Talk:Moesi

"Moesi never existed" revisions

I noticed massive revisions to this article made in January 2022 by Maleschreiber claiming among other things that the people known as the Moesi never existed. He cites in support of this revision a paper written in 2021 (cf. Boteva), which does seem to make many of the same claims, but whose theories also contradict many other verified sources of information on this topic. To my knowledge the theories presented by this paper have yet to achieve anything close to universal recognition. It would be fine to present these ideas as new possibilities but as it is now, they are misleadingly presented as definitively factual. Given the extensiveness of the revision and its highly speculative basis, I believe this article should be returned to its previous state, but intervening edits have made it impossible to simply reverse the edits in question.

Is anyone up to the task of manually undoing Maleschreiber's extensive revisions? I don't mind the new theory being included as an alternative opinion, but a single paper is not an academic consensus, and there was a lot of other potentially useful information that was removed in order to present the new theory as uncontested historical fact. 2600:8802:2608:A900:DC11:8256:8505:A985 (talk) 05:20, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the Moesi didn't exist and this article isn't the first or the last one which discusses "tribes" which never existed. This is what the only work of contemporary historiography which discusses the issue concluded. It's the only paper which actually discusses the subject. It's not a new theory or something highly speculative, such a population simply didn't exist and we're not going to remove the hard work of contemporary historians. What you can do and in fact should do is to read more about these subjects so that you understand why Boteva (2021) reached this conclusion. --Maleschreiber (talk) 14:41, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Give a citation at least, the introduction doesn't have any reference attached to it for the claim its making. I certainly haven't met any such theory and I'm from this region these people supposedly inhabited... 212.39.75.225 (talk) 19:28, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

212.39.75.225, I have restored the previous version while creating a section for the controversial part. Multiple ancient sources mention the existence of this people and modern authors generally talk of them as if they existed. The idea that this people never existed is obviously radical and fringe, it should be given undue weight. Barjimoa (talk) 11:16, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I have reverted your removals Barjimoa. You should read the source because its point is not connected to your interpretation. As this has been the consensus version for over a year, I wouldn't revert again without consensus.--Maleschreiber (talk) 12:28, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

You have been the only one arguing for this massive change, I and the user above are against it, so how can you claim I restored the original version against the consensus? Multiple ancient sources talk about this people, claiming that it's the product of Roman propaganda seems very off. We should limit ourself to say that one modern author has suggested this hypothesis. It's called a fringe view and should not have undue weight. Barjimoa (talk) 18:53, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

It's a comment by an IP in December 2022 - a year ago. There aren't multiple sources which discuss this group in antiquity. It is mentioned by few specific authors in a restricted context and then there is no mention at all of this supposed tribe for the rest of antiquity. This is the core point of the author. Side comment: This is equally true for many other supposed tribes which only exist in a couple of references in passing by Roman authors. --Maleschreiber (talk) 22:25, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Maleschreiber, I'd like to know if there are other wiki users active in classical history articles who agree with your changes. This article mentions three sources (two Roman and one Greek) talking about the Moesi, that's a lot by ancient standards. Also, by a rapid look, there are more ancient authors talking about them, including Ptolemy and Pliny, so on top of dismissing three sources this theory fails to mention that there are more and so it appears to be factually wrong. Furthermore, if they never existed why did the Romans call that part of the world Moesia? What's the alternative etymology? Another thing not clarified is the supposed conflation by the Romans of the Moesi and Dardanians. Pliny clearly disinguishes between Moesi and Dardani. The Moesi were more Thracians than Illyrians and the Dardani more Illyrians than Thracians, two different tribes. In fact, Dardania was only a part of the province Moesia and not part of Moesia proper. We cannot give undue weight to this very radical theory. Barjimoa (talk) 07:42, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

The author doesn't mention Pliny because Pliny's information is basically a recap of Strabo and it's clear from his entire description that he just inserted a name in a long list of names about which he didn't really have any information. The case of the Moesi is similar to the case of the supposedly Illyrian Interfrurini which have such single attestations in few Roman sources, but in fact they never existed. It's just a Latin name which was arbitrarily used for populations which never used it. Moesia Superior (large part of it: Dardania) existed before Moesia Inferior and none of the Thracian peoples who lived in Moesia Inferior ever called themselves "Moesi". I find the discussion interesting and I will some more details during the weekend.--Maleschreiber (talk) 12:32, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

I've read Boteva's article, and the problem may be less that it's fringe or radical but rather that what B. says isn't represented accurately. Does B. in fact say that the Moesi "never existed"? Here are what I see as his points, whether they are all valid or not.

1. The name Moesi, var. Mysi et sim., is not attested for a people in this region before the creation of the province of Moesia.

2. The ethnonym Moesi came into use as a consequence of the creation of the province; the province was not named for a people.

3. The province was so named by Tiberius to distinguish/link (B. is at his most unclear on this point) the Balkan Dardani with/from the Homeric Dardani of Mysia (see #1 on the variant spelling of Moesi); the Homeric linkage was desirable because of Julio-Claudian propaganda tracing their descent from the Trojan Anchises back to Venus. Here our WP article grossly misunderstands, and B. seems rather unaware of, the longevity of the Roman myth of Trojan origin (including how Mysian Dardani are supposed in the narrative tradition to have ended up in the Balkans), which existed long before the 1st century BC and was elaborated and amplified in the Julio-Claudian era—the Trojan origins of the Romans was mentioned at least as early as the Greek historian Timaeos (d. ca. 260 BC).

To my mind, points 1 and 2 aren't that wild, but it does not follow, and Boteva never seems to state, that "Moesi never existed." His point seems more to be tracing how the ethnonym comes into existence. If you think of ethnonyms such as "Germans" and "Americans," you'll see that this is not a question of existence or fictionality. It's about when the ethnonym came into use and why; it goes without saying that the people so labeled existed. The Moesi aren't some fabulous tribe with faces on their bellies out of Herodotus.

For what it's worth, I find the reasoning behind point 3 unconvincing, as B. provides no evidence for what was going through Tiberius's mind in naming the province nor for the Romans having named provinces, colonies, or other other foundings in such a whimsical manner. They attached legends to "explain" existing names, like the legend of Brutus and Britannia. Even if you believe point 3, a lot of what's in the article is wrong or misleading in terms of Roman myth and its transmission in Augustan art and literature, is greatly disproportionate to the topic, and more important, isn't what B. says.Cynwolfe (talk) 13:28, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

• Rome’s unwillingness to speak about the Balkan Dardani as Roman enemies is attested for the time postdating 19 BC (but most probably actually predating 19 BC by several years), needed an adequate substitute for the politically unfitting ethnonym. In my opinion the choice fell on the Mysi/Moesi and on the toponym Mysia/Moesia due to the topographic situation in NW Asia Minor which was a key territory for the Roman genealogy. It is well known that ancient Troy was situated exactly in that location. The respective region was known as Troad, and was neighboured by, or even located in, the area called Mysia.29 There the Trojans, referred to also as Dardani, were neighbours of the Mysi. Thus, in my opinion, the name Mysia/Moesia appeared in the Lower Danubian region most probably as a result of the myths, introduced dominantly into the Roman society under Augustus due to his personal persistent involvement in imposing the myth of Aeneas as an ancestor of the Romans. In this context it is necessary to try to find out who and when substituted the troubled ethnonym of the Balkan Dardani with the Mysi/Moesi.--Maleschreiber (talk) 23:44, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

  I understand what you're trying to say, but I agree with other users that the way in which you are approaching the article raises several policy issues. In my view, the policy issues arise from conflating sign and referent and overstating or inaccurately stating what Boteva says.

  It is not in fact necessary to "try to find out" this information, since WP is not for original research; it is necessary to stick to what the sources say. And what Boteva says is far more circumspect and limited than what you're trying to claim. It may be true that Augustan ideology affected the portrayal of the Dardans/Moesi, just as it required finessing the whole Trojan/Phrygian complex of identities. It does not follow that the name Moesi was never used to refer to inhabitants of the province of Moesia (what would they call the inhabitants of the province collectively?), nor that Moesi did not exist if they did not call themselves by that ethnonym. In English, we speak of "Germans"; the fact that the people we call Germans do not use that name for themselves does not mean that the people we refer to as Germans don't exist.

  The reactions of others should indicate the need to stick more closely to your source in the context of other sources. I read the article. It does not claim "the Moesi never existed." Boteva is talking about the origin of the ethnonym, which can be dealt with in a subsection headed "Ethnonym", as such things usually are. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:34, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I forgot about this talk, sorry. Cynwolfe, if you are proposing to move the Boteva theory in an "ethnonym" section and restore the previous intro I agree. Another thing is that the intro of this article claims that the Moesi are basically just another name for the Dardani and I'm not sure that is the case. Does Boteva claim this also? Is it even possible?Barjimoa (talk)

Yes, I guess I would rename the section now headed "Name" to "Ethnonym" and broaden it to include not only Boteva's argument, so that it isn't just on linguistics and etymology. The subtitle of Boteva's article is clear that he's talking about how the name, not the people it came to refer to: "How was the Name of Moesia Invented?" Once Moesia is named, then of course there are by definition Moesians; to say in the intro that Moesi "never actually existed" is therefore misleading. (Now, that sentence is qualified by saying that a Paleo-Balkan people named the Moesi did not exist, meaning Moesi did not exist prehistorically, but the casual reader is not likely to catch that distinction.) Then I would recommend a separate section (maybe titled "Ethnicities"?) to talk about who the inhabitants of the province of Moesia were at that time of the conquest, to deal with the question of how the people referred to as "Moesi" to relate to the Dardani or anyone else.

Boteva is arguing (1) that the people Moesi were named for the province Moesia – the Romans, B. argues, did not conquer a tribe named Moesi in order to form the province; and (2) "The decision … to label the lands of the Balkan Dardani with the name Mysia/Moesia could be explained by the fact that the legendary Dardani were connected with Troas in Mysia in Asia Minor." That's all he's saying. The WP article on the Moesi just needs to state this view, not relitigate all the literary references B. amassed to get there. (As a side note, Boteva's assessment of those sources seems skewed by antagonism toward Roman culture.) The "Ancient literature" section should be condensed to a clear and concise summary paragraph on the ancient sources that refer to the Moesi. The section currently called "In culture" should just be a continuation of either that or the "Ethnonym" section. It isn't about culture at all—it's about how the Byzantines continued to use the name Moesi. "Culture" would be what we know of cultural life in the province of Moesia as practiced by the people living there, and "In culture" would be cultural representations of (not historical references to) the Moesi.

So in my opinion, Boteva meets the criteria for RS and represents a new or minority view, not necessarily fringe, but should not be allowed to dominate the article as is currently the case. The current article also overstates B's claims. B's patchwork of conjecture that Tiberius named a province because of Trojan origin myth is amplified (and excessively relitigated) in the current article as if it's fact, when there is no direct evidence for it—seems like Suetonius or Strabo wouldn't have been able to resist saying so if Tiberius had done such a whimsical and unprecedented thing. To me it feels like Boteva investigated the use of Moesi/Mysi and came up with a storyline for the naming of the province without having studied for comparison how other Roman provinces were named and therefore didn't ask whether it was plausible that this one little province would be named in such a uniquely fanciful way.

So I would endorse a rebalancing of the article by those who had been working on it before Boteva took over. And I'm pretty sure I've said all I could possibly say on this topic, in just trying to help out with the question of undue weight. Thanks! Cynwolfe (talk) 16:01, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs some rewording. However it should be clarified that there is no evidence for the existence of a distinct people called "Moesi" before the first attestation of this name in the first years of the Common Era. Even in older scholarship focused on the subject of this article "only a geographical connotation is presumed for the term Moesi" ([1]). Boteva's arguments and conclusions could either be correct or inaccurate, but unlike 'Moesi', the names of the main Palaeo-Balkan tribes that had inhabited the region encompassed in Roman Moesia have been known since at least the Classical period, such as the Triballi and Dardani. Since the Moesi have never been mentioned in earlier times but only during the Roman administrative division, the name most likely was imposed to those peoples who inhabited that Roman province, which at the time of the Roman annexion were mostly Dardanians (this also makes some of Boteva's arguments plausible). – Βατο (talk) 16:59, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Let me note that Pliny and Ptolemy distinguish the Dardani and the Moesi, so they do not seem to have the embarassment of calling the Dardani "Dardani" as this article says. This article furthemore fails to say that Pliny and Ptolemy mention the Moesi, claiming only three authors (Strabo, Ovid and Livy) do.Barjimoa (talk) 10:03, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Pliny and Ptolemy are irrelevant sources as they date to the time of the Roman administration and the construction of new communities. We are talking about sources that could have attested the existence of a specific tribe called Moesi/Mysi, which can be only those ancient authors dealing with the Roman warfare in the region and the ethnonymic situation between mid-1st century BC and mid-1st century AD. Even among those authors, only some attest a people called Moesi, but clearly at a late period, and Strabo's controversial information, in particular, is very useful to see what was happening in Roman public debates of the time. A detailed analysis can be found in this paper, entirely focused on that matter: Boteva (2012) "Ancient Literary Tradition on Moesi/Moesia (mid 1st century BC – mid 1st century AD)". Since you proposed to 'rebalance' the article, it would be useful to see with which wording do you intend to accomplish it in particular in the lead section, in light of those new papers. – Βατο (talk) 15:14, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

As for this comment To me it feels like Boteva investigated the use of Moesi/Mysi and came up with a storyline for the naming of the province without having studied for comparison how other Roman provinces were named and therefore didn't ask whether it was plausible that this one little province would be named in such a uniquely fanciful way. Boteva's storyline is not a "uniquely fanciful way" for the reason of the naming of Moesia, it is an explanation directly based on a deep scholarly analysis of the primary sources about this subject, and of the information provided by Strabo. However, I agree that it should be presented with due weight. – Βατο (talk) 16:20, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Just found this source that may be helpful, Wheeler (2011) "Rome’s Dacian Wars: Domitian, Trajan, and Strategy on the Danube, Part II" pp. 197–198:

"A campaign of Scribonius Curio (consul 76 B.C., proconsul of Macedonia 76–73 B.C.) against the Dardani in 75–73 B.C. first brought a Roman army to the Danube—from the interior (not the coast) and perhaps as far as the Iron Gates Gorge; he is credited with defeat of the Dardani and the Moesi, an obscure people, whom Sallust (a contemporary) equated with the Getae."

footnote: "Stefan’s assertion that the campaign demonstrates Rome’s frst reaction to Dacian military might exaggerates Florus’s literary embel-lishment of a geographical reference to Dacia, an area well known in the Hadrianic era, when Florus wrote. Te Dardani had been the real opponent. Identifcation of the Moesi, apparently a minor Thracian people neighboring the Triballi, has provoked comment, as the names of two Roman provinces (Moesia Superior and Inferior) magnify their signifcance. Batty (Rome and the Nomads , 262–63, 300, 518–19) argues for the accuracy of Strabo’s excursus (7.3.6–10) on equation of Roman-era Moesi (in Greek, Mysi) with the Thracian Mysi of Homer (Iliad 13.1–7) and the Mysi of northwestern Asia Minor, who like their Bithynian neighbors claimed a Tra-cian origin. Batty fails to recognize, however, the Stoic subtext of Strabo’s Geography as a Ho-meric commentary; Stoics preferred a practical interpretation of Homer, originated by some fifth-century B.C. sophists, who saw Homer as a font of all knowledge: cf. Strabo 1.1.1–11 on Homer as the frst geographer. Why Romans preferred to call the area south of the Danube, north of the Haemus Mountains, and much of modern Serbia “Moesia” is unclear, although Romans from the late frst century B.C. attached the name Moesi/Mysi to both Getae south of the Danube and “Transdanuvians” transplanted from north of the river (cf. text at notes 133 and 139 below). A predominance of Moesi/Mysi in the area’s population is not the answer. As Syme notes, an administrative district in the area was assigned to a praefectus civitatum Moesiae et Trebelliae (“prefect of the communities of Moesia and Trebellia”), toponyms, not “communities of the Moesi and the Trebelli,” ethnics" – Βατο (talk) 18:44, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Concerning the campaign of M. L. Crassus, see Šašel Kos (2005) Appian and Illyricum, p. 502: "It is most unusual that there is no word about it in Appian, who twice in his last chapter mentioned Lucullus’ campaign and Tiberius’ conquest, but passed over Crassus’ decisive war against the Bastarnae and Moesians in silence. Perhaps he relied for this period mainly on Augustus’ Commentarii, where quite likely he found no mention of it. However, it was certainly narrated by other contemporary historians, since an account of it is preserved in detail by Cassius Dio, who is the best and the only exhaustive source for it."; p. 503: "In the Periochae of Livy the war “against the Bastarnae, Moesi, and other tribes” is noted (cf. Florus, 2.26), as well as the war “against the Thracians” (Per. 134 and 135), while in 27 BC, Crassus officially triumphed “ex Thraecia et Geteis” (fasti triumphales, Inscr. It. 13,1 pp. 86–87; 344–345; cf. 571)." p. 505: "Towards the end of the campaigning season, he defeated the Moesi and even fought against the Moesian Artacii and other peoples who had never before been defeated by the Romans.60 Neither the Bastarnae nor the Moesi were mentioned in the fasti triumphales; the former were defeated in Thrace, which was in some ways already regarded as having been under the supervision of Macedonia, while the Getic territory was not, hence they had to be mentioned as a defeated people. The Moesi, as has been proposed by F. Papazoglu, may have been omitted in the fasti because they were politically dependent on the Getae; their name was of a geographic character and bore hardly any political or ethnic connotations at the time.61" – Βατο (talk) 19:14, 15 January 2024 (UTC)