Talk:Campaign history of the Roman military

Note on footnote format

I am shortly going to edit the article now to replace all footnotes with the type of hovernote detailed in Template:hnote. This will remove the list of footnotes from the bottom of the article. Each footnote is accessbile as alternative text when hovering the mouse over the footnote key (N) in question. I realise this template is not widely used and may even cause problem for somone with a text-based article, but the fact is the article is getting too long with several screens worth of footnotes. This is an easy way of reducing the amount of screen estate given over to footnotes. If you have any concerns over this style and template use, please air them here. Thanks - PocklingtonDan 21:53, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm concerned with this change. Wikipedia:Accessibility tells us not to use hover text because screen readers won't read it (and I tested it with Fangs, a JAWS simulator, and that seems to be true). I don't know how well our usual links-to-notes system works for screen readers, but this one you've changed to doesn't work at all.

I wouldn't be too concerned about the screen space taken up by the notes. It'd be nice to reduce them where possible (thus my previous suggestion of merging the dupes), but screen space isn't so precious (especially at the end of the article) that you should sacrifice accessibility in favor of shrinking the page. I recognize that you had to put quite a lot of work into this to make the change, but I'd recommend reverting.

And, incidentally, you didn't put the footnote markers after the punctuation as you ought to have done. You'll want to correct that, whatever you choose to do. --Sopoforic 00:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input on this subject. I will have a good think about how to format these footnotes and may well revert - what would be ideal would be if I oculd format the footnotes in three shorter colukmns, but this doesn't seem to be technically possible at present. As for the placement of the footnote markers before or after punctuation, this is another example of imperial collonial differences I think! (ie the American style differs from the British style, as discussed in part here). Whilst its always good to have uniformity, its also good to allow for cultural differences - wikipedia already allows for local-language-variation spellings (ie "British English") in articles etc, I don't see that allowing "British English" punctuation style causes a great deal of problems so long as the article is internally consistent. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 09:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

As I said before, if you used named refs then the list will be much shorter. There are lots of duplicates in the list that could be eliminated. Regarding the footnote markers: I'm aware that the British convention is the put the punctuation outside the quotation marks--but the footnote guidelines specifically say "Wikipedia uses American convention for the placing of reference tags." I don't especially care, personally, since I don't think it's especially important. As long as you're consistent within the article I'll be happy.

If you want, I can go through and fix all of the duplicate refs, so you can see what it would look like without dupes. I'll try it later this evening, perhaps. --Sopoforic 18:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

If you're willing to put all that effort in then I would be grateful, if you don't get a chance then this might be something I could look at tackling tomorrow - PocklingtonDan 18:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. I removed 97 duplicate refs, so the list as 3 columns is shrunk by 32 lines. I returned it to the 3-column format since that's what I was using while finding the duplicate refs. When the box is hidden, clicking on the superscripts doesn't show the footnotes, so you probably shouldn't use that again. I fixed several typos in the footnotes, too. The list is still a bit over a page, but it's not so bad, I think. Screen space at the end of an article is cheap. --Sopoforic 20:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Brilliant, many thanks for your help with this, sterling work! I'm still waiting for someone besides me to copyedit so I'm sure there are still a few typos lurking about here and there but I think I have cleared most of them from the main body of the article at least now. Thanks again - PocklingtonDan 21:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

ID of reference

One of the refs listed is: Nigel Rodgers, From the Rise of the Republic and the Might of the Empire to the Fall of the West, unknown publisher, unknown date. Does that refer to this book? I didn't add the ref, so I'm not sure, but it seems likely. If so, then you you now have the info you need for publisher/date/isbn. --Sopoforic 23:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, Heather, P., The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History, MacMillan Press, 2005, ISBN 0-330-49136-9. This indicates that is was published by macmillan press, but my research indicates that it was published by Pan Macmillan, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers. I don't have access to the book itself, but whoever added that ref should check to see who actually published it. --Sopoforic 23:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Soporific, I'll look into both of these and correct as needed. Thanks - PocklingtonDan 06:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Nits from Dave, Part 1

1. city, state and empire. The term in general use is city-state. There was no city without being state. Perhaps "city-state of Italy"?

Agreed, much better phrasing, have updated this now. - PocklingtonDan 19:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Bolding. The bolded phrases in the intro now do not match the title. "Military history" need a link rather than bolding and the other one if linked would redirect to the same article.

Thats something I just wasn't seeing the wood for the trees over, thanks! Corrected now - PocklingtonDan 19:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep, good point. Changed now - PocklingtonDan 21:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Split from east. East what? The reader has not yet been told of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Good point, ammended now - PocklingtonDan 21:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Bloody-minded. Too judgemental. In their minds they were just defending themselves not trying to kill people. They almost always allowed surrender and did not massacre. The gladiatorial games were another matter.

Bloody-minded doesn't always mean literally with blood on the mind, it means something like "stubborn","cantankerous" and "Ready and willing to accept bloodshed or to resort to violence". I wasn't trying to emphasise the Romans' killing of other peoples but rather their acceptance of massive losses themselves and not seeing that as a deterrent, ie in the punic war, or in the numerous cases where a slaughtered army was simply replaced by another one. It's hard to argue that the Romans shied away from blood, they didn't, and they were willing to pursue goals against great losses of manpower. This is what I am trying to get across - PocklingtonDan 21:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Whilst. This is archaic and is considered bombastic and oratorical. A charismatic professor in a military academy might stand up and bombast away to a delighted audience of teen-age lions but I think it looks out of place in an encyclopedia.

Yoiks. I didn't even realise until I did a find and replace just how often I used "hilst". Chalk me up as bombastic! Fixed now - PocklingtonDan 19:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. through towards. Awkward. I still ain't sure what it means.

yep, awkward, revised wording now. whole article could probably benefit from a copyedit - PocklingtonDan 19:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Rome apparently lacks the processs..... Too much of a conclusion. The main problem was the total destruction of Rome by the Celts, which took away all their inscriptions and books. I suppose if you razed the city now you might find fragments of inscribed stone reused (guess). Livy does mention that.

You're quite right, the religious figures at least were literate in the early years, so it is possible there are lost written histories that haven't survived. Hadn't considered this, updated the article to reflect this now - PocklingtonDan 21:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. in the nifty blue box. "than" instead of "that."

thanks, corrected now. I keep finding more and more typos, easy to see why spellcheck missed that one! - PocklingtonDan 19:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. apocryphal. This is the very first time I have ever seen that word in this context; moreover, the article linked by the apocryphal title in the box does not mention it. I don't like it. This is an attempt to link in the apocryphal books of the Bible and brand them as mythological. Let's keep the two separate, shall we? Legendary will do just fine.

Must disagree with you on this one. My dictionary defines the primary definition of apcryphal as "being of questionable authenticity". I feel there is an important distinction between this and "legendary", which has unfortunate connotations of "heroic", "Extremely well known", and "entirely fictional". Apocryphal rather means questionable, but not certainly fictional. It is a useful word and I can't think of a suitable subsitute here - PocklingtonDan 21:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Notes. Lots of notes, not many references and not much said by the notes. Noteworthily absent are the professional articles you find online in large numbers.

I tend not to use footnotes but just references to cite facts. I find footnotes distracting even in a book (having to scan to the bottom of the page) let alone on a webpage (having to scroll down to the foot and losing your place). I don't tend to work from online sources much either since all the best ones tend only to be accessible by JSTOR and I no longer have access. The more popular, open pages I do not trust since they state facts without references and have not undergone peer review before "publication" on the web. If there are some great online secondary sources, I will gladly include them if you let me know of them - PocklingtonDan 21:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Little is known. Vastly overworked phrase. You only have to use it up front once.

Good point. Removed second instance - readers already know at this point the reason for lack of detail is lack of extant information - PocklingtonDan 21:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. The Veii. I never heard of any tribal Veii. It is strictly a city name I believe. Many Greek and Roman cities were in the plural, such as Mycenae, Athenai. But anyway, it probably was not an Indo-european name and so its final form is only a twist.

Well spotted, my fault, the correct term for the (city-based) people of Veii should be "Veientes", will change this now - PocklingtonDan 21:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Re-established. Re-established? Not to my knowledge. What do you mean there, the interregna? But was there not a dictator?

I really meant something closer to "(restructured itself) as a republic" rather than "established itself as a republic again". Altered the wording now to make this clearer - PocklingtonDan 19:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much. More later if you still have the heart for it. Most excellent format.Dave 18:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the great feedback, I am working through the article addressing these points now - PocklingtonDan 19:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Almost done correcting these points, I'm a glutton for punishment so feel free to dish up some more problems you find - PocklingtonDan 21:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

point 4 isn't always that clear some books write about the relationship between Boii and Romans that the latter did intent to kill them all. Should perhaps receive some research. Polybius account about the taking of Carthage in Spain comes to my mind. He explicitly states there that the Romans made a firxt rush and massacred the population to frighten them. Wandalstouring 19:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Nits Part 2

This is pretty good, I shan't have much to say. I am definitely getting an impression of the sweep of Roman history and the critical role of the military.

• bloody-minded. This is a British provincialism not at all understood by Americans. I can't speak for our brethren in the southern hemisphere.

Ah, OK, wasn't aware this had a different meaning in the US, will change to "stubborn" or similar instead - PocklingtonDan 07:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Notes. I have a suggestion. Where you have a series of notes mentioning a series of pages in the same chapter of the same work, why not cover them in one note; e.g., blah-blah-blah pp xx-yy and have only one reference to that note at the end of the paragraph. There are some scholarly abbreviations insisted upon by professors in my youth but of which I have not seen much lately: ibid. "the same place", op cit., "the work just cited", loc. cit., "the place just cited."

I did think of doing that but it seems that Ibid and Opcit etc are explicitly advised against by wikipedia in that if someone inserts a new reference between your two references, the ibid is then thrown out of sequence and the cite points then to a different work, which is obviously a problem. I realise I have cited several items separetly in some sentences but this is because in those sentences all those points were explicitly made in the source and I feel someone might reasonably request a cite for certain of the facts in the sentence even whilst accepting the general thrust of the sentence as a whole. Better to head that off now than spend hours trying to find a cite if someone tags something as {{citation}} at a later date. What I do need to do is complete the naming of the references, which should remove duplicate references from being listed twice in the footnotes. - PocklingtonDan 07:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't know that. But how are you going to do that if you throw the article away?Dave 02:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Early Italy...

• defense for defence

The whole article is actually meant to be in British/Commonwealth english, so all the spelling should be in this form. I might have got a mix going on though because i lived in the US for a while and my spelling tends to be "translantic"! - PocklingtonDan 07:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Well Dan, don't take me TOO seriously. You have to assert yourself as a writer. There never lived a writer who did not nitpick other writers. I will tell myself to go to the hot place for you.Dave 02:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Suggest indent quote with : for readability.

Good idea. Done this for the large multi-line quote, left the smaller 2-3 word quotes in-line in the prose - PocklingtonDan 07:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• the capture of fidenae needs a comma before

Fixed - PocklingtonDan 07:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• verb before still minor

Fixed - PocklingtonDan 07:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• only just even - meaningless in American English. Must be a British provincialism. Maybe it is time for a Wikipedia in British English.

That was just lack of copyediting, doesn't scan well in British English either! - PocklingtonDan 07:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Period after Greeks.

Fixed - PocklingtonDan 07:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Celtic invasion

• Too many this. Sound like Greek, but the Greek had concrete uses for this.

Not following you here I'm afraid, can you explain the problem?? - PocklingtonDan 07:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I only meant there seemed one too many "this." For the rest, no problem, forget it. Leave it if you want.

• particularly warlike. I'm against it. No more warlike than the others.

I don't know, I have two cites that they were a particularly warlike tribe. Granted, both sources are from a Roman POV, but that's not really all that relevant, since the Romans clearly considered them more warlike than other Gallic/Celtic tribes. I could change "particularly warlike tribe" to "tribe the Romans considered to be particularly warlike" if you want? My thoughts are that that would be a bit clunky - PocklingtonDan 07:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

OK. Just a thought. Leave it. When I say "I'm against" I don't mean "I oppose this horrible deadly mistake with my entire soul", I only mean "Gee Dan, I just had a tentative and transitory impression, what do you think?"

expansion into Italia

• meaningless then set off by commas.

Fixed - PocklingtonDan 08:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• to which the Latins submitted is the formerly correct way - you starting a language revolution?

Awkward phrasing fixed - PocklingtonDan 08:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Dave 00:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

fac archive

Withdrawn FAC archived here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Map Request Details

As per the map request template, I need some help with maps please. The article has several maps in it, but all are shown in different scales, different details, different colours etc (one is even just a satellite photo). I would be looking for a unified series of maps to use in this article, each to replace the existing maps/satellite photos used, and each ideally showing invasions using arrows (I could provide all this info where it isn't obvious from the article text). Let me know if this is possible and if you are able to help out. Thanks - PocklingtonDan 14:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The Map of the Punic Empire is wrong. Will create a new one within the next days. Wandalstouring 00:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Map sourcing

• Image:English-Pyrrhus-route.png
• Image:Caesar campaigns gaul.gif
• Image:Roemischeprovinzentrajan.png
• Image:Alemanni expansion.png (in German, may have source but it isn't clear to me)

These maps are not clear about what information they use to draw their borders. They may be from reliable source but this must be marked. Their copyrights are fine but the information they contain may not be. Can users find replacements if sources for these cannot be found, or somehow find out some sources. This is separate from the new map-making request above so if replacements are made then these can be discarded. gren グレン 09:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Purinos Polemos?

Assuming that the words are derived from Greek, some kind of specification would be nice (e.g. who coined the term, as Numantia wasn't a Greek-speaking region IMO). --Brand спойт 22:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Removed this now, not giving latin or greek names for any of the other wars, so this was an odd man out - PocklingtonDan (talk) 13:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Third Serville War - 120,000 or 150,000?

Seems to be a difference of opinion between this article, and the one on the Third Servile War about the number of rebelling slaves involved - and both seems to have a supporting source. So which is it? :) - 74.13.4.220 01:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the ancient Romans didn't have census counts for rebelling slaves and were a little prone to exaggeration so in all likelihood neither figure is correct. If there is a cite for both figures though I will change to "between 120,000 and 150,000" and include both cites - PocklingtonDan (talk) 09:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Campaignboxes

This WAS a top-notch article and had a top-notch format when Dan Pocklington finished with it. We even had Bill Thayer putting a hand in. However, maybe you have noticed the big wide spaces that have opened up in the Punic Wars articles. The reason for the spaces is the new campaignboxes. That is why I personally never use the campaignboxes. They are BROKEN, BROKEN, BROKEN! These Punic War campaignboxes are unacceptable in such fine articles for two reasons: 1) They are broken 2) They are redundant. Now, I don't have time at the moment to find out who did it and address that person personally. As far as I'm concerned, it is vandalism. You must have seen the effect when you put them in! So what I am going to do is comment them out and leave it up to YOU to work on the two issues I mentioned. There are different things you might do. First is abandon the campaignbox as hopeless (it has been broken for some time) and find some other way to do it. Second is fix the campaignbox. But then there is the redundancy problem. Too many boxes with the same title! I'll be repeating this message everywhere I find the campaignbox vandalism.Dave 05:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dave, thanks for the words on the article - I have pretty much left the article alone since getting it to FA status and allowed the natural drift of the article by passing editors, many of which have corrected certain details. However, I think the campaignboxes have been in the article since pre-FA - I don't have the campaignboxes themselves on my watchlist so I couldn't say whether they have been edited since themselves, but certainly they have always been in place on the page since I used to tend it. I was not aware that the campaignboxes were causing display/layout problems - I've just gone back to an earlier version of the page and checked and they display fine to me (i'm using a browser called "epiphany"). What browser are you using that the campaignboxes cause problems? I do think this would be best handled by correcting any coding in the campaignbox template that is causing layout problems, rather than removing them from the page altogether, since they do contain links to battles it is not possible to mention all of in the prose of the article. Let me know your thoughts and if you are happy to restore the campaignboxes while I try and have a look at the layout problem. If you are able to describe what formatting/layout problems they cause exactly, that might help - where is the white space that you talk about located in relation to the campaignboxes? Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:47, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dan, I uncommented the campaignboxes to show you the effect and lo and behold it is not happening now. I will check the Punic Wars articles also. I doubt if it was my browser. It gets kept up-to-date by MS. It might have been some effect that tweaking usually takes care of; you know, where you put the box, etc. In essence those boxes that I just uncommented were not allowing text to the left resulting in big gaps. Maybe someone retweaked it a bit. Some of the articles I have worked heavily on suffer the same sort of thing. Someone adds some improvements and the next thing you know the layout becomes ridiculous and I have to reformat it. Well, if I can't reproduce the effect this is like taking your car to the garage and asking them to fix a problem that isn't happening at the moment. I'm going to take my comment marks out and if I see it happening again I will just leave you a message. Thanks.Dave 11:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Justinian I

Why is the Byzantine Empire and Justinian I in particular excluded from this article? They were Romans, weren't they? Mallerd 12:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

No, they weren't really Romans, they were Byzantine - in keeping with the tradition of wikipedia and most written work on the topic, the article on Rome covers up to 476 AD and treats post-476 AD in the east as Byzantine history. Post-476 AD events are found in the Byzantine series of articles. The empire in the East after 476 AD was not based in Rome - indeed had no possession of Rome for the vast majority of the time, and was Greek rather than Roman in nature. Consequently, it is not treated as being an extension of but rather a successor to the Roman Empire. Fromt he wikipedia Roman Empire article:

• The end of the Roman Empire is traditionally, if not strictly accurately, placed at September 4 AD 476, when the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, was deposed and not replaced. However, Diocletian, who retired in AD 305, was the last sole Emperor of an undivided Empire whose capital was the City of Rome. After the division of the Empire by Diocletian into East and West, each branch continued to style itself as "The Roman Empire."

As above, wikipedia is just following tradition in accepting 476 AD as the end of the Roman Empire. The Byzantines may have styled themselves the Roman Empire for some time after 476 AD, but then as stated above so did the West. Both had increasingly little in common with the earlier empire. A cutoff must be drawn somewhere - surely you agree that Constantinople in the 1300s was no longer the Roman Empire? - and 476 AD is the traditional date. Much of history involves emphasising certain dates as ends of eras where real life is never so neat. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I was concerned about the fact that the Byzantines called themselves Romans but you are right about maintaining a cutoff. Thanks Mallerd 08:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Date of the main battle

The batles should be presented not only by their name/place but also with the date or at leat the year. Without this, it is impossible to follow the time frame of the campaigns and most are very long. this will accentuate the resiliance of the romans in their first half of history when they suffer continous line of horrific defeats and the strategy was just to send fresh armies until a "deccisive victory" is obtain. In fact this final victory might be just the result of of the enemy'exhaustion and not a fatal blow from a brilliant general.

More some campaigns are concomitent and this is far from obvious. Maybe somebody can make a timeline graph.BdB-18 17:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)