive social phenomena such as the rise of rich freedmen. Some of this is dealt with under "Culture," which often goes wildly astray—for instance, in implying that plebeian gentes were formed only during the Empire (!). Social structure should be dealt with in a separate section pointing to the main article Social class in ancient Rome, which is itself a pretty terrible article.

As for "Culture," that section is a mere hodgepodge: for instance, we move from slavery in one paragraph to a paragraph on the Campus Martius for no apparent reason. There should probably be a separate section on topography and the physical description of the city that's particular to the Empire. The paragraph on Latin literature of the Empire is thin gruel: no historian is named, not even Tacitus, and the emphasis is on Vergil, who just barely qualifies as an Imperial writer (he was born under the Republic and died less than a decade after Octavian assumed the title Augustus). Also, the section misses a fundamental distinction between the way the Romans thought of "the arts" and the way we do: people at even the highest ranks of society might practice literature, whereas the performing arts and visual arts were mainly created by either free people of below equestrian rank or by slaves. In general, the cultural section reflects modern preoccupations and biases, and also seems to deal with "ancient Rome" in general, not the specific culture of the Empire.

The sections on Religion and Languages both seem disproportionately long, without being sufficiently informative. Also too much detail about clothing. I'd put the History section before Culture, and after a section on Topography/Geography (that is, what the city of Rome was like in the Imperial period, and then a geographic description of the Empire), followed by Government. I find it extremely confusing to separate "History" and "Military History," and to separate "Military" and "Military History"; in other words, the "Military History" section needs to be dispersed into "History" and "Military." In some sense, that section isn't about military history anyway, because it doesn't deal with the development of tactics and organization, and it doesn't narrate battles, but rather presents them for their geopolitical importance, which causes it to replicate content in "History." In other words, a more conventional encyclopedic structure would go something like:

• Geography and languages (the various languages should be dealt with as part of outlining the provinces; the Demography section goes here too): What is the Roman Empire?
• Government: How was the Roman Empire governed?
• Society: How was Roman society structured, and in what sense were provincials "Roman"?; also, questions of citizenship and rights, and the gradual extension thereof; the status of free women and of slaves
• Military: a description of the armed forces and their role in acquiring and maintaining the Empire
• History: Now that we have the components in place, we can proceed to a historical narrative
• Culture: Now that we have a sense of the scope of the empire, its people and its history, let's look more closely at how they lived (subsections including Daily life, Education, Literature, Religion, Performing arts and games, Art and Architecture, and whatever)
• Economy: Now that we know some of the things that mattered to the Romans, how does this express itself economically? (Slavery would be addressed both here and under "Society" in different terms.)
• Legacy

Compare the structure and organization of the GA England. In some articles on countries, "History" goes before "Government" and such, but I think in the case of the Romans, and their particular mode of expansionism, the history makes no sense unless you first understand the governing and social structures that produced it. Also, unlike some country articles, this one has a specific "prequel" in Roman Republic. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:22, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be significant questioning of the GA status and also disagreement with that view. We are in a de facto community review, but I have formalised that process at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Roman Empire/1.--SabreBD (talk) 10:28, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Reference books

• "The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150–750" (1971/1989), Peter Brown – ISBN 0-393-95803-5
• “Sacrifice and Pagan Belief in Fifth and Six Century Byzantium”, K.W Harl, Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, N0 128, 1990
• “Lambs into Lions: Explaining Early Christian Intolerance”, H.A. Drake, Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, N0 128, 1996
• “Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries”, Ramsay MacMullen, Yale University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-300-07148-5
• "Christianizing the Roman Empire: AD 100-400 (1989), Ramsay MacMullen, Yale University Press, 1984
• "Constantine and the Bishops. The Politics of Intolerance.", H.A. Drake, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Pp. xx, 609. ISBN 0-8018-6218-3.
• "Osiris: Death and Afterlife of a God", Bojana Mojsov, Wiley, 2005, ISBN 978-1-4051-1073-0

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yt95 (talk • contribs) 17:04, 21 August 2012‎ (UTC)

Changes

I am making some of the changes that have been suggested here and elsewhere to improve the article. I re-ordered the structure of the article on the model of several FA of empires (Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, Han Dynasty, and Ming Dynasty). Since the culture section has attracted a lot of criticism, on the model of those articles I have combined all culture-related sections into a larger "Society and culture" section, and will start condensing, streamline and improving it. Help on this would be appreciated.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 17:43, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Gibbon

I'd like to open a discussion on how Gibbon should be used for this article. My view is that under "Legacy," we should have a historiography section in which we outline historical approaches to writing about the Empire. And since Gibbon is monumentally important, certain his views could be mentioned at key points in the article. However, I strongly feel that we should be developing the content of the article with up-to-date RS. (This discussion was prompted by this edit.) Cynwolfe (talk) 17:46, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree (see also a similarly discussion further up), Gibbon and other historically important scholars should be mentioned in a historiography section, i.e. in a section describing the history of scholarship on the Roman empire or how the Roman empire was viewed within academia (and possibly its reception by a wider audience) over the ages. They should however not be used as sources for the article's other (current) content, which displays our current knowledge of the empire and as such needs to be sourced by current scholarly sources.

Consequentially this also means that new content as the edit in question need to be sourced by more recent sources and should not be sourced with Gibbon.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:01, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Gibbon's use should be limited to uncontested statements. If we use him there, he can be very useful in improving the article.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 18:18, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, he is (however outdated) still a perfectly reliable source for the many facts and views that haven't changed significantly since his work. But mention in a short historiography section would be good. Richard Keatinge (talk) 18:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

But surely the statement that 2nd-century Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind is not a fact or view that hasn't changed. There's no reason to use Gibbon for facts when we have the Cambridge Ancient History, to name only one. Gibbon is worth reading for his own sake, but the purpose of engaging in history writing has changed—and those kinds of assumptions permeate his writing, and will inevitably affect the WP editor who uses him. (Ditto Churchill.) What reason is there not to use standard works of scholarship from the 20th and 21st centuries when they're so readily available? Cynwolfe (talk) 18:33, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I included that quote because it answers the question you brought up in the reassessment in the broadest terms of what was included in the Roman Empire geographically and topographically. Gibbon is known for his witty prose, which is also why including some of his quotes (on uncontested topics) would make the article more readable and enjoyable. The quote also comes from literally the first paragraph of Gibbon's books, which is considered he greatest book on Roman History of all time. His summary of Roman history is largely uncontested. What is contested is mainly his argument on the causes of the empire's decline and fall.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 19:05, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

But this isn't a question of whether Gibbon is a great historian or excellent prose stylist; these qualities make him a worthy object of study, but not necessarily the most appropriate source to compile a general encyclopedia article that aims at neutrality. Again I would ask: why not use sources such as the Cambridge Ancient History that date to our own era, and use modern language within a contemporary intellectual framework? And deal with Gibbon in a separate "Historiography" section? This quote is far from uncontested: it's highly emotive, and begs the question of "what is civilized"? And it's incredibly Eurocentric: the fairest part of the earth? We don't need poetic effusions. We need a sound geographical description. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Please go ahead and try to find one.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 19:36, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Cynwolfe again here. The description or "value assessment" sounds indeed overly euro-centric, but more importantly it was made 250 years with Gibbon simply lacking much of the knowledge on the Roman empires and other nations in antiquity, that we have today. In addition given the section in which it is placed (provinces), it seems somewhat off topic and isn't really needed to begin with. Only Augustus' recommendation for the borders of the empire fits somewhat to the content belonging into that section, but for that we don't Gibbon anyhow. Also in particular regarding the pending article review I'd like to emphasize, that normally we should not use Gibbon or other old potentially outdated sources at all to source content on the Roman empire. --Kmhkmh (talk) 19:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Normally, no. As criteria for when we could and possibly should use Gibbon, I suggest that he is usable as a source for facts and quotations when he is not contested by later work or more modern attitudes - many facts do fall into this category, and Gibbon's prose is still brilliant. Or even sometimes when he is contested - because his comments are still starting points for some modern arguments, and he is therefore referenced by modern academics. Christianity in relation to the Fall comes to mind. But these are very minor uses; Cynwolfe and Kmhkmh are right in general. Richard Keatinge (talk) 04:28, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

There are so many instances were modern scholarship has changed in relation to Gibbon, that using him as a source would require a thorough investigation and possible discussion every time. Rather than wasting time on that it is much better to use modern sources. Gibbon is important in relation to the historiography of classical scholarship, but I don't see the need to use him or other 18th century scholars as source for general statements, when we have such a rich field of modern scholarship to choose from. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:05, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

To know (for sure) whether a particular fact or assessment of Gibbon is outdated or not, one has to read the current scholarly sources on the same subject anyway. But in that case he use that current source directly anyway. Moreover anytime other (reviewing) editor comes across Gibbon as a source, they need to check additional current sources as well to see whether Gibbon could be used here or not. Meaning using Gibbon as a source is creating unnecessary work for other editors. A similar problem exist the for readers, they notice the oudated source and have no way of telling whether is was sloppy job by an editor not knowing the current scholarly sources or an expert who indeed just used Gibbon on a content were he is still correct. All in all there is simply no good reason to rely on Gibbon or similarly old sources and as Saddhiyama has mentioned already there are plenty of current sources to choose from. Many of them being (partially) available online via Google books, so even in case of online accessibility Gibbon doesn't provide much of an advantage, though online availability is not the primary concern anyhow but the quality of the source is. As far as the quality of the prose goes, that not a primary concern either. We use scholarly sources for the quality and reliability of their information not their prose.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:45, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

All good points. I assume you'd be OK with using Gibbon for a particularly telling quotation? (If not I have some more work to do on Fall of the Western Roman Empire before it can go for GA or FA, and of course would appreciate your comments anyway.) And, sorry to persist, but would you find it totally and absolutely unacceptable to use Gibbon as authority for a straightforward fact, the kind of thing that nobody has ever disagreed with but, as a specific fact, might need a reference? Julian died on campaign against the Persians, for example? If that's the consensus I'll go with it, but I would find a very limited use of that sort of thing acceptable if not ideal. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:42, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Even straight forward "facts" may be subject to revision and Gibbon indepedently of is stature simply lacks 250 years of new archeological discoveries which can include lost text of ancient historians, original documents and such. It is conceivable (though in reality in might not happen very often) that even basic "facts" may need to be revised due to such new sources. As far as Gibbon is concerned as explained above I hardly see a situation where using him as a source is really appropriate. However if for some reason the need arises to source a quote by him, then his original work might be used as (primary) source for that of course. If some editor wants to quote a very lucid and still correct statement by Gibbon, which I personally would avoid, then he should at least provide a second recent scholarly source confirming the correctness of Gibbon's statement.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:20, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I also don't mind quoting an elegant expression from Gibbon, but I would prefer to see a quote as out-of-time and Eurocentric as the one above framed in the cultural-intellectual context of his own era, and contrasted with a contemporary approach. This quotation affirms a mindset that saw European imperialism as the pinnacle of civilization to an extent that even Niall Ferguson would reframe and nuance differently. These kinds of cultural assumptions affect Gibbon's narrative of facts, as Kmhkmh indicates. Again I ask, why not use contemporary sources such as the Cambridge Ancient History? If something is an undisputed fact, it will be easy to confirm elsewhere. Another problem with citing Gibbon (especially as "Gibbon, p. 25") is that there are many many editions, with varying page numbers—making verification difficult. So Richard, while I don't think using Gibbon necessarily undermines the basic factuality and coherence of an article, I do think it's good to spend some time adding modern sources. If you look at the article Gravity, Isaac Newton doesn't appear as a source in the footnotes. Although "knowledge" is different in the sciences (where "knowledge" is what we know right now) than in the humanities (where "knowledge" is the collective historical process of human knowledge, error and all), it's still the case that our encyclopedia articles should be based on the current state of scholarship (which in the humanities will always look back on the history of scholarship, hence our desire for a section on the tradition of historiography pertaining to the Roman Empire). Cynwolfe (talk) 15:26, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Paragraphing

Someone seems to be going through and systematically reparagraphing to produce chunks of prose of consistent length. That is completely contrary to good prose style, and doesn't reflect the purpose of paragraphing. Paragraph breaks represent shifts in topic. Good prose exhibits a variety of paragraph length. Reading text in which the paragraphs (or sentences) are all of the same length is tedious. Please see WP:Paragraph. Or any decent book on prose composition.

Moreover, most of the paragraphs are now too long, creating great gray seas into which no one wants to wade.

The paragraphs under "Languages," for instance, had been carefully created by topic. A paragraph break was elided that had marked a clear transition from a consideration of the "bilateral monolingualism" of Greek and Latin in the first half of the section, to a treatment of other local languages in the second half. When the paragraphs were merged, the image from Leptis Magna was displaced from the text it accompanies. (The caption of this image had originally failed to note why it's significant, not mentioning that it was bilingual in Punic.) This is yet another sign that the article is being edited hastily and without due thought. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Massive additions

Would Quarkgluonsoup please stop adding massive amounts of poorly thought-out and scantily sourced material? The section "Construction technology" doesn't have a single source. You're not helping the article by just dumping stuff you haven't thought through, without taking time to learn about the standard bibliography, or to weigh what's most important to include. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:54, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh wait: you're just copying stuff from other articles in some cases. In that case, please take time to properly digest the material into a summary section. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes the technology section is a summary of the technology article. This is not the final version, but the start of a necessary section on this article. I am going to clean that section up and add citations.Quarkgluonsoup (talk) 21:18, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

A further word of caution: WP:LENGTH says that an article should be "30 kB to 50 kB of readable prose, which roughly corresponds to 6,000 to 10,000 words". At the moment the article is 151,980 bytes and (in my opinion more importantly) about 14,000 words of readable prose. It looks like some of these summaries will need considerable reduction.--SabreBD (talk) 15:26, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Dumping large chunks of prose from elsewhere isn't solving the problem. Some of us who regularly contribute to the general area of ancient Rome often find these other articles to be rather poor. Education in Ancient Rome is better than it used to be, but the sources are still an odd mixture of stuff, and many of the major RS are missing. It would be far better for this article to find sources such as A Companion to the Roman Empire and other scholarly overviews or introductions to the empire, and to summarize the relevant sections. Compare the recent GA Scotland in the Middle Ages for quality of sources and readability. Here I have to confess that I revised the section "Languages," and it's also too long—but it was a good-faith effort to find recent RS and digest the narrative they present. It took me three days working offline, in a subject area I know well, and we currently lack an article Languages of the Roman Empire. I also still maintain that because of the Roman Republic "prequel," an account of the Empire makes no sense unless Government and Society are described before History. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:45, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking through the article as it stands at the moment with a view to some reduction in size, I think the History section could be expressed a bit more concisely, but getting a lot of words out of a cohesive narrative can be difficult. Something similar can be said of what is now Government and military (although it is clearly vital to explain these things, or the article will make very little sense and I take the point about a need to define this near the start - perhaps above history). The society and culture section is probably the most bloated, particularly the education sub-section, which has its own article so should be more of a summary. OK language may be a bit long, but there is no obvious article to go to and this is well sourced and useful, so perhaps you should create a new article at Language in the Roman Empire, move it there and reduce this to a summary. The Economy section could possibly be one subsection. I particularly think the table of GDP is unnecessary in a general article like this and could be summarised in a sentence. Science and technology is much too long and repetitious (aqueducts are mentioned in every sub-section here - as well as already making it into society and culture - they are important, but not that important). Legacy is a difficult section, and the main problem here for me is not length, but the lack of reliable sources for this contentious claims. I can go ahead and make this kind of change, but it is probably going to be contentious, so it may be best to agree some principles here first. If anyone want to go ahead and edit down don't let me stand in the way. I should add that, cutting down what is in the article is all the more important given the view of a number of editors that there some important elements of coverage are missing.--SabreBD (talk) 08:13, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The additions seem to be good-faith efforts to address the coverage gaps mentioned at the current GA review reassessment, but they are hasty and diffuse. I had noted that we lacked aqueducts; but now we have too much about aqueducts, when all we really needed was a single coherent paragraph with an accompanying photo of the Pont du Gard or Aqueduct of Segovia: when aqueducts were first built in Rome; their purpose and expansion in the Empire; how aqueducts were part of provincial infrastructure; their engineering, architectural, and archaeological significance.

I'm not sure the new subheads under "History" represent an improvement over the three different sets of subheads the article's had in the last week. As of this moment, the word "Principate" no longer appears in the article, and so we have no link explaining this standard term of periodization. The "History" section will be hard to condense unless we treat it as a historical narrative rather than a blow-by-blow chronology. The section was easy to merge with "Military History" because both mostly just recorded who killed whom and who fought with whom. The extensive of universal citizenship in 212 is pivotal, and continues to be treated almost glancingly. And actually, the two full paragraphs on "HIstory" in the introduction are too detailed (and the word "notably" is used three times in one paragraph), but would be a good kernel for the "History" section.

I think we can expect Roman Empire to be a longer article than Scotland in the Middle Ages (which I mentioned as a recent example of a GA), because the former is more geographically expansive, encompasses a greater number of cultures, and presents more "legacy" issues. But we'll need to park the end loaders and get out the trowels. In other words, IMHO we need to start focusing section-by-section within an agreed-upon structure. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Slavery

Wasn't there slavery in the Roman Empire? There is no mention that there was slavery in the Roman Empire. The current article reads as if the Roman Empire was there without mentioning who did the labor in making all the buildings, statues, or coliseums. Cmguy777 (talk) 15:00, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe a good source would be Slaves and Slavery in the Roman Empire by Zvi Yavetz (1988). Cmguy777 (talk) 15:03, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Seems usable, though it actually seems to focus on slavery during the Republican era - mind, I could well be wrong there.. Slavery's one of the article's heftier omissions but Cynwolfe seems to be working towards completion on various relevant "Society" sections. While I'm here, I'll just add that I'm rewriting most of the Religion material in a user-box. It's slow going. Haploidavey (talk) 15:12, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Haploidavey. Another source could be Slavery in the Roman World by Sandra R. Joshel (2010). One source Keith Hopkins (1978), Conquerors and Slaves, page 9 stated that there were as many as 3,000,000 slaves in Italy brought in from Roman conquests by the First Century. There is also that issue of slave revolts. I would recommend listing the major slave revolts in the proposed Slavery section. Cmguy777 (talk) 15:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, thanks both of you. Slavery needs to be dealt with in two sections, Society and Economy, from two different perspectives. I was holding off on slavery for the "Legal status" section. I became enormously confused about the various social hierarchies, but this morning found a book that explains why: they're enormously confusing. Unfortunately the preview of that book stops just before what appears to be the "payoff" section on making sense of Imperial society. Not sure when I can get to the library for that. However, slavery needs to be dealt with ASAP. (I think I may have optimistically deleted the paragraph under "Culture" because it didn't go there, had no sources, and wasn't specific to the Empire, and I thought I could work up a section more quickly than I've been able.) One obstacle was the deplorable state of Slavery in ancient Rome, to which I administered minimal triage the other day. It'll be fairly easy to do a workable paragraph here, but that article really needs some serious attention from editors whose main concern is to document the full picture, and not just repeat in various ways "slavery is terrible". Slavery is much more complicated in Rome than in the American South, or so it seems to me. However, the Servile Wars took place in the Republic, and the enslavement of peoples as a result of warfare also slows down considerably in the Empire. That's why the inadequacies of Slavery in ancient Rome are a problem: there's no place to point to the "prequel," and that article tends to assume that what was true in one period was true in another. Oddly, one development of the Empire was legislation cracking down on manumission—which implies that there was too much manumission going on, or at least that the slave labor force was felt to be increasingly inadequate. That's one of those things that caused me to slow down and not confuse the 2nd and 1st centuries BC with post-Augustan practices. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:47, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I would put slavery in a seperate section. Since there is already another article on Roman slavery, then the material in this article needs to be connected with the material in the Slavery in Ancient Rome article. Manumission laws need to be addressed, also, race needs to be addressed. Was Roman slavery for all conquered people? Did the Romans enslave blacks? There was some point in European history when blacks were primarily viewed as slaves, possibly after the Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire. Cmguy777 (talk) 16:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

A group of Portuguese Nanban foreigners, 17th century Japanese painting.

Most certainly after Byzantium. Try at least a century after Constantinople fell to the Turks. Enslavement of black African peoples by European powers was fueled first and foremost by the need to maintain the sugar cane plantations of the Spanish and Portuguese empires. Then came the idea to farm cotton and tobacco from the New World with mass unpaid labor. There's some interesting Japanese paintings from the late 16th and early 17th centuries showing black slaves dressed in fine clothes holding parasols for their Portuguese masters.Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:11, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Slavery was not a race-based institution in Rome, at least not in the modern sense of "race." Black slaves were uncommon enough to be prized as status possessions. (Ugh—in striving for neutrality on this topic, I find myself blandly uttering such repugnant statements, like too much manumission going on above, which of course means the exploiting class thought there was too much manumission going on). Roman slavery, like ancient slavery in general, seems mostly to originate in domination through warfare, so slaves were whoever you happened to conquer, including and especially the Greeks, whose culture the Romans regarded as in some ways superior to their own. In the Empire, the nature of the slave trade changes when territorial expansionism halts, and forms of slavery become more complex. Some slaves seem to have had more freedom on a day-to-day basis than your average Wal-Mart checkout clerk, judging from the complaints I often hear from the latter. Anyway, I'm trying to gather the best sources to answer your questions, and generally I'm working within the following outline:

• Society (which exists now as a general introduction)

• Legal status: a paragraph on the broad categories of "citizen," "free non-citizen", and "slave," and the extension of universal citizenship in 212

• Women as legal entities
• Slaves and the law
• Freedmen (extremely important in the Empire)
• Social marginalization (a very brief look at people who seem to fall into none of these categories, such as dediticii, infames, and banditry)

• Ordines: senator, equestrian, decurion
• Birth and honors: a paragraph on what happens to the old patrician/plebeian distinction (with the later title of patricius being bestowed rather than a privilege of birth); honestiores/humiliores; the changing meaning of nobilis; other titles such as vir illustris.
• Family (where domestic slaves will be included)

So in this section, slavery would be considered as a social institution and legal category. Under "Economy," the work of slaves would be considered as an aspect of labor. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:30, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Admirable! Your category Social marginalization includes, certainly in the late Empire, rather a lot of people such as coloni, laeti etc who may not have been freely purchasable but whose legal status would probably get them included in most modern definitions of slavery. How do you plan to treat them? Richard Keatinge (talk) 06:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Briefly! I haven't yet looked around to see how some of these designations are treated elsewhere on WP, if at all. Sometimes some of our better articles are on really narrow topic areas. Concubinae form another odd and marginalized status, in the sense of evasively defined in legal terms. "Bandits" are an element in the "Crisis of the Third Century." I'm planning to postpone the "Social marginalization" section until some broader areas are under control. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:25, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

We have established that black enslavement came after the Roman empire. I believe the slavery section in the Roman Empire needs to be a few paragraphs, since there is already an article on Roman slavery. Cmguy777 (talk) 06:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that Slavery in ancient Rome remains substandard, and doesn't really look at how the institution changes over time. I felt I had to get something in here about Imperial slavery, because you are quite right to have pointed out how misleading it is not to have substantial notice of Rome as one of the biggest slave societies in history. I still see a lot of work to do here, so I'll probably try to get the Ordines described, which will require a realignment with the Government section (which currently blurs the Senate functionally as a deliberative body and the senators as an ordo and census rank). Just as a side note, there were black slaves in Rome (the Romans tended to call them "Ethiopians"), and I want to be sure to mention that appropriately when I find the right source to state it succinctly. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:25, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I agree. There were black slaves. What I meant in my previous statement was that slavery was pan racial, rather then a more modern by one specific race. Both articles need to be improved and yes Rome might have been the largest slave society in world history! 74.38.12.203 (talk) 18:23, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to be a pain, but in the now-first sentence of "Slaves and the law", I really don't know what the phrase "dispersed everywhere" means. Does it mean that in all provinces, slavery as an institution was pretty much the same as in Roman Italy? Does it mean that, in terms of demography, the slave population was distributed evenly throughout all the provinces? Does it mean there was a deliberate effort to avoid concentrating slave populations in certain areas? Does it mean that throughout the Empire, the ratio of slaves to free people was the same in all provinces as in Roman Italy? This is further confused by the city-country dichotomy: logically, houses in the city of Rome are not 'throughout the Empire.' So are we saying that throughout the Empire, the particular relation of city domus to country villa as expressed in Roman culture was cookie-cutter replicated? I'm somewhat wary of that. I feel as if the sentence needs to deliver more concrete information. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I was going by what the Mattingly source stated. I reworded the sentence. Mattingly stated that slaves were everywhere. I reworded the sentence having stated "slaves were worked everywhere in Roman society". There needs to be a seperate section on slavery, not only slaves and the law. A serperate section on slavery would allow other areas, such as slave revolts and slave working conditions. These subjects need to be addressed in the article. Cmguy777 (talk) 21:51, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Society section

The society section needs to be generalized in order to add content. The society in only viewed from a legal standpoint. There has been no previous discussion on this. Cmguy777 (talk) 15:54, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes there has. See outline for the Society section in the talk section above.

If you follow the discussion and review the outline proposed above, which other editors have consented to tacitly or actively, you'll see that I have on more than one occasion said that "Slave labor" should be a section of "Economy," and the slave trade should be part of an overview section on "Trade" under "Economy" as well, which is now sorely absent. We may need a section on "Social unrest" to accommodate various other "movements" or whatever the correct term would be. But please don't start cramming stuff in willy-nilly. That's what we've been working so hard to guard against. This is an article on the entire Roman Empire, not just slavery. That's why we need to keep to a tight, agreed-upon structure that proceeds topic-by-topic and doesn't just replicate content that should be in other articles. Please work on the article Slavery in ancient Rome if that's your primary interest, or please add appropriate sections. We have to keep the overall purpose and structure of the article in mind, or we'll be serving our pet interests instead of our readers.

BTW, why would you use a general overview from 1957 on a subject like slavery in the Roman Empire? There's been a vast amount of scholarship since then, some of which you yourself mention above. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:59, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I was the one who initiated that slavery be put in the article. I never consented to the outline proposed above by other editors. My initial attempt was to have a slavery section in the article, not the legal status of slaves. This is a general article on the Roman Empire. Putting Slavery in a generalized title is appropriate for a generalized article on the Roman Empire. I agree that there is vast amounts of scholarship after 1957 on the Roman Empire. Mattingly, in my opinion, was a pioneer on the modern Roman scholarship. What you call "willy-nilly" I call being bold, as Wikipedia policy states. I admit I am new to the Roman Empire section. I apologize if I ruffled any feathers. However, I disagree with restricting any discussion of slavery in only a legal sense of the word. From what I have read and has been mentioned before, is that I believe the reader needs to understand that slavery was wide spread in the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Where did the slaves come from? Who were the slaves? What work did the slaves do? Why did the slaves revolt? These are important questions. Having a general section on slavery one can allow the slave trade and the condition of Roman slaves to be discussed. The legal status of slaves I believe is narrow in focus for a generalized article on the Roman Empire. Cmguy777 (talk) 16:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The section on "Legal status" is fundamental, because if you read it, it establishes that the two basic divisions of homines ("human beings") was into the categories liberi ("free") and servi ("slaves"). We need to represent Roman society on its own terms, and not impose our modern definitions or sensibilities. So "Legal status" emphatically does not mean "citizenship." There were grades of citizenship as well, and free people who weren't citizens (until 212 AD, anyway). However, demography is related to the application of Roman law, so the current section on Legal status does indeed account for who slaves were, where they came from, and their distribution and kinds of work. So let's take this point by point. Bradley says quite specifically that the two ways of dealing with slavery, in general and in relation to Rome, are social and economic. He emphasizes that the social role of slaves is uniquely important in Rome, in part because of the ease (relative to other slave societies) in which slaves could become citizens, and in the Empire the great variety of ways they played a social and political role as well as an economic role.

That's what I'm basing the content split on. "Legal status" is a subsection of "Society" (which will have further subsections). In turn, the special legal status of women, slaves, and freedmen are described in ways that are specific to Roman law and society. "Labor" belongs under "Economy," and is a new section that is desperately needed. "Slave labor" could either be integrated completely into "Labor," or be a subsection. "Labor" will describe in general what kinds of jobs free people had, and what kinds of work slaves did (there's considerable overlap). "Labor" also includes working conditions, and not just issues of productivity. Why do you object to that division, which is based on Bradley?

You keep talking about slave revolts. I hope you don't mean the Servile Wars (though I've now mentioned them as background), because that belongs to the article Roman Republic—it's outside our period here. My impression so far is that slave revolts were more limited in the Empire (I've now addressed that as it's reflected by law), and blur into what's commonly called "banditry" (latrocinium). Fugitive slaves seem to be of greater concern (feeding into the Crisis of the Third Century) than the large-scale revolts of the Republic, and are part of various kinds of diffuse social instability (which we could either integrate into the existing "History" section, or create a new section for).

I would beg you to keep perspective by reading this article from beginning to end, realizing that the "Culture" section is in a deplorable state and will inevitably need more length, while the "Religion" section manages to have both too much verbiage and too little information, and to see how missing content might best fit into the greater scheme of things. Once you read this thing all the way through in one sitting, I hope you see how important concision and structure are. And I sincerely hope you will consider improving Slavery in ancient Rome, which is not an adequate article at all. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:06, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I do not disagree with what you are saying. I understand this is the Roman Empire not the Roman Republic. However, any laws that carried over into the Republic to the Empire, if any, should not be ignored. I am not sure how many slave revolts there were in the Roman Empire as opposed to the Roman Republic. My emphasis on generalization was for the sake of the reader and other editors. Slavery existed during the Roman Empire, and I am not sure why slavery can not be addressed as a whole issue, rather then only legal context. Slaves were viewed as property. However, that does not address the slaves condition in life, such as the harsh labor conditions on Roman Country Estates. Here is another issue. The Roman Army could enslave any non citizen at anytime, such as the case of the Simon the Cyrenian (Mark 15:21 KJV), who was forced to carry the cross of Christ. Apparently only citizens were free, everyone else was a slave or could be enslaved. In my opinion, the current article reads as a course on the legal status of slaves during the Roman Empire. I believe that is one aspect of slavery. The legal status of Roman slaves is bottle necking the article. How could the other apects of Roman slavery be put in the article without having a generalized slavery title? Cmguy777 (talk) 18:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I think you need to read both what I said and the existing section more carefully. I didn't say slavery should be covered only in the "Legal aspect" section. I said that in the "Legal status" section, the discussion of slavery needs to be confined to their status in the law (Romans were extraordinarily legalistic). I said "Slave labor" should go in the currently non-existent section of "Labor" under "Economy." I said that some aspects of the lives of domestic slaves will be integrated into the section on the familia. You're being vague about what other aspects you want to see in the article, so I don't know where those could be handled. But I don't see the point in having a discussion if you're going to disregard what I've said. Slaves were not segregated in Roman society; they were everywhere in everyday life, and they need to be represented in that same pervasive way throughout the article, which is structured by topic. It might be possible in American history to corral slavery in a discrete section, but that isn't how slavery was in ancient Rome at any period. Is it possible that you're simply bringing preconceptions to the article and trying to get it to conform to those, instead of realizing that the practices pertaining to slavery in Rome were in many ways unique? I'd also recommend reading Peregrinus (Roman) for what "free non-citizen" means. What a bunch of brutal military bozos might do on a given occasion is not evidence of the general principles of law and government in any society. And after 212 AD, about halfway through the period the article covers, all free inhabitants of the empire held citizenship and had recourse to the Roman courts, limited though they were in the provinces. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:12, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I have read your Bradley arguement. I do not disagree with what you said or the Bradley method. I just believe from a readers stand point there is no focus in general on overall slavery during the Roman Empire. I am not sure why there is a neccessity to disperse slavery under alternative sections i.e. to put slave labor under economy and domestic slave life under familia. Would these be subsectioned so the reader could click the link or would the slavery information be hidden in the section? You stated that slaves were everywhere in society. I agree with this. Can the reader infer this from using the Bradley method in the article? Cmguy777 (talk) 19:32, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I have found there to be a conflict in the Bradley method. In the Slaves and the Law section there is an introduction paragraph the describes slavery in general. That would mean, in my opinion, there needs to be a generalized section on slavery, if general information is listed. Why did you, Cynwolfe, take out information I put in and kept the other general information in the article section? Cmguy777 (talk) 19:52, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Because you gave no information. You essentially said "slaves worked in the city and country." How is that informative? The information I provided is more specific, giving a demographic picture of Rome/provinces; rural/urban/industrial/range of jobs. I was attempting to address your concerns that the legal issues were abstract without some basic demography.

Look, we have an overview of slavery: the reader is directed to the main article Slavery in ancient Rome (which needs attention). If I understand your point, corralling all information about slavery in Roman Empire into a single section would accomplish the opposite effect of what you say you want: for me, making sure the contributions of slaves throughout Roman culture and daily life are represented means representing them within all relevant topic areas. To say everything about slaves in a single section, and ignore them elsewhere, strikes me as misleading. People who are interested only in the topic of slavery can read the main article. Any section(s) necessarily dedicated soley to slavery shouldn't be out of proportion to other sections in the article. (The section "Languages" is disproportionately long, for two main reasons: we don't yet have an article called Languages of the Roman Empire to refer readers to, and it indirectly gives a snapshot of ethnicity throughout the Empire.)

Slave labor was integral to the economy, so why should it not be treated there? And what's stopping you or anyone from starting a section on "Slave labor" under "Economy"? Unlike some other slave societies, free people of the lower classes and slaves performed some of the same kinds of jobs, with the exception of forced labor in the fields, mines, and mills, and with the exception of slaves having jobs that in modern society are considered of fairly high status, such as teaching, accounting, business management, civil service, and medicine. This is already outlined in the existing sections on "Slaves and the law" and "Freedmen". I really don't know what you want that can't be accommodated in this framework. But please, read the section again, and tell me what's urgently missing on the topic of slavery as it pertains to Roman Empire, and I'll try to prioritize that. I don't plan to work on the Economy section till after I finish with Society and Culture, if ever, but there are thousands of other editors out there who can take on these tasks. I'm just trying to communicate here about the goals I'm setting for myself (since I formally complained about omissions and structural defects), so I can alter them if other editors feel I'm diverging from the task of improving the article, and so we can work together in keeping on-topic and preserving readability. But my final point—and I really must stop belaboring this if I'm to get anything actually done in the article—is that we have an article Slavery in ancient Rome, and the slavery sections in Roman Empire shouldn't get out of proportion to the rest of the article. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:18, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I am willing to work within the modified Bradley standards, although, I believe from a reader standpoint that putting Roman Empire slavery in one section with various subsections would be best. I agree that the slavery section in the Roman Empire should not get "out of proportion" and that work can be done on the Slavery in ancient Rome. I am not sure why the Harold Mattingly, Roman Imperial Civilization, references has apparently been blocked from the article. I believe Mattingly is a reliable source on Roman Ancient History. Cmguy777 (talk) 21:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Slavery subjects that need to be covered. Cmguy777 (talk) 21:19, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Slave labor conditions (i.e. who worked in the mines?)
• Any slave revolts
• Who were enslaved?
• Treatment of slaves
• Slavery in Byzantinium
• German slavery
• Age of slaves