Talk:Mark Antony

Best friend of Caesar?

"He was an important supporter and the best friend of Gaius Julius Caesar as a military commander and administrator, being Caesar's second cousin, once removed, by his mother Julia Antonia." Is there any source from antiquity that lists Antony as Caesar's best friend? Seems a bit biased, and unproven, to me.

Missing Reference to marriage with Octavia in history of the Triumvirate

Someone oughta put that back in there. 68.84.228.122 01:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I just made an attempt at it, because it was certainly needed -- it was entirely omitted. Sisyphus88 (talk)

Considering the children

When Octavius invaded Egypt, where did he take the children captive? Were they all with Cleopatra and Mark Antony or were they all sent away and just ran into Octavius on the way? The children were Caesarion, Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene, Ptolemy Philadelphus and Mark Antony's two boys Antyllus and Iullus. Octavius killed Caesarion and Antyllus, but let the others go, sending them all to live with Octavia. Why did he let the others go? Selene I could understand, she a girl and couldn't cause too much trouble. The two boys Antony had with Cleopatra, were both quite young and may have been let off... But why Iullus? --80.193.19.191 20:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Augustus probably spared Iullus' life because he was a child still (IE had not put on his manly gown). At the time of the then Gaius Octavius (Augustus) capture of Egypt, the children were all of certain ages. Caesarion and Antyllus were both seventeen. They were grown-ups in the Roman world, as many boys started to take resonsiblity. However Octavius probably would have killed Caesarion no matter how old he was as he was too much of a threat for Rome.The other kids, Alexander, Selene and Ptolmey were still quite young and Romans didn't like killing children if they didn't have to. The twins were no older then Octavius' own daughter, who was just a little girl at the time, so I can understand why spared them.

Iullus, on the other hand, was fifteen. A few years older, he probably would have been killed too. Nonetheless, the two sons of Cleo and Antony died and no one knows why (It's unlikely Augustus killed them after sparing their lives). The only ones who really gained anything out of being spared were Iullus and Selene. Octavius treated them both very kindly, allowing Selene to marry Juba II of Numidia and Iullus was praetor in 13 BC, consul in 10 BC and Asian proconsul. His mistake was getting up to some ooh laa laa with Augustus daughter, Julia. C'est la vie, eh? --Camblunt100 16:22, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

A separate consideration:

Octavian did not let Alexander Helios nor Ptolemy Philadelphus go -- they were hung on crosses next to their brother. The Holy Bible says that the malefactors that were cruxified with Christ shared in his condemnation (shared in his accusation, were also accused of being Kings). These three Kings.. three Theives...Three Male-factors... with the "Donations" of Alexandria, octavian's propoganda was that "Cleopatra" had stolen these lands from rome. Thus her children who were in possession of this "stolen" property are the "Theives". The birth of Jesus Christ starts with the Imposter imposing a tax on all the world, and further it states, that the taxing was first made when quirnius was governor of Syria (this is only possible after the removal of young Philadelphus). This is octavian asserting all the authority he derived from murdering the King of Kings and rightful heir. Some may consider this heresy, but the reality is that octavian and herod both were imposters that stole other's Rightful kingdoms. herod bleed to an end the Hasmonean house and Octavian brought to an end the House of Ptolemais.Proverbs 1. +*

+* One has to seriously doubt the credibility of the above quoted biblical theory that Philadelphus and Helios were crucified with Christ. They were captured twenty years before Christ was even born. We'd have to presume that they were, in Helios' case, past sixty years old when a later Emperor decided to hang them on crosses beside Jesus Christ. In truth, they disappeared from the historical record while they were still children, even though their sister did not.--Stephdray 15:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

• • • Some say that octavian let alexander and philadelphus live, where? what happened to them? Alexander was engaged to Iotape, where are their children? The whole reason they went to war was based on Antony "abandoning" his wife in Rome, and giving his inheritance to Philadelphus and Alexander-- 'and the "ex-wife" gets the kids?' a jealous/scorned woman? They were equally as threatening as Iwa n Ntr the moment they were crowned -- for their entire lifetimes could they legitametly claim rulership in those territories.

Octavian couldn't have killed the two younger boys because he had already spared their lives. The twin Alexander Helios was in the victory walk chained up Cleopatra Selene (and maybe Iullus?) but the younger one could have easily died of illness on the way back or knocked off by other things or people on the way back to Rome. It can be a dangerous journey for little children, bare in mind. Besides, why not kill Iullus? He killed Antyllus, he killed Caesarion, and if what you say is true, he killed Alexander Helios (who was not much older then Octavian's own little girl) and Philadelphus (a very young child)... why not Iullus? The boy would without a doubt habour revenge for the deaths of his brothers and his father, not to mention he was several years older then the young two boys. Why not kill all the boys... Antyllus, Iullus and Caesarion were more of a threat then Alexander and Philadelphus, yet he kept Iullus alive. It says in the histories that Octavian intended on giving Selene, Iullus, Alexander and Philadelphus to Octavia, who was anything but a jealous and scorned woman-- was it his fault not all of them made it to the house? --Camblunt100 13:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Title

Since the article itself refers to Antony as Marcus Antonius, which was the name to which he would have answered, wouldn't it make sense to make Marcus Antonius the article and render Mark Antony as a redirect like Marc Antony, the other recognized Anglicized spelling? Jeff Anonymous 14:13, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think the title of a page is supposed to be the name which is most often searched for/recognized by, and how many people actually know his name was Marcus Antonius?

Kuralyov 07:26, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

For me you are welcome to make the move. [[User:Muriel Gottrop|muriel@pt]] 10:02, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It should stay at Mark Anthony, as this is the most common name in English. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:12, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is old, but i've always seem him referred to as Marc Anthony(not Mark) in every history book and article on him i've ever read. I agree with JeffTL's suggestion to change the name. Spyke 21:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd be curious as to what scholarly works you've seen calling him "Marc Anthony". Encyclopaedia Britannica (standard English-language source for general knowledge) and the Oxford Classical Dictionary (standard English-language source for the classics) both call him "Mark Antony"; Britannica acknowledges "Marc Anthony" as an occasionally-used byname, but the OCD does not.

Looking through the two dozen or so books about the topic on my bookshelf, I can find only references to "Mark Antony", never to "Marc Anthony"; these include my translations of Suetonius, Plutarch and Caesar; Dodge's biography of Caesar, Meier's biography of Caesar (in English translation), Everett's biography of Cicero and Rice's biography of Cleopatra; and a half a dozen or so college textbooks and other works on Roman history. The only book I can find here that doesn't call him "Mark Antony" is Seager's biography of Pompey, which only ever calls him "M. Antonius". And if we want to branch into literature, everyone from Shakespeare to Robert Graves to Colleen McCullough has called him "Mark Antony".

I will admit that I have seen him called "Marc Anthony" many times in informal or casual settings—restaurant names, movie reviews, passing mentions in newspaper articles—but these have always looked to me more like ignorant misspellings, borne out of the simple fact that these are the forms of the English forenames "Marc" and "Anthony" with which the authors are most familiar, than genuine proof that this is a more prevalent legitimate spelling than the traditional "Mark Antony" that is (in my experience) pretty much universal in English-language works on Roman history. Binabik80 20:46, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Addendum: Flipping through my sources again today for a debate on nomenclature over at Talk:Augustus, I notice that in fact, Rice's biography of Cleopatra gives Antony's praenomen as Marc, not Mark (but still gives his surname as Antony, not Anthony). I don't know how I missed it the first time, but I felt I should note it here in the interests of intellectual honesty. Binabik80 20:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I lack the learned resources of yourself, but I've always known him as Marc Antony -- wasn't k added to the alphabet that English inherited some time after the Roman times? Sisyphus88 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 05:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC).

Articles on Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Julius Caesar, Pompey, and others are titled as listed, by their anglicized name. "Mark Antony" I believe is usually thought of as the most often used anglicization of his name. It is the one used by Shakespeare. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 15lsoucy (talk • contribs) 21:02, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

A Discrepancy between two articles

I've read both the Marcus Antonius and the Cicero articles, and there is a discrepancy between the two entries on the death of Cicero. In the Cicero article, the death of Cicero is attributed to Antonius' request. In the Antonius article, Cicero's death is attributed to suicide. It might be helpful to edit one or the other of the articles for consistency's sake. -Hilary Agrippina121@aol.com (19 Jan 2005) roy antony

• There is no discrepancy: Antony sent men in pursuit of Cicero to murder him; Cicero tried to escape but he couldnt, so he killed himself. It was suicide, but due to Antony's wish to get rid of him. You are of course welcome to rephrase the articles to make the point clearer. I like your user name. muriel@pt 20:40, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Cicero fled, but was caught and decapitated by his pursuers on December 7, 43 BC." The Marcus Antonius article states that he committed suicide. That seems like a discrepancy to me. I like your user name too. -Ariadne (21 January 2005)

Now that I've raised the issue, I'm not sure of the appropriate method to correct it. According to Plutarch, the centurion Herennius decapitated Cicero. Plutarch does remark that Cicero held forth his head for judgment, but I am not sure that it can be classified as a suicide in the same sense as that of Antonius or Cleopatra. Livy's description accords with this. I'm more inclined to edit the article to label Cicero's death as murder, but that he gave himself up to death with dignity. Plutarch: Cicero (48) "He was all covered with dust; his hair was long and disordered, and his face was pinched and wasted with his anxieties -- so that most of those who stood by covered their faces while Herennius was killing him. His throat was cut as he stretched his neck out from the litter." -- Hilary (21 Jan 2005)

• Dear Hilary, please feel free to improve the articles with information you find relevant. Be bold! muriel@pt 14:29, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• • Cicero was executed, according to Everitt's biography. This has been changed.

Nomenclature

Following on a little from the discussion on the article's Title above, I'd like to gauge people's reaction to the idea of changing Antony's name to Antony (from Antonius) throughout the article. Personally I'm very much in favour of referring to Romans with anglicised names by those names; I've discussed the issue at a little length on my user page and encourage any comments people have about it on my talk page, but to summarise briefly for a discussion on Mark Antony:

• All the other articles for Romans with anglicised names use their anglicised names (Pompey, Caesar Augustus (Octavian), Livy, Virgil).
• We're writing in English and, as the article admits in its first sentence, Mark Antony is his name in the English language; Antony is correct in English just as Antonius is correct in Latin.
• Both laymen and scholars refer to him as Antony, so by referring to him as Antonius we're not accruing for ourselves any sort of patina of scholarly credibility (IMHO, quite the opposite).
• Most critically, and (again IMHO) trumping all other arguments, by using names with which the vast majority of our readers are unfamiliar we actively work against our highest purpose here of making knowledge freely available to those who seek it; we make our information less accessible to our readers by using a name that doesn't allow them to place that information in context with what they may already know, and therefore make it harder for them to find the understanding they want and that we're supposed to be trying to give them.

I look forward to hearing everyone else's comments. Binabik80 17:32, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Having heard no objections, I'm now going to make the change.Binabik80 15:27, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I for one saw no harm in leaving Antonius as Antonius. Antonius is quite correct in English -- if the article is at Mark Antony with a redirect at Marcus Antonius in case someone enters it, calling him Antonius in the article makes sense and would appear to be sound encyclopedic work. I don't see how it harmed accessibility at all -- as long as if you type in Mark Antony, the article comes up. But hey, qué será será. Jeff Anonymous 03:41, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how it could be sound encyclopaedic work; I've never seen a single English language encyclopaedia that refers to him as Antonius (though admittedly I don't go around reading Mark Antony articles from sundry encyclopaediae; however, I know for a fact that Encyclopaedia Britannica certainly refers to him as Antony); moreover, I can think of only 2 Roman history books I've ever read that referred to him as Antonius, both of which referred to all Romans by their Latin names (Pompey was Pompeius, Livy was Livius, etc.), which Wikipedia doesn't; and I can't remember any one of over a dozen classical studies professors & instructors referring to him as anything other than Mark Antony over my four years of college. I'll admit this is all anecdotal evidence (anyone have a survey from a scientifically random sample showing the prevalence of Antony or Antonius in academia?) but, since it's anecdotal evidence that includes both the English language's most recognised encyclopaedia & most of the standard English works on the fall of the Roman Republic, to me this makes Antony standard usage and Antonius non-standard.

Even so, I wouldn't find Antonius objectionable (since it is, of course, factually correct) if it wasn't for the accessibility issue--the name Mark Antony carries an instant recognition value for the average English speaker (most of whose knowledge of Roman history comes from Cleopatra, I, Claudius, Asterix or Gladiator) that Antonius simply will never have. When a reader reads in the Julius Caesar article that Caesar was offered a crown by Antony, or in the Publius Clodius Pulcher article that Clodius' widow subsequently married Mark Antony, he knows instantly who's being talked about & can contextualise that information into the rudimentary frame of knowledge he already has about the topic. If he reads in Clodius that, say, "Clodius then married Fulvia, who after his death would go on to marry Marcus Antonius," he doesn't get that same recognition value at all. So once we've established the desirability of standardising such references to him in other articles, using the non-standard reference in his own article just seems to me, well, rather odd.

But of course, this is all my opinion. Binabik80 18:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Do we know why Mark Antony / Marcus Antonius has only two names, when most Roman nobles had the standard three (or sometimes four)? Why does he have no cognomen? His father was called Creticus, but it seems that name was not used by Antony? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shulgi (talk • contribs) 18:03, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It appears that, at this time, the Antonii did not feel the need to add a cognomen to their name to identify various branches of the clan. All cognomens associated with the Antonii were related to individuals only. So Marcus Antonius's grandfather had the cognomen Orator, in tribute to his oratorical skills, while his father was given the name Creticus in mockery over his career in Crete. His brother, Lucius Antonius, adopted the cognomen Pius. So Marcus Antonius remained such, adopting no cognomen for himself, certainly not Creticus. Perhaps we could speculate that he would have liked to have adopted a cognomen such as Philippicus, in honor of his victory at Philippi, but since Cicero had already used a version of that term to attack Antonius (the Philippicae, named after a political attack on King Philip of Macedon), it would not have been prudent. Oatley2112 (talk) 04:48, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Not really true

I dont write in English so good,so I apologise for it, but this part of the article is not accurate:

"Then came the day of Caesar's funeral. As Caesar's ever-present second in command, partner in consulship and cousin, Antony was the natural choice to make the funeral eulogy. In his speech, he sprang his accusations of murder and ensured a permanent breach with the conspirators. Showing a talent for rhetoric and dramatic interpretation, Antony snatched the toga from Caesar's body to show the crowd the scars from his wounds. That night, the Roman populace attacked the assassins' houses, forcing them to flee for their lives."

^^^^^^^^^^

It is historical fact that Shekspare wrote that speech in his act:"Mark Anthony and Cleopatra".

The real, original speech was not preserved and Shekspare only wrote what he thought Mark Anthony might have said.

Therefore,it would be good if someone added it up to this article. I could have done it, but like I said, I dont write English very well, so its better if someone else do itDzoni 02:36, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Shakespeare's speech is based on the following passage from Plutarch's Life of Antony, which clearly says that Antony showed the bloody toga and the wounds to the crowd:

As Caesar's body was conveying to the tomb, Antony, according to the custom, was making his funeral oration in the market place, and, perceiving the people to be infinitely affected with what he had said, he began to mingle with his praises language of commiseration, and horror at what had happened, and, as he was ending his speech, he took the under-clothes of the dead, and held them up, showing them stains of blood and the holes of the many stabs, calling those that had done this act villains and bloody murderers. All which excited the people to such indignation, that they would not defer the funeral, but, making a pile of tables and forms in the very market-place, set fire to it; and everyone, taking a brand, ran to the conspirators' houses, to attack them.

The deleted passage you questioned is entirely consistent with this account, so I am restoring it.Paul B 12:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you give the link to that,or at least show that passage in latin languageDzoni 13:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Online versions _[1] [2] Shakespeare's speech, as it happens, appears in Julius Caesar, not Antony and Cleopatra. Paul B 20:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You gave me english version by accident.Can you give the original,latin version,just to make sure that its right,because you know that someone could change english version any way he wants.You dont have to give the whole version,just that passage in latin,because im pretty sure there is no passage like thatDzoni 01:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

It was written in Greek, not Latin. I don't think there's an elaborate internet conspiracy to rewrite Plutarch! Paul B 23:40, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Please stop focusing on irrelevant things.I know its written in Greek,but I dont know Greek,do I,so I asked you for Latin passage.My point is:your are English,and your sources could be very well written by yourself or some other English or American historian.

I think tht we`ll agree that they are not the highest experts in this matter,since Amirica wasnt made back in the time about we are talkin about,and England was a land full of Wild people.So,Latin translation of Greek writings would be accetable,if you want to have a serious grounds.Off course,you can always just use force and put whaetever you like in the article,but if you dont prove it with Latin or at least Greek(old Greek) passage,then you know as well as I do that its not valid at all.Dzoni 03:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

This gets a little silly here, doesn't it? For one thing, why is a Latin translation of Plutarch's works any more legitimate than an English translation? Surely all the liberties you accuse the translator of his work into English of taking could also be taken by someone translating the work into Latin. For instance, I could translate the passage into Latin (from the English) for you right now if you'd like. So pointing out that Plutarch wrote in Greek is not "irrelevant"—the Greek is his original text, and anything in any other language, whether Latin, English, or Japanese, is a translation.

And Plutarch is such a well-known source, with so many different translations (into English and pretty much every other major language on Earth, plus a number of not-so-major ones) over the centuries that all agree with each other, many of which are easily available online, that no, I would absolutely disagree with the notion that we need to cite in its original Greek a passage that appears in every English translation of Plutarch's Antony in order for the citation to have validity (which, of course, isn't even what you're requesting—you expect someone to find for you a Latin translation of the passage that would be equally as illegitimate as any English translation).

You have made an allegation about the accuracy of the information in the article but have provided no information to back it up. You have been provided with a link to Plutarch's work (in English) to counter your argument. In order for your position to retain any validity, you need to produce a version of Plutarch's Antony that doesn't contain the very famous passage regarding Antony's actions at Caesar's funeral. In the original Greek would be best, since it would settle the argument right there; producing it in translation (whether in English, Latin or anything else) will merely necessitate having to go to the Greek to settle the matter. (And I freely admit, I've never read Plutarch in Greek. Maybe we are the victim of a massive conspiracy by everyone who's ever translated him into English over the past three centuries, and by the several people I've met who have read his work in the original Greek. I'm not sure what they'd have to gain, though.)

It does seem a little odd to me that you're arguing about our sources on Mark Antony without, apparently, having read what's pretty much our only major source on him (we also have minor contributions from Appian and Dio Cassius), especially given that the people you're arguing with clearly are familiar with Plutarch. I'd recommend you check him out, not just because he's so central to our understanding of the Classical world, but because he's also a pretty entertaining read.

And I really don't understand what the conditions of America and England during the first century BC have to do with anything—are you saying that if we came from countries that were already part of the Mediterranean cultural sphere during that period, like Spain or Tunisia, that somehow our knowledge of Plutarch would be less suspect to you? (Quite apart from your implication that the Americas somehow didn't exist before being discovered by Europeans—perhaps I'm merely misunderstanding what you were trying to say.) Binabik80 21:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Mark Antony in popular culture

anyone think this should be a new section of this article?Im thinking of adding it but also think that someone will delete it straight away. Dermo69

I like the idea. The popular interpretations of Antony (Shakespeare's Antony-as-avenger, Colleen McCullough's Antony-as-accessory) are at least as influential today as the historical record. Cranston Lamont 22:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is ancient propaganda? Mark Antony Smeared

Has anyone heard of the arguments that our account of MA has been corrupted by Augustan propaganda?

Every historical view is tainted. After all, history is always written by the victor. It's thus somewhat to be expected that Anthony's picture is somewhat "rewritten" (although the real victim and target of Octavian's wrath was the "foreigner" Cleopatra who had seduced the "Roman" general). Nonetheless it's an established fact that he lead a bawdy live in his youth. -- fdewaele, 6 February 2007, 11:30

Glaring omission

All Roman citezens had three names, but Marcus Antonius's third name, the cognomen, is not found in the article. Forget about the name of the article; it's missing part of the person's name. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.35.93.125 (talk) 02:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

I agree. I came to the page specifically to look for that information! It seems he didn't have one. Plutarch mentions absent cognomens in his piece on Marius and Antony is the most famous example so maybe a line about its absence could be added here? Sally quasa 20:13, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Not all Romans had three names e.g. Gnaeus Pompey only had two, Magnus was awarded to him after military success. Only members of large families with traceable records had three names, and Antony was not part of one of these, hence only two names. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.99.138.2 (talk) 14:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Paragraph Confusion

In the section "Enemy of the state and triumvir", it talks about Antony meeting Cleopatra but repeats itself; the last sentence should be incorporated into the paragraph above it. Specifically, I would reword it as:

"After the battle, a new arrangement was made between the members of the Second Triumvirate: while Octavian returned to Rome, Antony went to Egypt where he allied himself with Queen Cleopatra VII, who was the former lover of Julius Caesar and mother of Caesar's infant son, Caesarion. He wanted Cleopatra for Egypt's wealth, and she wanted Antony for the Roman armies under his control. Lepidus went on to govern Hispania and the province of Africa.

The original text: " After the battle, a new arrangement was made between the members of the Second Triumvirate: while Octavian returned to Rome, Antony went to Egypt where he allied himself with Queen Cleopatra VII, who was the former lover of Julius Caesar and mother of Caesar's infant son, Caesarion. Lepidus went on to govern Hispania and the province of Africa.

Later in October Antony set out to Egypt and met Caesar's former lover, Cleopatra. He wanted Cleopatra for Egypt's wealth, and she wanted Antony for the Roman armies under his control."

One could possibly omit the entire last sentence, to be honest. Not sure if it's totally necessary.

Cause of war with Octavian

What did seriously threaten Octavian's political position, however, was the acknowledgement of Caesarion as legitimate and heir to Caesar's name. Octavian's base of power was his link with Caesar through adoption, which granted him much-needed popularity and loyalty of the legions. To see this convenient situation attacked by a child borne by the richest woman in the world was something Octavian could not accept.

This strikes me as a partisan pro-Octavian way to explain the cause of war -- and probably not even true. Plutarch's account says that the Donations of Alexandria declared Caesarion co-ruler of Egypt with Cleopatra -- nothing about him being heir to Caesar. An heir is someone named in your will, so it seems unreasonable for someone other than Caesar to be declaring anyone his heir. The triumvirate originally consisted of Octavian, Anthony, and Lepidus, with Anthony as first among equals. Octavian later took the Western provinces from Lepidus as well as Sicily from Sextus (36 BC). This altered the balence of power between himself and Anthony. After defeating the Illyrians in 33 BC, Octavian's home base in Italy was secure and he was ready to attack Anthony. Anthony's plan was to win a striking victory over the Parthians and return to Rome as a conquering hero, much as Caesar did after conquering Gaul. To look at Cleopatra, Octavia, and Caesarion as reasons for war is a lot of romantic nonsense. Anthony's heir was Antyllus, his son by Fulvia. So none of Octavia's or Cleopatra's children were ever likely successors. The issue in the war was that both Octavian and Anthony wanted to be No. 1, but only one of them could be. Kauffner 07:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The article is unclear in this matter- the heir of Caesar issue was likely a factor that provoked Octavius to war sooner than he had anticipated, but war was inevitable anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.99.138.2 (talk) 14:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Ancient Roman / Modern USA Exchange rate ?

The article states:

Plutarch mentions the rumor that before Antony reached 20 years of age, he was already indebted the sum of 250 talents (equivalent to $165,000,000 USD).

Really? How is the equivalent money in modern USD arrived at? Who worked this out?

The Prime Source 21:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)Dale

How on earth does someone rack up $165 million in debts by age 20?

Does anyone else find this more than a little hard to swallow?I elliot 11:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

See Talent (measurement) for money conversion. Based on value of gold. I don't know about the credibility of that particular story, but I don't doubt the ability of a compulsive gambler to rack up as fantastic an amount of debt as their creditors allowed. -- Infrogmation 14:53, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The Romans also used silver as a unit of value, so that could have been 250 talents of silver, which would be worth a lot less. (Maybe only $2M.)207.47.120.50 19:36, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Plutarch used the Attic talent, which was 25.8kg of pure silver. At $414/kg, a talent would be worth $10,700 and Anthony's debt was $2.7 million. During the last century or two, the value of silver has taken a roller coaster ride, so estimating historic value is a complex issue. This source calculates that a talent is equivalent to $20,000 in today's money. Kauffner (talk) 10:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

The information above is good. Unfortunately, comparisons with today's values fail once you go back even 100 years. It was a different "economic paradigm." A few talents here, a few talents there, and you own the city. No Federal Reserve (or national equivalents) multiplying money. Billionaires today are (uh) a dime a dozen. (!) Anyway, someone with a few hundred talents in Roman times cut a mighty swath. Or in debt maybe! Putting today's value on silver just doesn't really convey the power the person had. The average man in the street had a few pieces of silver and (if he were lucky) his own roof over his head. That was it. And that described 99% of the population. Student7 (talk) 12:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

A talent was about nine years of wages for a craftsman.[3] Work was far less productive in ancient times, so the amount involved doesn't get conveyed if you're thinking about, say, what kind of car you can buy for that price. Kauffner (talk) 14:09, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Rather than include it in this and every similar article, can we include it in the article Talent (measurement) and then link to it? The definition really has nothing to do with Mark Anthony per se. Student7 (talk) 23:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The information is in a footnote now, so it isn't disrupting the narrative focus on Antony. But, yes, it should also be in the Talent (measurement) article. Kauffner (talk) 10:45, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Image bust

Image:Marcus Antonius1.jpg is listed as being from the Vatican Museum and licenced as a work of the United States Government, which I find rather curious. I've left a query on the uploader's talk page, but I also wished to note here in case anyone else has more info on the image. Thanks, -- Infrogmation 19:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Mark Anthony's sexual orientation

Just like many other ancient Romans and Greeks, he had done men too. I've read this in "Philippics against Mark Anthony" By Marcus Tullius Cicero (can't remember which part though). However, in this book, which contains a dozen speeches held in the Senate, Cicero isn't too objective and he used many other means to persuade the Senate about his point (and he was good at it), so I'm not sure if Cicero said the truth OR modified it in order to serve his goals. 79.114.228.101 20:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Bagdardus?

Bagdardus? What is this? Vandalism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.212.171.26 (talk) 09:12, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

inadequate article

This article, though full of worthy work, reads like a Victorian "Story From History". It is inadequately sourced, does not discuss variant interpretations of the evidence, and is in many respects historically naive. Wikipedia ought to be able to do better.Deipnosophista (talk) 07:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Image

The original image as uploaded contained an inadequate license. It has been deleted. During research for another article I stumbled across the original image in it's original publication dated from 1899 and have uploaded a scan from the book "A short History of Rome" with proper license and correct citations. I cannot seem to get the image to load properly in the infobox....but here it is if editors still want it on the page.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.180.178 (talk) 00:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Article needs cleaning up

This article has fallen into disrepair and needs much work. Please help to identify the needed improvements by scanning through the Project ratings boxes that I have un-nested to show how far this page has fallen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.180.178 (talk) 03:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

There are only five referenced statements in the entire article. Every event is given a pro-Caesar or pro-Octavian spin with no acknowledgement that any historian has proposed an alternative interpretation. Caesar refusing the diadem shows he didn't want to be king? It was a trail balloon to test public reaction. Kauffner (talk) 09:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Antony and Cleopatra.

The section regarding Mark Antony's relationship with Cleopatra seems biased and is heavily influenced by subsequent literature. It's more a mixture of roman propaganda and shakespearean drama than an actual account of verifiable events. Particularly, the depiction of Cleopatra as a sovereign, as opposed to the ruler of a de facto vassal state, should be edited. The section's counterpart in the article for Cleopatra is, while not perfect, much more professional and impartial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chilreu (talk • contribs) 21:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes and the Cleopatra sections in general are written from patriarch/male-normative viewpoint, as depicting Cleopatra as a woman, rather than a historical Queen abilities next to Caesar, Anthony and Augustus, but as a woman -> who had a vagina.WillBildUnion (talk) 02:15, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was not done.  Skomorokh, barbarian  10:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Mark Antony → Marcus Antonius — — The page should be at his real name. — 75.10.49.89 (talk) 22:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• His English name though is Mark Antony and that is also what he is usually called in literature and other media. TJ Spyke 02:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
• Clearly not uncontroversial. --DAJF (talk) 06:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
• The form Mark Antony arose largely via Shakespeare, as with Elsinore versus Helsingör. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose as the common name used for him in English is Mark Antony.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Birthdate

Why is his birth year listed as 83 in the first paragraph? He was either 53 or 56 at the date of his death, yet he was the eldest son of 3, the oldest of the other two having been born in 84 (according to [4]) indicating he was 56 when he died (and thus born in 86). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.27.191.222 (talk) 23:42, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

In regard to this, but a few months later, I deleted an unsourced and insupportable statement that Antony and Caesar lied about their age to make themselves younger. Pardon my bluntness, but this is utterly ridiculous in Roman society: longevity was something to be proud of, and if a politician lied about his age, he'd most likely make himself older, in order to meet the age requirements for public office. This is the issue with Caesar: if he was born in 100 instead of 102, he held his consulship extra ordinem, that is, he hadn't met the age requirement. This is one argument for the earlier year, since it seems likely that would've turned up in somebody's list of laws, rules, and mores he violated. (Sulla's reforms in the requirements for the cursus, and supposed exemptions for patricians, enter this.) Nobody has to have "falsified" for us not to know the year of birth for someone who lived 2,000 years ago. Information slips through the crack. Jerome's Chronicon will disagree with something Valerius Maximus says. Anyway, you need to cite modern-era historians who put together the evidence for the year of birth. Reading the ancient sources yourself and drawing your own conclusions is the kind of original research not permitted on WP . Cynwolfe (talk) 02:50, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Republican gentes

Hello (sorry for the mistakes),

I understood, by reading the article about Julii Caesares, that Antony and Julius Caesar shared a common ancestor : Sextus Julius Caesar I. Indeed, Antony mother, Julia Antonia, daughter of Lucius Julius Caesar III, was Caesar third cousin. I'd like to add this information, but I don't have any references. My question is : do you know a reference work about Republican gentes in general, and Julii in particular ?

Actually, which ancient author(s) do(es) give pieces information about genealogy to us ?

Regards, Fsojic (talk) 22:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Birthday

According to Suetonius 11.3, Mark Antony had the same birthday as Drusus, the father of Claudius. Augustus made sure Antony's birthday was a dies vitiosus, but Claudius restored it, as he could legitimately do out of pietas for both Antony and his father. That shared date is January 14, as this commentary on the Suetonius passage states. So too Goldsworthy, though he's less about nitpicking facts than the overall narrative. A recent biography of Livia also goes with January 14 for Antony's dies natalis, as does this biography of Antonia. And in snippet, the biography of Antony himself by Pat Southern. The confusion has to do in part with the shift to the Julian calendar, but it isn't entirely clear to me where the summer date is coming from—one source I saw mentions that Antony was born under the sign of Leo, presumably accepting the July date. Cynwolfe (talk) 04:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

In any case, it's nonsensical to say Antony was born on July 30th, 83 BC, coinciding with Lucius Cornelius Sulla's landing at Brundisium on the eve of the anniversary of the founding of Rome (April 21). If there's a source that says it coincided with the eve of Sulla's landing, you can't just plop in July 30. What you have is conflicting evidence as to when his birthday was. So could we perhaps proceed a little more methodically? Cynwolfe (talk) 05:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I find it very odd that this discussion is taking place on January 14. Pelling's commentary on Plutarch's Life of Antony also goes with January 14. Cynwolfe (talk) 06:00, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I also find this very curious. Every source I've ever seen, including my old World Encyclopedias from the 60s, declare Marcus Antonius' birthday to be January 14. As to Antonius being born under the sign of Leo, keep in mind that the Roman calendar was shorter than the Julian and Gregorian calendar and could fall out of sync with the seasons and, presumably, with the normal timeframes for Zodiacal signs. It's probable that some enterprising scholar figured out the calculations for Antonius' birthday by the Gregorian calendar. That doesn't make it match with the sources, however, so his original birthdate of January 14 should be restored. Speaking of which, someone decided to make January 14 the birthdate of his son Antyllus, so that should be discussed and fixed as well.Black Sword (talk) 16:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I guess I'll go ahead and do this, still not knowing where the April date came from. The citation from Huzar fails verification for the pages given, but it appears that the birthday may be given on another page that happens not to be available to me for preview (at least that would fit with the narrative at that point; my hazy recollection from last night is that it was p. 22). Edward Champlin somewhere states that there is no good biography of Antony (I don't have that citation), and instead recommends Christopher Pelling's commentary on Plutarch's Life of Antony, which is how I landed on that. The July date may come erroneously from the restoration of Antony's name to the Fasti Colonati, but that marks the formation of the triumvirate, not Antony's birth. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:56, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The change to April 20 started here, back in October. It was questioned, but managed to stay in. If indeed Arthur Weigall says this, and if indeed he based it on Appian, then I suppose it could be noted as a minority view—but generally it's unwise to take Appian as fact over Suetonius. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I cannot believe that the discussion of Marc Antony's birthday is based upon two items that couldn't be more superfluous: A series of emulative commentaries by modern biographers of classical Roman chroniclers, and the idea of Antony's proposed astrological sign (!!). Give academics and serious scholarship a break (!) With all due respect, this discussion resembles 60s hippies and 70s post-hippies who would probably discuss Linda Goodman's Sun Signs as serious conversation at a coffee table. The facts are that none of those commentaries which propose January 14 as Antony's birthday are conclusive or confirmed. It isn't like the established birthdates of Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, etc...January 14 is mere speculation. Weigall, in his 1931 biography, does not imply but unequivocally states that Antony was born on the day Lucius Cornelius Sulla landed at Brundisium in (Spring) 83 BC. Tracking Sulla's progression from the time of his landing at Brundisium (in Spring) to the eventual sacking of Rome on 6th July (Quintillus) 83 BC (recorded by Plutarch), narrows down the timeframe of Sulla's landing at Brundisium to the month of April 83 BC. I don't know where the proposed birthday of July 30th for Antony came from (?) I couldn't trace it to any source, so far. Arthur Weigall (in page 39 of his The Life and Times of Marc Antony) of the cited link provided in the secondary sources section, is rather detailed and probably as convincing an account in comparison to any of those "commentaries" by modern biographers who seem to be on a "crusade" to make Jan. 14 Marc Antony's birthday...LOL And btw, I did not insert the following: Huzar pp. 10–11 as a cited source. I only inserted Arthus S. Weigall as a cited source. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 15:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Watch your tone and the personal attacks. It is distinctly unhelpful. Weigall is one source (from the 1930s) compared to several other contemporary scholars cited in the footnote who accept the date, based on the passage in Suetonius. Some of these scholars have their own articles, so you can check their credentials. According to Hurley's commentary on the Divus Claudius, the discrepancy between the date of January 14 and the date in the spring has to do with the adoption of the Julian calendar, and the resulting adjustment: when Claudius made it permissible once again to honor Antony's dies natalis, which he shared with the emperor's father, he was under the Julian calendar, but Antony was born before it was instituted. So the question is how the adjustment was made. Unless Weigall has a time machine, he's basing his preferred date on an ancient sources same as everybody else. The passage in Plutarch, which was incorrectly cited, gives two alternative years, not the birthday. One source mentioned Appian, who is notoriously unreliable about details; maybe that's the July date, or maybe the July date comes from a confusion with the Fasti Col. (linked above) which marks a triumviral occasion. And you're showing your own ignorance if you are unaware of the fact that ancient sources often give the astrological sign under which a prominent figure was born: this is evidence in establishing a time frame for a date, not the efficacy of astrology. Another thing you're doing is moving the footnote away from the material it supports, and inserting information where it doesn't logically belong (Antony was born on July 30th, 83 BC, coinciding with Lucius Cornelius Sulla's landing at Brundisium on the eve of the anniversary of the founding of Rome (April 21). That makes no sense. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

With all due respect, I don't need you to advise me on my tone. It is what it is and there was no personal attack to anyone in particular, but just an observation about the apparent nature of discussion regarding Antony's birthday. It is you who have called me "ignorant"...Now, that is a personal attack. You watch your tone and retract that statement, if you please. And I NEVER put a July 30th birthday for Antony. Before you keep harping on it, do your research first. Is that understood(?) And you still have resolved nothing about establishing Jan. 14 as a most likely date for Antony's birth. Furthermore, there is no ancient confirmed chronicle which recorded Nero Claudius Drusus to be born on January 14, 38 BC. It seems that this was an unsourced change in Wikipedia and consequently replicated all over the internet reference archives to make it look like generally accepted historical data. Here is an excerpt from the previous encyclopedic entry on Nero Claudius Drusus:

Childhood

Drusus was the youngest son of Roman Empress Livia Drusilla from her marriage to Tiberius Claudius Nero. Drusus was born between 18 March 38 BC and 13 April 38 BC. He was born shortly after Livia divorced Tiberius Nero and married Augustus (17 January, 38 BC), giving rise to rumors that Augustus was the real father, although this is widely discredited by modern historians as Augustus had not yet met Livia when Drusus would have been conceived (During his reign, Claudius revived this rumor to give the impression that Augustus was his paternal grandfather in addition to being his maternal great-uncle). Before Augustus married Livia, Tiberius Claudius Nero was declared Drusus' biological father. According to Suetonius, he was born with the praenomen Decimus, but it was later changed to Nero. He was raised in Claudius Nero's house with his brother, the future emperor Tiberius, until his father's death. Drusus and his brother Tiberius developed a famously close relationship in this environment that would last the rest of their lives. Tiberius named his eldest son after his brother (a departure from Roman naming convention), and Drusus did likewise.

Now if Seutonius is correct in recording that Claudius honoured Marc Antony by proclaiming that his father Drusus shared the same birthday as Antony, than that adds all the more validity to Marc Antony being born in the Spring of 83 BC...Most likely between the 1st and the 13th of April 83 BC, coinciding with Sulla's landing at Brundisium. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 16:51, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The sources in current footnote 1 all give the date of January 14. I have no opinion on the matter, and am not engaging in original research, so there's no point in arguing the case for either date. It isn't our task to "resolve" which of the sources is "right" in our opinion; we are to present the views of scholars with due weight. The article currently reflects the fact that the date is not certain, but that January 14 has become conventional among scholars. All the sources cited in footnote 1 are scholars with university positions whose work is published by reputable presses. I didn't say you provided the July 30 date; I said you inserted information in a way that made no sense, since the landing at Brundisium didn't take place on July 30. Again, I'm not going to argue about which date is "correct"; I'm only trying to present what scholars say. Maybe you need to go argue over at Drusus's article, since they give his birthday as January 14. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:04, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, you are right, the Nero Claudius Drusus article seems to have been manipulated without any sources. Drusus has no fixed birthday but someone apparently inserted Jan. 14, 38 BC without citing the source. I would like to add that I am not "arguing", just discussing...In addition to actually calling me "ignorant", you have surmised that I am also "arguing"...LOL Flagrantedelicto (talk) 17:23, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

One summarizing point I would like to make is that there is NO POSSIBLE WAY Nero Decimus Claudius Drusus was born Jan. 14, 38 BC, considering that his mother Livia Drusilla was 6 months pregnant with him in January 38 BC, when she was forced to divorce Drusus' father by Octavian (Augustus Caesar) and then marry him on Jan. 17, 38 BC. This obviously means that Drusus was born (as documented) between 18th March and 13th April of 83 BC. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 20:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

But you are missing the point about the shift in calendars (which I don't pretend to be able to explicate), for which see Hurley's commentary here. What this has to do with Claudius is when the dies natalis would've been commemorated on the calendar at that time. See also Feriale Duranum for the commemoration of Imperial anniversaries and birthdays. And once again you have inserted information that isn't in the source: Suetonius says only that they shared a date, and does not give what that date was. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

It is you, dear sir, that has completely missed the point. Did you fully read your own provided source (???) Emperor Claudius already adjusted (or explicated) the shift in calendars which pinpoints Marc Antony's correct birthdate to 28 MARCH 83 BC (!) On Page 106 of Suetonius' DIUUS CLAUDIUS if you read the ENTIRE page, Jan. 14, 83 BC (pre-Julian reform) re-calculates to Mar. 28, 83 BC. Which coincides with Drusus' birth between mid-March and mid-April (in year 38 BC), which is also stated in Page 106 in the link you provided. Conclusion: Marcus Antonius III / aka Marcus Antonius Triumvir / aka Marc Antony was born on 28th March 83 BC (from Suetonius' SUETONIUS: DIUUS CLAUDIUS). Why in the world would any scholar (or scholars) record an incorrect/inaccurate birthdate of Marc Antony which has been correctly re-calculated from Jan. 14 to Mar. 28 in 83 BC (???) This is beyond me. You should insert 28 March 83 BC (as also re-calculated by modern scholar Radke in 1978). Flagrantedelicto (talk) 21:27, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Which is of course not what you have been trying to make the article say. First of all, I am not a "sir." Second, could you tone down the drama? Third, Hurley begins the comment on this line from Suetonius with the flat statement "Antony was born 14 January, 83 BC." So if I'm understanding Hurley correctly, she's saying it's January 14 on the calendar we use now based on the Julian/Gregorian calendar, adjusted from March 28. On Wikipedia, we don't give dates by the pre-Julian calendar of the Roman Republic. Fourth, the source needed is what ancient source "states" that the birth of Drusus coincided with Brundisium, because it seems to be neither Suetonius nor Plutarch, and we would be remiss in naming them while not naming the other ancient source that provides the Brundisium clue. This is something to sort out, not something to shout and get upset about. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:54, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Alright, so you are not a "sir"...However, re-read that page of Hurley's commentary. She is saying the opposite. It was Jan. 14, 83 BC back then (a matter of public record). The adjusted date of our Julio-Gregorian reform is 28 March 83 BC...Unless you are stuck on Jan. 14 and cannot see otherwise. Do yourself a favour and re-read Page 106 about 10 times (very slowly). It should sink in that the adjustment is from Jan. 14 to Mar. 28, 83 BC. As is stated in Page 106, when Claudius brought attention to the conjunction of birthdays of Drusus and Antony, he was informing the populace of something it did not know: That Antony was not actually born on Jan. 14, but Mar. 28, which coincided with his father Drusus' birthday, between mid-March and mid-April. I don't how it could be any clearer than what Hurley states in that page. Don't worry, the honour is all yours to insert the correct date of Marc Antony's birth (from Jan. 14 to Mar. 28, 83 BC). I'll just wait to see how long it will take you to understand and figure out your own provided source...Excellent research, btw (no sarcasm intended). Flagrantedelicto (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I almost forgot to mention that in Hurley's commentary (in Page 106), she states an addition of 93 days from the pre-Julian reform date of Jan. 14, 83 BC...This, however, does not adjust to 28 March 83 BC, but 17 April 83 BC...Unless Hurley misquoted the number of additional days from 73 days to 93 days. The addition of 73 days as adjustment re-calculates Jan. 14, 83 BC to Mar. 28, 83 BC. This is something you might sort out. Either way, Antony was either born on 28 March or 17 April 83 BC. This still coincides with Sulla's springtime landing at Brundisium and Drusus' birth in between mid-March and mid-April (in year 38 BC). Consequently, there exist no conflict in any of these coincidences. Peace. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 22:55, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Cynwolfe, I know I said the honour was all yours (and it still is), but I couldn't wait any longer for you to see that Hurley clarified the adjustment from Jan. 14 (pre-Julian) to Mar. 28 (Julian) in Page 106 of the link you provided. Peace. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 00:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's what Hurley is saying, and there are numerous sources weighted in favor of January 14 anyway. Could we find some more that say March 28? Cynwolfe (talk) 00:46, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

For now, I'll leave that up to you. Since you have appointed yourself WP guardian to Marc Antony's birthday (I'm sure his spirit is flattered, wherever he may be, LOL). But your provided source couldn't be more clear than what I've already stated: Jan. 14th is the pre-Julian Roman date, while Mar. 28th is the Julian date. If you cannot perceive this, than you ought to get some other WP editors to read Page 106 of Donna W. Hurley's commentary from SUETONIUS: DIVUS CLAUDIUS by Suetonius. It is crystal clear to me, however. Just think of all the dictionary and encyclopedic sources which recorded the founding fathers of the U.S. and their pre-Gregorian birthdates (Franklin, Adams, Washington), or the Old Style birthdates of the fathers of Bolshevism (Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky)...Eventually, most of them went out of print by now. I guess those scholars who uphold Jan. 14, 83 BC have not adjusted it to the Julian Mar. 28, 83 BC. You see, logic dictates that if Suetonius is right about Antony and Drusus, then it has to be Mar. 28, 83 BC. Drusus was NOT BORN on Jan. 14, 38 BC. I think you should take the step forward and reinstate Mar. 28, 83 BC...After all, you have the cited source ready and available for all to see. Unless of course, you are having a difficult time accepting that Marc Antony was really an Aries, and not a Capricorn (LOL)...Flagrantedelicto (talk) 01:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

My own understanding from Donna W. Hurley's commentary from Page 106 of Suetonius: Diuus Claudius is that Hurley's quote of scholar Radke's 1978 calculation of Marc Antony's birthdate (with the addition of the 93 days) brings it to 17 April (not 28 March) 83 BC of the Julian Calendar. This ties in with Hurley's reiteration of the traditional birthdate of Nero (Decimus) Claudius Drusus, which is said to have been three (3) months from the date (17 January 38 BC) of Drusus' mother Livia Drusilla's marriage to Octavian (Augustus Caesar): 17 April 38 BC. This further ties in with Arthur S. Weigall's 1931 biography The Life and Times of Marc Antony, which explicitly states that Antony was born on the day Lucius Cornelius Sulla landed in Italy (at Brundisium) in the spring of 83 BC. Conclusion: Marc Antony was born on 17 April 83 BC (based upon Donna W. Hurley's commentary on Page 106 of Suetonius' Divus Claudius). Flagrantedelicto (talk) 03:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Summarizing this topic, I would like to mention that any reader who views Page 106 of Donna W. Hurley's commentary from Suetonius: Diuus Claudius (by Suetonius), can comprehend that Emperor Claudius recalculated the year 83 BC (as stated by Hurley) for the Secular Games as well. Hurley made an error in her adjustment of scholar Radke's 1978 corroborating recalculation of the year 83 BC (in Julian chronology) since the time of Emperor Claudius. In Julian chronology, the year 83 BC would have 93 days added to the date of January 14th, which adjusts the date to April 17th (NOT March 28th, which is what Hurley miscalculated). What Hurley did was add 73 days to the date of January 14th in year 83 BC...That is how she miscalculated her adjustment to March 28th, instead of April 17th (which is the correct adjustment for year 83 BC). I hope all this makes sense, as it is really not complicated at all, just simple math. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 07:33, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Strangely, I have better things to do even for Wikipedia, let alone the outside world, than to worry about this, but when you recalculate what you think the date should be, that's called original research. January 14 seems to be the date that has the preponderance of scholarship, including Christopher Pelling (whom I've found to be good on details). You need an ancient source that says the birth of Antony/Drusus coincided with Brundisium (which does seem more likely to have occurred in the actual early spring, as soon as the voyage could be made, and not the time of year we now mark as January), and you need secondary sources to outweigh the other scholars. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:39, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

It is not what "I" recalculated, it is clearly a miscalculation on Hurley's part. After all, it is not original research to catch a typographical error or a misprint / miscalculation. Logic and common sense dictates that 93 days added to Jan. 14th (for the year 83 BC) adjusts to 17th Apr. There is no original research here, just a correction of Hurley's miscalculation. You still are lost in the clouds and cannot fathom that Hurley has CLEARLY stated that the corrected Julian chronology adjustment is NOT Jan. 14th, but Mar. 28, 83 BC (or actually Apr. 17, 83 BC). No offense intended, but you clearly have some type of psychological blockage or denial going on here. You proved that when you embellished Weigall's statement from Page 39 of his The Life and Times of Marc Antony (1931), adding your own version of something Weigall never wrote. Furthermore, in the Marc Antony article edit section, you made the statement that the cited source of Suetonius: Diuus Claudius (from Donna W. Hurley's commentary) does not state that Drusus was born between mid-March and mid-April, when it most certainly does. What an embarrassment for you...Not even knowing what your own provided source actually stated (!). If you cannot remotely comprehend that the adjustment is to 28th Mar. (or 17th Apr.) from Jan. 14th, then you do have some comprehension issues, as anyone who reads Page 106 of Hurley's commentary (which you yourself provided) can plainly see that the adjustment is from the pre-Julian Roman chronology of Jan. 14th to the Julian chronology of Mar. 28th [Apr. 17th] of 83 BC. What is truly surprising (almost shocking) is that you of all people (the provider of this detailed source) cannot even comprehend your own researched source. Either that, or you are just plain unwilling to accept that Jan. 14 is the pre-Julian Roman birthdate. It wouldn't surprise me that if we backtracked and researched who inserted the Jan. 14 birthday for Nero Claudius Drusus in various article pages in WP, that it might turn out to be you...Drusus was born three (3) months from the time of his biological mother Livia's wedding to Octavian (Augustus Caesar): That would be 17th April 38 BC (or mid-April), as Livia wedded Octavian on 17th January 38 BC. All these dates being in Julian chronology. Consequently, when Emperor Claudius publicly proclaimed that his father Drusus shared Marc Antony's birthday, it was the recalculated date of mid-April, which is what Donna W. Hurley clearly states in Page 106 of Suetonius: Diuus Claudius. I could revert your edit, but that would be engaging in an edit war which no one in WP desires between their editors. In my analysis of Donna W. Hurley's research, I must say she eclipsed any of those other "preponderance" of scholars who cannot see past the pre-Julian Roman chronology of Marc Antony's pre-adjusted birthdate of Jan. 14th. The only error Hurley made was in miscalculating scholar Radke's corroborating recalculation of the addition of 93 days, since the time of Emperor Claudius' Julian chronological recalculation of the year 83 BC. Face it, you just don't want to accept Hurley's clarification, elucidation, and correction of the alleged discrepancy between Antony's pre-Julian birthday of Jan. 14 and Drusus' birthday of mid-April (i.e., April 17th). Just contemplate upon a scenario in which a "preponderance" of scholars who documented Washington's original birthday of Feb. 11 or Adams' original birthday of Oct. 19 instead of the Gregorian adjustments of Feb. 22 or Oct. 30...What would anyone think of this (?) I rest my case. Hopefully, another WP editor will see the light and take the initiative and insert Marc Antony's actual Julian chronological birthdate of the Hurley miscalculated Mar. 28, 83 BC (or better yet, the correct Apr. 17, 83 BC, which corroborates Suetonius' chronicle that Drusus and Antony shared the same birthday: mid-April or 17th April). Flagrantedelicto (talk) 15:59, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Again, you are making the argument, not citing sources. You need to be spending your time finding RS. "March 28" is clearly not a mere misprint or typo; it may be an error, but an error of a different order, for which you need corrective sources, not your own powers of reasoning. Now, I do not think that Wikipedia should perpetuate errors, and have said so many times elsewhere. As I said, I quite agree that Sulla was more likely to be sailing to Brundisium in spring than in January of our calendar; but what ancient source provides this as a time frame? I still haven't seen a citation in secondary sources for that. It's hard to express the nature of the debate accurately when you haven't seen all the information/evidence. You don't need to "prove" anything, because that's original research. You need to provide documentation in the form of citations. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:15, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Once again, you are missing the point of your own provided source. I am not proving anything. Your own provided linked source to Donna W. Hurley's Suetonius: Diuus Claudius represents the documentation provided in the form of citations...What part of this do you not understand (?) LOL In the infobox and opening header, you should insert Mar. 28, 83 BC and in the Biography: Early Life section, go into details about the probable error in miscalculation by Hurley when she quoted Radke's 93 day addition to the pre-Julian Roman date of Jan. 14, 83 BC (which adjusts to Apr. 17, 83 BC)...That's all. And why do you keep stating that Sulla landed in Brundisium in "January of our calendar" when it is NOT in January of our calendar, but in Spring (i.e., April) of our calendar. What part of this do you also not seem to want to understand (?) LOL What you are engaging in is a bunch of "red tape" of WP policies and manipulating them to avoid the simple issue that your own provided source clearly cited the adjustment and correction of the discrepancy between Antony's pre-Julian birthdate of Jan. 14 and Drusus' traditional birthday in mid-April (i.e., Apr. 17, 38 BC), so it could corroborate Suetonius' documentation that Emperor Claudius proclaimed his father Drusus shared Antony's birthday. You yourself spotlighted this in the Biography: Early Life section of Antony WP article: That according to Suetonius, Antony shared the same birthday as Drusus. Now, because someone got caught falsely manipulating Drusus' birthday (between mid-March and mid-April) to Jan. 14, so it could corroborate Suetonius' historiographical assertion that Antony and Drusus shared the same birthday, you are ignoring this point which you yourself brought attention to (now that we all know that Drusus was never born on Jan. 14 in the first place). I am also a little curious as to why user Black Sword has not offered any comments to this discussion...You are not also Black Sword by any chance are you (?) LOL ... Just kidding. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 16:46, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

You are citing a source, then wanting to change a piece of information in it. You are basing an argument on Drusus's birthday coinciding with Sulla's landing at Brundisium, but can't offer a secondary source that cites the ancient source that provides this information. We mention what Suetonius says, and what Plutarch says; neither of them seems to fix the date of Antony's birth by Brundisium. This is not "red tape," but basic WP:V. Now you are accusing me of sockpuppetry. I think that's about enough. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I am citing YOUR source (Donna W. Hurley's commentary of SUETONIUS: DIUUS CLAUDIUS Page 106). And what I suggested was to elaborate on Hurley's miscalculation (in the Biography: Early Life section or I would like to further add, even more appropriately in the footnotes section); this is common in WP articles. I am not basing any "argument", just stating what YOUR provided source documented. Which is plenty...And which you have so marginally quoted, omitting the full extent of Hurley's commentary regarding Antony's birthday. Again, you are carefully evading the fact that it was YOU who spotlighted Suetonius' Antony-Drusus shared birthday...Not I. All I did was tie in Weigall's biography on Antony, regarding his birthday occurring on the same day Sulla landed at Brundisium, with YOUR spotlighting Suetonius' historiographical account which records that Antony and Drusus shared the same birthday. You are running circles around the issue: Antony's birthday (whether it was on Jan. 14 or in mid-April). You started this whole section in Antony's talk page and invited me in my WP User Talk Page to a discussion, if you recall your invite to me...I was just kidding around when I frivolously asked if you were also by chance Black Sword...I did state that I was just kidding (to add a little lightheartedness to this discussion). Or did you miss that point as well (?) What is just about enough is your surprising lack of comprehension of your own provided source, and your persistence in not even attempting to understand or accept it. LOL Peace out. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 22:28, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Hurley begins this entry in her commentary by stating "Antony was born on January 14." Footnote 1, which I provided after spending some time trying to nail down sources, is full of scholars who accept the January 14 date. In fact, I could find no sources for other dates. Hurley also offers a March 28 date, which you want to change to April whatever. I don't know how to revise the section properly unless I have a source to look at on the Brundisium point. You seem fervently attached to this, and yet you evidently don't know what ancient source places the birth of Drusus (or is it Antony?) at this time. I've looked at both Suetonius and Plutarch in context to make sure I understood what they actually said before representing the secondary sources. I don't have Weigall's biography. I feel certain he must provide a source for Brundisium (which I've gathered elsewhere is Appian). I invited you here to compare and offer sources,. I want to see the source material so I can explain this clearly. So in short: you don't know where the Brundisium time frame comes from? Cynwolfe (talk) 23:49, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Is that all you are hung up on (?) ... Weigall's listing of the coinciding of Sulla's landing in Italy with Antony's birth..(?) Did you reference the link to Weigall's book The Life and Times of Marc Antony (?) It is right there in the secondary references section of Antony's WP article page. In that link, it falls on Page 39. If you go outside to other internet sources of Weigall's work, he quotes an earlier German historian. And again, you are evading the issue of YOUR spotlighting that Drusus and Antony shared the same birthday: And it is NOT Jan. 14 for Drusus. Donna W. Hurley does an above-and-beyond research to reconcile the discrepancy between Drusus' mid-March to mid-April birthday with Antony's (pre-Julian reform) Jan. 14 birthday...And you keep running circles about Drusus and Brundisium. It is Antony coinciding with a shared birthday with Drusus' & Sulla's landing at Brundisium (in Spring 83 BC) as per Weigall. So all you could comprehend is that Hurley's entry of "Antony was born on January 14..." And for some reason went no further than this (?) LOL So far, Suetonius is the most detailed source for Marc Antony's factual birthday...And in his Diuus Claudius, Suetonius states that Antony shared his birthday with Nero Claudius Drusus: And Hurley clarifies why it is really Mar. 28, 83 BC [which she seems to have miscalculated]. Even Hurley states that Drusus was born three (3) months from the date of Drusus' mother Livia's marriage to Octavian (Augustus Caesar). And that falls in mid-April. And yet you are hung up on Weigall's source for the coincidence of Sulla's Brundisium landing...LOL For some reason it eludes you that maybe all those other scholars are quoting Antony's pre-Julian reform birthday and are as hung up on Jan. 14 as you are. Also, for some inexplicable reason you even tried to convince yourself of the exact opposite of what Hurley actually stated: That the Mar. 28, 83 BC date is the pre-Julian birthday, while Jan. 14 is the Julian birthday (!) Which is exactly the opposite of what Donna W. Hurley wrote (!) LOL So it seems you invited me to this discussion to engage in a debate of attrition, running circles with conundrums and embarrassing yourself by not even fully researching your own sources that you provided ...Give it up. LOL Flagrantedelicto (talk) 00:30, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's evidently the major piece of evidence supporting the entire argument, and yet you have no idea where it even comes from. The chain of evidence is that Antony and Drusus were born on the same day; but Suetonius does not say what that day was. Somebody else says when Drusus was born. You can't insert April/May in the Suetonius sentence as if he's the one who provides that information. He does not. Which ancient source does say it was the day Sulla landed at Brundisium? You don't seem to know, and I don't have access to Weigall. When I search for his book, all I've gotten is a no-preview version. I've tried to work with you, but you don't seem to know how to gather sources when a point is disputed, nor how scholars arrive at their conclusions, nor how to make sure you're properly attributing information to the correct sources. We have several sources stating that Antony was born on January 14 (including Hurley). You say the other date she discusses in relation to the calendar shift (March 28) is a miscalculation, but you want to use her as a source for an April date that she does not give. That won't fly. You must have a source from which the information actually comes. Cynwolfe (talk) 05:51, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

You are really applying double standards here. Can you provide an ancient source (like Appian, Plutarch, Tacitus, Suetonius) that ACTUALLY STATES that January 14 is the birthday of Marc Antony (?) Where did all those modern scholars (including Donna W. Hurley) get the January 14 birthday for Marc Antony (?) Suetonius does NOT state January 14 for Antony or Drusus' birthday; neither does Appian in any of his works; neither does Plutarch in any of his works; neither does Tacitus in any of his works. SO FROM WHICH ANCIENT HISTORICAL SOURCE DID MARC ANTONY'S BIRTHDAY OF JANUARY 14 ACTUALLY COME FROM (?) Can you please provide this original ANCIENT historical source (?) By the same standard you are rejecting Drusus' mid-March to mid-April birthday (recorded by Donna W. Hurley), you are accepting Hurley's January 14 (pre-Julian reform birthday) for Antony. Don't quote a bunch of commentaries of modern scholars who all documented January 14 as Antony's birthday without providing any of their ANCIENT sources. Do you understand the concept of logic (?) Drusus' mother Livia is recorded to have wedded Octavian (Augustus Caesar) on 17 January 38 BC (while being 6 months pregnant with Drusus). Drusus has been recorded to have been born three (3) months from that marriage (pregnancies last 9 months for human females, and no mention by anyone of Drusus being born premature)...This brings Drusus' birth to mid-April (i.e., 17 April). Nowhere has it been recorded that Drusus was born on January 14, 38 BC, just three (3) days before his mother Livia married Octavian (Augustus Caesar) on January 17, 38 BC. Does this type of logic make any sense to you (?) Flagrantedelicto (talk) 14:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

New section for summarizing

No need to shout. The issue is that we can't insert the April/May date in a sentence that would attribute it to Suetonius. Here is the logic:

• Plutarch, Life of Antony 86.5 gives evidence on the year of Antony's birth by saying he died at the age of either 53 or 56. Since the year of Antony's death is well documented in multiple ancient sources, on the basis of Plutarch scholars can assert that Antony was born in 83 or 86 BC. This passage in Plutarch does not provide any evidence as to the month and day.
• Suetonius, Divus Claudius 11.3 states that Antony and Drusus were born on the same day. He does not specify what date that was. If the birth date of one man can be determined, we know the date the other was born too. We cannot imply in our article text, however, that the spring date comes from Suetonius, as you did by inserting this edit into a sentence that begins According to Suetonius. It isn't according to Suetonius.
• Another ancient source (Appian?) apparently says that either Drusus or Antony was born when Sulla landed at Brundisium. That is the source to whom we need to attribute the spring date, not Suetonius, Claudius 11.3, which does not say that. (Incidentally, that also would support Plutarch's year of 83 over 86.)
• Earlier, there was a garbled sentence that said Antony was born on July 30, on the day Sulla landed at Brundisium, which was the eve of the Parilia, celebrated April 21. That is patent nonsense; they are two different dates, and further indication that information is being tossed in randomly, without regard to attribution or logic. The mention of the Parilia raises the question of whether this missing ancient source said "Sulla landed at Brundisium on the eve of the Parilia."
• Hurley explains the discrepancy between January 14 and the spring date by the transition to the Julian calendar. I don't find her explanation particularly clear, and you find it erroneous, since you don't think March 28 is the correct date on the Julian calendar by her own reasoning. You cannot use Hurley to support an April 20 date, since she does not say that. Therefore, in order to weigh counter-sources against those who use the January 14 date (sometimes in dealing with Roman chronology scholars just go with the date on whichever calendar was in effect at the time), we need a couple of secondary sources that clarify the spring date.

I'm interested in making sure the citations are correct, and that information is attributed properly to both the ancient sources and modern scholars. I'm not interested in spending more time researching the question of the date itself, since I spent a good bit of time searching the other day, and only turned up sources for the January 14 date. You seem to think that I'm arguing about the dates. I'm not. I feel certain that if Weigall's argument rests on an ancient source that says the birth coincides with the landing at Brundisium, then at some point he identifies the passage, which would clarify our presentation of the problem in the article text. I don't have access to Weigall's book. If you do, it should be a simple matter to say "oh, it's Appian, Bell. Civ. 2.29," or whatever. Having the passage may help to find other secondary sources, perhaps a commentary on that passage. I've found that in a tricky matter like this, it's best to spend the time documenting sources carefully and getting a handle on the nature of the question (why scholars say different things), so that weeks or months from now editors don't start this bickering all over again. If you're not interested in doing further research, that is of course fine. But you can't insert information in a way that implies somebody said it who didn't, and you can't manipulate secondary sources to arrive at your conclusion (please review WP:SYNTH). Don't add stuff to the article unless it's what the cited source says, or unless you add a source that verifiably does say that. I hope that clarifies my logic. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:13, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

LOL...Not really shouting, but emphasizing a point which you have completely EVADED. You did not answer my request: WHAT ANCIENT SOURCE SPECIFICALLY STATES THAT MARC ANTONY WAS BORN ON JANUARY 14 (?) Was it Tacitus (?) Was it Plutarch (?) Was it Suetonius (?) Was it Appian (?) Was it Julius Africanus (?) Was it Eusebius (?) Was it Pliny (?) Was it Livy (?) Who was this ancient source which specifically recorded January 14 as Marc Antony's birthday (???) ... Which Donna W. Hurley, Nikos Kokkino, Pat Southern, C. B. R. Pelling, and Adrian Goldsworthy ALL have cited as their ancient historiographical source which recorded that January 14 was Marc Antony's birthday (?) You have not provided (and probably cannot provide) an ANCIENT HISTORIAN who recorded that January 14 was indeed Marc Antony's birthday. That is why Suetonius' Antony-Drusus birthday correlation was so important to the person who falsely manipulated the WP articles when that person inserted January 14 as Nero (Decimus) Claudius Drusus' birthday (which is utterly false). You wouldn't know who that person would be, would you by chance (?) You are the one fervently fighting tooth-and-nail to uphold January 14 as Marc Antony's birthday by researching and citing about five (5) scholars none of whom cited their own ancient historical source. What we have here is a common case of a bunch of modern scholars citing each other as the source of Antony's birthday being January 14...And not a single one of them have provided an ancient historian as their source. And yet you fervently uphold January 14 as Marc Antony's birthday without being able to provide the ancient historical source which established January 14 as Antony's birthday. You advise me about adding stuff to the article without verification, and yet you yourself cannot provide an ancient source that states that January 14 was Marc Antony's birthday. You accept and reject information based upon your own DOUBLE STANDARD and hypocritically lecture others about integrity in citing sources...LOL You have no more reason to reject even Hurley's possibly miscalculated date of March 28 than you do to accept January 14 as Antony's birthday. First and foremost, you need to provide the ancient source of Antony's birthday before you insert January 14. Otherwise remove it from the infobox and leave it as just 83 BC. Weigall's page 39 was at onetime accessible from this very WP article page. It is still traceable at other sites on the internet. Your logic is evident in your running circles with conundrums regarding Antony's birthday issue. And the fact that had I not viewed the source YOU provided (Hurley's Page 106 commentary of Suetonius' Diuus Claudius) no one would have been aware of Hurley's recalculation of Antony's date, or that the (uncited) January 14 date was the pre-Julian Roman date. Please provide the original, ancient historical source of Antony's birthday as January 14...That is my challenge to you...And not a bunch of modern scholars quoting each other as cited sources for Antony's birthday being January 14. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 19:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm trying to show what the secondary sources base their calculations on, in order to clarify how the date is reached. There seem to be three pieces of ancient evidence, only two of which we have located here. If you're not interested in what the secondary sources have to say, but want to produce your own arguments, then surely you know that Wikipedia editors don't do that. However, I will look for an appropriate forum in which to get some outside help. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:11, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Now that is amusing that you state you are to trying to show how secondary sources base their calculations...LOL You have rejected Hurley's quote of Radke's secondary source calculation of 93 days added to the (supposed) Jan. 14. And I can only see one ancient evidence : Suetonius' Diuus Claudius. Weigall provided a citation from a German historian as I remember correctly when Page 39 was accessible from right here on the Antony WP page. And you still are EVADING my request (or challenge, if you will) to produce an ancient source other than Suetonius regarding Antony's birthday. You cannot find any material that Nero Claudius Drusus was born on Jan. 14, because he simply wasn't. Drusus' was born in mid-April (or a more broader timeframe of mid-March and mid-April). I will try and track down any ancient source which records Drusus to be born in mid-April (on or near 17 April) and then your almost irrational persistence upon the uncited (from ancient sources) date of Jan. 14 will then be erroneous. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 20:34, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

This has indeed been amusing, but I'm afraid that I suddenly recalled the existence of the Internet Archive, where I found Weigall, so the game is up: Weigall gives no specific DOB. He says on p. 35 (not p. 39, which does not discuss the topic) that Sulla landed in Italy in 83 B.C.; and at just about the time that he did so, when the fate of the Republic was hanging in the balance, and the two parties—the republicans or conservatives and the democrats—were at daggers drawn, the young Julia, daughter of the murdered Lucius Julius Caesar, and wife of Marcus Antonius, the son of the murdered orator, gave birth to a male child, who received the name of Marcus Antonius, and is known to us more familiarly as Marc Antony. Bold mine; but I insert no ellipsis so we can see that there is no DOB, no month, not even a season, despite the purple prose. Even less specific is p. 41, on the Sullan proscriptions: Meanwhile, in Rome, the father and mother of the baby Marc Antony must have been living in fear of their lives … and, with beating heart, Antony's mother must have clutched her baby to her bosom at every unusual sound. What every sober biography needs is more bosoms and fewer of those annoying citations of source material. So unless you can start producing secondary sources that meet the standards outlined at WP:RS, I'm wasting no more time in good-faith efforts. January 14 is the date given by Christopher Pelling, Adrian Goldsworthy, and Pat Southern; if I can find another source to complement Hurley, whose explanation I find unclear (and you find erroneous), then I'll try to explain the calendar business. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:04, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

This isn't exactly a game. It is to you, maybe...But you are EVADING the issue altogether: PRESENT AN ANCIENT HISTORICAL SOURCE THAT RECORDS MARC ANTONY TO BE BORN ON JANUARY 14. I don't care about Pelling, Goldsworthy, and Southern. None of them have provided an ancient historical source, and neither have you. Earlier in this discussion, you mentioned a biography of Livia which also stated that Antony was born on Jan. 14...It's author Mary Mudd is a CPCS (Certified Provider Credentialing Specialist) in the medical profession, btw...Just the very title of her Livia biography I Livia, The Counterfeit Criminal sounds amateurish...LOL Also, as I said earlier that from this WP Antony article link, when it was accessible, the page was 39 of Weigall's The Life and Times of Marc Antony...When the excerpt to page 39 is accessible once again, anyone can view that it is page 39 from the link provided in the secondary sources section. In the internet archive you accessed it fell on page 35. This is common with different publications...So don't get cute over that. Also, if you recall, it was you who embellished the late April or early May bit in reference to Sulla's Brundisium landing which you now know is not at all what Weigall wrote...And I NEVER claimed that he specified late April to early May, either. In any of the footnotes about Sulla's landing in Italy (at Brundisium) from the classical sources to most all modern scholars, Sulla arrived in the SPRING of 83 BC...Not January. You are trying to divert attention to Weigall only. Once again, PROVIDE THE ANCIENT SOURCE(S) THAT RECORDS ANTONY'S BIRTHDAY TO BE JANUARY 14. You cannot explain the calendar business because you already displayed such obtuseness regarding it, that it is laughable. How can you explain something which you missed entirely the first time you quoted Hurley (?) LOL Don't offer Pelling, Goldsworthy, Southern, or anyone WHO CANNOT PROVIDE AN ANCIENT HISTORICAL SOURCE. The person who inserted Jan. 14 as Drusus' birthday (unsourced) when it most certainly is not, is the one whose game is up...Not me. You need to provide an ancient source for Antony's birthday. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 22:48, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

O btw, I just tried accessing Weigall's link in the secondary references section of his The Life and Times of Marc Antony just seconds ago and it is accessible once again. Try it and you will see that from this G. P. Putnam & Sons publication, the page in question about Antony's birth coinciding with Sulla's landing at Brundisium is ON PAGE 39. It might be inaccessible in a few days again, as different pages are accessible as excerpts to this book at different times. You tried to get fresh over this. Once again, there you go embellishing...You re-edited your entry that Antony was a newborn when Sulla arrived in Italy in EARLY (??) 83 BC...Weigall does not mention EARLY at all and clearly states that his mother Julia gave birth to a male child at just about the time that Sulla landed in Italy...You are really displaying some type of inability to comprehend what you read. LOL Flagrantedelicto (talk) 23:36, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I just wanted to add that I found a source which specifies that Sulla landed at Brundisium in the spring of 83 BC. However, it does not discuss Marc Antony's birth coinciding with it. I didn't know how or where else to insert this cited source so I entered it following the Weigall citation. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 00:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad that you FINALLY did the proper & principled thing and included the correct information about Antony's birthday. What is most gratifying for me is to not only win over my point, but to have the person professing an opposing position PROVIDE the very evidence to prove my point. I thank you (profusely) for that. And thank you for inviting me to this discussion. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 13:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

If you think I was "opposing" one particular date or another, you didn't read any of my posts carefully enough, since at several points I stated that I took no position and was trying to attribute who said what accurately, and to document why scholarly sources might vary in what they say. I emphasized that this was a process of gathering appropriate sources, and that in my search, the preponderance of sources accepted the January 14 date. Hurley is the only source I've found that puts forth March 28, and you have said repeatedly that you find that date inaccurate. We still don't know who recorded that Antony's birth occurred around the time of Brundisium. I thought it was a positive step to have Mommsen, but Mommsen fails verification: we're not trying to determine when Sulla landed at Brundisium (I could find dozens of sources for that in 15 minutes). We're trying to find secondary sources that say Antony (or Drusus) was born at that time, and a reference to the ancient source that places it at that time so we can clarify it isn't in the passages from Suetonius and Plutarch. The Mommsen cite therefore fails verification because it says nothing about Antony's birth. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:55, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I added Arthur C. Howland & Theodor Mommsen because you deleted the "spring" entry and were challenging it. That entry is key in connecting the dots of the spring birth of Antony in 83 BC. Also, who are you exactly (?) A WP administrator (?) You behave as if you own this Antony WP article page. If you are another frequent WP editor such as me, I have as much right to override your entries as you seem to do mine or probably anyone else. You finally got around to adding Hurley's clarification of the discrepancy of Drusus' spring birth in 38 BC and the (uncited from any ANCIENT source) phantom birthday of Jan. 14 attributed to Marc Antony. You have failed to provide an ancient source for all those biographers of Antony who have been essentially citing each other for the Jan. 14 birthday attributed to Antony. Not a single one of those biographers provided in any of their records their ancient source which attributes Jan. 14 as his birthday. Even without Hurley's clarifying quote of scholar Radke's corroborating recalculation of Antony's actual birthday, the only truly ancient source (Suetonius) provides a time frame for Marc Antony's actual birthday: That it coincided with Drusus. And Drusus was born three months from his biological mother Livia's marriage to Octavian (Augustus Caesar) which occurred on Jan. 17, 38 BC. And I don't care how many Marc Antony biographers are pulled out of the woodworks (Pelling, Goldsworthy, Southern, etc., etc.), if none of them can provide even a single ancient source, then they are essentially worthless. Antony was no more born on Jan. 14, then Jesus Christ was born in Dec. 25 of year 1 Anno Domini. Dec. 25 was Saturnalia at one point (citing Macrobius). In due time, I suspect that some real scholar will burst this Jan. 14 bubble and trace it to some 19th or 20th Century scholar who started this whole fallacy. Let it never be said that WP editors did not also attempt to burst that bubble at one point (LOL). Just to illustrate how an obtuse historical biographer's mind works, that CPCS by profession, Mary Mudd (in page 23 of her "biography" of Livia Drusilla), actually tries to convince herself and her readers (without providing any classical sources whatsoever) and subsequently writing the very opposite of well-documented history, that Drusus was not born in spring but somehow had to have been born three days before his mother Livia's wedding to Augustus (Octavian)...Which would make him born a 6-month, premature baby (LOL). This kind of irrational mental process is what causes all the confusion in historical research. You still have yet to provide an ANCIENT source for Jan. 14 being Antony's birthday. Whereas the spring (late March to mid April) birth period for Antony seems the only source from ancient times. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 20:19, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I haven't read all the above, but there is no requirement for an ancient source. Wikipedia articles should be based on secondary sources: see WP:secondary. Paul August ☎ 20:41, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Am I glad that you stated this because Cynwolfe was practically going around in circles, almost insisting on an ancient source for Antony's birth coinciding with Sulla's landing at Brundisium. Then Cynwolfe cannot provide an ancient source for the attributed birthday of Antony, which is supposedly Jan. 14 (LOL). Donna W. Hurley, so far, was the only scholar who resolved the discrepancy between Drusus' spring (i.e., April) birth and Antony's essentially uncited (from any ancient sources) birthday of Jan. 14...Which Cynwolfe seemingly fought tooth-and-nail to resist its inclusion in Antony's Biography: Early life section. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 20:56, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

That is interesting: Cynwolfe tracked down Radke's work...And found another source who concurs with Hurley: Marleen Boudreau Flory. I shall have to check this out. I don't really have too much faith in Cynwolfe's comprehension of what he/she reads (sorry to say). If I had not checked the Hurley reference, there would have been no adjusted birthday of Marc Antony to March 28, 83 BC. However, it is curious the way Cynwolfe puts two separate cited sources under the single citation (as if to downplay that there are really three concurring sources for the March 28, 83 BC birthday for Marc Antony: Donna W. Hurley, G. Radke, and Marleen B. Flory). And also the way the entry states in effect at the time of Claudius gives any reader the impression that it was March 28 during the time of Claudius (and maybe different dates at various other times). This is misleading, almost ambiguous. Why not just state what Hurley actually wrote without the Cynwolfe signature embellishment (?) Here is what Hurley actually states: for 83 BC, the year of Antony's birth, the correction has been calculated as an addition of 93 days, and this adjusts Antony's birthday to 28 March and within the time frame for Drusus [meaning Drusus' birth]. One point I would like to make is that Cynwolfe stated that WP does not record pre-Julian Roman dates, only Julian dates (for the Roman Republic). And yet the pre-Julian birthday of Jan. 14 (of Marc Antony) is the one cited as his primary birthday in the Antony WP article. This is a double standard. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 22:28, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Neither Radke, nor Hurley (who also cites Radke), present the recalculated date in Julian chronology as a proposed date, but rather a recalculated adjustment. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 04:01, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what Radke said; I have only the two summaries. I'd like to read it in full: could you share your link to the version you're using? As I understand this line of argument, Drusus would've been born March 28 on the Julian calendar; that is, he was born after the Julian calendar was in effect. Flory says (more clearly and redirectly than Hurley) that Antony was born on January 14 of the pre-Julian calendar. Hurley's point, which she makes not so clearly, is that people would've known that Antony's dies natalis was celebrated on January 14, but Claudius, in making a gesture of redeeming Antony's name, reckoned that if you applied the reformed calendar (that is, the new Julian calendar) back to the time of Antony, then what was January 14 then would've been March 28 in Claudius's own time, and therefore his grandfather Antony had actually been born on the same date as his father, and the two could be commemorated together. (That's the significance of the passage in its Suetonian context, and how Harriet Flower treats it in The Art of Forgetting.) Flory is summarizing Radke's proposed solution (she uses the word 'propose') for a point of chronology that has vexed scholars. I can still find nothing that connects the timing of Antony's birth to Sulla's landing at Brundisium; I'm starting to think that Weigall was simply observing that Antony was born at this troubled time, as a way of establishing what "world" Antony was born into. I can't find any suggestion elsewhere that an ancient source actually fixed Antony's DOB by saying it occurred at this time; it may be that Weigall found the dramatic circumstances striking and ominous, since no one else seems to connect the two, and meant only to set the scene. Incidentally, according to Varro, "spring" began February 7, so when Romans refer to spring we can't always be sure they mean the equinox. Cynwolfe (talk) 05:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

With all due respect, you have misunderstood what Hurley has stated rather clearly: The adjustment on the Julian calendar in year 83 BC comes to March 28. There is no way Drusus could have been born on Jan. 14 of the pre-Julian calendar, unless he was born in the very same year as Marc Antony (83 BC). With the pre-Julian Roman calendar (not a "new" Julian calendar as you have mis-stated), each year would have to be calculated differently. Not so with the Julian Calendar which followed a fixed or stationary cycle (not a mutable one). Drusus' March 28 birthday was in year 38 BC, not 83 BC. And despite of what Varro says about spring in February, the Roman new year of 1st March (in honour of their deity Mars) has generally been accepted to be spring. Furthermore, if you read either Appian's or Plutarch's account of Sulla's campaigns up to his landing at Brundisium, the footnotes clearly place Sulla in the Aegean during the month of February. You can reference this from Plutarch or Appian. So when all the scholars who record that Sulla landed in Italy in the spring of 83 BC, they are distinctly speaking about the traditional spring of the month of March and the vernal equinox, not February. One cannot help but get the impression that you are doing everything to resist establishing March 28, 83 BC as Antony's actual birthday. It was you who stated that WP does not list pre-Julian dates of the Roman Republic. Consequently, you should remove the Jan. 14 pre-Julian date and replace it with Mar. 28, 83 BC as Antony's primary birthday (which is what it really was in year 83 BC). If you are unwilling to do so, please allow me, since we both have established that Jan. 14 was Antony's pre-Julian Roman birthday. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 14:25, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Article needs to show the uncertainty over his birth date

My edits probably need revising heavily, and I didn't look at this page first, and too briefly. The article states "A member of the Antonia clan (gens), Antony was born most likely on January 14 of the pre-Julian calendar, in 83 BC". Fine. That should be followed by the Julian date. Of course, we still have a problem - the word 'probably'. The recalculated date is also a 'probable' date given the "room for judicious interpretation". That means we should not give definite dates anywhere, infobox, lead, etc. And should we be saying " the recalculated date" with no attribution? Or maybe "a recalculated date" as 'the' suggests it is universally accepted. Dougweller (talk) 18:18, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually the recalculated date on the Julian Calendar does have attribution (per Donna W. Hurley's commentary of Suetonius' Divus Claudius): German classical scholar Gerhard Radke in his 1978 work Wurzburger Yearbooks of the Classical Studies 4: The Birthday of the Elder Drusus. Radke's most famous work on the subject was Fasti Romani: Reflections on the early history of the Roman calendar (Münster 1990). Gerhard Radke's focus was stated to be on the Roman religion, chronology, and early stages of the Latin language. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 22:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

You miss my point entirely. I didn't say it had no attribution, I said the article should be attributing the recalculated date. And you deleted "(the calculation is described as including "room for judicious interpretation")" with the edit summary "Deleted entry as the recalculated date does have attribution: Classical scholar Max Georg Gerhard Radke; " - which is misleading as there is nothing in what you deleted about attribution. I've replaced it - please discuss this and explain your reasons if you think it should be deleted, don't just delete it. I've also replaced 'most likely' as it appears, Julian calendar aside, that this isn't established with certainty. Can you demonstrate that it has? Dougweller (talk) 07:09, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

One also needs to be cautious about implying that one has read Radke's German article. We have AFAIK only the two very brief summaries. I haven't found the original article online, but would certainly like to have a piece of German scholarship on this topic: it would almost certainly clarify the chain of evidence. When I'm in this situation (which occurs often in classical studies), I always make it clear in the note that this is the view of Major Seminal Dude as summarized by or as cited by the Anglophone. The comical autotranslation of WJA doesn't suggest the ability to read German. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:55, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I just received a recall notice from my university library, so I have to go there tomorrow to return a book anyway. I'll be able to photocopy the cited pages of Radke's article then, I hope. Will try to remember to check Antony's entry in RE too, but at the moment am in a bit of a rush. Please leave a note here if anyone finds sources for this point that are not online that we need to check. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:07, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

@ Dougweller: Actually that was the whole point of this excruciatingly long discussion (or debate) if you will. I figure you are probably correct in restoring the "most likely" entry. You see, NONE of the modern scholars (19th & 20th Century) have ever provided an ancient source for Antony's alleged Jan. 14 birthday. The best that could be deciphered was that it was "pre-Julian calendar" by a few (not all). The only ancient source that truly places a timeframe for Antony's birth is Suetonius' quote from Claudius' memoirs: That Claudius proclaimed that Antony and Drusus (Claudius' father) shared the same birthday. Drusus' birth has unanimously been listed as being about three (3) months from the date his biological mother Livia married Octavian (Augustus Caesar) which was Jan. 17, 38 BC. This placed Drusus' birth between mid-March and mid-April of 38 BC. And if the only ancient source cites that Drusus shared Antony's birthday, then Antony could not have been born in Jan. 14 of the Julian calendar. So the only explanation for the uncited (from any ancient sources) date of Jan. 14, is that it had to be a pre-Julian calendar date. The way you have it now is just fine. I don't see any further edits to be made by myself unless Claudius' lost memoirs are found by archaeologists in which he states March 28 or thereabouts (LOL). Your entries are fine by me. Thanks for joining in. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 16:03, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

@ Cynwolfe: I did not imply that I know how to read German (I am trilingual and can read & write in all three languages as well, although not German). I found a bio article on Radke here on WP in German which I translated using the automated tool. In it, I found some interesting info about Radke and his credentials which I posted in my reply to Dougweller for logical convenience. It is odd for you to insinuate that I implied that I can read German, when I most certainly didn't. If I had quoted directly from Radke's work, I would have openly said so and provided the pages and the link to it. Please don't confuse me with the person who entered in Drusus' birthday as Jan. 14 in several WP articles without any citations. I will take this opportunity to thank you for your excellent research in tracking down several sources to improve this article. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 16:03, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad we seem to be settling this amicably. We still have the infobox and the intro where we need to be careful that we aren't asserting a certain date as fact. Dougweller (talk) 18:56, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I meant to request Cynwolfe to provide for us the link to Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome Vol. 50 (1995) because when trying to access it both in google books and the internet archive, I have been unable. Cynwolfe quoted Marleen Boudreau Flory regarding the March 28 Antony birthday and stated that Flory states that Jan. 14 was his "pre-Julian" birthday, and that March 28 is a "proposed" birthday for Antony. I have been unable to verify this. Volume 50 of the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome series has a 1st Edition in 2005, however. So how could it be 1995 as listed by Cynwolfe in the reference section (?) The Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome Vol. 40 (1995) has the article about The Symbolism of Laurel in Cameo Portraits of Livia by Marleen Boudreau Flory. And there are two editions (1995 & the 1996 edition by Joseph Connors). The 1996 edition by Joseph Connors also lists it as Volume 40 and NOT Volume 50 as Cynwolfe has cited in the references section. I could only access pages 43-50 in the online internet excerpts from google books of the 1996 Joseph Connors edition of the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome Volume 40. Flory's article commences from page 43. Cynwolfe cited page 56, note 48. See copy-pastes below:

Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome Volume 50 (2005) 1st Edition Volume 50 Vernon Hyde Minor, Editor Description Series

Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome

CONTENTS

Introduction Architectural Theory and Practice: Vitruvian Principles and "Full-scale Detail" Architectural Drawings Ingrid Edlund-Berry, University of Texas at Austin

Papers From Vitruvian Scholarship to Vitruvian Practice Ingrid D. Rowland, University of Notre Dame Vitruvian Critical Eclecticism and Roman Innovation Thomas N. Howe, Southwestern University Vitruvius and the Origins of Roman Spatial Rhetoric Gretchen E. Meyers, Rollins College

Other Articles The Rhetoric of Romanitas: The "Tomb of the Statilii" Frescoes Reconsidered Peter J. Holliday, California State University at Long Beach Theodelinda's Rome: Ampullae, Pittacia, and the Image of the City Dennis Trout, University of Missouri at Columbia Bramante's Tempietto and the Spanish Crown Jack Freiberg, Florida State University Rome, 1592: An Introduction to a Newly Discovered Parish Census Thomas James Dandelet, University of California at Berkeley The Battle of Zama after Giulio Romano: A Tapestry in the American Academy in Rome, Part I Elfriede R. Knauer, Haverford, Pennsylvania

Reports from the American Academy in Rome Research in the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome (2004–2005)

---

Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, Volume 40 Front Cover 0 Reviews Istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche, 1995 - Classical philology From inside the book

19 pages matching Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome The Symbolism of Laurel in Cameo Portraits of Livia in this book

---

With all due respect and no offense intended, it is not that I am suspicious of Cynwolfe, but as anyone who has covered word-for-word this Talk Page exchange and viewed the Marc Antony WP article Edit & View History sections, can openly observe a slight propensity for embellishment and/or inaccuracy (by Cynwolfe) of some of the quoted works of the literary sources that have been cited. Here is what Cynwolfe cited in the references section of Antony's WP article:

^ Date of March 28 proposed by G. Radke, "Der Geburtstag des älteren Drusus," Wurzburger Jahrbucher fur die Altertumswissenschaft 4 (1978), pp. 211–213, as summarized by the commentary on Suetonius's sentence by Donna W. Hurley, Suetonius: Divus Claudius (Cambridge University Press, 2001),p. 106 and Marleen B. Flory, "The Symbolism of Laurel in Cameo Portraits of Livia," in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome (University of Michigan Press, 1995), vol. 50, p. 56, note 48.

@ Cynwolfe ... Could you please explain this discrepancy (?) Flagrantedelicto (talk) 21:27, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

According to Jerzy Linderski, "The Quaestorship of Marcus Antonius," Phoenix 28.2 (1974), p. 217, note 24, the date of January 14 for Antony's birth is attested by an inscription: Attilio Degrassi, Inscriptiones Italiae 13.2.397–398. Here is the link to Flory's article. It's entirely possible to ask for this information without accusing me of a "propensity for embellishment and/or inaccuracy." Cynwolfe (talk) 23:07, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

About your note: the volume number for Memoirs is a simple typo. Nothing sinister. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:56, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I just tried your link to Memoirs of an American Academy in Rome Volume 40 and it does not allow previews for pages 16-55 and 57-102. Page 56 is not displayed, either. When did you access page 56, note 48 last (?) I see that it is Volume 40 (and not Vol. 50). Also, it was entirely possible to not "accuse" of me of implying that I knew German or read Radke's article as I stated no such thing; anyone can comprehend from my reply to Dougweller that I was elaborating on who Radke was. Anyway, let's keep the harmony and concentrate on finding out what Radke actually wrote. I could guess that he might have established March 28 as the elder Drusus' birthday. But unless I can verify or confirm this, it is mere speculation. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 00:10, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

The link works for me at present. Googlebooks access can vary by user and country. My point was not who knew German, but avoiding implying in the article or elsewhere that we were actually citing Radke. We aren't. We are citing summaries by other scholars of what he said. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:14, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Who stated we were citing Radke directly (?) Not I. I always included Hurley's name as the one citing Radke... Relax. I am the one who suffers from a High BP medical condition...I hope no one else here (as in this particular discussion) also does. It is not a pleasant condition by any means. And I am still drawing a blank page for page 56 in the link you provided. I hope to have access to it at some point. No hurry. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 00:29, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

(indenting Flagrantedelicto above to distinguish post (please do this in the future), outdent this for quote)Cynwolfe is right, Googlebooks access varies. I have no problem reading it.

"Suet. Verg 3-5. Where did Livia give birth? Drusus was born on 14 January. and Livia was married on 17 January 38 B.C., but literary evidence says she married Oct avian when the was six months pregnant Radke has proposed a solution. Drusus's birthdatc (not in any calendar but reported by Suet. [CI. 11.3]) was the same as Antony's, whose date of birth must have been different in the pre- Julian calendar. Radke proposes 28 March as the date of Antony's and Drusus * birth and thus solves the difficulty, as Drusus would now be born "intra mensem tcrtium" (Suet. CI. 1.1) of Livia's marriage. Sec G. Radkc, "Der Geburtstag des alteren Drusus," WunJbA 4 (1978) 211- 13. According to our sources, then, she would have been traveling back to Veiito await his birth. Such a detail would connect the grove with the place Drusus was born If correct, the fact is completely suppressed in our sources. Drusus was born "intra Caesaris penates" (Veil. 2.95.1; cf. Tac. Ann. 5.1.3; Dio Cass. 48.44.4), which indicates that Livia gave birth as the wife of Octavian but does not specify the place." Dougweller (talk) 10:08, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Hence my caution in asserting that we know what Radke said about the birth date of Antony: neither of these references is primarily concerned with establishing it, but with the circumstances of Drusus's birth, and how it could be said that he was born on the same day as Antony (January 14) if Drusus was clearly born later than that. Hurley's point was that Antony's birth (January 14) was a matter of public record; this calculation was a clever way for Claudius to get around Augustus having declared Antony's birthday a dies vitiosus. So it simply isn't true to say that the "real" date of Antony's birth was March 28, and in context that isn't what Hurley is saying. The point of chronology has to do with how to resolve Suetonius's remark that Drusus was born on the same date as Antony, if Drusus was born nearly three months later. Both these notes on March 28 are about the DOB of Drusus; Radke's article is about the birthday of Drusus. It's the date of Drusus's birth that produces the problem, which Radke proposes to resolve by saying Drusus was born on March 28, because if Antony had been born under the Julian calendar, he would've been too. But see for comparison this discussion of Augustus's birthday. Augustus was born on September 23, before the Julian calendar reform. His birthday, as is ubiquitously attested, continued to be celebrated on September 23 on the Julian calendar. Just like a festival, a person's birthday would've had the same calendar date. Robigalia was on April 25 before and after the calendar shift; it was seasonal position of April 25 that moved, not its relative place on the calendar and not the name of the date (with some minor adjustments of a day or two in some months). Antony's birthday didn't change under the Julian calendar, and that's why the mainstream RS cited (Christopher Pelling, Adrian Goldsworthy, Pat Southern, and now Jerzy Linderski) all give Antony's DOB as January 14. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:27, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

@ Dougweller Thanks. I still haven't been able to access page 56 from my PC (believe it or not). So what we have is Marleen Boudreau Flory's explanation. We still need Gerhard Radke's translated (into English) work to see if what he wrote corroborates Flory. Flory doesn't appear to be the in-depth classical scholar that Gerhard Radke seems to be. Radke might be far more definitive in his explanation. So what about the statement made (by Cynwolfe) that WP does not list pre-Julian dates for the Roman Republic (?) What is your perception on that (?) If so, then March 28 should be listed as the primary birthday for both Antony & Drusus (even tentatively with maybe a question mark attached to it to convey an amount of uncertainty). I think eventually it might rest on Max Georg Gerhard Radke's coverage of the birthday of the elder Drusus and Marc Antony...Once any of us has access to his work and gets it translated by a German speaking WP editor, or by the automated translation tool (which Cynwolfe has accurately described as being "comical"), an appropriate consensus can be reached about whether March 28 should be established (even tentatively) as the primary birthday of Antony (and also Drusus). There is always a benefit to have at least 2 or more other WP editors confirm and verify whatever new information is accessed. For example, had I not reviewed the source which Cynwolfe provided, the date of March 28, Gerhard Radke, Marleen Flory, etc., would NEVER have even surfaced and would have been completely suppressed as well. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 15:36, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Hurley's statement that Antony's birthday was a matter of public record is unsupported, as she has NOT provided her ancient source for Antony's birthday. And neither have Pelling, Goldsworthy, Southern, and Linderski (even with the inscription). The vast publications of nearly ALL the encyclopedias throughout the 19th Century & 20th Century have never listed January 14 as a widely known birthday of Marc Antony. Not like with Caesar's July 12th (or 13th) and Augustus' September 23rd respective birthdays. January 14 (believe it or not) became widespread throughout the internet via this very WP article that has been replicated all over the internet as secondary references. There is still no ancient evidence which established Jan. 14 as Marc Antony's pre-Julian birthday...And NONE of those scholars have provided an ancient literary source like an Appian, Plutrach (who recorded Alexander the Great's birthday of 6th Hecatombaeon [Attic], or called Lous in Macedonian), Tacitus, Julius Africanus, Eusebius, Pliny, Livy, Suetonius, etc., as listing January 14 as Antony's birthday. Btw, original research birthdays have been listed on WP, see Joseph Stalin's WP article page, or Lola Montez' WP article page as examples. I believe the way it is presented currently is about as accurate as it is going to get until future developments by researching scholars. For now, the ONLY ancient source which even provides a timeframe for Marc Antony's birthday is Suetonius' writings taken from Emperor Claudius' lost memoirs: That Drusus the Elder and Marc Antony shared the same birthday...Narrowed down to March 28 by Gerhard Radke between mid-March and mid-April (established unanimously by other scholars, both classical and modern). Livia was 6 months pregnant when she wedded Octavian (Augustus) on Jan. 17, 38 BC. Drusus was born 3 months later (March 28 according to Radke). And then there is Arthur Weigall and his placing Antony's birth (in no connection with Drusus) on virtually the same time Sulla landed in Brundisium in SPRING of 83 BC. Of course, Weigall's ancient source has yet to be tracked down. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 15:58, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I still intend to obtain Radke's article when I go to the library shortly. You may've missed the reference above to Linderski's note, attributing Antony's DOB to an inscription listed by Degrassi at Inscript. It. 13.2.397–398. As the example of Augustus's birthday indicates, a person's DOB, like a religious holiday, remained the same on the new calendar; it wasn't "recalculated" and moved to another month. I don't know why this simple fact didn't occur to me before. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:12, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

That may well be but Jan. 14 has NEVER been the widely known or established birthday of Marc Antony. Even now, neither the New World Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, or any of the established reference encyclopedias or World Books published list Jan. 14 as Marc Antony's birthday...Like they do the birthdays of Julius Caesar (12/13 July) or Augustus (23 Sep) or Caligula (31 August), etc...As I stated before, Jan. 14 is a mere speculation (concurred with by Dougweller). And Suetonius' doesn't mention anything about Claudius having Antony's birthday recalculated to concur with that of Drusus. This is the explanation of modern scholars. Suetonius' quote of Claudius' memoirs just states that he wanted to restore Antony's birthday because it was the same as that of Drusus. Drusus has NO ancient source which states that he was born on Jan. 14. This is again the speculation of a few confused modern scholars looking for an explanation of where the Jan. 14 birthday emerged for Antony. Since there is no ancient scholarly source that documented it. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 16:34, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I've been meaning to weigh in on this all week, but it's taken that long just to re-read the whole discussion and figure out the issues. Please correct me if I misunderstand:

1. Many modern sources give January 14 as the date that Marcus Antonius was born, in 83 BC. This date seems to have been accepted ab initio; it isn't attributed to modern scholarship re-interpreting ancient sources.
2. The only ancient source so far discovered providing an exact date is an inscription, giving the date as January 14.
3. In Suetonius' life of Claudius, the emperor states that he is all the more happy to celebrate the birthday of his father, Drusus, because the birthday of his grandfather, Antonius, is the same day.
4. No ancient source has been located providing an exact date for the birth of Drusus; however, they do state that his mother, Livia, was six months pregnant with Drusus when she married Octavian, on January 17.
5. Gerhard Radke asserted either that Drusus was born on March 28, or that he was probably born on March 28.
6. A more recent work, Hurley, attempts to reconcile the birth of Antonius on January 14 with the birth of Drusus roughly 2-3 months later by asserting that the Julian Calendar resulted in a shift of 93 days, and that resulted in Claudius commemorating his grandfather's birthday on March 28, to co-incide with the birth of Drusus, rather than January 14.
7. Another modern historian, Weigall, has stated that Antonius was born at almost the same time that Sulla landed at Brundisium. If this is taken to mean on or near the same day, it would place Antonius' birth in the spring.
8. An as-yet unidentified source gives Antonius' birth on July 30. A modern source, perhaps basing the statement on that date, says that he was born under the sign of Leo.

Perhaps it would help to deal with these points in reverse order.

1. No identifiable source seems to support the July 30 date; all identified sources that suggest a time frame contradict it. Unless some reliable source for it can be found, it can safely be excised.
2. The statement that Antonius' birth co-incided with Sulla's landing at Brundisium cannot be taken as providing a specific date. The only date mentioned is the year, 83. As previously suggested, Weigall could simply have meant to point out for dramatic impact that Antonius was an infant when Sulla landed. This isn't the only possible interpretation, but there's no evidence that he meant anything more specific.
3. It's been pointed out that there are only 73 days between January 14 and March 28, the birthdate that Hurley assigns to both Antonius and Drusus. Since Hurley stated that the calendar was shifted by 93 days, Flagrantedelicto proposes that she meant to put April 17, but miscalculated, and that April 17 should be the date. However, my understanding is that each year prior to the adoption of the Julian calendar could be calculated differently; in other words, the calendrical shift between 46 and 45 BC may have been 93 days, but prior years may not have required the same alteration. In other words, recalculating dates from 83 BC may have required only a shift of 73 days. Equally possible is that Hurley did not do the calculation of days herself, but relied on Claudius' own interpretation of the calendar, and the date of March 28 for the birth of Drusus. If one takes Claudius at his word, and Suetonius reported it accurately, and if Drusus was born on March 28, then it isn't necessary to figure out how many days the calendar varied between 83 and 45 BC, because Claudius' statement would have been authoritative as to the end result; in this case Hurley was merely explaining why he recalculated the date from January 14, accounting for the adoption of the Julian calendar; she wasn't recalculating it herself on the assumption that all prior years were exactly 93 days off, which would almost certainly have been wrong. In any case, we don't have any evidence that she made a mistake, or that she would have asserted April 17 to be the date of Antonius' birth, had she calculated it correctly.
4. Radke seems to be the original source for the date of March 28. Since none of us have yet examined his article, we're not sure how certain he was or how sound his reasoning is. But it does agree with the ancient sources that state Livia was six months pregnant with Drusus when she married Octavian on January 17. We can't take "six months" as an exact date; then as now that would have been an approximation. But if Drusus were born two months and eleven days later, then she would have been between six and seven months pregnant on January 17, which we would probably describe as six months rather than seven; presumably they did the same back then.
5. It is not necessary to accept the equation of the birth date of Antonius and that of Drusus, based solely on the passage in Suetonius. Suetonius was born circa AD 69, well after Claudius' death. He had to rely on the veracity of his sources, which aren't available to us. So when he places words in Claudius' mouth, we only have his word for their accuracy. As far as it's possible to verify or refute his account of historical events, he seems to have recorded things pretty accurately, but when it comes to reporting what people said, there's a much greater probability of inaccuracy. Even if we assume that he correctly reported what Claudius said about the birthdays of his father and grandfather co-inciding, we also must be cognizant of the fact that the emperors were not above manipulating the facts to suit their own purposes. So it's also conceivable that Claudius didn't know exactly when his grandfather's birthday would fall if recalculated under the Julian calendar, or that he knew or believed it would fall on a different day than his father's, but that he chose to observe the two of them together, either out of practical convenience, or because it provided a convenient political excuse for rehabilitating Marcus Antonius, since Augustus had prohibited the celebration of his birthday, and it wouldn't have been comfortable for Claudius to explain why he, as an emperor, a living god, was prohibited from celebrating his grandfather's birthday. So in fact, while Claudius may have said that the two shared the same birthday (assuming Suetonius reported what he said accurately), that isn't actually proof that they did. It's persuasive, but less so than a non-biased source would be.
6. That's what we have with an inscription, if what it says is accurately ascribed to our Marcus Antonius. A contemporary record, which there is no reason to suppose was falsified or "adjusted" for political expediency. The January 14 date provided by the inscription has been followed by the majority of modern scholars. As I understand it, Hurley doesn't reject that date; she accepts it, and merely explains how it is that Claudius equated it with the birth of his father on March 28. Nor does Radke reject it; as far as I know, he merely posits March 28 as the date Drusus was born, and this was the basis for Hurley's assumption that Claudius reckoned his grandfather's birth also on March 28. Nor does Weigall reject either date; he is silent on the point, and only states that Antonius was born about the time that Sulla landed at Brundisium, which could mean any time within a year or so.
7. There appears to be no basis for the assertion that the January 14 date was made up out of thin air by modern scholars. We don't know if this opinion is based solely on the ancient inscription or on other evidence; but the inscription proves that this date was accepted in antiquity, and did not originate in recent times.

This being the case, we know that Marcus Antonius was born on January 14; this date was accepted in antiquity, and would have been the date Antonius celebrated his birthday until at least 45 BC, the majority of his life. We don't know if he ever celebrated it on a different date, or how other Romans regarded it after the adoption of the Julian calendar, except that Claudius reportedly chose to celebrate it on another date. Assuming that Radke is right about Drusus being born on March 28, and that this was the date Claudius observed as his father's birthday, then we know that Claudius chose to celebrate his grandfather's birthday on that date as well, and that fact should be observed in the article. But that doesn't really tell us whether anyone else rejected the date of January 14, for which reason I think that date should be given priority in the article, followed by an explanation of why Claudius chose to observe his grandfather's birthday on a different date (per Hurley) and what date it might have been (per Radke). P Aculeius (talk) 16:36, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually the whole case is that Jan. 14 is NOT a date accepted in antiquity (with NO ancient source) and nor has any of the established reference encyclopedias such as the Britannica, New World Encyclopedia, World Book, American Standard Dictionary, Catholic Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of World biography, World Biography, Oxford's World Encyclopedia, etc., have ever listed it as such. Even now, go to any library and check any of the latest printed editions, and one can see that Jan. 14 is listed NOWHERE among them as Marc Antony's birthday. As far as encyclopedic sources go, Jan. 14 surfaced here in WP and spread throughout the internet in secondary reference replications. It should not be given priority based upon this, either. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 16:48, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

We use what reliable sources say. For instance, we can use Hurley although we might want to attribute her (is my memory going or isn't she just reporting on the 93 days, not calculating it). I'm also wondering why we aren't discussing the year he was born, as that seems uncertain. For instance, Pat Southern writes "It is a strange fact that, although Mark Antony is such a well-known figure, even to those who are not specialists in Roman history, no-one knows precisely when he was born. Three dates have been suggested, 86, 83 and 81 BC. Most modern scholars opt for the ... Whatever the precise year, Antony's birthday was 14 January."Mark Antony (Tempus History & Archaeology) by Pat Southern (1 Oct 1998) p.ii, before Wikipedia existed. Adrian Goldsworthy gives January 14th as well. [5] - I guess you could argue he used our article as his source, but do you really want to do that? For the record, this seems to be the edit where it was added[6]. This source[7] is also earlier. It didn't start here. Dougweller (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

LOL...My lack of clarification. What I meant to say is that as far as "encyclopedic" references go, the Jan. 14 supposed birthday of Marc Antony essentially spread from this WP article across the internet's replication of secondary sources. I didn't mean that it was "discovered" here on WP. Once again, NO ancient historians such as Livy, Pliny, Plutarch, Appian, Suetonius, Eusebius, or Julius Africanus recorded that Jan. 14 was Antony's birthday. And once again, Jan. 14 is not listed in any of the entries about Marc Antony in any of the encyclopedic references: Britannica, New World Encyclopedia, World Book, American Standard Dictionary, Catholic Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of World biography, World Biography, Oxford's World Encyclopedia, etc... Flagrantedelicto (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

An inscription is generally more reliable evidence than an ancient historian. The historian may be working from faulty sources himself, or the manuscript tradition may have introduced an error. His narrative may not have required him to specify the date: Cassius Dio mentions Augustus's action in suppressing commemorations of Antony's birthday without providing a date. We don't know what the inscription says; we only know that Jerzy Linderski, a scholar known for his attention to detail, accepts it as evidence for the DOB of Antony, and provided a precise citation to it in Degrassi's collection, which I'll attempt to check today at the library, if I ever get out the door. I concur with what Dougweller says about representing what the sources say (in clear preponderance!), and must express my admiration of the detailed and careful summary provided by P Aculeius, who contributes regularly to articles on ancient Roman prosopography and is experienced in dealing with this material. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:46, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I would have to entirely disagree that inscriptions are more reliable than what historians write. There are COUNTLESS inscriptions which archaeologists have found in both ancient world (Near Eastern & European) and Biblical archaeology which have been proven to be either false, forgeries, erroneous, and ultimately misrepresented. Take all those supposed Biblical-related inscriptions established by Biblical archaeologists: Most of them have been peer-reviewed as either forgeries or inconclusive...Only a few have been verified to be authentic. One inscription hardly establishes Jan. 14 as Antony's birthday...An no one knows what the inscription says, and yet because Linderski "accepts" it as Antony's DOB, that is the ancient evidence (?) LOL Even if Linderski's citation is precise in his "belief" that it is Antony's DOB, who exactly peer-reviewed it to establish this (?)...And where exactly does Linderski get the idea that this inscription is indeed the DOB of Antony (?) Mere speculation on the part of Linderski and it does not by any means establish that Jan. 14 was indeed Antony's DOB. Here is a case in point about the reliability of inscriptions: Ramesses II had inscriptions up and down all the monuments of the Nile of his version of the Kadesh campaign and the Battle of the Orontes River, indicating that he singlehandedly saved his regiment by hurling hundreds (or is it thousands, I forget which) of Hittites into the Orontes (!) Thank god for the Hittite historical records which documented otherwise, as well as other ancient sources who offered a more realistic account of what Ramesses II actually accomplished. Inscriptions mean little without the support of ancient historical sources to substantiate them. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 18:03, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes, I suppose that is arguable, unless RS accept the evidence, in which case they're the ones with the say, because they have the training and experience to evaluate the reliability of the inscription in its broader historical context. As Dougweller said above, it's our task to represent reliable sources. Forgot to address Dougweller's point about the year: agree, the year is actually the focus of far more debate than the birthday. You might also find 82. Linderski's article on Antony's quaestorship is concerned with that in large part. With Romans from the most elite families, it's usually assumed they would've run for quaestor at the earliest opportunity (that is, as soon as they met the age requirement), but elections around that time had some irregularities that contribute to complications of dating. I had Linderski's article from a time some years ago when I was researching the careers of the junior officers under Caesar in the Gallic Wars. His evidence on Antony isn't as definitive as scholars would like. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:54, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

You are quite correct in evaluating that the year of Antony's birth is an even larger focus. For that reason, I am really fascinated with Weigall's placement of Antony's birth when Sulla landed in Italy (at Brundisium) in the spring of 83 BC. If an ancient source can be found for Weigall's account, then at least this could establish the year as 83 BC. Weigall had cited an older German scholar but when I tracked down that scholar and the cited work, it was in German and no birthday seemed to have been listed. (I now have lost the info on who that scholar was, I'll have to research this all over again, I suppose)... Flagrantedelicto (talk) 19:14, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, I'm not too concerned about the year. We have two alternative ages in Plutarch, which would, since he was born quite early in the year, place his birth in either 83 or 86 BC. Most sources seem to follow 83, which would seem more logical if he followed the cursus honorum, since he stood for the quaestorship in 53 BC, the year he would have turned 30 if he were born in 83 BC, and that was the minimum age permitted by law.

We can't really rely on most of his later offices, which he obtained through the influence of Caesar; technicalities such as the legal age would have been easily ignored once Caesar was in command of an army during the Civil War. Antonius was consul with Caesar in 44, when he would only have been 39, and the minimum age to stand for that office was 42. If he had been born in 86, he would have reached the age of 42 during the year 44 BC, and this might account for Plutarch's uncertainty as to his age.

That's just my speculation, of course. But if you assume that the law was complied with, then Antonius should only have stood for election in 44, for the consulship of 43. So I don't think placing his birth in 86 BC really solves this discrepancy. I think it's more logical that the legal age requirement was ignored because nobody wanted to oppose Caesar over something relatively minor (in the past many persons had held the consulship at a younger age, and many more would under the Empire). What this does is give us a clue as to why Plutarch might have been uncertain about Antonius' age. The circumstantial evidence for 83, based largely on the cursus honorum, is thin, but nothing expressly contradicts it, as far as I know. Between the two alternatives given by Plutarch, 83 seems much more likely. P Aculeius (talk) 23:02, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Radke and the Fasti Verulani

A depiction of Laughing Out Loud in the presence of the Fasti Verulani (I reckon; I've no idea what this is about, but it was only thing that turned up at Commons, alas, though we have images of other fasti)

Mes amis, I had a most merry time at the library. Seeing as how Radke's article was so short, I arrived with a few coins in my purse to make photocopies. What a Luddite! No photocopier in the entire library would accept my paltry offerings of coins rather than the magic campus e-Totenpass, and after misadventures, a kindly huntsman, I mean Charon, I mean a senior librarian, took pity on me and copied at no cost the two physical pages that Radke's little article, really just a note, consumes. I have made a solemn vow never to tell that freebies valued at at least a quarter were doled out to a member of the public, and so have no doubt brought down a curse upon myself, were my true identity to be revealed. Sssh!

I am pleased to report that Radke is just about the clearest writer of German prose I have ever tried to read in the field of classical studies. When I'm at greater leisure, I'll share the pertinent passages. For now, I will provide the full details of the inscription, which comes from the Fasti Verulani, a Roman calendar (fasti) dated to around 17–37 AD. As Linderski notes, and Radke too, this inscription was discovered in 1923, hence neither the Catholic Encyclopedia nor the 1912 Britannica would've had it, nor even the old RE ("unknown to Wissowa"!—words that thrill the heart of any classicist).

The Fasti Verulani notes January 14 as dies vitiosus ex. s.c. Ant. natal. As Radke observes, this dies vitiosus accords with the statement in Cassius Dio 51.19.3 that Antony's birthday was declared ἡμέρα μιαρά (hēmera miara). Ex s.c. is an abbreviation that means "by decree of the senate" (s.c. = senatus consultum). Natal. is the standard calendar abbreviation for [dies] natalis. Ant. is a standard abbreviation in inscriptions for the nomen Antonius, and the passage in Dio supports the identification, since it says (in Greek) that Antony's natalis was declared a dies vitiosus and there's no suggestion that some other Ant. had a birthday so declared. As Linderski notes in the passage linked just above, dies vitiosus seems to be a unique degradation of a day, not known to have been used other than in connection with Antony's birthday. This same calendar (the Fasti Verulani) gives the date of January 17 for feriae ex s.c. quod eo die Augusta nupsit Divo Augusto ("holidays decreed by a senatus consultum because on this day Livia married the Divine Augustus"), thus spawning the difficulties of chronology concerning the birthday of Drusus.

Radke's "article" (really a note of about one and a half pages of text, with the remaining half page of endnotes, followed by another half page, followed by a blank page) is about how to reconcile January 14, which he accepts as a given, with the statement in Suetonius, since Drusus was supposed to have been born intra mensem tertium after the wedding of Livia and Augustus. His argument is precisely not that Antony's dies natalis was "really" March 28, but that Claudius through clever calculations reckoned that if Antony had been born under the same calendar as Drusus, they would've had the same birthday. It matters not whether those calculations were correct; the point is that Claudius made calculations. There is nothing to suggest that Antony's birthday was "really" any other date, only that Claudius, because the original date had been formally besmirched, engaged in intellectual shenanigans to rehabilitate the commemoration of Antony's birth, and to show what it would've been had Antony been born under another star, as it were.

So this leaves us exactly where we were when I first added the date of January 14 with a lavish footnote citing blue-linkable scholars all accepting this as Antony's DOB. The summaries of Radke in Flory and Hurley are about the chronological problems of the DOB of Drusus, not Antony, for whom there is no conflicting evidence. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:45, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Bravo, bravissimo! As far as I'm concerned, this settles the issue. There's no truly contradictory evidence for January 14; Radke's explanation of Claudius' statement makes perfect sense; and none of the other sources that follow Radke assert that Claudius was giving the original date of Antonius' birth. So while I have absolutely no objection to including the emperor's own reckoning in an explanation of the date, I think that we can lay to rest any doubt as to the veracity of the January 14 date. P Aculeius (talk) 23:12, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually there is another personage who could have been dies vitiosus ex. s.c. Ant. natal. and the Ant. could possibly have been Marcus Antonius ANTYLLUS (the Archer), aka Marcus Antonius IV or Marcus Antonius Minor (Antony's eldest son). Augustus perceived him as a major threat and had him put to death shortly after both Antony's and Cleopatra's suicides. Hence, this inscription was discovered in 1923, and prior to that there was NO established DOB for Antony's birthday for the past two thousand years. That explains why all those classical scholars never documented Jan. 14 as Antony's birthday: It wasn't discovered until 1923. So Radke accepts Jan. 14 based on this 1923 discovery. It is strange that academia has yet to accept this 1923 inscription as conclusive enough to list it in their encyclopedias. To this day, neither of the renowned world references such as the Britannica, New World Encyclopedia, World Book, American Standard Dictionary, Catholic Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of World Biography, World Biography, Oxford's World Encyclopedia, etc., have accepted this 1923 inscription as historical evidence of it being Marc Antony's DOB. I still have solid doubts as to Jan. 14 being even the pre-Julian DOB of Antony, inscription or no inscription. I am still intrigued where Arthur S. Weigall got his information that Antony was born virtually at the same time of Lucius Cornelius Sulla's arrival in Italy (at Brundisium) in the SPRING (i.e., March-April) of 83 BC (?) After all, Weigall's book was first published in 1931, or 8 years after the discovery of this 1923 inscription. Weigall must have heard of it. Hmmm. Something to ponder...However, since even the Jan. 14 date is the product of 1923 onward, I would suggest leaving both dates of March 28 and January 14 in the infobox as primaries. Especially since P Aculeius has no objection to both dates being displayed in this WP article of Marc Antony. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 23:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Archaeologists, mirabile dictu, find new stuff all the time. Stuff even older than 2,000 years. That's how they stay in business. Give it up, or cite some sources. Arthur Weigall was, according to his article, an "Egyptologist, stage designer, journalist and author", not a scholar specializing in classics or ancient history. Linderski says plainly that we know of no date other than Antony's birthday that was declared a dies vitiosus. Your proposal of Antyllus is unsupported by even a shred of evidence, and not a single secondary source thus far: it's OR and unfounded speculation. March 28 should be the DOB of Drusus in his article; in Antony's, it's a footnote or explanation in the body text, not an alternate date. The date was commemorated on a Julian calendar as January 14, and there's no reason to believe that wasn't the date on the pre-Julian calendar under which he was born, since there is no evidence Romans switched birthdays on the new calendar (and much evidence that they retained their birthday, notably for Augustus). If you wish to contest the authenticity of the Fasti Verulani, this is not the forum. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:43, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I know first hand that archaeologists find new things all the time. I have been a part of a couple of such teams in the field. There is nothing to give up. Quoting me to me...LOL Did it ever occur to you that if March 28 was Antony's recalculated date on the Julian calendar, then technically that was the actual date back in 83 BC (not Jan. 14, which belonged to a faulty, inaccurate lunisolar cycle) (?) LOL The Fasti Verulani is not cited by any ancient historians. If the Jan. 14 date was so widely known, it should have appeared in some of their writings and not in an obscure calendar (Fasti) which turns up in 1923. And I don't need to be told which forum to contest what, thank you. If this calendar had so much weight, there is no reason in the world why academia would have ignored it. To this day, not a single encyclopedia has accepted Jan. 14 as Antony's undisputed birthday Fasti Verulani or no Fasti Verulani. It would also be nice if you present a link or some accessibility (if at all possible) of what Gerhard Radke wrote, for all to see who would be interested. This still presents an unexplained problem for what Suetonius recorded: That Claudius proclaimed Antony and Drusus shared the same birthday. If the Romans didn't change established days of importance (such as birthdays, death anniversaries, etc.,) from the pre-Julian calendar to the Julian calendar, then how could Claudius have made such a proclamation and have it accepted by the masses (?) Doesn't make any sense. This has vexed modern scholars and prompted an explanation and resolution for which Gerhard Radke took the initiative to resolve, so scholars like Hurley and Flory can explain this. Most of those other biographers of Antony didn't even come this far as you and I have right here on WP. Take Pat Southern for example. She is not even certain about Antony's birth year. I think you should feel elated at the research you accomplished, which Antony biographers Goldsworthy, Southern, and even Pelling didn't even cover. The Fasti Verulani was not cited by any of the Antony biographers or commentators (including Hurley). It is surprising that nearly all of them did not cite such a key source such as the Fasti Verulani...Makes anyone ponder. All said and done, it still does not explain why anyone would have inserted the Jan. 14 birthday for Drusus in three different WP articles. Nonetheless, the Fasti Verulani should have been known to any of the classical historians of Roman history post circa 17-37 AD (the timeframe attributed to the Verulani). It is curious that none of them cited it, even if it was lost to history and rediscovered in 1923. I am glad I reviewed your source of Hurley and discovered Gerhard Radke. Had I not pushed for Radke, we wouldn't have found out about the Fasti Verulani...Or that there even was a recalculation of the March 28 birthday for Antony to share with Drusus. Incidentally, did Radke openly state that March 28 was his calculated date for the elder Drusus (?) If so, we can cite the page number and enter it in the Drusus article. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 03:14, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I just saw a blow up of the actual Fasti Verulani Calendario Romano online. It is a magnificent piece of work. It was Prof. Camillo Scarafoni Scaccia, a distinguished scholar, who made the discovery, in the year 1922 (not 1923). It dates to 14 AD. And it also records the January 17 wedding of Augusta [Livia Drusilla] to Augustus [Octavian]. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 04:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Please, dial back on the sarcasm a bit. Cynwolfe has gone to considerable trouble to dig up the sources of the dates we're talking about, but your tone is always dismissive of her work and conclusions. I think some of your argument proceeds from a misunderstanding of the Fasti Verulani. This wasn't a source that ancient writers would have relied upon; it was a calendar drawn up so that the ordinary citizens of Verulae (modern Veroli) would be able to keep track of what events should be celebrated (or in one remarkable case, not celebrated) on what days. Unless you lived in Verulae during the first century, you wouldn't have relied on them. We rely on the Fasti Verulani because they're the only extant ancient source (as far as we know) that states the exact date of Antonius' birth. Your argument is that the date should have appeared in other ancient sources; perhaps it did, but none of them have survived. Unlikely as that may seem to you, we don't know of any others. That fact, however, has absolutely no bearing on the accuracy of the Fasti Verulani, since it applies equally to every conceivable date.

It's not particularly persuasive that you haven't found an encyclopedia that provides January 14 as the date, since you haven't found any that list March 28 or any other date, either. But January 14 is accepted by pretty much every other scholar who gives a date. The only one who gives any support to the date of March 28 begins with the premise that Antonius was actually born on January 14, based on the calendar in use when he was born, and that Claudius chose to recalculate it for his own purposes. So there's absolutely no support for that date instead of January 14 in any source.

I don't see why you're so interested in Radke's explanation of why Drusus was probably born on March 28, since nobody here has argued that he was wrong, and he hasn't anything whatever to say about Marcus Antonius; moreover, according to your own account, you don't read German, so you wouldn't derive any benefit from it. But Radke did say that his date was an approximation, and not certain; so we don't really know that Drusus was born on that day. Only that it would have been about that day, or that that day seems to be the most likely of a range of days.

There's no "unexplained problem" here. It's been explained several times, and quite clearly. Claudius knew that his grandfather and father weren't born on the same day, at least under the calendars in use in the years they were born. But he was able to use the facts that the pre-Julian calendar could shift by several days from year to year, and even several months over the course of many years, and that the shift between 46 and 45 BC (when the Julian calendar was adopted) was 93 days, to assert that his grandfather's birthday co-incided with his father's. There was no objection to celebrating the birthday of Drusus, so if one adjusted the pre-Julian calendar for the year of Antonius' birth to match that day, one couldn't really object to celebrating them both together, the decree of Augustus notwithstanding.

Nobody claimed that "the masses" accepted Claudius' explanation. All Suetonius tells us is that he said it. But "the masses" didn't have to accept it, because by the time of his reign nobody outside the imperial family had any reason to, except to show their piety and fealty to the imperial family; and if you were going to do that, you were hardly going to argue that they had misinterpreted the dates for their own purposes.

It's not particularly relevant whether other modern historians cite the Fasti Verulani as their source, since as far as we know, there isn't another one. If they didn't state where they got the date, it isn't evidence that a different date is more probable. It's no more relevant than the fact that ancient historians didn't say where they got their information; much of the time, they didn't. The fact is that until modern times it wasn't common to cite the sources of all your information; even today we make exceptions on Wikipedia for things that are considered "common knowledge." These are things you can't fairly attribute to a single source, such as the date the Fourth of July, or that the sky is blue. Sure, you can find sources for these, but you can't point to an "official" source as the most authoritative on the point, and there's no reason why you should have to.

The date of Antonius' birth was common knowledge when he was alive, and presumably for some years after he died, which is why Augustus (apparently with the consent of the senate) decreed that it shouldn't be celebrated. But unless you were planning to draw up a calendar like the Fasti Verulani, you didn't need to report what that date was; and even if you were going to say when it was, you didn't need to explain how you knew it. That's why there aren't a lot of ancient sources for information like this. Just think what a small percentage of references to "Christmas" don't bother to explain that it's usually celebrated on (or beginning) December 25. Sure, some do, but most of the time you don't bother to say that when you mention Christmas. We only have two or three ancient sources that mention the birthday of Antonius in passing; it's not that surprising that they don't all say what day it was.

Which brings us back to the beginning. We have a date attested from an ancient source. This date is accepted by pretty much every scholar who gives any date at all. The only one who has anything to say about March 28 (based on Radke's work, which plainly stated it was only an approximation) also accepted that January 14 was the date commemorated by pretty much everyone before Claudius decided to adjust it to make it co-incide with his father's birthday. So there really isn't any evidence to support March 28 as the actual birthday of Marcus Antonius; that was an original interpretation made by Claudius, and our only source for that doesn't even provide the exact date that Claudius celebrated. It's time to finish this debate; there just isn't any reason for it to continue. P Aculeius (talk) 05:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Please don't advise me about sarcasm...You really have no idea who I am or what my credentials could possibly be (not that you or anyone could probably care). Agreed. The discussion (or debate) is over. But stop and pause for a little reflection: No one is denying the accomplishment and effort put in by the stated WP editor...Or did you miss that entirely from me. I have acknowledged the efforts even earlier, but could have done without the condescending tone towards me as well (little class or grace). Somehow, some of you seem to miss this aspect altogether. All is well that ends well. And keep in mind that had I not reviewed the stated WP editor's sources and pushed in the direction to where someone finally DID find an ancient source to verify Antony's birthday of Jan. 14, this WP article would have probably not known this (maybe for a very longtime). Now, because I kept pushing the envelope, someone finally found the Fasti Verulani (which none of the Antony biographers even seemed to have cited: Goldsworthy, Southern, Pelling, even Hurley & Flory...It has been engaging. Arrivederci. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 13:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Forgive my jocular tone above—I was just so relieved the question could be decided cleanly and easily that I was giddy. Precisely why I wanted a good solid piece of German scholarship. I've been called away to other things, but will try to tidy this all up later today, and may take a look at the article on Drusus as well, to correct the Jan. 14 (to answer the question, it seems fairly straightforward as to why someone would use that date: it's Antony's DOB, and the line in Suetonius seems to say they were born the same date—as P Aculeius points out so well, that isn't exactly what the sentence is saying). Cynwolfe (talk) 16:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Here is a link to Agnes Kirsopp Michels' The Calendar of the Roman Republic...[[8]]. In page 63 [in the actual book itself, not the pdf linked pages], note 9, Michels' writes about the Fasti Verulani stating that the date of Jan. 14 appeared in several Fasti, however none of those others identified the day as Antony's birthday until the 1922 discovery of Fasti Verulani was published in 1923. In all the other Fasti which commemorated the day of Jan. 14, the inscription for Jan. 14 read: Vitiosus ex senatus consulto...Until of course the discovery of Fasti Verulani in 1922 by Prof. Camillo Scarafoni Scaccia. She does not mention the professor or its discovery, though. Interesting bit. Btw, you should remove Weigall's citation from the Brundisium entry regarding Antony's birth (or re-word it). Even if he is erroneous, Weigall does NOT state that Antony was an infant when Sulla landed in Italy. This is misquoting. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 20:11, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

It isn't a quote. There are no quotation marks around that statement. It is a paraphrase. If Weigall says Antony had been born "just about that time" (and as P Aculeius recognizes, Weigall's point is to describe the world into which Antony enters, not to establish a DOB as such), then Antony was indeed an infant: what else was he? He was no longer a fetus in his mother's womb, nor was he yet a toddler. If you follow the link, dies vitiosus is explained. Actually, it seems consonant with the Roman practice of damnatio memoriae not to name him (though I think Flower showed that Antony's reputation was suppressed rather than under a complete damnatio, because he couldn't be erased from the intertwining lineage of the imperial family), but the identification of Antony in the Fasti Verulani is supported by Cassius Dio. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:36, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't Michels' note confirm January 14 as Antony's birthday? Cynwolfe (talk) 20:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

OK..A mis-paraphrase then. I disagree with P Aculeius and yourself. Weigall is describing both: The situation in Rome when Antony was born and at just about the time that he do so....Julia gave birth to male child... This is easily interpreted to mean that Antony's birth (not infancy) coincided with Sulla's landing in Italy. Besides, the Verulani does not establish the year of Antony's birth. Antony could have been over 3 years old. And your tone is still condescending...And as I stated earlier (very) little class or grace (in it)...I have openly commended your research as excellent and have acknowledged your earnest effort...Now go and whine to the WP administrators at ANI... Flagrantedelicto (talk) 21:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

That sentence was rewritten to encompass the proscriptions, since Weigall goes on to imagine the family with their baby living in terror, and Goldsworthy presents a similar if less empurpled setting-of-the-scene. So Wiegall's page numbers just need expanded. I wouldn't have chosen Weigall as a source, but see no reason to take out what someone else put in if it fits at this point and doesn't mislead about the chronology. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm probably going to regret sticking my nose into this conversation, but there have been times when I've been in Cynwolfe's position and could have used some support, so what the hell. Flagrantedelicto, you accuse Cynwolfe of having a condescending tone. Meanwhile, your tone throughout the whole conversation has been hectoring, aggressive, wilfully difficult, and dismissive of her efforts to find reliable sources to accommodate as many points of view as possible - an effort you have not been willing to go to yourself. You reflexively refuse to take on board anything that's said to you. The only "condescension" I can detect in Cynwolfe's tone has been her strenuous effort to remain polite to you in the face of your relentless provocation. The dispute has now been resolved, thanks entirely to Cynwolfe's efforts. Rather than keep picking at it, I suggest you let it drop, and shut up. --Nicknack009 (talk) 22:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

You are right, you should keep your nose out of this and shut the hell up yourself. I am not picking at it, if you can grasp that. I just provided some more interesting knick-knacks about the Verulani including this translated excerpt:

Between days in character commemorative, January 14 auspi what is bad because it recalls the birth of Antonio: D (ies) VITIOSUS EX S (enatus) C (onsulto) ANT (onii) NATAL (is). "It was the chief who succeeded Caesar, in 43 BC, a decree by the Senate to Antonio enemy of his country. The greatest enemy of Octavian, therefore born January 14 83 BC, was covered with ignominy, although the infamous decree was revoked in the same year. On January 17, remembers the wedding of Augustus Livia: Feriae EX S (enatus) C (onsulto) QUOD EO AUGUST TO DIE NUPSIT DIVO AUG (usto). Livia verolano in the text is indicated by the noble name of Augusta, a title which she received a will after the death of her husband, who, in the same memory, is called "divus" because now counted among the deities. Another note which is found in the Fasti Verulani is that of the February 22, where it is written: LOWER (iae) C. Caesaris. Gaius Caesar, the adopted son of Augustus, was sent, still a youth, during the first century BC, in the provinces of Asia. On September 9, the second A.D. Gaius Caesar, during the siege of Artagena, Armenia, suffered a wound so severe that on February 21, 4 BC died. Augustus, who had no children by Livia, adopted grandchildren Gaius and Lucius, sons of Agrippa, targeting it, then the succession. The death, however, surprised the kids early. On March 27, our calendar recalls the capture of Alexandria (47 BC) by Caesar Feriae QUOD EO DIE CAESAR ALEXANDRIAM RECEPIT.

Considering the record of January 17, when Augustus is called "divus", we can say that the Fasti Verulani are back to 14 AD, the year of death of the founder of the Roman Empire. Livia, however, is still alive as they do not mention the name sacred. It follows then that the calendar Veroli had to be drawn up within the first half of the first century AD "(MARIO Mezzacapo Historical Notes ..., cit.).

Flagrantedelicto (talk) 22:37, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, er, lifting jaw up from floor … ahem. I have been in Nicknack009's position at this moment, too. Wikipedia is a volunteer collaborative effort, and any editor in good standing can participate on any talk page he pleases. I myself would rather be at the Festival of Veroli, watching the fire-breathers, and Nicknack009 is welcome to join the company at either venue. I'm not sure what the purpose of the quoted passage is: the dating of the FV, I take it? That Livia hadn't been divinized? Since Claudius did that, that would seem to support the view that January 14 won't appear as a dies vitiosus after the time of Claudius, because he will have rehabilitated the date. I don't know whether that's the case, since I don't know what all the other fasti are. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:58, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

LOL...Just an interesting excerpt I thought to share here in the Talk Page. It was intended to be my last post in this particular WP Talk Page (of Antony)...Unless I end up being blocked from any further editing. Instead, this one will be. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 23:10, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Postscript enty: Arthur S. Weigall's cited source for Antony's birth coinciding with Sulla's landing in Italy was Viktor Emil Gardthausen's Augustus und seine zeit Volume II (1921 edition). This is part of a 4 part volume entitled Augustus und seine zeit first published in 1904. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 16:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I've reviewed this book, which is available HERE. As Flagrantedelicto pointed out, it was published before the discovery of the Fasti Verulani. My German is practically non-existent, but just for figuring out what Gardthausen was saying, Google Translate was adequate. I typed my own transcription of the relevant passages on pages 5 and 6 of volume 2, since the transcribed versions of other books I've seen at this site are full of typos due to stray marks and punctuation being confused; and of course this book is full of umlauts and long S's.

The gist of it is that Gardthausen assumed, based entirely on the passage in Suetonius, that Antonius and Drusus were born on the same day. However, he points out that there's no source for either one of these dates in extant inscriptions, and laments the lack of a stone calendar (such as the Fasti Verulani) that would provide a specific date for one or the other. Gardthausen then attempts to use other circumstantial evidence to narrow down the time frame. First, using both statements in ancient authors (Plutarch for one) and evidence of Antonius' age from coins and the dates that he held various magistracies, Gardthausen concludes that Antonius was probably born in 83 BC. The rest of his speculation is based on the fact that Cleopatra gave him a lavish birthday party at some point between the Battle of Actium (2 September, 31 BC) and the capture of Alexandria (1 August, 30 BC).

Gardthausen assumes that no such event would have taken place in the months immediately following the defeat at Actium, and so eliminates the months from September to December. He then eliminates the period from January to the middle of March, on the grounds that Antonius lazed about in complete apathy following his return to Alexandria. From this, Gardthausen concludes that Antonius was probably born between late March and early July. But he also repeatedly laments the lack of anything solid to substantiate his guess.

As far as I can tell, Gardthausen says absolutely nothing to the effect that Antonius was born at the time that Sulla landed at Brundisium. From this I would suppose that the period of Antonius' birth was the only thing Weigall was attributing to him. And, since nobody seems to know exactly what date that occurred, and Weigall didn't know either date with any certainty, all we can assume is that he meant that the two events occurred during the same period of time. We have no way of knowing how far apart they would have to have been in order for Weigall not to make that statement, since clearly he did so for dramatic effect and not historical exactitude. And if Weigall's source for the date of Antonius' birth was indeed Gardthausen, then we know that it was only a guess, a rough approximation based on purely circumstantial evidence, and no more.

One thing we do know with certainty is that despite exhaustive efforts to find anything conclusive, Gardthausen was unaware of anything that would pin down the date of Antonius' birth with any certainty; and presumably so was Weigall. So you can't use either of them to assert that a date of March 20 or April 17 or July 20 was known by any scholar prior to the discovery of the Fasti Verulani, which provided the date of January 14. At best, one might intuit that the span of days from March 20 to July 20 was roughly the period postulated by Gardthausen. But certainly, there was and has been no effort to displace a "known" or "accepted" date with that of the Fasti Verulani; the date from that calendar appears to be the only specific date attested in any existing source from antiquity. P Aculeius (talk) 22:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Interesting commentary of Gardthausen's work. I have only one problem with the inscription for January 14th in the Fasti Verulani: That several subsequent Fasti from post-Augustus' reign do not bear the inscription of Ant(onii) Natal(is). January 14th being Antony's publicly known birthday had to be a Dies Fasti, so when Augustus wanted to malign his memory, he had the Senate decree the addition of Vitiosus Ex Senatus Consulto to it. However, in several subsequent Fasti Calendario Romano which listed the day of January 14th, it would have made a lot more sense to just omit the inscription of Vitiosus Ex Senatus Consulto, rather than Ant(onii) Natal(is), if Claudius wanted to make an honorable gesture in memory of his maternal grandfather. I wonder if the January 14th day appears in any earlier Fasti Romano Calendario (?) Maybe even the Fasti Antiates of the pre-Julian Republican era circa 60 BC, perhaps (?) Just a thought... Flagrantedelicto (talk) 06:02, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Drawing of the reconstructed Fasti Antiates

Claudius would not have gone so far to mark Antony's birthday as an official observance: he merely removed the novel stain of declaring it vitiosus. On Imperial calendars, the natales celebrated are those of emperors and Caesars, their wives, and sometimes (I think) their heirs or the men they hoped would be their heirs. Julius Caesar was, if I'm not mistaken, the only figure from the Republic to be so commemorated, and to elevate Antony to that status would've been a radical and combative gesture that undermined Augustan ideology. During the Republic, people were not honored by having their birthdays placed on the official calendar of religious observances issued by the pontiffs; this is a development in association with Imperial cult. However, the birthdays of major public figures might be noted and celebrated; Pompey took care to hold one of his triumphs on his birthday. Sacrifices or offerings might've been made on a birthday to the Genius of a powerful person regarded as a patronus, but during the Republic, such would not appear on an official calendar. (BTW, dies fasti is a plural, though when the word fasti is used as a synonym for "calendar" in English it is sometimes treated as a singular; the construction Fasti Calendario Romano would not be a proper noun even if it made sense as Latin.) I'm awestruck by the lengths P Aculeius has gone to by checking with NASA on the eclipse and summarizing the superseded Gardthausen. The fragmentary Fasti Antiates, as you may check for yourself at right, preserve no observances on January 14, but the day is marked as intercissus (EN), the meaning of which (see Ianuarius#Dates) suggests that it was not regarded as vitiosus at that time. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:33, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

LOL...The NASA bit is in connection to what I don't know...(!?) I guess I must have missed something below. Btw, I do know enough Latin to know that Fasti is plural of Fastus, and its root, the noun Fas. And their collective definitions as well. I was being rather loose in my usage of some of the Latin. Gardthausen wrote an impressive 4 volume work on Augustus. Anyhow, still not fully satisfied with why the inscription Vitiosus Ex Senatus Consulto was not omitted along with Antonii Natalis. Whether it was indeed Claudius, or perhaps even the earlier emperors Caligula or Tiberius. If Antony's natalis was omitted, then the entire inscription should have been as well. It has no point even being commemorated among the Fasti or Nefasti. Especially if the entire point & purpose of the inscripiton Vitiosus Ex Senatus Consulto was to vilify Antony's birth. I did find some explanation on the inscription for Jan. 14 in Stephanus Antonius Morcelli's book Di Stilo Inscriptionvm Latinarvm (from the last paragraph at the bottom of pg 71 to the top sub-paragraph of pg 72 of the actual book itself). It is entirely in Latin, which required auto-translation if one doesn't know Latin. Essentially, it states that days following the Ides of a month were considered unfavorable. And in the case of the ominous inscription Vitiosus Ex Senatus Consulto, that it was sandwiched between two rather auspicious days: The Idus of Iunarius and the 15 Iunarius; the latter day honoring the muse Carmentis (mother of Evander). It also mentions that Augustus found the day unfavorable as well, although no mention of Antonii Natalis or any connection to Marc Antony. I am obviously assuming that this book was also published before Camillo Scarafoni Scaccia's 1922 discovery. I didn't really check its publication info.[[9]] I have pretty much concluded this topic here. I did see you have been busy updating & re-editing the WP article about the month of Januarius in the view history section. I also found a New World Encyclopedia entry of Antony which recently added his Jan. 14 natalis as circa Jan. 14, as well. Flagrantedelicto (talk) 18:27, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Saturnalia, January 14, and the Verolani

I am frequent Wiki reader but joined up when I came across this long debate about Mark Antony's birthday. I found a couple of articles in internet about Saturnalia and the Ides of the Roman calendar months, but could not trace original authorship to either. I thought I would post it here as they are relevant to talk page (plz forgive their length) -- [copyvio & possible copyvio deleted Dougweller (talk) 21:41, 30 January 2013 (UTC)]

LiShihKai (talk) 20:43, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Such long quotations of material found on the net are assumed copyvio unless otherwise shown. The first can ber seen at [10] anyway, the second I'm not sure about but as LiShihKai says they are from the net we assume copyright exists until we are shown otherwise. Dougweller (talk) 21:41, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The first half of the material LiShihKai quoted seems to be taken from Encyclopaedia Romana by James Grout, an on-line reference subtitled "Rome, the Home of Empire and of all Perfection." http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/saturnalia.html That alone calls the author's scholarship into doubt, since it's not a source we can accept as a neutral point of view. While the article itself seems well-written and includes some source citations, it also includes dubious inferences and some genuine misunderstandings about the Roman calendar. Specifically relevant to this talk page: the Romans rarely, if ever, counted the number of days in a month up from the Kalends. They simply wouldn't have referred to January 14 at all; that would have been as foreign to them as counting back from the Kalends of February does to us.

Secondly, the reasoning that the day of Antonius' birth was somehow erased from the calendar due to Caesar's reforms makes no sense. The day we today count as the 14th of January was the seventeenth day before the Kalends of February when Antonius was born, and that date would still have existed after the adoption of the Julian calendar, although today we would count it as January 16. If Antonius was born the day after the Ides of January, then he might have had the choice of the seventeenth or the nineteenth day before the Kalends of February, but the day he was born didn't cease to exist simply because you could interpret it in either of two ways. If the Julian calendar had removed two days from January, then the nineteenth day before the Kalends of February might be said to have vanished, although in that case you could just as easily interpret it to be the day before the Ides under the new calendar, or if it were important that it occur the day after the Ides, you'd simply celebrate it on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of February instead of the nineteenth. So even then, the day wouldn't have ceased to exist, as this article asserts. But in order for Grout's premise to be correct, the Julian calendar would have to have done the opposite of what it in fact did, by removing days from January instead of adding them.

Google can't seem to locate any of the text from the second article that you appear to be quoting. Various phrases and clauses (such as "harrowing total solar eclipse") produce no exact matches. Unlike the first article, this one contains no citations to any authority, and isn't clearly written. So far, nobody's found any sources other than Weigall who equated Antonius' birth with the landing of Sulla at Brundisium, much less a law passed by the Roman senate doing so; nor can I imagine any plausible reason why the senate would even take it up, or why Antonius would ask them to. This article asserts that Augustus "reassigned" Antonius' birthday to an inauspicious day on the calendar, contradicting the other article you posted; and cites no source for an event not mentioned in any source we've located so far. I can't find any source to suggest that the Roman calendar was ever altered due to a solar eclipse on January 14, 597 BC, although the list of solar eclipses does indicate one occurred on that date. However, a check of NASA's Eclipse Database shows that that eclipse occurred over the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans, and would never have been visible at Rome. So this article, if it even is an article you found on the internet, appears to be a complete hoax. None of it belongs on Wikipedia. P Aculeius (talk) 22:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

And this recent series of edits shows why devoting so much time and energy to a point of trivia doesn't help the encyclopedia. Although the sourcing isn't excellent, the editor has tried to improve the overall narrative of the article, and addressed a real problem. The DOB is a minuscule item compared to the vast amount of improvement this top-priority article could use, and think what larger goals we could've accomplished with all our time and effort—which only takes us back repeatedly to the same point of fact attested by sufficient secondary sources in the first place. (That NASA cite is still awesome, though.) Cynwolfe (talk) 15:29, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you are being a little hypocritical here. Rather than preaching to other WP editors / users about what is and what is not "trivia", you should perhaps reflect on you own actions. If you thought that the DOB topic was miniscule, why then did you spend so much time debating it ? You obviously did not feel it miniscule, or you would not have spend so much time in it yourself. LiShihKai (talk) 19:18, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Because modern reliable sources gave the January 14 date, and WP has a policy against fringe views. There was no need for such a lengthy debate unless modern RS supported some other date; they didn't, and the discussion was based on a confusion about Radke's efforts to explain the problems of chronology in regard to the DOB of Drusus, not of Antony. The discussion didn't remain on the talk page, but was causing misleading entries to be introduced into article space. I don't see how it's "hypocritical" to make sure that the encyclopedia doesn't contain inaccuracies. So please don't make personal attacks. Your personal opinion of me doesn't belong here. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:36, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Ensuring that there are no inaccuracies is all fine. The "hypocrisy" comes in when remarks are posted about what is "miniscule". Again, if you thought that the DOB issue was "miniscule", you would not have debated it to the extent that you did. Even to the point of actually arriving at an ancient source which confirmed Anthony's DOB (which you didn't even know yourself for nearly the entire length of the DOB debate, almost until its culmination). Technically, one cannot have a personal opinion of somenone without knowing someone personally. This debate attracted a lot of people (including myself, a frequent Wiki user). It had its own value, I would say. And if my "opinion" doesn't belong here in this Talk Page, then where would you suggest it belongs ? Perhaps, the Cleopatra or Augustus Talk Pages, maybe ? It is not up to you to advise other WP users where their "opinion" belongs. That Flagrantdelicto editor appears to be right about one thing: You do come across as a bit condescending. LiShihKai (talk) 20:09, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm aware that I can sound condescending, but it's a schoolmarmish tone of voice that creeps in when I'm frustrated but trying to be polite. I apologize. A talk page is open to anyone for discussing the content of the article. I said it isn't a place to discuss "your personal opinion of me." The focus needs to remain on the content and how to improve it (please review WP:NPA). Since you have made fewer than ten edits, you may not be fully aware of WP policies and guidelines. We had several RS that gave the DOB. If we cite RS, we don't always need to establish their precise assemblage of primary sources (the "chain of evidence"), though I try to read the primary passages cited so I can make sure I understand the secondary sources accurately and in context, and in classical studies it's conventional to cite the primary sources on which the secondary sources base their views. As I said above, this article could use a lot of attention and improvement, and the DOB seems to me to be a dead-end issue, since no one is bringing forth any new secondary sources. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:02, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

So you have acknowledged that you can sound condescending. Apology accepted. No big deal. Playing a little hide-the-salami (not hide-the-Verulani) a little more often could do wonders for schoolmarmish frustation. Just a general analysis (not an advice), if you will. G'day. LiShihKai (talk) 20:56, 20 March 2013 (UTC)