Talk:Quintus Curtius Rufus

message: Perhaps worth including that Pliny the Younger describes the story of Curtius Rufus' death in his letter (number 83) to Sura in which he asks whether Sura believes in the supernatural.  In brief, Curtius Rufus is visited by the 'spirit of Africa' who foretells his future and the events of his death.  Here's a link to the translation (the story begins at line 5) http://www.bartleby.com/9/4/1083.html 86.182.203.15 (talk) 21:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm taking note of this as I rewrite the article. The main topic of the letter is a ghost in chains who leads the philosopher Athenaeus to the spot where the bones lay buried. I thought for a moment I was reading Cotton Mather. Curtius is only of interest to Pliny the Younger because Curtius saw a supernatiral phenomenon encouraging him to get ahead. My guess is, Curtius was able to tell a good ghost story, so he attracted the attention of Tiberius and his court. His Histories is known as a bunch of pretty good stories also. What do you do when you don't have television? Listen to story-tellers, naturally. However, he basically repeats Tacitus so in the interest of saving space I am only going to use Tacitus.Botteville (talk) 02:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mention in Pliny's Letters 

message: "His work is fluidly written, and while superficial study reveals the author's errors regarding geography, chronology and technical military knowledge, a detailed study reveals his focusing instead on character and protests against those Emperors of his times whom he considered tyrants. Despite the fact that much of the information we have on this ancient historian is relatively obscure, significant evidence suggests that he suffered one of the earliest known cases of conjunctivitis. Several scholars argue that it was because this went untreated that he succumbed to an early death." Opinionated, unsubstantiated. There are a lot of opinions on Curtius, because there is not much else. The source needs to be identified.Botteville (talk) 12:08, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed passage

message: I think this section may have to go on the grounds that is is essay-type material. Who are we judge his historical value? Yes, definitely, It has to go. The editor is not being up front with us here; maybe plagiarizing Britannica 11 has had its effect. He has only one source, Raynham. Her chapter 1 reviews all the opinions of Curtius. Her opinion is that their opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. They cover the gamut from superior intelligence to evil man. I don't think we should get into the non-objective opinions of past analysts. They got nothing else to do because there is not much on him. This article will necessarily be short. In any case what the editor should not have done is select out the opinions that suited him and try to present those as though culled from somewhere else. Raynham lists her sources so that is not hard to do. The tag is on there because he has substantially only one source, Raynham. I will remove the essay-like material presented as though objective and credit Raynham. Then I need to find other sources among what there is.Botteville (talk) 12:26, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: "Historical value of his work"

message: "Historical novelist Mary Renault, in the preface to her biography of Alexander Fire from Heaven, discusses the various sources which she studied in preparation for her work, expressing considerable exasperation with Curtius who "had access to invaluable primary sources, now lost", which in her opinion he misunderstood and garbled. Historian B. A. Bosworth defends Curtius against some of these charges in a general article about the veracity of ancient Greek and Roman historians, "Plus ça change ... Ancient Historians and their Sources" (Classical Antiquity vol. 22, No. 2 (October 2003), 167–198)."
I'm sure the original discussers at this point don't care a thing about what they thought years ago or even remember it. That is the whole point. The editor is telling us what he thinks about what someone thought, a sort of glorified chat room. We don't care in the slightest. What we want is encyclopedic information, and this isn't it. There are logical problems with it too. The editor has Mary telling us how Curtius misunderstood his original sources and how frustrating that is because they are lost now. Well, if they are lost, how could Mary possibly know what they said let alone judge Curtius' interpretation? (More blood to the brain please). He writes about defense attorney Bosworth's defence against the charges. What charges? Presumably the "charges" would be listed in a special section reviewing past opinion of Curtius. It might be rather large. We would need a court reporter instead of a Wikipedia editor. I you don't mind I will leave that up to the writers of books. Only encyclopedic information should go here. We don't want to read about the trial of Curtius in study period before class, only about Curtius.Botteville (talk) 16:02, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed Renault passage

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: "Holy shadows of the dead, I’m not to blame for your cruel and bitter fate, but the accursed rivalry which brought sister nations and brother people, to fight one another. I do not feel happy for this victory of mine. On the contrary, I would be glad, brothers, if I had all of you standing here next to me, since we are united by the same language, the same blood and the same visions." 46.114.3.153 (talk) 00:07, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  The passage could not be found in the suggested 6.3.11 of the 'History of Alexander the Great' by Quintus Curtius Rufus, so has someone any idea where does it come from or if it is even true? 

message: Why does it say "the most straightforward approach assumes that he wrote in a window, 63 BC (start of the Roman Empire) through 224 AD." What happened in 68 BC that would justify calling it the start of the Roman Empire? Is this a typo? 27 BC seems a more reasonable earliest date, given that Curtius mentions Augustus. Hephae3tion (talk) 16:58, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dating