Talk:Structural history of the Roman military/Archive 1

message: I would like to set up essjay's bot to automatically archive sections older than 30 days so that the discussion of stuff that is now redundant is not immediately visible (ie the old stuff on the page name etc). If anyone has any objection to this propsal, please post up now. Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, if you still want the talk page automatically archived now that Essjay's bots are offline, you can try MiszaBot III - WerdnaBot seems to be inactive again, though. Carom 14:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving earlier talk messages 

message: I've been struggling to find out what I've done with the references now for abou 20 minutes without any joy! Can someone who knows what they're doing fix the cite error that appears in the article and let me know what was causing the problem so that I can stop it happening again? Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see citations and references. What exactly is the problem? Maybe you need to clear your cache? 151.202.74.135 20:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is, as stated above the "Cite error 2" flags on some of the references - speicifically; "Cite error 2; Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no content must have a name". They are dotted throughout the article. I have already refreshed, it is an issue with the ref tags, not with my browser - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah...somehow your quotes are not the standard "" ones That may not be it. I'm stumped. Post on help desk? Xiner (talk, email) 20:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well that was a bugger to fix - thanks for your help Xiner, it seems there are two forms of " marks. Who knew! - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cite error 2 

message: I suggest something like the following, upping some subsection headings to section headings:
:Early Rome
::Prior to the Roman Kingdom
::The Roman Kingdom
:Republican Rome
::(appropriate divisions)
:Early Imperial Rome
::(appropriate divisions)
:Late Imperial Rome (284-500)
::Field Armies & Border Armies (284-395)
::Barbarian Allies
::Collapse of the West (395-476) (Romulus Augustulus falls 476, Nepos 480, Syagrius 486)
::Survival of the East (395-491) (with links to Byzantine Army)
I might also suggest moving from the political divisions (Kingdom, Republic, Empire) to the military transitions (Hoplite, Manipular Legion, Marian Legion, Field Armies & Border Armies). Jacob Haller 22:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section Divisions 

message: You should write about the navy where about 100k Romans and naval allies served when it was fully manned at the end of the First Punic War until the days of Cesar. Wandalstouring 19:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Wandals, I have mentioned the navy briefly but the real problem is trying to find information on its structure. I found some small amount of information on the number of men per ship and number of ships per squadron, but getting much more information is proving difficult - a lack of source is proving to be the problem here. I will keep digging! Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I will quote Lazenby in a few days. He calculates the numbers of army and navy for the Second Punic War. Wandalstouring 20:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  naval rise 

message: Can we restore this subsection? Jacob Haller 04:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I had no complaint with the contents - I moved most of them to "Collapse in the west" but it was just odd to have two concurrent sections collapse int he west and survival in the east running with the same dates How about we rename "collapse int he west" to "collapse in the west and survival in the east" or similar? - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survival in the East 

message: After 395, the histories of the Western and Eastern Roman militaries gradually diverge. We may want to include one heading for the west and one heading for the east.
I'm not convinced that "cut off in the enemy's rear [area]" is meaningful in this context. If an armies occupies the border province, then the province is not the "rear area" and if it passes through the border province, then the province is no longer occupied. If a Vandal army in invading Spain, it doesn't benefit from leaving units on the Rhine.
I'm not sure how Luttwak compares the importance of Foederatii and regular troops, or compares the classes of foederatii. The primary sources are rather sparse and many have reasons to emphasize barbarian troops. Jacob Haller 18:58, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jacob, I am working through the article trying to find cites for every sentence you have flagged as citation needed, this may obviously take me some time to squirrel out the exact cites for everything that you have tagged. This article covers rome only up til the fall of the west, as is conventional - anything in the ast after this point is byzantine rather than Roman. I agree though that treatment of the east between 395 and 476 is probably lacking and is needed. I'd rather not have this in separate headings however since it breaks the narrative chronology of the headings to have two headings for the same date range. Please just flag up anything you find questionable and I will try and either reword it or else find a cite for it. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collapse in the West and Survival in the East 

message: First of all,it's not clear which changes were Diocletian's and which were Constantine's. I'be made the 1st sentence slightly less specific. Jacob Haller 20:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jacob, you're absolutely right, we can agree on this at least :-) Cheers, - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncertain time period 

message: Hadrian's Wall itself was 2nd century, but some other frontiers were 1st century. I "corrected" the statement from "first century" to "second century" but we may need to find another example from the first, e.g. the Upper-German Limes. Jacob Haller 20:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jacob, I have no substantial disagreement with you on this point. I have reworded the relevant sections a little. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time periods for frontiers 

message: The average spatha blade of the Late Roman Empire is only about 65-70cm. This isn't much longer than the surviving gladius blades from the Late Roman Republic, such as that from Delos. Traditionally, even republican gladii have been considered shortswords. Most spatha blades are far shorter than medieval longsword blades. Jacob Haller 15:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jacob, I know almost nothing about Roman weaponry, I'm not into historical reenactment or anything similar and don't have any works on Roman arms at all, I simply have a few cites from works on the Roman military or other more specialist areas that all say that the spatha was a longer sword. I know you have placed query tags on the wikipedia pages in question, but they currently agree with my sources that the spatha "was a type of straight sword with a long point, measuring between 0.75 and 1 m" whereas the gladius ranged from 66cm to 82cm (depending on if you count blade length or sword length). I don't know enough about ROman weaponry to comment intelligently on this, but I can (as always) only go with the sources available to me, which all state that the spatha was longer than the gladius, as the above wikipedia articles seem to similarly state. I think given your greater knowledge in this area that you are better suited than me to getting to the bottom of this issue. I would point out however that this is a relatively minor issue in the context of this article that might be better resolved by simply stating that the gladius had beenr eplaced by the spatha and leaving it to those individual articles to detail what the length of each blade was. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length of spatha blade 

message: Finally, three paragraphs seem to tackle the same issue (division between limitanei and comitatenses, role of each, quality of each, composition of each) with slightly different emphases. I suggest merging these paragraphs. The section might have one paragraph on the split, and one on the changes in the legion. Jacob Haller 21:03, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the first two paragraphs could possibly be reworked into a single paragraph, leaving the third paragraph (on the legions) as-is. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have reworked these pargraphs now including denser citation and toning down the claims that went beyond the cites I could put my hands on immediately. I think probably now these paragraphs are a little large to rework into a single paragraph and are fine as they are but have a look now and let me know what you think. Cheers, PocklingtonDan (talk) 09:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not familiar with the evidence for an intermediate troops class between the limitanei/ripenses and comitatenses/palatini. The Notitia distinguishes two classes of limitanei (or R.) in some provinces, but it's significance is unclear, and the border legions are in the major list, IIRC, it's old cohortes and alae which most often appear in the minor list. Moreover, some frontiers have mostly alae/cohortes, others cunei, other vexillationes and milites, etc. Some authors associate different titles with different emperors, but not distinct roles. Jacob Haller 15:24, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jacob, I found this in Luttwak, who references Clemente, La Notitia Dignitatum, pp.146-151. He also cites Varady, "New evidences on some problems of late Roman military organisation" (1961), 360. I have added this cite to the article now on the point in questions. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Troop Classes 

message: Jacob, I think this could receive better treatment than disputed tags - it would be better where two sources disagree instead of having a single cited quote marked as disputed to change this to "Authority X believes X (cite 1) but authority Y believes Y (cite 2)". I think this is a better way of treating scholarly disputes than adding disputed flags linking to the talk page, which detracts from the article. Do you think you would be able to do this, adding in your own sources and cites, rather than just flagging cited statements as disputed? It would be to the benefit of the article, I believe. Many thanks, Dan
::Which is another way of saying, try and work with me on this article rather than against me :-) - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Trust me, I'm not trying to work against you. I'm just trying to find the right balance between "raise on the article page and discuss on the talk page" and "fix on the article page." My reference books, such as they are, are in the other room. Jacob Haller 17:42, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem, I do appreciate your help with this article, a lot of articles on wikipedia seem to be turning into single-editor projects, which isn't healthy for wikipedia. You seem to have an in-depth knowledge of this area, which is invaluable - I will be going through doing some copyediting of the prose this evening (another editor has nominated the page for GA status so i want to tidy it up a little before it gets reviewed) but I won't be making any edits to the article's substance or structure or any of the points we are currently discussing, just tidying up prose where necessary etc. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed tags in article 

message: I'd like to move the start date for Comitatenses and Limitanei to 284 and start moving material from Rise of the Cavalry into the following sections, particularly C & L. Jacob Haller 17:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hi Jacob, I agree that the title is a slight misnomer now that we have reworked those two sections and what we suggest makes sense - do we need to split C&L into two sections now to stop it growing too large? If so, on what divisions? Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't easy to distinguish Diocletian's reorganization from Constantine's. The combination was the largest change in Roman military organization since Marius. Jacob Haller 18:57, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My only concern with the changes so far is the name of the section "successive crises" - in this structural history article I have tried to keep away from any but the most major events in terms of campaigns of imperial clashes etc in order to concentrate purely on the structural history - both to keep the article length down and also so as not to duplicate material from other articles. My concern is purely that i was trying to keep each section header relating purely to structural changes than contemporary events or imperial changes (eg "Time of Augustus" etc). Hope this makes sense Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

text: If you want to restore the old name or come up with a new name, fine. I just think that the same description could fit the fourth or fifth centuries (and the same concerns apply to most of the Barbarization sections). Jacob Haller 19:34, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rise of the Cavalry 

message: Overall, this article is indeed well-cited. Anyone can scroll down to the references section and see that. However, my main qualm with this article is the prose. There are a lot of bulky sentences riddled with comma splices. The first sentence alone needs to be re-worded, because it goes from defining "structural history" to footnoting when the Roman Empire lasted. Personally, I think the article's better off without the Ancient Rome dates, because you can see when Rome lasted if you clicked on "Ancient Rome". The second paragraph of the lead uses three(!) subordinate clauses. Indeed, lots of information is given, but it just seems confusing to the reader if they have to jump from one thing to another within the same sentence. Final paragraph of the lead, I don't think "phase" is the best choice here. Phase, to me, makes it seem like the changes in military were more or less pre-planned (which they weren't, because this article describes the evolution of military structure). Jumping to the Tribal Forces, you have a sentence like "Although the army would have had an infantry element since its inception sometime in the first millennia BC, the cavalry, known as the celeres or literally "the swift", was, according to tradition, only formed in the time of the apocryphal Romulus." Really long, and can probably be split into smaller sentences.
Disagree if you want, but conciseness is what we aim for. - Pandacomics 12:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Pandacomics, thanks for your comments. As I understand it the overly wordy prose is causing the article to fail GA criteria at the moment? I will mark the article as in-use and carry out a thorough copyedit trying to simplify the wording. I will get back to you when this is complete later today. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Pandacomics, I have broken up some of the longer sentences now although I have to say that grammatically all the sentences seemed to be fine. There does seem to be a contemporary preference for shorter sentences but that doesn't make longer sentences wrong per se and I actually find they make for easier, more comprehensible reading. With regard to including the dates in the opening sentence this isn't really an issue of the article meeting the GA critera but in any case I think it is important to fully outline and explain the article in the lead paras. It seems to me essential that this is done without reference to wikilinks to interrupt the flow - wikilinks should primarily be used to allow a reader to drill-down to greater information on a given topic, not as a shortcut to prevent having to explain a concept etc. I hope that you after reviewing the changes I have made that you will be able to release this article from hold. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA on hold 

message: *"However, the trend of employing allied or mercenary troops was expanded such that these troops may have represented the majority of Rome's forces." -> inconsistent tense: you start off with past tense, and go into present subjunctive. you can keep this in statu quo, but for me, it's kind of like whoa when I start reading past tense, and see a present tense verb later in the sentence.
*"also through organic structural evolution" -> curious question: why organic?
*"The general trend in Rome's military can however be generalised as undergoing three distinct phases."
*:1) commas before and after the word "however" 
*:2) perhaps it was divided/separated into three distinct phases? 
*:3) "the general trend" could perhaps be rephrased as something along the lines of evolution or development. when using the phrase "the general trend" it usually refers to a type of fashion, like "the general trend was to tie up your hair in a ponytail"
*"as the territories belonging to rome increased" -> the "belonging to" is awkward. perhaps a hint at the empire's expansion? also, the clause is followed by "the soldiery of ancient rome". I know you meant "rome's army" but having "its" that close to "soldiery" makes it seem like the army belongs to the soldiery.
*"nothing is known of Rome's military arrangements, which would most probably have been indistinguishable from that of other neolithic and bronze age settlements." -> arrangements is plural; use "from those of"
*"The army would have had an infantry element since its inception sometime in the first millennia BC, whereas the cavalry" -> *"whereas" means "although." move it to the front, or use "but" in the place of "whereas"
*"300 cavalry during this period, one third from each tribe" -> I know you mean 100 cavalry and 1000 soldiers from each founding tribe of rome, but the mention of founding tribes is far enough away from the section's beginning to warrant another reference. also because you only mentioned them once.
*"too great for these figures to be taken too literally" -> "too" much? I think using one "too" at the beginning is fine. and curious question, what WAS livy's historical remove?
*"probably consisted solely of the very richest citizens" -> redundant to improve the superlative. you can just say "of the richest citizens"
*"By the close of the 7th century" -> I think you mean "by the turn of the 7th century" and if anything, turn of the 7th century BC.
*"Romans had lost their struggle for independence and the Etruscans had conquered Rome" -> if you're connecting two independent clauses, place a comma before "and"
*"a military dictatorship or kingdom in the city" -> place commas before and after "or kingdom" because it's not like they had to pick between a military dictatorship or a kingdom.
*"Although several Roman sources talk extensively about the Roman army of the Roman Kingdom, including Livy and Polybius, none of them are contemporary sources: Polybius, for example, was writing some 300 years after the events in question, and Livy some 500 years later. The sources cannot therefore be seen as being reliable for this period as they are on later military history from the First Punic War onwards." -> this paragraph just seems to interrupt the flow of the history of the roman army structure. you had an invasion going, and now you debate livy and polybius.
General note: try avoid using "would have." I'm under the assumption that these developments did happen, so it's preferable to just use plain old past tense. Instead of "the army would have done this" you can say "the army did this." There are more, but I got lazy. I'll continue probably later. Pandacomics 19:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Pandacomics, many thanks for taking the time to provide some copyediting assistance on the article, I have taken onboard and incorporated the much greater part of your suggestions and will try and run through some additional further copyediting too. I would also appreciate it if you were able to spend any extra time copyediting the rest of the article, since it is always useful to get fresh eyes on an article for copyediting other than the author's own. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  more prose issues 

message: The size of the Roman Army at Adrianople, and thus the number of Roman losses in the battle, has been disputed. Delbrück estimates somewhat over 10,000, which is widely but not universally accepted (personally, I've swung back towards higher estimates, as much as 30,000, with the Romans substantially outnumbering the Goths). Several other battles (Arusio, Carrhae, etc.) involve much greater manpower losses. Jacob Haller 00:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jacob, thanks as ever for your excellent input on the article. I have double-checked, and you are correct that a lot of the newer sources do seem to revise downwards the losses at Adrianople and generally seem to cast doubt on its macrohistorical importance altogether. I have removed the qualification of its absolute size and simply left the statement that the losses were great and cause at least some reduction in manpower. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Manpower Losses at Adrianople 

message: I don't know...the section just seems a bit stubby. But if that's really all the information that's out there, then...oh well. I'm busy with real life right now, but I will get back to this article soon. Pandacomics 21:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  non-citizen recruitment 

message: :GA review (see here for criteria)
#It is reasonably well written.
#:a (prose):  b (MoS): 
#It is factually accurate and verifiable.
#:a (references):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR): 
#It is broad in its coverage.
#:a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
#It follows the neutral point of view policy.
#:a (fair representation):  b (all significant views): 
#It is stable.
#:
#It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
#:a (tagged and captioned):  b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales): 
#Overall: 
#:a Pass/Fail: 
The prose at this time is less unwieldly, but under the assumption that you want to make this FA, I'll continue to stalk this page for copyediting reasons. Just to help you out and all that good stuff. I like how the article, although large, focuses on the fact that this is a timeline of how the whole Roman military evolved, instead of breaking into three separate, confusing timelines on cavalry, infantry, navy, etc. etc. The Bronze Age picture, though, needs to have its copyright status checked. The link is a dead one. Pandacomics 12:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the GA review, any copyediting you can do on the article is much appreciated, I have mainly been working on copyediting and citing recently myself since I think the structure and content of the article is pretty much in a final form now. I'm particularly keen to try and hone the lead section prose into something of professional quality. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 14:21, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA success 

message: " Whereas Republican legions had been limited to citizens only... early Imperial legions were open to non-citizens from any territory in the conquered empire". This is surely wrong. Every work I have seen holds that legions were for Roman citizens only, while non-citizen subjects of the Empire (peregrini) were recruited into the Auxilia. As I understand it, this remained the case (at least formally) until all the Empire's subjects were granted Roman citizenship by Caracalla in 212, thus abolishing the distinction between the two classes of subject. 
During the Republic, this meant that legions were necessarily virtually all-Italian, since the vast majority of Roman citizens were concentrated in Italy (all Italians were granted Roman citizenship as a result of the Social War in 80BC). But citizenship was rapidly extended to other provinces of the empire by the practices of planting colonies of Roman citizens and military veterans in other provinces, awarding citizenship to retiring auxiliaries, and making block grants of citizenship to friendly communities. These groups would then pass on citizen status to their descendants, thereby steadily increasing the ratio of citizens to non-citizens in other provinces. The article points out that Caesar recruited in both Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul. But both these provinces had been intensively colonised by the Romans for over a century and a half by Caesar's time, so that a majority of their inhabitants were Roman citizens by then (so much so that under Augustus, Cisalpine Gaul was abolished and incorporated in the heartland Italia province).
It may be that emergency recruitment of non-citizens took place when there was an urgent need to raise large numbers of troops in a short time (such as for the civil wars of the late Republic), but I doubt even this. In any case, there is no evidence that this became standard practice.
I look forward to hearing the article author's response to this. Failing that, I propose to amend the relevant passages to reflect the correct position. 86.85.44.73  (29 June 2007)
::Hi, no I do not believe that you are correct. Whilst the legions of the republic may have been all-Italian, the legions of the empire were not. Cites for this fact are footnoted throughout the article. Incidentally, I can't seem to find this exact quote in the article - whereabouts are you looking?. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 08:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, I'm with you now - I believe that all legionaries of the period in question had to be Roman citizens by definition but as Hassal states, if someone wanted to sign up in the legions but wasn't technically a citizen, they would be made a citizen immediately prior to enlisting (Hassall, p. 331). Its impossible to know how far the rules were stretched and it gets down to semantics as to what is and isn't a citizen but Hassall suggests that perhaps a lot of these non-Italian "citizen" recruits were the bastard offspring of legionaries rather than either true regional natives on the one hand or true Roman citizens such as colonists on the other. I'm not sure to what extent this is too much detail and/or too speculative to work into the article but I'll have a go - if you reckon you can manage it then likewise have a stab at it! By the way, you should sign up to wikipedia and contribute to articles :-) - PocklingtonDan (talk) 10:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hiya, that all sounds fair enough, as long as you are able to build in all the caveats about exceptions etc - why don't you have a go altering the prose to address the concerns you have raised and let me know when you are done and I'll make sure I'm still happy with it all (I'm sure I will be) and make any additions I feel necessary. I have been working on pushing this article towards GA status so might bully your prose etc if necessary - apologies in advance! Cheers, PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, looking into this further Cary and Scullard also agree with Hassall that in some provinces at least basically anyone could become a legionary, and would be unofficially made a citizen immediately before enlistment, they seem to indicate this was fairly widespread - I think you may want to hold off making any adjustments until we sort out exactly how common this was - Cary and Scullard talk about this being commonplace as early as Augustus. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text: No problem, I saw your edit and it was fine - I'm aware that I'm one of those annoying people that is overprotective of article's I've contributed substantially, in contradiction of wikipedia's policy of WP:OWN, it's something I'm trying to work on relaxing over! Rather than scaring you off, I would love for you to work some more balance into that area of the article if you feel it needs it, whilst allowing that I do have two cites that suggest that Roman citizenship as a requirement for service was increasingly a scam from Augustus onwards. I still have a lot of work to do on the article but I eventually aim to get it featured as I did with the partner Campaign history of the Roman military article. Contrary to appearances (sorry!) I do welcome a good healthy debate on areas where I may have misinterpreted the sources somewhat! No need to be so delicate with the article, if you think it is unbalanced regards this issue, please be WP:BOLD and correct it! Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text:  Hi Andreas, I think it is most probable that this was done at time or in provinces where there would otherwise be a shortage, ie there were insufficient citizens - presumably there were different percentages of citizens/colonies in some provinces than others and as you say it wouldn't make sense to conduct this practice where there was a plentiful supply of citizens. I will try and dig through the material I have as well and see what I can find but I'm not sure that I have many sources that go into great detail on points like this. By the way, one of the sources I have has a table of legionary dispositions, formation dates etc that occasionally contradicts your list of Roman legions slightly. Did you want me to send you a scan of the table at all? Cheers, PocklingtonDan (talk) 09:21, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I think we've both missed another key point here in our discussion on this point as well, which is that the semantics of whether a legionary's son was technically a citizen is kind of beside the point - the key point is whether legionaries were recruited from within etablished Roman communities, colonies etc or from non-Roman communities - this is surely a more important disctinction historically than whether the legionaries were technically citizens on signing up or not. The key point to establish is the progression from all-Roman legions early on to federated troops in the late empire - this is a progression of descreasing Roman flavour of the army, which is surely more a facet of culture than of a man's legal position as a citizen. However, I still get the impression from both Hassall and Cary & Scullard (do you have access to a copy of this latter text?) that in some provinces (Cary and Scullard mention particularly the Eastern provinces I think) there weren't enough Roman *communities* to provide sufficient legionary recruits and that non-Roman communities must have provided a major portion of the legionary recruits. Since the first non-citizen-province legion was raised back in the mid-republic, such legions must have been raised increasingly often by the early to mid Empire. I suspect that this could turn into a discussion that never ends - perhaps you could look at the current statements in the article and make a concrete proposal of the changes you would like to see and we will go from there - it is after all just a matter of fixing at what point the gradual intake of non-Roman-community recruits significantly increased. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I completely understand your frustration that several articles contradict each other -- I suspect that this occurs throughout wikipedia -- but it would be a massive undertaking to try and ensure that none of the articles on the Roman military contradicted one another at all through some sort of deliberate process. I think the cause of the contradiction is that some articles basically contain errors or uncited statements. I think rather than try and enforce cohesiveness/congruence of fact across the topic (that truly would be a Herculean task) the best practice the same results can be achieved through the gradual improvement of each article individually by its authors - if every article was FA quality you would hope that facts would be unconctroversial and cited and therefore less likely to contain errors - ie rather than try and compare every fact in every article to every fact in every other article, you simply work on an article-by-article basis to ensure that each one is cited from reputable sources. This is where your mention of the CAH comes in. It is certainly a brilliant source in terms of both quality and scope, but I don't think there is any policy on wikipedia that would allow us to "prefer" CAH over any other sources where sources disagree. It is not up to us in my opinion to decide which sources are more reputable, our job is merely to try and state which authorities believe what. As I've said to other users in similar discussions before, I think the best way of dealing with discrepancies between sources is simply to report both rather than choosing one over the other (ie Authority A says X, but Authority B says Y). I know that not everyone agrees with this - user Wandastouring in particular (who I have great respect for) seems particularly to prefer a hierarchy of reputation among sources and actually proposed to add a mini-review of how good each source was in the bibliography, but I think this is beyond the scope of what we should be doing as wikipedia editors, in my personal opinion. All this is a very long round of saying that whilst I agree with you that CAH is a wonderful source I think firstly it goes against wikipedia convention and policy to base articles exclusively or even too heavily on a single source, no matter how good it is. And secondly that our job is to report all viewpoints on an issue from multiple sources, pointing out preponderances of opinion as well as discrepanices between diferent sources - to evaluate which source is better that the other or more knowledgable gets into original research I suspect. And finally, that the best route to ensure there is no conflict between articles given the limited manpower available in the form of editors is to imrpove each article separately rather than trying to fact-check every fact across all articles on a topic. In any case, good work on the Roman auxiliaries article, its coming along well, and its great to have a civilised discussion on wikipedia! Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Hi Andreas, sorry for taking a while to get back to you. I am still uncomfortable about "ranking" sources in this way, it is dangerous to go with anything other than a preponderance of sources since we are only reporting understanding of the topic not making value judgments about it. I think your point about trusting university academics over other sources is fair and should be followed as far as possible. But beyond this, I think we would be on shaky ground choosing one source over another. And by the way Cary and Scullard were both professors of history not schoolteachers! Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recruitment of non-citizens 

message: I restored the references (which backed the paragraph as a whole as well as the troop numbers). I did not restore the numbers but suggest including numbers, or multiple scholarly estimates, for each period; I think we can agree that sheer numbers affect structure, and that they fit this article better than Campaign History of the Roman military or any of the other articles in here. Jacob Haller 20:46, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jacob - apologies, I thought the reference was specifically for the troop numbers - I removed the troop numbers because it was the only place in the article that the troop numbers were mentioned, so it seemed a bit out of place and I didn't think that the size of the army had an immediate bearing on the topic - the size of the army is covered in other articles such as the main military of ancient Rome article. This article is already pretty big and I think it would get too cumbersome if it tried to keep track of estimates of army size from one period to the next too. I might try and see if I can work a very brief summary of the size of the military in each period into the article - the trouble is where there are different estimates and you have to start providing arguments for and against various estimates, which i think really is outside the scope of the article! Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 04:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Troop numbers 

message: Jacob - for ease of reading, I think the sections need to follow on chronologically rather than overlap, which is why the date range was set to 358AD - 395AD . I would rather change the title of this section than have the date ranges overlapping. My title was based on the fact that this period saw the first wholescale adoptions of barbarian peoples into the empire (as opposed to just smaller groups). I'm not saying 359-395 was the only time barbarians were adopted, just that it was the main defining feature of the period (I have labelled each section just with it main defining feature, even if this feature is evident elsewhere - for instance "imperial legions" and "comitatenses and limitanei" are not just present at the time spans indicated by their section titles, but their creation was the main defining factor of the military in that period. Therefore, can we come to an agreement on a title for the section covering the period 358-395? I have changed it now to "Adoption of Barbarian Allies", what do you think of this? Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adoption of Barbarian Allies (358 AD - 395 AD) 

message: Some concerns I have for these sections:
*"80 men distributed among 10 "tent groups" (Latin: contubernia) of 8 men each." - were these men divided into tent groups or were they drawn from tribal tent groups?
:The first of these - they were divided into tent groups on some arbitrary basis, not drawn from tribal tent groups. Please feel free to clarify this in the prose. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Panda, I have split this sentence now. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Again, copyedit now - Cheers, PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I was trying to describe a typical makeup of auxiliary forces to demonstrate that all these were classic auxiliary troops were infantry - I have reworded this now to try and make it clearer. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Hi Panda, that last sentence was added in by another editor to try and point out that my statement of the previous sentence shouldn't be interpreted as typical of the time - I see how his wording could be seen to contradict the previous sentence and I have adjusted it nowto make his intended meaning clearer. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marian reforms & Non-citizen section 

message: : Hi Panda, many thanks for your copyediting to date, I really appreciate the effort. I've had a quick check of your edits so far and most of them usefully break up longer sentences or clarify sentences that were loosely stated - in a couple of intances you've clarified the sentences to slightly the wrong interpretation so I have tweaked these a little (leaving your copyedited sentence structue in place) where I felt it was necessary to bring out the correct meaning of the sentence in question. I have also tried to reply to your points above. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent Copyediting 

message: "With much of the former Empire's territory lost and its own troops spread thinly over a long border, the empire was vulnerable." - you start off with a prepositional phrase, and continue it with a independent clause. If it's possible, stick with one type. I tried "Having lost much of its former territory...the Empire was vulnerable" but I couldn't find a way to stick in the troops being spread thin. Pandacomics 16:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parallelism 

message: Hey, I've just completed Roman auxiliaries. What do you think? I don't especially like erasing a previous contributor's article and rewriting it from scratch. But in this case, the previous article was wholly inadequate: it was completely unreferenced, written in unidiomatic English, and above all a very thin account of what is actually a very big subject: indeed the whole story in my article is how important auxilia really were. Cheers Andreas 13/7/07
:Hi Andras, i'll try and take a look at this later today. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 11:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roman auxiliaries 

message: *"By the final years of the first century AD, the legions remained the backbone of the Roman army, although the auxilia in fact outnumbered them by as much as half as much again." It's fine and dandy up until the comma before "although". Surely there's a better alternative to "as much as half as much again."
::I know, it does sound clunky doesn't it. I have changed it a little to remove the three "as"es but its still doesn't roll off the tongue perfectly - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're going to have to explain what you mean by that, sentence looks fine to me. I have tweaked it slightly to ""where recruits did not possess citizenship then in at least some instances citizenship "was simply given [to] them on enlistment"" :-) - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was referring to the fact that "where recruits did not possess citizenship" seems a bit iffy as a subject. You could say something like "if recruits didn't have citizenship, then in some cases citizenship was given to them on enlistment." The "where" thing just doesn't rub the right way for me. It may for you, though. Your call. Pandacomics 23:22, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't really thing anything needs changing here, since ranged combat ability is a function of having ranged weaponry. Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm not quite sure what you are asking here - I mean contracted as is had a contract to provide. Is this what you were asking? Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Pandacomics. my thanks once more for spending some serious time copyediting the article. As before I have no issue with any of the changes you have made to the prose. I have responded above to the individual points you have raised. Thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More prose issues 

message: The present version presents the unattributed idea that there were reforms undertaken by Camillus, then rejects this in favour of the view (surely correct) that the changes were the result of gradual evolution.  I think that we might be better eliding this directly into gradual evolution.  (Also, I can't find any reference to reforms to Camillus in any of what I regard as reliable sources; I don't have Grant, but I'm not an admirer of his work and suspect he might be sloppy here, if this does go back to him.) semper fictilis 21:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Camillian reform" 

message: I am glad to see that Gibbon is being sourced for matters of consensus fact; but really a book with so many editions should be cited by chapter (and Gibbon's note if possible). Finding Gibbon is not hard; Finding a particular edition is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:01, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, I take on board your point but my edition is not marked with any form of count other than chapter (which alone would make for very vague citations) - I am not sure if such is included in other editions. My only option would be to count paras but given that this would take a long time and my edition abridges certain less vital sections, this would likely be both tedious and erroneous. I agree that where possible works should be cited to standard chapter, section, verse etc, but that was not possible in this case. Many thanks, PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, at least include chapter; there is no reason I should have to hunt down the Penguin to use these citations. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Chapter (for what use it is) I can do, will get these added in shortly. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 06:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I've added in the chapters now, theres only a few citations to Gibbon at present so it didn't take too long. I'm glad that you approve of the Gibbon citations - I've taken some criticism previously in this article for using him as a source, but I think its fair to use him as a reference for consensus fact - whilst some archaeology of more recent years has made some of his commentary questionable on particulars, there's no doubt that he was intimately familiar with the latin sources as few people today are and so the vast majority of his work remains relevant. I'd also prefer to cite Gibbon for consensus fact just because I would prefer more people read Gibbon as a result than many of the other cited works, I think the man was a genius and its a shame his work is very little read these days. - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gibbon 

message: What Livy says about the celeres is that they were Romulus' bodyguard. He discusses the cavalry, the equites, in a different chapter. What is your authority for combining the two? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have my copy of Livy in front of me at the moment but that is not my recollection - I'm sure Livy specifically mentions the celeres were cavalry. i could be wrong but I will check this evening. Whether or not this is stated by Livy, however, it is clearly the consensus view in the secondary sources, several of which are cited in this regard for that section of the article. The arguments presented seem to be (from recollection) twofold: firstly that there is evidence of prior use of chariots and a cavalry element is unlikely to have completed disappeared for a period after the abandonment of chariots since cavalry is known to have existed after this time also; and secondly that the very name "the swift" would likely indicate a mounted contingent. The closest any of my sources come to stating otherwise is (I believe, again from memory) Boak, who argues that they were not cavalry but mounted infantry. None of my sources state otherwise than that they were mounted troops of some sort, and all but one state they were cavalry. Do you have a cite for the opposite? Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me go check Boak. I am quite certain of Livy; I was just reading him for something else, and was reminded of this article; the equites (three centuries) are in I, 13; the Celeres (three hundred, who stayed with Romulus night and day) are in I, 15. It may be that Livy has gotten it wrong again; but his intention seems clear. A Latin Livy is here; there's an English one at Perseus Project.  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had a chance to look at the sources now and refresh my memory. You are correct that Livy apparently states that the celeres were formed later after cavalry already existed in the army, but doesn't seem to mention explicitly whether they were infantry or cavalry. As you say, Dionysus seems to suggest mounted infantry, which is clearly the account favoured by Boak. Keppie and Grant both mention 300 cavalry, but do not term them celeres. The argument over whether they were probably cavalry seems to depend on whether you accept they were named literally "the swift" or named for their leader (in one account) Celer. It does seem though that I have overstated the position that the celeres were definitely equivalent to the cavalry, certainly that they were definitely equivalent to the entirety of the cavalry. I'm not sure to what extent it is original research to suggest that, given that the celeres were an elite and that only the elite traditionally could afford mounts at almost all historical timepoints, it would make sense for the celeres to have been mounted. It seems very probable to me the celeres were mounted infantry at least, if not cavalry, both bases on the sources and through common sense and parallel examples. How we word this succintly and accurately is another thing! Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 17:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would interpret anyone who says simply "cavalry" as referring to the equites, who certainly had horses; mounted infantry or not. Good luck with wording this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had a stab at rewording this to reflect the range of possible positions on this matter. Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Celeres 

message: While 476 AD is certainly a significant year for the Roman Empire, why should such an article end there? I propose that it should end about 1000 years later with the fall of Constantinople.
Bryan MacKinnon (talk) 13:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Traditionally the empire based in Constantinople post-476 is titled "Byzantine" rather than Roman, and there are separate pages on Wikipedia dealing with this history  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.157.135 (talk) 20:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should this stop at 476 AD? 

message: Did that get lost in the mix somewhere? --Quadalpha (talk) 14:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, the link in the footnotes sections fails to work 193.60.83.241 (talk) 18:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Alpha was used as a note for "The numbers are a little too exact and Livy's historical remove of 500 years too great for these figures to be taken literally." in the Tribal forces (c. 800 BC – c. 578 BC) section. That sentence was rewritten in November by this edit. Maybe an expert might wish to either remove, or re-apply the footnote to the numbers 3,000 and 300, as appropriate? 84user (talk) 21:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Footnote alpha