Talk:Annales (Ennius)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: T8612 (talk · contribs) 19:56, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

The article is well written and fit all GA criteria but one. It is not broad enough in coverage to reach GA (imo) for the following reasons:

• You mention several times that the Annales are only known from fragments, but you do not give the list of ancient authors quoting him. I expected this. I think you could create one or two tables with the number of fragments by author/Annales' book. I made a table of contents for Livy, perhaps you could do something resembling it.

• There's about 200 pages of the Goldberg & Manuwald book to go through. I'm not exactly sure how much detail to go into. Would I do it in order of citation? Or alphabetically by author?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:40, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

• Also, part of me wonders if what you are asking would be "going into unnecessary detail". I feel like adding some of the bigger authors who cited Ennius to the sentence "Over time, almost all of the work has been lost..." but I think that listing every single fragment and author quoting would be rather excessive for a general interest project like Wikipedia. Just my thoughts.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:48, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

• • I don't think it's possible to list the 600+ fragments here. I think a bullet-list/table of the authors citing Ennius, with the number of fragments found in each of their works would be enough (so four columns: Name, living dates, book(s), number of fragments). The list should be ordered chronologically by author (so we can see Ennius' influence over time, and also the shift of interest from historians/poets to grammarians).T8612 (talk) 03:46, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: How does something like this look? It's only the first book, so it's a work in progress. Is this sort of what you were envisioning? How do you think I should represent anonymous works? Also, might you know anything about "Prophyrio"? He seems to have been a commentator on Horace, but I can't find any info about his life anywhere.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 23:53, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

@Gen. Quon: Yes, it looks good. I would just order the authors chronologically instead of alphabetically, and by "book" I meant the work(s) of the author (like Cicero's De Divinatione, etc.). However, now that I look at the list, it seems that it would only be relevant for Cicero, so I would say don't bother. T8612 (talk) 00:49, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: OK, that makes sense. I'll see if I can tinker with it. Is it alright if you keep the GAN open for a week or so? I think that'll give me enough time to get it all situated.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 00:56, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@Gen. Quon:Yes, no problem. Don't forget to add some fragments to the article. I would add (at least) one to section "style" and one to "contents" (perhaps the one one on the name of Rome quoted by Cicero). Instead of "anonymous", I would say "unknown author". T8612 (talk) 01:13, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: How is this?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 17:34, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Also, I realize I goofed up and included some testimonia/paraphrases in with the fragments. I'll get that sorted out asap.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 17:42, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Nice! T8612 (talk) 20:45, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: Update. I've sorted out all 18 books, but still have to wade through the ~150 fragments of uncertain location.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:06, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: OK! I got the unplaced fragments added in and I have sorted it by date. I've also migrated the table over to the main article. I think I might want to double check some stuff, but other than that, it should be good to go. Do you have any suggestions as to its aesthetic quality and/or where it should go in the article?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 04:32, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Gen. Quon: Good work! I would just add a section in the bibliography with the ancient authors and their books. Another thing, you say that the work didn't survive the transition to the Middle Ages, but there are fragments in medieval books (and how Girolamo Colonna got the book in the 16th century?). After the sentence "diminished around the time of Nero.", I would add that grammarians remained interested in the book, as the three most important collections of fragments come from Festus, Nonius, and Macrobius. T8612 (talk) 12:34, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: I made this edit to work in the details you mention. I tried to specify that in the Middle Ages no complete manuscript survived, although fragments were still floating around. As for the bibliography, do you want me to list all of the books that quote the work? Of am I misunderstanding.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 13:37, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Gen. Quon: Yes, list the books that quote the work and I'll promote it after (just improve the captions for the statues; it is not clear whether the first statue depicts Ennius). T8612 (talk) 13:53, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612:For a good number of the authors (e.g. Festus, Nonius, Priscian, Charisius), the Loeb doesn't list from which works the fragments derive. I'm not sure how to proceed.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 15:00, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Gen. Quon:It's because these authors are principally known from only one work (Festus=De Verborum Significatione, Nonius=De compendiosa doctrina, Priscian=Institutiones Grammaticae, Charisius=Ars Grammatica). T8612 (talk) 16:40, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: Alrighty, how is this?

@Gen. Quon:Perfect! T8612 (talk) 11:19, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

• I don't have Goldberg & Manuwald's book, but in Warmington's fragments are numbered. I suppose there is a corresponding table in Goldberg & Manuwald's, in which case it would be good to quote these numbers in the refs (and possibly the ancient work with the fragment as well). It would look like this: "Ennius – Goldberg & Manuwald (2018), p. 101, = Warmington fr. 450 = Cicero, Divinatione, i. 115". This way the reference can be helpful to people who don't have Goldberg & Manuwald's. [I prefer to add an hyphen between Ennius and Goldberg as it looks like they are co-authors otherwise.]

• That is a very philological style, but I don't believe my method is wrong per se (I used it when working on Astronomica (Manilius)). I also think it's a bit more user-friendly, too.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:42, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

• I just realized that most of these sources are to the commentary of Goldberg & Manuwald, not to the poem itself. I can remove Ennius if that makes it better.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:50, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

• How does this look?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:54, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Ah, I thought you were quoting fragments. That's fine then.T8612 (talk) 03:46, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• How many fragments were found in Herculanum?

• The source I'm using seems to imply that it is one, but there is a lot of use of the word 'fragments', so I changed it to "papyrus fragments" to try and capture the whole feel.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:44, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Are these fragments listed in Goldberg & Manuwald? It would be interesting to know whether the discovery added something to the corpus. T8612 (talk) 03:46, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• A minor point, can you give the date/location of the statues in the pictures?

• Is there a way you'd recommend that doesn't look shoe-horned in?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:40, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

It would look like this "Bust of Homer, 2nd century AD Roman marble copy of a Greek original of the 4th century BC, now in the XX Museum." T8612 (talk) 03:46, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• Can you also give some refs of the books alluded to in the sentence "For centuries, it was believed..."; it is vague.

• I'm not sure what you mean. The source itself says, "Its very structure is often said to be modeled on the annual record of events maintained by the Pontifex Maximus, the so-called Annales Maximi, with Ennius ever mindful of the interests of the important individuals who supported his work. ... This view of the poem’s structure, style, and ideology, widely accepted in outline if still debated in points of detail, found its clearest expression in the edition of Otto Skutsch (1985), who dedicated much of his career to establishing as accurately as possible what Ennius wrote and reconstructing as much as he could of the poem’s original design." The authors then go on to critique this view. But as you can see, the source itself is rather vague.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:34, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

• Or, as mentioned above, do you mean add in "...preserved XYZ by This Author, ABC by That Author, etc."? I can definitely do that.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:56, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Say something like this: "Modern scholars have long assumed that Ennius focused on episodes in Roman history that would appeal to his patrons; this view was quite recently defended by Otto Skutsch... [ref]. However, Goldberg and Manuwald criticise it, because...". T8612 (talk) 03:46, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• Just thinking of that, but you should definitely add a few fragments (in Latin and their translation) to give an idea of the work; perhaps there are some representative fragments that could fit well. There are some in Cicero that preserve the original verses. T8612 (talk) 03:46, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

On Hold Pending some improvements.

T8612 (talk) 19:56, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: Thanks for the review. I have a couple questions for you before I proceed, if that's alright.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 21:44, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: I appreciate your clarifying comments. If it's alright, I might take a few days to patch everything up.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 17:38, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612: Thanks for your patience. Is there anything else that I need to do?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 19:37, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

@Gen. Quon: The last thing that needs improvement is the caption of the statues (especially the first one, it is unclear whether it depicts Ennius). T8612 (talk) 11:59, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

I updated the double pictures' caption. Only the first one to go. T8612 (talk) 12:15, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

@T8612:Whoops. Sorry I missed that. I believe it is good to go now.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 14:53, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

@Gen. Quon: Ok, I promoted it. Good job. T8612 (talk) 14:09, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

• Status: passed. T8612 (talk) 20:12, 9 February 2019 (UTC)