Talk:Terentius (dux)

Title

@Avilich and LuciusHistoricus: I just noticed now that my move was undone. I cannot remember for certain why I moved it, but I'm pretty sure it was because he is not actually attested as comes et dux Armeniae. I understand the discomfort some have with "count" and "duke", but as anglicizations these are quite common (e.g. Count Boniface). In any case, my main concern is that while secondary sources do indeed use comes et dux Armeniae it is not in fact attested for Terentius. This is why it isn't in the article body. I think this situation is somewhat odd. Srnec (talk) 01:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

I did indeed think the title in English was a bit odd since Armenia was of course not a medieval county or duchy and Terentius was not its count/duke. Armeniae refers to the area on which his military command applied, and so at the time I thought 'count and duke for Armenia' could have been more appropriate, but I figured that was being too imaginative.

The Prosopography shows several primary sources calling him either a dux or a comes, and the authors later say that he "will have occupied the post of comes et dux Armeniae". This commentary on Ammianus notes that "Terentius is consistently designated by Amm. as dux, but his full title must have been comes et dux Armeniae". This source says that a combination of titles like comes and dux "is very frequent in cases of military commanders supervising given sections of the Roman border". Other secondary sources give the title for other people as though it actually existed and were not simply a historical reconstruction.

So it appears that, in Terentius's case, comes et dux Armeniae is an inference based on incomplete titles given by primary sources. I don't see any problem with using it, but note that simply comes et dux will already be sufficient to distinguish this Terentius from others, and we actually do have primary attestation (your original concern) for both these ranks. "count and duke" could also be reasonable here. Avilich (talk) 10:59, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

TLDR: Armeniae could simply be removed from the title, as he is technically attested as comes et dux. I'm also fine with 'count and duke'. Avilich (talk) 15:08, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

What about just Terentius (dux)? The Germans use de:Terentius dux. Their article is more developed than ours. Srnec (talk) 00:24, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Fine by me as well. Dux alone is a bit broad but I can find no other Terentius whom this could apply to, and that's the title assigned to him by the main primary source. Avilich (talk) 00:48, 1 May 2021 (UTC)