Talk:Roman salute

message: Saying some kind of right hand gesture is not mentioned in any source is a bit of a stretch. I think that segment should be rewritten. I know of at least one mention of right hand gesture in "Judean War" written by Josephus. Here's what he says when describing rituals of Roman soldiers upon going to campaign and breaking camp:...Then does the crier stand at the general’s right hand, and asks them thrice, in their own tongue, whether they be now ready to go out to war or not. To which they reply as often, with a loud and cheerful voice, saying, “We are ready.” And this they do almost before the question is asked them: they do this as filled with a kind of martial fury, and at the same time that they so cry out, they lift up their right hands also.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.149.0.110 (talk) 11:27, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: In the early hand gesture, about ancient Rome, talking about the most recent use of the hand gesture. Obviously anyone reaching this page knows the gesture and its use. But then here they are having the most modern use, in the tab that talk is suppose to talk about its first use. 108.183.194.218 (talk) 00:24, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mention of the hand gesture in old sources 

message: Josephus states in The Wars of the Jews, Book VII Chapter V "when they saw him coming up to them they stood on both sides of the way, and stretched out their right hands, saluting him..." (Whiston translation.) Although Flavius Josephus was Jewish, his history was written after he defected to the Romans, so this could be considered Roman literature.
Although Josephus doesn't give a precise description of the salute, it is nitpicking to say that "this description is unknown in Roman literature and is never mentioned by ancient historians of Rome." The Roman people stretched out their right hands in a salute. Was the arm angle 135° with the palm down and the fingers together? Josephus doesn't say. But even if he doesn't give all of the details, the gesture was clearly identical or very similar to that under discussion. This reference should be included in the article.Bikejeff (talk) 21:19, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  I personally would disagree that that's clearly identical; there are a lot of ways to stretch out a right hand. But it doesn't matter what you or I think; neither of us, nor any other Wikipedia editor, gets to make that call. Doing so is original research, which is prohibited on Wikipedia. Simply citing Josephus isn't enough; you need a secondary, reliable, scholarly source that talks about that passage in Josephus being evidence for the modern "Roman salute" in antiquity. Josephus is a primary source; we need a secondary source. As the NOR policy says:  You are interpreting that the passage in Josephus is relevant to the subject of the modern Roman salute; thus, you need a reliable secondary source to back that up. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

text: No, because the subject of this article is the specific gesture that is referred to, mostly incorrectly, as a "Roman salute". It is not an article about the general practice of saluting in Ancient Rome; such practices are discussed only in a small part of the article to provide background knowledge about the modern gesture. So, including the Josephus quote at all is implicitly performing analysis and interpretation, since by discussing the Josephus quote in this article, you're interpreting the gesture to be the same as that which is discussed by the article, since after all, if the Josephus quote doesn't refer to the specific gesture, then it is irrelevant to the article. Writ Keeper ⚇
 ♔ 20:01, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another Description in Josephus 

message: In the famous bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, the figure's right hand is extended in a gesture of (apparent) salutation. We can quibble over the precise angle of that gesture; but to say there is no reference to a gesture of salute in Roman literature or culture is obviously not true. It need not be interpreted as a strictly miltary greeting, a simple wave of hello is also a salute.
Nuttyskin (talk) 13:38, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The article doesn't say that there is no reference to any gesture of salute in Roman literature or culture; on the contrary, it goes into some detail about that subject in the first section and indeed provides this statue as an example. What it does say is that there is no reference to this specific gesture in Roman literature. Assuming you're talking about this statue of Marcus Aurelius, that is not obviously the "Roman salute" as discussed by this article, and regardless, we'd need a reliable source that connects the two anyway, not just our own analysis. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:48, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statue of Marcus Aurelius