# Talk:Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Battle of Cynoscephalae (364 BCE)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Nominator: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 17:34, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 12:42, 14 May 2025 (UTC)


### Comments
This is plainly of GA standard and I could with clear conscience promote it at once, but you'll expect a carp or quibble or two from me and I have managed to gather a handful. You must feel free to ignore any or all of them.

"assembling what John Romm calls ..." – you know my view that if you name-check a source you should briefly explain who he is (as you do for Ray, later in your text).
Added "the classicist" -- and fixed his name (it's James). As you know, I have somewhat mixed feelings about this whole thing, especially when we're talking about classicists vs historians vs ancient historians. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
"They assembled in Pharsalos, then advanced to meet Alexander's forces ... then eastward along its valley" – I am so antiquated that I do not recognise "then" as a conjunction in formal English prose; I'd prefer an "and" before the first "then", at least.
Added one. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
"Plutarch ... claims that Alexander's infantry outnumbered Pelopidas's" – I'd be wary about "claims": it has overtones to the effect that the assertion is a bit dodgy.
It is! There are two concerns here, one more OR than the other -- firstly and securely, nobody really has any good idea about the number of troops involved in this battle, so everything's a more-or-less dodgy guess. Secondly and more shakily, Plutarch's biography is (fairly self-confessedly) a morality tale, which makes me highly cautious about leaning too hard on it for points of fact. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
"John Romm estimates" – surname alone will suffice at this reappearance.
Indeed -- done. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
"light infantry (peltasts)" – I wondered when this lot would be showing up after the hoplites earlier. Took me back sixty years to wading through the Anabasis at school. But I digress – ignore me.
Roel Konijnendijk would be delighted; he's made something of a mission out of persuading people that Greek battles weren't entirely about hoplites shoving each other. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
"generally outmatched Pelopidas's, probably due to their greater experience" – In AmE "due to" is accepted as a compound preposition on a par with "owing to", but in BrE it is not universally so regarded. "Owing to" or, better, "because of" is safer.
Very well; "because of" it is. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
"The Thebans and Thessalians won the cavalry duel, while Alexander's forces dislodged them" – "while" seems a bit odd here. I interpret the sentence as meaning "but then..." rather than "at the same time"
The two things were pretty much simultaneous (admittedly, different modern accounts put the emphasis in different places, because the ancient sources aren't massively clear) -- both sides sent their cavalry one way and their infantry the other; the allies' victory in the cavalry battle allowed them to use those cavalry to remedy the disaster that was beginning to look imminent in the infantry one. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
"it is unclear how or how far Pelopidas would have been able to orchestrate this rally" – strange verb: does one orchestrate rallies rather than organise them?
I think so: we mean "bring about" more than "do the admin work for", since there wouldn't have been much organising per se involved -- more (in theory) standing and shouting -- but, as Konijnendijk notices, it's overwhelmingly likely that Pelopidas wouldn't have been able to do very much, because this whole scene probably wasn't possible anyway. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
That's my lot. Over to you. I'm certainly not bothering to put the review on hold over such minor points. Tim riley talk 12:42, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks as ever, Tim. Replies above. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
My pleasure. Meets all the GA criteria and then some, me judice. Tim riley talk 16:49, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Per recent edit summaries, the article underwent a total rewrite (from a stub) here -- nothing of the original remains. That rewrite used BCE, following the norm in current style guides for classical studies, which either tolerate both (e.g. Cambridge University Press) at author's discretion, or (e.g. the American School of Classical Studies at Athens) require BCE.
As the article was rewritten from scratch, I don't think it's particularly necessary to be bound by the conventions of the previous iteration on e.g. ERA, citation style, EngVar and so on, but this message is intended to start the requisite conversation if there are any objections. I have already secured approval from everyone still on the site who has made a major edit (>100 bytes) to the page in the last decade. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:36, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

There was an established era. There's no reason to change that or the engvar. The requirements of the ASCSA or any other academic institution are entirely irrelevant.Molikog (talk) 04:03, 11 June 2025 (UTC)