Talk:Roscia gens

On Bibliography

For some of these articles on the gens the bibliography has become so extensive that it might be useful to divide it into separate sections listing the primary sources (e.g. Cicero, Livy, Tacitus), & secondary sources (e.g. Mommsen, Broughton, Syme, Eck). Does that suggestion appeal to anyone else? If so, perhaps this should be added to the Best practices for WPCGR articles. There are ample precedents in the existing literature: that is, a lot of books on ancient history topics do this. -- llywrch (talk) 19:33, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I understand the reasoning, and it could certainly be useful to separate "ancient" and "modern" sources for this project, but I do have some concerns. One is that the distinction between primary and secondary sources is not always apparent in the case of ancient works. As I recall, Wikipedia considers a source "primary" when it concerns facts in the direct knowledge of the author, rather than those compiled from other sources, including primary sources. By the definitions we use, some ancient sources are primary (i.e. Cicero, when recording contemporary events, things he witnessed or participated in), some secondary (Livy, compiling histories from earlier writers, traditional stories, and eyewitness accounts), some tertiary (compendiums like the Suda, the Digest, maybe Zonaras). So these labels may not fit. I also worry that the label "primary" is still used by some editors as jargon for "unreliable", despite official policy stating otherwise. I still see people complaining about biographical articles that rely chiefly on ancient sources, even though those are the only sources cited in the secondary or tertiary literature, which contribute no more than analysis (if they do that at all; sometimes they just summarize what the ancient writers said, without any obvious commentary, which is why they may not be cited).

For that matter, I'm not sure about distinguishing between secondary and tertiary sources in some modern cases; I assume that PW and DGRBM and such are tertiary sources, while Broughton is secondary, but are inscriptionary sources, like CIL and AE secondary or tertiary? And does it make sense to make this distinction in the bibliography? Also, while you didn't mention it here, you alphabetized the modern sources other than encyclopedic ones; this can make it easy to find a particular source, but has the disadvantage of listing older and newer sources in mixed order. I think it may be just as useful to note which modern sources are 18th, 19th, or early 20th century, and which are later 20th and 21st century, particularly when the latest sources may significantly affect the interpretation of older sources, (even though they may still be important). I wouldn't think we'd want to specify which order is "best practice", since there are good arguments for both, and some articles may be better in one order, some in the other. P Aculeius (talk) 03:21, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

First, @P Aculeius: you are very likely right about preferring using the labels "ancient" & "modern" over "Primary" & "Secondary" sources. Further, my separation of encyclopedic-like sources from other secondary sources was more of a last-minute thought, based on the fact they represented collections of articles/reference works that probably should be distinguished from the average secondary source. And beyond suggesting folks consider it, I'm not going to expect any further attention.

Now to discuss the first point more extensively.

The entire reason this insistence on "secondary sources" was not to disparage primary sources -- which are preferred in all other situations. It was to prevent, or at least minimize, the presence of personal & fringe theories on the included subjects. (Specifically, articles where someone writes along the lines, "If you consider fact A, fact B, & fact C, then it's clear my theory is right & all of the other people -- including experts who have spent years studying the subject -- are wrong.") I know this because I had a hand in creating this policy. However, over the years it's become clear that there are many areas where to write a usable article one has to directly use primary sources to present a decent article to cover the subject. The history of ancient Greece & Rome is one of those areas: for example it's hard to write a biography on many individuals without directly citing primary sources, because a dearth of scholarly attention to the person. This is the case with many Roman consuls. And an experienced, reasonable Wikipedia editor knows how & can cite properly from these primary sources.

Then there's the issue, as you pointed out, that the classifications of "primary", "secondary", & "tertiary" sources don't properly fit many works dealing with the Classics & Classical history. For instance, specialist encyclopedias don't present the same problem general encyclopedias do, because the former is written by a collection of experts, while the latter is often written by a collection of freelance writers who may have little familiarity with the subject. (Sorta like Wikipedia articles.) Or looking at this another way, if you define "tertiary sources" as works that draw heavily on secondary sources -- provide summaries of those works -- PW doesn't really fit that description. Having read a number of the articles, PW comprises articles written at length directly from the primary sources. "Tertiary source" would better fit a work like The Oxford Classical Dictionary, which articles brief treatments drawn from secondary sources, & rarely refer to the primary sources -- yet are also written by experts.

So to repeat my opening statement, you are likely right about preferring the labels "ancient" & "modern". -- llywrch (talk) 23:54, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for replying! I've learned to take your advice very seriously, no matter where I come down on the issue. You've clearly given this more thought than I have, and you understand the distinctions better. I don't have a strong opinion on this suggestion, except to note that I would have difficulty drawing the distinction between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, especially in cases such as the ancient historians who relied on earlier writers and official records, rather than events in their own experience. As I understand the definition, this should make them secondary sources, not primary. And also, all of the articles on Roman gentes—at least all the ones with bibliographies—list sources in chronological order, which makes it unnecessary to distinguish between ancient and modern sources, as well as presenting the most recent additions to the data together at the end. I realize that this makes it a little harder to spot specific sources by name, but there usually are no more than a dozen modern sources, and since it's easy to search any web page for a word or name, I'm not sure that's a serious handicap. So my basic preference is to follow chronological order, but as I said, I'm not that strongly attached to it, as I've always known that alphabetical order has some advantages. I'll happily leave this one as you arranged it, and let you decide whether you want to reorganize any of the others. P Aculeius (talk) 01:21, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I need to leave a PS here, about inscriptions. (I forgot to discuss this above. And I feel answering your question about this is more important than most of my blather above.) Although it would seem these are primary sources, & thus subject to the restrictions Wikipedia policy puts on them, in some ways they are more like secondary sources: whenever one is published, it is almost always accompanied with commentary written by an expert. Drawing on cursi honorum to write biographies of many -- but not all -- consuls, I have found out of 3-4 dozen inscriptions I've used only one lacking an adequate commentary. And even in that case, since there has been so much written about Senatorial cursi honorum, I didn't feel I was violating WP:NOR in using it. Moreover, inscriptions are almost always fragmentary & thus need to be restored. (You probably noticed this in copying over the Fasti Ostienses & the Fasti Capitolini.) It is easy to confuse the parts of the text which are original with those parts restored -- which is, in the final analysis, speculation -- & mistakenly attribute as a primary source what is properly a secondary one; even the expert academics make this mistake. (E. Badian pointed this fallacy out in a paper entitled "History from Square Brackets".) So citing inscriptions is not properly the same as citing primary sources. -- llywrch (talk) 06:36, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I've never given much thought to whether ancient sources are primary or secondary, and to be honest without separating them into these categories I wouldn't see the need to. It's not that I don't recognize the weaknesses; I've seen enough Livy, Dionysius, and Cassius Dio to know that some of what they reported is contradicted by other sources, and they freely admitted that they sometimes had conflicting traditions about what happened. But then, modern sources on the same topics often have the same dilemma! Which version of events do you choose for your narrative, and do you mention the alternatives? I know that inscriptions might contain inaccuracies, but so can encyclopedias. We cite the best sources we can find, and if they show a mistake or there's an alternative interpretation, we can note that. Obviously I'm not going to cite an inscription that says, "I, Marcus Claudius Ptolemaeanus, am the greatest actor of all time!" except for the fact that he boasted of it (that would actually be rather nifty). As long as an inscription appears to be an ordinary account of who was related to whom, what offices were held, how old the person was (or was thought to be) when he died, etc., there's no reason to exclude it, IMO. That there's commentary is great—but I rarely get to see it! All I can usually report is what the current scholarly restoration says it said, and if that changes, or there's a dispute, then there's the edit button! But the fact that inscriptions could be viewed as mingling primary and secondary sources, both of them usable in Wikipedia, underscores my concern that trying to distinguish between them in the bibliography may be more problematic than helpful. P Aculeius (talk) 13:11, 9 August 2018 (UTC)