Talk:Artoria gens

Artorius Clytholius Maximus?

I'm digging into the question of this name, which is currently disputed between two editors. The authority currently cited is Tillemont, Histoire des empereurs, p. 741 (index, 1732). This refers to a prefect of Rome mentioned on page 467, although I do not see his name on that page—it seems to be the right time, AD 361, but either I am missing it, or he is referred to obliquely rather than by name. In my judgment, Tillemont is still a valid source, if dated; but an index entry that does not correspond in form with a name appearing in the body of the work is very weak evidence. I do not see a corresponding entry in the 1720 edition. Googling the combination "Clythorius Maximus", I found this commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus:

Maximus Gouverneur, ou Prefect de Rome, qu'Onufre dans son Livre des Fastes appelle Anicius Maximus, & qui avoir succedé en sa Charge à Tertulle, qu'il appelle aussi Anicius, quoy qu'il y ait bien plus d'aparence qu'il eust nom Junius Tertullus. Toutesfois Symmachus appelle nettement ce Maximus, qui fut successeur de Tertulle, Clytholius Maximus. C'est dans la 47, Epistre de son dixiéme Livre. Id.

Which Google Translate did not handle quite as smoothly as usual, although I cannot tell if it is due to typos in my transcription, the original, or perhaps older or scholarly grammar or shorthand. But the gist of it seems to be that the name "Clytholius Maximus" comes from the letters of Symmachus. The commentary does not mention the name "Artorius", but it does mention "Anicius", which is a much more common name and which might somehow have been corrupted into "Artorius" in some intervening source (although this is just a possible explanation—the more usual occurrence would be either for a common name to be erroneously substituted for an uncommon one, or for an ordinary name misread to become something similar in appearance but highly irregular). I'm having trouble locating the text of Symmachus—book X, if I understand correctly—but if the commentary is taken literally it calls this prefect merely "Clytholius Maximus", leaving us in the dark as to "Anicius" or "Artorius".

Without any further discussion of the name as it appears in the index of Tillemont, or any Google search results for "Artorius Clytholius" or other Google results for "Clytholius Maximus", and no C-S Databank entries for "Clytholius", I'm going to suggest that its appearance is most likely an error for "Anicius", whether by Tillemont, his indexer, or one of his sources, which is not mentioned either there or in the commentary quoted above—which mentions an Onufre, whom I have not yet identified, as an editor of Fasti (perhaps in the broad sense of a list of magistrates, rather than a specific set of inscriptions). I had earlier misread the above as a reference to Tertullian—but in fact it is Tertullus, a politician contemporary with our subject.

Tillemont gives his authorities on page 467 as Ammianus Marcellinus, "Ath." (I'm guessing Athanasius of Alexandria), and the Suda, mainly Ammianus. This seems to be the relevant passage, in which our subject is called only "Maximus". None of the other Maximi listed in a search of Ammianus appear to refer to the same man. So where does "Anicius" or "Artorius" come from? It's a mystery, although I presume that "Clytholius" is from the letters of Symmachus. P Aculeius (talk) 15:42, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I was about to create a section on this as well, but you beat me to it. I had already researched the topic with the intent of perhaps improving (in an unspecified future) the article Maximus (urban prefect under Julian), whom 'Artorius Clytholias Maximus' refers to. Following is what I could find.

• The page in Tillemont's index should be 463 rather than 467, but he does not call our individual "Artorius" there. The nomen as given in the index (like the page number itself) is presumably an error by the author, and is attested by no other source I know of (but see the following item).
• This article has seen significant edit-warring in the past (and might accordingly need a full review), over the usage of this (apparently) self-published source (found by typing "clytholias" on google scholar), and the editor(s) promoting it is alleged (here and here) to have been the author of the paper himself ("Alessandro Faggiani"). On page 36 Faggiani accordingly refers to Maximus as "Artorius Clytholias", but I can't find his source as using Ctrl+F doesn't work and much of the PDF is non disponible per la visualizzazione (not available for display). The article Maximus (urban prefect under Julian) cites Tillemont for the possibility that he was named "Artorius", so I'm going to assume Faggiani and the editor who posted the source here (if they are distinct people at all) took it from Tillemont as well.
• The unusual name "Clytholias" (this seems to be the "correct" spelling) comes from Symmachus, book 10, letter 54 ("Clytholiam Maximum"), but this source says it is probably a textual corruption in the surviving MS. This questionable passage is our only primary source for this name.
• I wasn't aware of the alternative nomen, "Anicius", until you mentioned it, but I think your source, Moulines (also 18th century), has likely just made another error, as did Tillemont. We know from Ammianus that Maximus was a nephew of Vulcatius Rufinus (consul 347) and thus possibly a cousin of Gallus Caesar, and so it's possible that he was related to the Anicii, another prominent senatorial family. But I checked several modern sources and none of them support the usage of either "Artorius", "Anicius", or "Clytholias". Chastagnol (Fastes de la Préfecture de Rome, 1962) suggested our Maximus to have been a "Valerius Maximus" who married Melania the Elder, whereas the authors of the PLRE were more cautious, proposing at least one other individual.

Overall, I think the case for "Artorius Clytholias Maximus" is unacceptable. The only evidence for Maximus being a member of the Artoria gens seems to be a garbled passage in the index of a 18th-century (!) source. Its obvious unreliability, as well as the condescending tone of the IP who reverted my edit, make me think he is the same person who made the previous avalanche of edits and who added the self-published source I linked to. Avilich (talk) 17:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I found the relevant section in Tillemont, thanks to you (I thought I had searched back to 461, but evidently I was looking for "Artorius" and missed "Maximus"). It says:

Maxime avoir encore le nom de Clytholias; mais c'est sans fondement qu'on luy donne celui d'Anice.

Which is to say, Tillemont refers to the name "Clytholias" (indeed the correct spelling here) assigned by the letters of Symmachus, but he does not comment on whether it is a corruption; he dismisses the name "Anicius" as being without foundation, i.e. as far as Tillemont could tell, it came from no writer or inscription from antiquity. The substitution of "Artorius" in the index is probably best explained as an error for "Anicius", although it is impossible to say who introduced the error—nor is it particularly important, assuming that it is indeed an error. P Aculeius (talk) 18:31, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Small caps

I am pleased you are no longer claiming that that is not how filiations worked.

It is not true to say there is no risk of confusion. The casual reader will not know what "l" is supposed to mean, and should not be expected to guess.

As for consistency, you are more than welcome to change the other three letters to small caps as well. As well as consistency and legibility, this would have the merits of

• reflecting more closely the ancient appearance of inscriptions etc, and
• consistency with the explanation that you wrote under "filiation".---Ehrenkater (talk) 15:41, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

It's not how filiations work in published sources that aren't carved in stone. Most modern typeset works don't use small caps for filiations, and none use it solely for the letter 'l'. Any source that uses small caps uses it for all of the letters, but the majority don't use them for any. You're inventing a novel convention and demanding that this one article abide by it—or have you decided that all articles on Wikipedia need to follow your ideas, without question, comment, or deference to the other editors in the project, none of whom seem to have any problem with how filiations are given?

There is no risk of confusion whatsoever—the casual reader who does not know what 'l' means is relatively unlikely to be reading about Roman gentes, but if it happens, what it means becomes no more apparent because it's in small caps. The distinction will be completely lost on anyone who doesn't know what a filiation is or what it means. But that's why the members section of every single article about a Roman gens that contains filiations (all but the very shortest) begin with a handy template that takes readers directly to the explanation!

It is quite irrelevant whether I chose to use a different style for rendering names for a particular reason in another article—especially considering that in that article I was speaking specifically of names as they appear in inscriptions, and names as names, which is not at all what this article or any other article on a Roman gens does. All of the members sections in all articles on Roman gentes provide, as nearly as possible, a full tria nomina (plus additional names, when they exist) in the nominative case with a filiation, and without voting tribe or other data included as part of the name, although relevant information may follow it. It does not matter whether the name is rendered in this or any other form in an inscription—they're not in all caps, they have spacing, the distinguish between 'I' and 'J' and between 'U' and 'V', they have no apices, spelling variations and mistakes and non-standard abbreviations are not usually noted in individual entries. These are not intended to represent facsimiles of inscriptions, and are not limited to Roman epigraphic practices.

I'm glad to know that I'm welcome to agree with you and accept your point of view. Please, be assured that you are equally welcome to adopt mine. P Aculeius (talk) 02:05, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Lucius Artorius Castus

An anonymous user 2603:8000:CF40:2EDB:493E:259E:9091:86C8 states that LEGG means detachments. I found inscriptions where VEXILL LEG(G) means detachments of the legion(s). In trismegistos LEGG is an abbreviation of Legions (https://www.trismegistos.org/abb/list.php?abb=LEGG&abb_type=exact&abb_word=&abb_word_type=exact&abb_length=&abb_size=&freq=&comb=AND&search=Search). I think this user is hiding important information by saying that my last edit is a pet theory. I think that the several results for VEXILL LEG(G) different from LEGG (legionum) in EDCS and the search results in Trismegistos can reject someone's opinion that LEGG means detachments. Emryswledig (talk) 13:41, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

LOL, I have made no such statement anywhere at any time!! Not only are you a liar, Alessandro Faggiani, you are a troll pushing your fringe theories on Lucius Artorius Castus all over Wikipedia, using multiple sockpuppet accounts (including username Artoriusfadianus). Multiple editors are now having to undo the messes you have created on several articles!