Talk:Campaign history of the Roman military

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Former featured articleCampaign history of the Roman military is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 12, 2008.
Article milestones
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February 5, 2007Featured article candidateNot promoted
February 10, 2007Featured article candidatePromoted
June 5, 2019Featured article reviewDemoted
Current status: Former featured article


Note on footnote format[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

ID of reference[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

Nits from Dave, Part 1[edit]

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

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

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

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)[reply]

Nits Part 2[edit]

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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]

Early Italy...[edit]

  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • the capture of fidenae needs a comma before
Fixed - PocklingtonDan 07:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • verb before still minor
Fixed - PocklingtonDan 07:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • Period after Greeks.
Fixed - PocklingtonDan 07:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Celtic invasion[edit]

  • 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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[edit]

  • meaningless then set off by commas.
Fixed - PocklingtonDan 08:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

Dave 00:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

you still have a "whilst" in there or two. there really needs to be a restriction on the use of that word, which appears with appalling frequency in many Wikipedia articles —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.93.205.118 (talk) 22:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

fac archive[edit]

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

Map Request Details[edit]

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)[reply]

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

Map sourcing[edit]

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)[reply]

Purinos Polemos?[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Third Serville War - 120,000 or 150,000?[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Campaignboxes[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

Justinian I[edit]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]


Of course Byzantines never called themselves Byzantines. They were Romans until the last day. Thats an invention of western scholarships, which was influenced from the 16th century ideology of western kingdoms. As for the end of Roman Empire, after 300 years of academic historical research, this is still disputable, but Wikipedia has come to a conclusion...as Pocklingtondan states....well done Wikipedia...u r solving scientific problems in 4 lines. Both had increasingly little in common with the earlier empire, so tell us, Pocklingtondan, which was the relationship between the Romans of 300 AD and the Romans of 30 BC? Did they have a lot in common, so we can say that they belong to the same state? What do u think that the Roman Empire was? A solid, unchangeable thing which lasted from 14 BC until 476 AD? And when a feature is Roman and when it becomes Byzantine? Will u answer it in 4 lines again to give us a solution? The most annoying thing is that u write with such confidence about matters u approach like a highschool student. I wonder when u will stop seeing things from this poor western view. Poor Byzantines...your faith is in hands of Pocklingtondan... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.72.164.23 (talk) 01:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Date of the main battle[edit]

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)[reply]

Problems with this page[edit]

To me there seem a lot of problems with this page. There are lots of minor false facts e.g. Germanicus invades Britain, the huns appear far too early, before 268 etc. But on the whole the content is O.K. the problem is the structure, associating facts together in other than strict chronilogical order raises as many problems as it solves. I agree that a timeline is needed running down the side of the page. Some mention ought to be made of the change in nature of the army from a militia with allies, to a professional army of legions, to the mobile armies of the Empire with 2-4 emperors. Indeed maybe the page should be split into these three periods. too much is trying to be forced into a small space.Sheredot (talk) 08:37, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where you believe minor innaccuracies have been introduced accidentally or deliberately by vandals, do what you do on any wikipedia article - edit them, if they are unreferenced. However, in terms of the large picture of the content and strucure of the article, this article doesn't need content on the change in the nature of the army, since this is the CAMPAIGN article, and that content you mention is covered in the partnering STRUCTURE article linked to from the menu on the right. - 81.174.157.135 (talk) 05:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"this void may be due to lack the will to record their history at that time, or such histories as they did record were lost" Is is just me, or is there a tiny error in this sentence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.105.67 (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion[edit]

Might want to include the Roman-Kushite conflict just south of Egypt. It is not well known but very interesting. It established Roman Egypt's southern border.Scott Free (talk) 19:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

p.s. The Amanirenas page has some info, but I wouldn't use it verbatum. It is not well sourced. I'll see what I can do to come up with some good info for you.Scott Free (talk) 20:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is very helpful, thank you, please add info on this conflict, I don't think I'm really aware of it - 81.174.157.135 (talk) 05:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Roman Empire lasted until 1453, not 476. And the Eastern Part was much more important from political, social, military and economical point of view from 330 to 476, if we accept this year as an end, than the Western Part. So, add a this article needs improvement, because it's unreliable historically. And read some books before u give a title in an article.

This has been discussed ad infinitum with relation to this and other articles on ancient Rome and a clear consenses was reached that the majority of sources refer to Easter Roman Empire post-476 as Byzantine rather than Roman, hence not covered in this article but in partner articles with "Byzantine" in the title. This is the clear consensus in modern literature meant to address the changed nature of the remaining eastern remnant with its Greek language and customs, loss of Rome the city and differing legal, military and judicial structures, as well as its very different social makeup. When writing a wikipedia article you are reporting on literature on the subject, and the literature makes a clear distinction between Roman (ancient Roman) up to 476 and Byzantine (eastern roman empire) only after 476. As for your flippant comment about reading books, the article is as you can see referenced with hundreds of footnotes from dozens of books and journals. - 81.174.157.135 (talk) 06:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Assessment"[edit]

I found the assessment section interesting but properly should be removed to another entry because one would expect discussion on the impact of Roman military philosophies/techniques rather than a more culture-oriented assessment of the legacy of the Roman rule in Europe. For example, how the Roman military system operated and what exactly happened as a result of the prevalent institutions were in place to induce the kind of behaviour we observed, e.g. the alleged transition from self-sacrifice in the early periods to self-interested behaviours towards the end of the imperial era. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.8.219.216 (talk) 07:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The final paragraph of this section also currently reads like a synthesis. Since its content is necessarily opinion, it would make sense to attribute the opinion to individual historians inline as well as by reference, per WP:SUBSTANTIATE --Rogerb67 (talk) 10:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Current version of this section is rife with conjecture and bias. Is it really necessary to have an Assessment section? Arthurian Legend (talk) 17:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly biased and it seems out of place in this particular article on Roman military campaigns. Since there are four users agreeing that it doesn't add to the article and there are no objections thusfar, I'm removing it; if someone decides to revert my edit please give a valid reason for doing so. 207.133.248.241 (talk) 18:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation help[edit]

The section Campaign history of the Roman military#Struggle with the Sassanid Empire (230–363) contains wikilinks to Antiochia and Siege of Antiochia (the latter redirects to the first, by the way). This is a disambiguation page. Can someone with knowledge of this please disambiguate so the wikilink points to the proper article? Thanks. -Lilac Soul (talk • contribs • count) 07:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Collapse of the Western Empire (402–476)[edit]

The final sentence of the first paragraph in this section reads like a synthesis. It doesn't really add much to the article; unless the idea that disagreement on a date for the fall of the Roman Empire can be attributed to a reliable source, it should be removed. --Rogerb67 (talk) 10:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which Pyrrhus?[edit]

"...such as Pyrrhus and Hannibal..." - Which Pyrrhus is that? -- The wikilink points to a disambigs with many entries -- is it several of them?? 121.44.24.201 (talk) 13:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Poorly Titled Sections like Jewish revolts (66–135)[edit]

For a empire as vast as Rome, I think it is rather futile to try to label long periods by particular names. For example from the section titled Jewish revolts (66–135) the reader would be led to believe that for 70 years the major occupation of the Roman army was to fight the Jews. I believe the wars with the Jews were similar to other revolts that the empire faced on a constant basis on all its frontiers. Also in the period 66-135 we have from another Wiki article: In 112, provoked by Parthia's decision to put an unacceptable king on the throne of Armenia, a kingdom over which the two great empires had shared hegemony since the time of Nero some fifty years earlier, Trajan marched first on Armenia. He deposed the king and annexed it to the Roman Empire. Then he turned south into Parthia itself, taking the cities of Babylon, Seleucia and finally the capital of Ctesiphon in 116. He continued southward to the Persian Gulf, whence he declared Mesopotamia a new province of the empire and lamented that he was too old to follow in the steps of Alexander the Great. But he did not stop there. Later in 116, he captured the great city of Susa. He deposed the Parthian King Osroes I and put his own puppet ruler Parthamaspates on the throne. LuxNevada (talk) 18:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think someone needs to rewrite the section headings, especially as this seems to be a FA LuxNevada (talk) 18:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is someone going to change the section titles or should I give it a go. This article has significant gaps, I wonder how it made it to the front page. LuxNevada (talk) 20:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Main page[edit]

If you're going to feature this article on the main page, might as well block it, lol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.88.48.122 (talk) 14:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. --FilmFan69 (talk) 16:39, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inappropriate map of Ancient Greece[edit]

Image:Athenian empire atheight 450 shepherd1923.png is 200 years prior to the period that it is supposed to be illustrating. Can a better map of the region at the time not be found? 78.32.103.197 (talk) 19:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Edit now needed[edit]

This has a star on it and ordinariy I do not meddle with starred articles. Then I noticed the kingdom was listed as going to the middle of the 5th century BC, which is clearly wrong. After looking cursorily at it I perceived quite a few errors. The problem with starred articles is that they don't get checked. Gradually I intend to break my rule and give this an edit, as lightly as I can, of course. So don't get excited and don't automatically revert what I do. Many statements in there are without adequate sourcing. They need a reason to be there; I don't need a reason to ask for a reason. In a way, a star can be an impediment to improvement. As I need to check the sources given, this will take a while.Dave (talk) 00:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One quarter of the world's population[edit]

"one of the largest empires in the ancient world, encompassing around one quarter of the world's total population;[3]". Sorry old chaps but the reference on that, which is a pdf and can be searched and read from beginning to end, says no such thing. The article in the pdf is very good, excellently professional, and ought to be referenced here. A figure such as that ought to be in there but in point of fact it isn't. Think about it. How can anyone say what the world population was in the first centuries BC and AD? Think - all the people of India, southeast Asia, China, the Americas - if there is any such figure it is not in the reference cited. The page number is the first page of the article and it is not there, but I wasn't stopped by that - I looked - and looked. Maybe it is somewhere else or maybe the editor was in a big hurry. If you are in a hurry in this kind of work - stop. Don't be in a hurry. So where do we go now? I want to keep that excellent reference, which has just about every kind of estimate you can think of, except the one stated, so I'm putting in the next best estimate, the total estimated population of the empire, with correct page number. Sorry. I said I was going to edit.Dave (talk) 22:31, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The best you're going to get is a hazy estimate based on a vast worldwide archaeological effort, since the only other contemporary civilization which bothered keeping any sort of records and tabs on population was that of China, under the Han Dynasty ("57,671,400 individuals in 12,366,470 households", or so they say). Even with civilizations that bothered reporting this for the purpose of taxation, the ancient census records should be viewed with intense scrutiny. This is due to irregularities spawned by gender bias, the countless young children and slaves that could be miscounted or deliberately hidden from view, or the obvious challenge of reaching remote rural areas.--Pericles of AthensTalk 08:54, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Win the battle lose the war[edit]

"Nevertheless, it was generally the fate of even the greatest of Rome's enemies, such as Pyrrhus and Hannibal,[6] to win the battle but lose the war" The reference given on that one does not mention that philosophy on the page given or anywhere else in that chapter or book. It is however an accurate assessment. It appears as though someone forced someone to find a ref. However in my judgement it does not need a ref as it is perfectly general and common knowledge; everyone knows the Romans lost nearly all the battles of the Punic Wars only to destroy Carthage anyway. No one needs to point to anyone saying that. No big innovative conclusion is involved. What I propose to do then is take out the phony reference but leave the true statement in.Dave (talk) 01:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The ... references, the ... references[edit]

I have looked at the references in the overview and find them somewhat disturbing. Most are from non-reviewable and non-accessable books; in other words, without the book in hand you can't check it. The two that I can check I find are not really references; they do not contain the information they are supposed to contain. And finally, the references tend to be incomplete as though someone copied the reference from another reference, so we get it third-hand (or more). The more copies, the more errors. I'm going on with my edit, which I would classify as a light edit. I think now even more the star is a "perfect" stamp under which errors get concealed. I note with dismay some administrators are all too willing to push anything out there as long as it has the appearance of being OK, and will try to prevent you from tagging what is wrong. Well. There's no merit in having lies out there no matter how pleasant-seeming, and although I am sure it gives you a thrill to dominate the issue, there is not really any victory in it unless you are right. On with the show.Dave (talk) 01:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This constant negativity and pointless criticism reminds me why I stopped bothering to edit wikipedia - I was spending as much time defending actions as actually writing anything productive. I wrote the majority of this article and the sources are not "non-reviewable and non-accessible", they are widely published press works that I have copies of in my personal library and that tens of thousands of copies of exist in the world. There's over 40 sources cited from primary sources including Livy, Tacitus and Caesar, secondary sources from historic luminaries such as Gibbon, Mommsen, Bury and Churchill, and modern writers with the most recent tertiary analysis including Grant, Goldsowrthy and Holland. I'm not sure what you can possibly find to object to, that the works aren't populist enough that they're not stocked in every branch of Barnes and Noble? - 81.174.157.135 (talk) 17:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Almost certainly entirely apocryphal[edit]

"almost certainly entirely apocryphal" (the first 4 kings). This is an unbalanced view. The legends concerning the first 4 kings are extensive; i.e., there is plenty of evidence of the legends. Along comes Michael Grant and says, well, there were no first 4 kings. However, he does not even have as much evidence as the legends do. It is entirely speculative based on what he thinks (off the top of the head) the government should have been. Well, it is an interesting theory but has no more in favor of it than the legends do. It's just another legend, a "Grantian" one. It is interesting and we are glad he made his speculation but I do not see it as the proven answer to the problem, only as another view. The problem is, to what degree are the first 4 kings mythical? The answer "entirely" is only one point of view. There are thousands of scholars and writers on the topic and his view in only one. I think the reader needs to be tipped off to that status so I am going to alter the language slightly - not much - just to take the "done deal" aspect from it. It is not a "done deal."Dave (talk) 12:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apocryphal just means "of doubtful authenticity". So the sentence means the first 4 kings are "almost certainly of doubtful authenticity". No-one's disputing the legends exist, but a legend is "An unverified story handed down from earlier times, especially one popularly believed to be historical". I think it is more than fair to say that the first four kings are legendary in that they are historically unverified, and more than fair to say that a person that is historically unverified is "almost certainly of doubtful authenticity". There may be different beliefs or theories about this, but the lack of historical evidence for the first 4 kings is fact, not theory. - 81.174.157.135 (talk) 18:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Problem with Modern Sources[edit]

Many of the sources used here are very questionable to me. Should a book written by Boris Johnson, or even Churchill, be included in a featured article, on a subject that is outside their sphere of competence? Moreover, Bury, Harkness, Gibbon, and Pennell are really dated; Davis Hanson and Liddell Hart have dubious reputation; Holland, Welch, and Wood are more popular writers than academics. I suppose the criteria for featured articles were different in 2007, but I think this article should be delisted as it relies too much on sources that should not be used in a featured article. T8612 (talk) 17:07, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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