Talk:List of battles before 301

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Shouldn't the Battle of the Spurs be named Battle of the Golden Spurs? Google gives 430 hits for the first and 413 for the last, so the difference is almost negligable. Moreover, in Dutch/Flemish the battle is known as "Guldensporenslag", not as "Sporenslag". -- Guy

I think the Battle of the Golden Spurs was different from the Battle of the Spurs. I'd just like to say that I don't think sacks of cities, or captures of cities after sieges should be on this list (or the other battle lists, I suppose) john 22:06 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Title of page

I added the Battle of Megiddo which takes place before 1400 BC.

Should the title be changed to 1500 BC - AD 600?

What about 'List of battles before AD 601'? That would cover any other earlier battles that people might wish to add. jguk 06:48, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind that, though some may wish for this to be as specific as possible, and I don't know of any battles that happened prior to 1500 BC. Richard Cane 23:32, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why not more biblical battles?

Surely there are a lot more battles in the Bible that could be listed here? Of course, they'd all have to be marked as being of uncertain provenance, but they should still be there if the battles of Troy and Mount Gilboa are. —Simetrical (talk) 02:42, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Be bold --Will2k 04:38, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Keeping a battle off this list simply because it appears in the Bible is POV. 139.78.10.1 00:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Battle of Claudine Forks or Caudine Forks??

Google gives 22600 hits for the Caudine and only 1190 for Claudine. Besides there is a page about Battle of Caudine Forks and none about Battle of Claudine Forks in wikipedia.-Davi

That was a typo I guess. It's fixed now, thanks! Adam Bishop 00:45, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Formatting

The formatting of this page seems a bit poor. It's inconsistent, punctuation marks aren't used to put breaks between date, name, and description, etc. Currently it looks like this:

• 479 BC -
  • August 20 Battle of Plataea End of the Persian invasion of Greece, Mardonius routed by Pausanias, the Spartan commander of the Greek army
  • Battle of Mycale Greeks under Leotychidas, King of Sparta, sailed to Asia Minor to attack beached Persian fleet, then destroyed trapped Persian army of 60,000
• 474 BC Battle of Cumae The Syracusans under Hiero I defeat the Etruscans and end Etruscan expansion in southern Italy.

My proposal (I rather like tables):

Year	Date	Name	Summary
479 BC	August 20	Battle of Plataea	End of the Persian invasion of Greece, Mardonius routed by Pausanias, the Spartan commander of the Greek army
		Battle of Mycale	Greeks under Leotychidas, King of Sparta, sailed to Asia Minor to attack beached Persian fleet, then destroyed trapped Persian army of 60,000
474 BC		Battle of Cumae	The Syracusans under Hiero I defeat the Etruscans and end Etruscan expansion in southern Italy.

The principal problem with this is that it doesn't handle wrapping correctly, which is rather unfortunate. (Why doesn't MediaWiki support <col>? Is there any other way to get the first three columns to not wrap?) Still, there's room for improvement over the current setup, whether through tables or otherwise. Anyone have any ideas? —Simetrical (talk) 01:29, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Battle of Syracuse or Siege of Syracuse?

Should the suppression of Syracuse's rebellion during the Second Punic War be called the Battle of Syracuse or the Siege of Syracuse? This is the battle where Archimedes supposedly used mirrors to sink a roman fleet. 139.78.120.21 21:06, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Renaming Poll @ Battle of Herdonia

I have nominated the "Battle of Herdonia" (212 BC) page to be renamed "First Battle of Herdonia" since there is a Second Battle of Herdonia (210 BC). If you wish to vote, follow this link to that battle's talk page. Roy Al Blue 20:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Current results: Support: 0, Oppose 1. Roy Al Blue 01:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Fifth Century Clear!

All fifth century battles listed on this page now have at least a stub. No red links left for that century. Roy Al Blue 01:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

First Century Clear!

The same is now true of the First Century A.D. Roy Al Blue 04:05, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Fifth Century BC Clear!

No more red links for the Fifth Century B.C. Roy Al Blue 13:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Fourth Century Clear!

The Fourth Century can now be added to the list of centuries with all battle links going somewhere. Roy Al Blue 21:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Sixth Century Clear!

I have eliminated the last red link to a battle in the sixth century. Roy Al Blue 02:38, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Third Century Clear!

All red-link battles in the third century have now been made into stubs. Roy Al Blue 03:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Second Century BC Clear!

The Second Century BC has all battles filled in with at least a stub now. Roy Al Blue 13:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Second Century Clear!

That takes care of the red-link battles in the Second Century. Roy Al Blue 14:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Fourth Century BC Clear!

One more century free of missing articles. Roy Al Blue 14:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Wrong Chronology

Hello

I just noticed that 330BCE is before 331BC. I would solve it myself, but I just want to be sure that it was a mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shadow phoenix (talk • contribs) 10:37, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Repeated entry

The battle of Adys is repeated in more then one year (256 and 255 BCE). Even if there is doubts about the exact start of the battle it should appear only in one year. Shadow phoenix (talk) 15:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing entry's that don't link to an article.

It seems that people have been removing entries from this list because they don't point to an article. I don't think this is the right course of action, unless the entry itself is in error. A battle might have occurred and been included on this list, but was not important enough to have its own article.--SkiDragon (talk) 03:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Hamoukar

Should the destruction of Hamoukar be included in the list? To quote the wikipedia article on it "Recent excavation work undertaken in 2005 and 2006 has shown that this city was destroyed by warfare by around 3500 BC-—probably the earliest urban warfare attested so far in the archaeological record of the Near East." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.61.84.253 (talk) 22:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I am slowly going through all the battles and found the list is missing the Battle of Beroe (250) as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beroe Tpsreport84 (talk) 16:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I'm going through the entire list and found two more missing battles, Beroe (250) and Nicopolis ad Istrum (250). Tpsreport84 (talk) 17:13, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Here are more battles that need adding from the naval battle list: Battle of Alashiya 1275-1205 BCE, Battle of the Delta 1190 BCE, Battle of Aegina 458 BCE, Battle of Pharos 383/384 BCE, Battle of the Strait of Messina 276 BCE, Battle of Paxos 229 BCE, Battle of Carteia 206 BCE, Battle of Chalcedon 74 BCE, Battle of Tenedos 73 BCE, Battle of Dongkou 222/223 CE, and the Battle of Xiling 272 CE (though this is buried in the Lu Kang article. Tpsreport84 (talk) 16:51, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Missing Battles

I wasn't sure how to add the 3rd century CE battles of Jianwei and Mount Qi while on my phone. Tpsreport84 (talk) 14:17, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I have added the Battle of Mount Qi but not Jianwei as according to the article text there was no battle because the Wei retreated wihout fighting. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:33, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Issues with 3rd Century CE

Below is a list of edits needed, but I don't know how to do them on my phone.

267 Battle of Thermopylae links to 254 Battle of Thermopylae, which is not listed. There is no article for a Battle of Thermopylae in 267 yet.

Need to add entries for the Battles of Nicopolis ad Istrum and Beroe.

Possibly add Siege of Tyana 272, though it seems more of a minor skirmish.

Battle of Callinicum 296 links to a Sixth Century battle.

Battle of Carrhae 296 is missing from the list. Tpsreport84 (talk) 17:13, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

More Missing Battles

I don't know how to add entries to the list via my phone, so here is a list of battles that need adding: Battle of Alashiya 1275-1205 BCE, Battle of the Delta 1190 BCE, Battle of Aegina 458 BCE, Battle of Pharos 383/384 BCE, Battle of the Strait of Messina 276 BCE, Battle of Paxos 229 BCE, Battle of Carteia 206 BCE, Battle of Chalcedon 74 BCE, Battle of Tenedos 73 BCE, Battle of Dongkou 222/223 CE, and the Battle of Xiling 272 CE (though this is buried in the Lu Kang article. Tpsreport84 (talk) 16:52, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Remove Location column?

The current list is in table form, and has a "location" column, allowing the table to be sorted on that. While that may sound useful, it really isn't, because the location is based on modern countries like Syria, Israel, PRC, and Germany, not ones contemporary with the battle. The fact it uses modern national flags makes it even more anachronistic, misleading, confusing, and jarring to readers. Many, if not most, readers aren't even familiar with all the flags being used.

Unless someone comes up with some way to make this actually useful, I will delete this column. I will then later propose the same for List of battles 301-1300 as well.

Comments? --A D Monroe III^(talk) 01:10, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Here's a comment from one of the only people watching these articles. I singlehandedly put all of the flags into this article, the other ones already had them though. What's done is done though I guess, though putting the flags back would be fine. I disagree about them being useless, instead of anachronistic I see them as a useful reference of where a battle would be located today. I knew many of the flags just as I knew a lot of the battles, and I learned more from their presence here. If nothing else, I see them as a handy reference of where a battle would've been located so I would disagree with you removing them from the other article. J390 (talk) 01:59, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I feel like they are a good reference just like the description. If we are interested in articles like this, we wouldn't be confused. We know there's a difference between whatever country existed and where the location would be today. J390 (talk) 02:01, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate that it took a lot of work to add these; it took a lot of work to remove them without messing up something else. But, putting work into something doesn't, by itself, make it valuable; if I spend $1000 every month repairing my old car, that doesn't make it a good car.

They are definitely wikt:anachronistic -- "not applicable to or not appropriate for the time". These flags represent the very latest political situations thousands of years after the subjects of this article occurred. It's hard to think of anything less appropriate for the time. Readers will first encountering these will find them jarring, and immediately wonder if they got the wrong article -- something we generally work hard to avoid.

If we decide it is of primary and immediate importance for the reader to know where a battle was, this is a poor way to do it, as it's only at the granularity of a nation. So, the battle a reader is interested in took place in the PRC? Somewhere thousands of miles across? Clicking on the flag leads them away from information on the battle they're interested in. Clicking on the link to the battle, which is already provided, leads them directly to the most useful information we have, including where it took place with the best precision available. For many ancient battles, the location is debated or takes some context to understand. Flags can't handle this.

We seem to agree most readers likely have a lot to learn about all these flags; many will have no idea at all what many of the flags are. Yes, if they keep clicking on these at random, they may learn something about them. But making it the job of this article to teach readers about modern flags is contrary to the actual purpose of this article, diluting it and making it a poorer article. We have other articles that are specifically about flags.

Readers with a high level of experience with the subject won't need the flags. Readers with a limited experience with the subject -- our target WP reader -- will be readily confused, unless they ignore them. That makes them a net detriment by a wide margin. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 00:09, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate your interest in this somewhat neglected article, I have interest in them as well. I know you put work into what you did too, I was not trying to argue the location's relevance from an emotional vantage point. I felt like location was as important as date and description, from a context I think I get archeologically since some battles were excevated, and these are trivia pages already. But this article is very far back, and a lot of locations are quite difficult to pin down because of how far back it is, much moreso than later battles would ever be. Of all the battle articles, location is out of place on this one by far the most. I don't know why it's not in the articles for more modern battles out of all of them, I would do them if I ever wanted to put away the time. Do as you wish for this page for the battles before 301, my main concern is for all the battles left out, not the flags. But do not touch the other pages; when you get outside the ancient world into the midieval and early modern world location suddenly has a great deal more bearing on context than before as far as informing on it. J390 (talk) 00:32, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Given this agreement, on this article, I have removed the location column. Thanks for the input. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 23:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)