Talk:Optimates/Archive 1

Clarification

I'm going to clarify a few points in the article.

Firstly, it seems to conflate Novi Homines with plebeians. Not only are these not the same thing, but the optimates had no problem whatsoever with plebeians occupying positions of power—in fact, most optimates were plebeians. By the time of the Optimate/Popularis struggle, each of the great families of the Roman nobility was as likely to be plebeian as patrician. The optimate objection was strictly to novi homines.

Secondly, the list of notable optimates needs considerable revision. Cato the Elder came far too early for his inclusion here to make any sense, as the struggle between the faction seeking to supplant the Senate with the People and the faction seeking to preserve senatorial power didn't begin until the Gracchi, a couple of generations after his death. (Even then, I'm unaware of the terms "optimate" or "popularis" being applied to Roman politics prior to the post-Sullan period, but, since I could be wrong and since the politics involved are roughly the same, I won't object to it being applied to the period from Sulla to the Gracchi.)

I'm also removing Saturninus, since not only was not an optimate, he was in fact the exact opposite (a popularis). And while I think the grammatically incorrect paranthetical phrase about "except for during his Triumvirate" is meant to apply to Pompey, not Saturninus (who was never a triumvir), it's still wrong—Pompey never aligned himself with the Optimates until the very end of his career. For the entire duration of his career prior to the First Triumvirate (during which he was, of course, a popularis), he pretty much held himself aloof from the two Roman factions, but when he did get involved in Senatorial politics, as when he was elected consul at the age of 35, he was actually the very sort of man to which the optimates were most opposed. Binabik80 18:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, upon further review, it looks like the description of Optimate politics suffers from the same sort of anachronistic conflation that led to the inclusion of Cato the Elder. By the time "Optimate" becomes a relevant term for Roman politics, the Roman nobility were such Hellenists that they considered anyone who wasn't fully fluent in Greek as just as illiterate as anyone who wasn't fully fluent in Latin; and they actually opposed the granting of land to veterans— it was their refusal to grant land to Pompey's soldiers that led to the formation of the First Triumvirate. Binabik80 19:18, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Some important corrections there.

Also, and please correct me if I'm wrong (my talents lie not with the history of the ancient Mediterranean but with the languages), but the optimates were NOT in any way opposed to the preservation of the mos maiorum - quite the opposite in fact. In many ways the optimates were the conservatives or 'old-school' strata of the late Roman Republic: in fact to say that they were against the mos maiorum makes most, if not all of their policies seem entirely self-contradictory.

I find that rather a lot of these articles, especially those on the details of the late Roman Republic are severely lacking in context, detail and most importantly, accuracy.

Davers 18:59, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak to most of this. But I strongly suspect that when the article says the optimates "opposed preserving the mos maiorum", that's just clumsy phrasing. The text is:

In addition to their political aims, the optimates opposed the extension of Roman citizenship and the preservation of the mos maiorum, the ways of their forefathers.

I strongly suspect that the author meant, "Their causes included: Opposing the extension of citizenship, and preserving the mos maiorum". Yes, the text says the opposite, but I think that was just sloppy writing. I'm going to take it on myself to fix this--hope that's okay. Narsil 00:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I think most of this "Clarificaion" ought to be in the article itself. It is very well writen and, by removing the contrarian tone, adding to heunderstanig of the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.66.152.234 (talk) 02:29, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

aristocratic

The article describes the Optimates as "the aristocratic faction of the later Roman Republic." I think this is deeply misleading. The Optimates included a number of people of relatively low origins, like Cato and (especially) Cicero--and their greatest enemy was Caesar, who was as aristocratic as a Roman can be (hard to top being descended from Venus!).

I'd suggest changing this to "the traditionalist faction of the later Roman Republic". Any objections? Narsil 19:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

And, hearing no objections... Narsil 23:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

Sorry, but no, the person who is undoing good-faith (and, factual) changes is the one who should take it up on the talk page. I am happy to discuss this with you, on the talk page. The talk pages on this article and Populares have respectively had no activity since 2014 and 2017, so demanding that anyone making changes first ask for permission on the talk page (from whom exactly? you?) is not workable, not to mention completely against the spirit of Wikipedia ("the encyclopedia anyone can edit").

The Optimates and Populares were obviously identifiable (hence, they have articles) and ideological (hence, they already had "ideology" sections in the infobox) groupings. That they existed a long time ago is not relevant.

The ideologies I added to the ideology section are well-documented in Roman primary and secondary sources, and uncontroversial among modern historians. Indeed, they are discussed in the body of these articles! If you can point to any specific one you dispute or desire additional sourcing for, we can have that conversation.

I will add that repeatedly reverting my edits while I am in the middle of cleaning up and adding to an article is not conducive to my (or anyone's) workflow, which includes checking that the article is well-referenced. Smitherfield (talk) 22:32, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

The fact that activity on the article have been scarce here in general is probably because there is only so much you can add to an article about a faction that excisted about 2000 years ago unless new texts or archeological evidence suddenly turns up. And regarding the sources i requested, while they may be in the article already it is usually required to add those to the infobox as well so that any additions may have a source directly attributed to it. I have changed your edits a bit, but it would be nice if you could copy your sources to the infobox as soon as you have time! Vif12vf/Tiberius (talk) 23:16, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I have cleaned the infoboxes and ledes of both the Populares and Optimates. There were a number of unsupported text in them, and a major confusion on the role of patricians. I also strongly oppose the use of "colour". To my knowledge, there is zero source telling that these factions had emblems or colours. It is an anachronism. T8612 (talk) 14:59, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I think the use of these colours in the two infoboxes are based on ideologies and are purely for aesthetic reasons. Blue symbolizes conservatism and the aristocracy whereas red is used to symbolize politics favouring the masses. Historians disagree on wether these two groups were established political factions or not, in which case colour doesn't really matter, was probably just added to make the infoboxes look more interesting and to distinguish the groups from each other! Vif12vf/Tiberius (talk) 08:56, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

It's ok to use decorative colour borders in the infobox (as it is now), but not to add within this infobox "color: red", as it suggests that the official colour of the Populares was red. T8612 (talk) 11:46, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Well yeah i agree. Vif12vf/Tiberius (talk) 12:03, 22 March 2019 (UTC)