Talk:Tigranes (legendary)

Legendary?

Definitively calling this figure legendary goes massively beyond our evidence. We have two quite reliable historical sources that independently discuss him, and present very grounded accounts of what he did, mainly the sort of politicking that was common at the time. I propose renaming the page since there is no good reason to be dogmatic on the fact that this figure is legendary; indeed very little written about him in our ancient sources seems to merit the term. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 21:28, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Could you please demonstrate so? Because the sources in this article heavily contradicts that. Its also no secret that the Cyropaedia and book of Movses has a lot of fictional stuff (see also WP:PRIMARY). HistoryofIran (talk)

What sources? It cites the one single Shahbazi guy for basically everything. The events in Xenophon's work are quite accurate (he was the only ancient sources besides Daniel for instance to record that a king of Babylon died in Cyrus' conquest). Movses Khorenatsi's work is even better. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 23:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

You also removed a source that disagrees with you when you made the change, I notice. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 23:54, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

This "Shahbazi" guy is only a well established historian who didn't live 2500 or 1500 years ago. James R. Russell (whom I assume you're acquainted with) is also listed in the source section, but hasn't been cited;

• "So both ancient tradition and continuing rivalry undoubtedly led Movses Xorenac'i, and, one would add, most likely his principal source, to confuse and conflate the ancient, Orontid Tigran who had been a friend of Cyrus, conqueror of the Medes, with his much more famous and recent namesake." / "Movses Xorenac'i, fusing the two Tigrans but referring explicitly to the Orontid one, writes that Tigran brought empire, peace, happiness, and abudance to Armenia" (page 1041-1042).
• "There were at least two important historical Tigrans in Armenia: one the the son of Artaxias I in the second century B.C., and the second the one styled Tigran the Great, son-in-law of Mithradates of Pontus, who briefly challenged the Romans in Asia. Oral epic apparently conflated these two with yet a third- the Tigran of the source, presumably oral, of the Cyropaideia, from the sixth century B.C." (page 622).

Other authors who states the same:

• "It is not surprising therefore that between AD 440 and 840 early Armenian historians, such as Moses of Khoren, who did not have our historical and archeological data, recorded the oral tradition by substituting Babylon for Assyria and the Haik dynasty for the Urartian rulers in Armenia. He also used the legends of Tigran and Azhdahak, Artashes and Satenik and Ardavazd to form his history of the Armenians. The aim was not accuracy but rather a sure place for the Armenians in the history of Christianity, a religion that the Armenians had by then embraced wholeheartedly." - pages 16-17, A Concise History of the Armenian People by George Bournoutian
• "By contrast, in the Cyropaedia the author uses the Armenians in order to describe a special, but fictitious, relationship between the latter and the emergent Achaemenid empire; additionally, within the Armenian nation, there stands out a figure, likewise fictitious, portrayed as their king Tigran, one of the leading allies of the Xenophontean Cyrus, and overall a major personality of the whole work." - page 73, Greek Texts and Armenian Traditions, De Gruyter

Shahbazi even basically states that this narrative being fictional is not some secret or brand new discovery, citing a source as old as the 1898 Bemerkungen zur persischen Sagengeschichte as proof (page 132).

So, no, this figure being legendary does clearly not go "massively beyond our evidence." And what source did I remove? "T︠S︡ari Armenii: slovo o 141 t︠s︡are Armenii" by Hayk Khachatryan which fails WP:VER and seemingly WP:RS? I'm honestly quite surprised that we are having this discussion, since the legend of Tigranes is obvious fairytale, as demonstrated in the article and elsewhere. --HistoryofIran (talk) 01:40, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Your first quote is an admission that this Tigran I was a real person; otherwise who would there be to fuse? Same for your second, saying it comes from an oral source. What exactly are you expecting to see in terms of evidence for this Tigranes? We're not exactly awash with sources on Armenian history from this time. Movses Khorenatsi is the first and, unsurprisingly, he writes of him. The other place we'd expect to find such a figure mentioned is through his connection with Cyrus and, sure enough, in Xenophon's biography there he is. Calling it an "obvious fairytale" is absolutely absurd; he's not some sort of wizard slaying dragons, he's the ruler of a middle-weight regional power politicking in Persian affairs. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 18:20, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Not at all. The first quote says that Tigranes is a fusion of two actual historial figures who lived in different periods, which means he is fictional. The second quote further verifies this by saying that those two figures were the only historical ones. As for the rest, please read WP:POV and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. HistoryofIran (talk) 19:31, 22 April 2023 (UTC)