- The article makes quite a lot of use of elegant variation "two cities founded by Alexander the Great .... two of many founded by the Macedonian king. This isn't great for encyclopaedic writing and can be unclear, particularly to those with less subject knowledge or a weaker grasp of English.
- Removed that instance, let me know if there's anything else you find troublesome.
- There's now a small MOS:SANDWICH between the battle map and the infobox on my display. Moving the map to the right (better for accessibility anyway) would fix.
"spring 326 BC": MOS:SEASON advises against using seasons to indicate parts of the year, as they're not the same across the world.
- I sort of dislike that MOS guideline, but removed. Can't replace as don't know the exact month.
- "Early in 326 BC", or "in the first half of..."? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:34, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Done early, not sure if I like it to describe May. In the first half makes it sound irritatingly like a football match. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:22, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- "Built on the battlefield": suggest a rephrase here, as "on the battlefield" has a common metaphorical meaning of "during the battle". Grammatically, I'm not sure this clause quite fits with the sentence that follows. Suggest "The city on the eastern bank, where the fighting of the battle took place, was most likely called Nikaia ("city of victory")...". UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- That doesn't quite make it clear that the city was located on the site of the battlefield, merely that the fighting and the city were both on the eastern bank. I've added "the site of" to the article—see what you think.
"...Alexander's famous horse...": suggest omitting "famous" as WP:PUFFERY.
"Supervised during construction by Craterus...": would rephrase (generally, I don't think these kind of fronted clauses work too well): presumably it was the construction itself that Craterus supervised, rather than the cities themselves.
- Good catch. Separated the clauses.
- "mentioned by Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy, it appears in the Periplus Maris Erythraei manuscript and on the Tabula Peutingeriana map": I'd give a (rough) timeframe for these, as they're quite far apart.
- I mean, I can give the Periplus as 1st-century AD, but I don't feel confident giving even a rough date of composition for the TP (see Tabula Peutingeriana#Archetype).
- Yes, I appreciate that it's a tricky one, especially as the Tabula isn't itself consistent as to which time period it depicts. We could call it the Roman T.P. map, or give the terminus post quem ("the T.P., a Roman map made sometime after the turn of the 1st century AD"). UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- I've just gone for "later"; I don't really want to get into a digression on the T.P. in the lead. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"The cities' location are unknown": grammar wonky here: either the city's location is or the cities' locations are.
- Wonkier than Willy Wonka. Fixed.
Suggest saying which country Jalalpur and Mong are in, per WP:POPE.
I'm not sure I like "city of victory" as a straightforward gloss for Nikaia: I'd err on the side of saying that the name is from nike (victory).
Is the word Persian consciously avoided in relation to the Achaemenids? It's the name by which most people would know that state and its (dominant) people.
"Within a few years he defeated the Achaemenid armies, first at Issus...": Issus was the first time he defeated Darius, but not Darius' armies."Within a few years he defeated the Achaemenid armies, first at Issus and then at Gaugamela, while his enemy Darius III was murdered in 330 BC by Bessus,": the phrasing here implies that Darius was murdered while Alexander was fighting at Issus and Gaugamela.
- Suggest giving a bit more of a clue as to where the various places mentioned from the Persian empire are. A map would be extremely helpful.
- See a455bcd9's comments above. I'm trying to get it to work.
- I see the rather nice one of India in the infobox. Is there a broader one of the Persian Empire/Alexander's Empire in the pipeline? Given how many of the various places mentioned here are location-unknown, it might not be as game-changing as I thought. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- I'd like something like I had at Ai-Khanoum#Site, but either their information/sourcing is dubious or they're not easy to read (see above). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"the Hydaspes river (the modern-day Jhelum River)": suggest making the capitalisation consistent here.
- "Alexander, forced to return a few months later after his troops had mutinied at the Hyphasis (modern-day Beas River), ordered them to help repair damage caused by the monsoon": because the troops are only mentioned in a parenthetical clause, them seems to refer to the builders, which I don't think is intended. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure about the title "Alexander's chroniclers" for the five historians. Alexander did bring chroniclers with him; we just don't have their accounts. There were also a great deal more ancient historians who wrote about Alexander; the only thing that these five have in common is their (somewhat coincidental) survival. Suggest "all five surviving ancient accounts of Alexander's life" or similar.
- I agree with the sentiment, but the primary WP:RS used in the article are rather unsentimental. Fraser outright uses the phrase "Alexander-historians" in the first sentence of the book, while Cohen refers to the five as "the major narrative accounts of Alexander's life".
- I'd go closer to Cohen: Alexander's chroniclers, to me, suggests the people who actually travelled with him and wrote the "raw data" of his campaigns. Perhaps "the five major surviving accounts...", unless Cohen has taken a time machine back to Alexandria. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:36, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"naming one Nikaia and the other Boukephala": italicise names per MOS:WORDSASWORDS.
- "a task he had performed at Arigaion.": tell us where and when.
- Where is unknown, and when is uncertain. Done my best.
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- "Diodorus additionally recorded...": we usually refer to writers in the present tense; the past tense here creates the implication that Diodorus was an exact contemporary.
- See HAL333's comments above; I prefer your way.
"Alexander celebrated his victory and foundations with "a gymnastic and horse contest" near the western city": attribute this quotation."when Alexander returned a few months later after his troops had mutinied at the Hyphasis (modern-day Beas River), his troops were ordered to help repair damage caused by the monsoon.": the passive voice for the second part reads oddly, as if someone else ordered them. Suggest doing away with the repetition of his troops if possible. It might also help to break down the steps in this narrative, and explain a little about how the mutiny connects to Alexander's return.Introduce N. G. L. Hammond.
- "According to Arrian, Alexander may have initially established the port at Boukephala, although Curtius Rufus implies otherwise": what does Curtius Rufus imply, exactly?
- Actually, he states, not implies. Put in article.
- "Arrian separated the clauses detailing the location and naming of the cities, so that although the reader knows that of the two cities, one was founded on the battlefield on the eastern bank of the Hydaspes, one was established on the western bank where Alexander began to cross, one was called Nikaia, and one named Boukephala, it is unclear which name corresponds to which city.": suggest trimming and clarifying this sentence.
- "this conclusion is quite tentative due to the grammatical uncertainties": quite can have different meanings depending on your dialect: is this somewhat tentative or extremely tentative?
- Somewhere in the middle ;)
- "Arrian also noted...": noted implies an indisputable fact, so doesn't work here when we're dealing with debated information. See also the tenses on these authors.
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- As with Pliny, something like "wrote" or "stated" would be better; "recorded" still comes down on Arrian's side, to me. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
" it was probably under the rule of the Mauryan Empire (c. 320–185 BC)": putting this date range (and the later one) in brackets is a little unclear: are those the dates for the empire's "lifespan" or its rule over the city?
- I'd give some idea of the dates behind the scholarly debate as to Boukephala's endurance.
- Done my best. Let me know if there needs to be more.
- I'm not sure I was very clear here: I meant for the debate itself, not the ancient history. I've gone and made a bold edit giving more context to the two scholars. I've also swapped them round, as Tarn was much older than Narain; my hunch from their book titles is that we're talking about the 1950s for both, but I don't want to be more specific without evidence. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"the presence of a symbol on his coinage which could only have been minted at a Greek city": this sounds odd: there might have been Greek symbols on the coinage, but I don't think non-Greeks are struck down when they attempt to draw them (see the many "Alexander" coins made in the northern Balkans, for a comparison, and the pseudo-Arabic found on early medieval English coins.)
- It's Tarn, he's given to slightly wacky conclusions. Made it clearer that it's his claim, not a fact.
- Well clarified.
- "Pliny the Elder, who notes that the city was the chief of three controlled by the Asini tribe": notes here gives Pliny a little too much credit for factual accuracy.
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- I think records does much the same (that is, implies credence). Ancient ethnography, as a rule, wasn't exactly scrupulous about fact-checking. How about "who names the city as the chief of three controlled by the Asini tribe"? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- ".. to the east of Paropamisadae.": where's that?
- How annoyed will you be if I say we don't really know?
- See later on as to how we might communicate that in the phrasing.
- Cohen's quotation is, I think, better paraphrased: we don't generally want to quote directly unless the specific phrasing is important.
"as proposed by Aurel Stein": a rough date here would be helpful.
- Finally, something I can provide a definite answer to!
- "A monument ... the building": was the monument definitely a building? We don't generally use that word unless it's got walls and doors, and most monuments don't.
- It's a building. It's got walls and doors and windows and even a room with computers in it. See the archive link in the source.
- The 'missing link' Lane Fox provides is that part of the monument is a study centre, and indeed refers to the whole thing as a "centre" ("Built from 1998 to 2011, the “centre” was declared open by ambassadors from the EU: now it is padlocked and festooned in barbed wire. The white paint is peeling off the big Greek pillars on the platform and the study rooms and lone computer have gone mouldy."). I'd use the same terminology. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Or I could avoid any readers' confusion ("centre? centre of what?") by just using an it. That good? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- "located 10km east": "10km east of it" or "10km to the east". Suggest using a convert template here.
- "Others have suggested that the settlement was located in the vicinity of Sukchainpur.": clarity on the location would help, especially as it's a redlink.
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- On this: something like "in the vicinity of a city called Sukchainpur" would, I think, do enough to say that we don't know where that city was. Perhaps "Indian city", going only by the name, if you're feeling brave. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 21:38, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- It seems I have been even more unclear than I thought. I'm blaming the sources. See what you think now. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:22, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- I like the quote on Nikaia: to me, "the village of Sukchainpur" implies that we do know where it was. Perhaps "the now-lost village..." or, as before, "a village called...", both of which imply or state that we don't. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- No, the issue with Sukchainpur is that it's a modern village which exists, and some people know where it is but I don't know, and there isn't an article on it. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- If you put "Sukchainpur, Pakistan" into Google you get this place: possibly a bit close to OR, but it's just over the river from Jhelum... that's got to be it, surely? UndercoverClassicist (talk) 13:40, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Ooh good find! I mean, it's unlikely that there's another village with the same name near the same river ... probably? I still feel a little uncomfortable, tbh ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Introduce Alexander Cunningham (he's obviously connected with the British survey, but good to know exactly how and when).
- Dates would be helpful in the Buddhism passage.
- Also somewhat unknown. Being a semi-mythical prophet who lived 2,500 years ago will do that.
- Our own article gives the composition of the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya as the early C1st AD, happily with a nice source and quotation, so I'd include that at least. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why are long vowels marked for Ādirājya, Bhadrāśva and Vitastā but not elsewhere?
- Because they're Sanskrit transliterations, and I have no clue whether removing them makes their meaning dramatically different. Any help would be appreciated.
- Good enough for me; I'm not about to go smashing up Sanskrit in the name of Wiki-consistency! UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"an old Hindu tradition": can we be more specific?
"above Jalalpur": suggest rephrasing to be clearer on what "above" means (a compass direction would be better).
- Source says "on the hill above Jalalpur". Looking at a map, it probably means the high ground to the northwest of the town. However, I'm fairly certain that a recent MOS RfC stated that looking at maps to decide such things is WP:OR.
- The image [:File:River Jhelum at Jhelum City from Old Railway bridge at Jhelum City.jpg] seems, to my eyes, pretty huge: I see the logic for up-scaling the map and mosaic, where there's a lot of fine detail, but this one compresses the text quite a lot on the Vector 2022 skin. For accessibility, images should be on the right unless there's a good reason otherwise (a consistent left margin is much easier to follow): is there one here?
- Nope, just looked nice and I don't use Vector 2022; size decreased and moved rightwards.
- Link to the specific editions of ancient sources used. I would also give the dates of the editions.
- I've provided links, but I find it weird when ancient sources are given dates like "1919" or "2008", as there's no |translation-date parameter.
- Yeah, that's true. Could cheat and give the translator's name as e.g. "John Smith (2009)"?
- Why is Berkeley linked but Oxford not?
- I think I thought Oxford is more likely to fall under BLUESKY. I remember being chastised for that at Ai-Khanoum.
- Be consistent on whether publishers and places are given, and on ISBN formatting (dashes or no dashes?). this tool helps to convert between formats.
- Done. I think I generally go for: locations and publishers with books, publishers only with journals, and no dashes in ISBNS.
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