Talk:Third Servile War/Archive 1

Keeping topics seperate

The war is a war, and Spartacus is a person - two different things (and two different categories). Some of Spartacus should be here, because it's about the war as a whole, while the person's bio should be focused on the person's own role in it. Stan 23:44, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Captured by Pompey?

In the aftermath of the war, it is claimed in the sources that 6000 were captured by Crassus, and that they were crucified between Rome and Capua. Does anyone have a reference from a primary source saying how many were captured by Pompey, and what happened to them? I've seen statements that a further 10,000 were captured by Pompey, but I havn't seen a reference provided for that. Anyone have any leads? - Vedexent 00:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Failed GA

This is a high quality article, being produced to high standards by editors who are clearly both knowledgeable and willing to quibble over factual details - all extremely healthy signs! My main reason for not promoting this to GA is that the copyright tags on two of the pictures are deprecated; the bust of Pompey was especially confusing as there were different tags on Wikipedia and on Commons. My guess is that it is actually PD, but I can't tell why. I deleted the PD-old tag on Wikipedia since it seemed unlikely that the photo was from 100 years after author's death (the author wasn't identified but the publication was 1901, so the author of the photo was probably alive in 1906). Still doesn't resolve the issue though, and I admit to being stuck :-/ Image:Vesuvius crater wall.jpg also has a deprecated tag; the photograph is accredited to A Outra Vaz and was uploaded by User:ChrisO, a very active wikipedian. I left a message on his talk page; I am hoping that either ChrisO is the image holder and has self-released under a usable licence, or can verify that the original author did. Less of a quibble and more of a query: "Pennell, Robert Franklin, "Ancient Rome : from the earliest times down to 476 A. D.", IndyPublish.com, 2003. ISBN 140438006X." struck me as a surprising reference. Has scholarship of this topic not moved on since 1890? Or is it being used to reference opinions now held to be outdated? Or is it just that there is a paucity of literature on Spartacus and the Third Servile War (which would be surprising!)? TheGrappler 19:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

The image issues I can agree with. Unfortunatly this has been a very difficult article to illustrate. While images of Crassus, Pompey, and Spartacus would be ideal, finding appropriate images in the PD has been especially problematic! Many images exist and are used widely (one very fine one of Crassus, in particular), but they seem to exist as copyright violations.

As for the Pennell text: while scholarship has improved the "low level" detailed view of history, Pennell's work is a general survey of some 1100 years. High level general views such as this, based mostly on the primary authors, will not change; we are not discussing the finer points of internal Roman economics and politics due to it having a slave economy - we are looking for someone to support the point that the Campaignian region was known for large wealthy estates. Even in 1890, archeological evidence made that clear. - Vedexent 21:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Makes a lot of sense! As for the Vesuvius photo, ChrisO has told me ([1]) It wasn't by me; it was by a Flickr user. Unfortunately Flickr have unilaterally changed all their users' copyright tags, so that anything that formerly had no copyright claims has been changed to "all rights reserved". I'll see if I can dig up the user to see if I can get him/her to release it under a Creative Commons license. BTW, I'm not sure that the picture is really that accurate for the Third Servile War article. Vesuvius had a much larger and shallower crater in those days, which even had farms at the bottom. The modern crater wall dates as recently as 1944! What's left of the Roman-era volcano is now a separate fragment of crater wall called Monte Somma, partly encircling the modern summit of Vesuvius - you can see it in this image. The AD 79 eruption and subsequent eruptions largely destroyed the Roman volcano. -- ChrisO 19:18, 27 March 2006 (UTC). So we are back to the photo of the bust, which I now believe to be P.D. (following WP:PD, which states that "In the U.S., any work published before 1 January 1923 anywhere in the world[†] is in the public domain"). I will change the image tag, put the photo of the bust back into the article, and run the article through the nominations procedure again, with a note attached saying all my previous objections have been met. For various reasons I don't want to vote through an article I have previously rejected, since my commentary on rejection is effectively feedback into the article, which makes me an at-least-somewhat interested party. However, I am sure this article will sail through the GA nominations process whoever is reviewing it! TheGrappler 19:21, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Good Article Status

Yay! We made it! :) - Vedexent 01:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Images

Does anyone have any ideas for images to include in this article? Ideally images of Crassus and Spartacus should be added. While images of Crassus can be found on the net, I have been able to find any that are listed in the public domain. Any suggestions? - Vedexent 01:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Legion Size?

When I wrote the entry for the infobox, I specifically did not put in the number of Roman soldiers in the legions, as I couldn't find a reliable reference/quote for the size of the legions. These would be late Republic, post-Marian reform, legions. Someone has added a figure of 50-60k for 10 legions - which certainly is a figure I've heard - but I've also heard legion sizes from 3,500 (Julius Caesar's smaller legions in his Gallic Wars), to 6,000 strong in the late Empire. Can anyone provide a reputable reference for legion sizes at this time? - Vedexent 01:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

GA review

• It would be nice to see the Chronology section be blended into the other sections as to not have a bulleted item list which is not well prosed.
• The section The war in popular culture an inline external link that should be turned to footnote and, if possible, this section could also be turned into prose. Lincher 15:05, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

In defense of the Chronology section, I think that there is a "coventional bias" against lists in Wikipedia, due to a desire for people who write articles not to make articles which are only lists. However - given that Wikipedia blends a Macropedia and Micropedia approach, I think lists as a summary part of an article are acceptbable.

Put another way - the info box, and the chronology make up the micropedia aspect of the article, the main article makes up the macropedia part of the article. - Vedexent 15:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Seperation of the rebels?

In including inline footnotes for the article, I ran across a bit of problem: in several popular descriptions of the third servile war on the web, there is a claim that the slaves eventually divided, one faction under Crixus wishing to stay in southern Italy and continue to plunder the countryside, and one faction under Spartacus who were intent of fleeing north into Cisalpine Gaul and escape.

The problem is that I cannot find this claim in the sources. There is nothing in the sources to contradict this, and it is possible to speculate that this might have happened as:

1. The slaves apparently spent the winter in two different geographical locations: the area around Vesuvius, and on the southern coast of Italy - making it appear as if there were two groups.
2. Crixus and about 30,000 were later defeated by one of the consular armies while separated from Spartacus' group.
3. Plutarch mentions that some of the slaves wished to stay and plunder Italy rather than escape over the Alps.

But nowhere can I find a reference that specifically says something like "Crixus and his followers split off the main group because they wanted to stay and plunder Italy, and went to winter in Thurii".

Does anyone know where this came from? Is this a possible interpretation of the histories that has just got repeated until it has become "popular fact"? - Vedexent 00:10, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Article Rating

There has been a bit of tug-of-war over the rating. I'm currently revising the entire article, expanding the footnotes, etc. Once it is done, it is my intention to re-subit the article to the peer-review, and A-class review. - Vedexent 14:26, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No tug-of-war, just some confusion about how the A-Class review process was being phased in. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 04:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Peer Review Request

I've just posted a peer review request for Third Servile War here. Any feedback is greatly appeciated :) - Vedexent 17:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

A-Class request

I've added this article to the "peer review" form of the A-class review here. Comments most welcome :) - Vedexent 07:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)