Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ancient Romans)

Interesting proposal

But! It assumes that every single one of them deserves a wiki-article. Do you want to create an article just for saying so and so was pretor in 244 BC? I'd rather have something in the style of Caecilius Metellus, creating separate articles only for people w´hich further distinguished themselves. In other words I suggest: keeping all the stubs together in the paged named after the name they share. MvHG 11:26, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I've gone back and forth on that several times in my WP career. Right now I'm tending to favor splitting, because when you put several people in one article, links from events centuries apart end up on the same page, and we make the poor reader manually sort through the dozen people trying to figure which one was actually meant, and editors not familiar with the subject would likely "fix" the descriptions incorrectly if they picked the wrong person. Of course, if a person is not ever going to be linked to from anywhere else, then there's no reason not to leave on a group page. Stan 15:51, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I've been working on articles about individual Roman gentes, and the practice I'm following is to group all of the members on one page, sorted by family if necessary, and then by date, with each name on the list linking to a separate article, if there's enough material to warrant one. Of course many of these are just red links for now, and I'll have to go back and write up the articles later! The ones about whom there isn't enough (or doesn't appear to be enough) material for at least a paragraph or two, get about one line explaining their significance and citing the ancient sources used to document them. If it later turns out that there's enough material to justify a separate article, it's easy to add one and link it to the page about the gens! P Aculeius (talk) 19:23, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

A proposal regarding articles on Romans

I might suggest that when an Anglicized form is often used (e.g. Livy or Marc/Mark Antony), the original form be the article and the Anglicized form the redirect. If all wikipedias would adopt this it'd make interwiki linking a lot easier -- Antony would be listed under Marcus Antonius everywhere, as he already is on DA, DE, NL, and SV. In fact, the article on en.wikipedia discussing Marcus Antonius refers to him as "Antonius" everywhere except the title, and such a standard would appear to be already in place on the German wikipedia, though it may just be that Germans retain the proper endings on their Romans. We need not be constrained in fact to the constraints of a paper encyclopedia; if people come looking for Mark Antony, they can be directed to Marcus Antonius, unless we wish to start referring to Cicero as Tully; a uniform appearance is a desirable characteristic, even if it makes people undergo a redirect here and there. --Jeff Anonymous 07:40, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree wholeheartedly. — B.Bryant 11:26, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't. This is just pedantagonism. --Jpbrenna 06:58, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I also agree. Using the word pedantagonism is pedantagonism. Using true names is simply accuracy, so long as a redirect or acknowledgment exists. — Jowfair 6 August 2005

I used to favor Marcus Antonius until I came into contact with a language which has cases. That language (Serbo-Croat FWIW) takes the root of the name rather than nominative. This brought home to me that using a form like Antony based on the root is just as "correct" as using the nominative form especially as in English it will be used even when the object.Dejvid 09:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

This may be reviving a dead proposal, but I also think this would be preferable. I see no disadvantages to having Mark Antony, Marc Antony, Mark Anthony, and Marc Anthony all redirect to a page entitled Marcus Antonius (triumvir) or something along those lines, or having Caesar, Julius Caesar and Iulius Caesar all redirect to Gaius Julius Caesar (Roman dictator) or perhaps to a page about the gens Julia, or even a disambiguation/prosopography page, depending on the context. If the goal is to help people find the articles they're looking for easily, then redirects are a perfectly appropriate solution. P Aculeius (talk) 19:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"which" vs. "whom"

There's a grammatical error in the first sentence. It should read "...about whom we have...", not "...about which we have..."; Roman citizens are people, not things. I've not made the change myself, since conventions should not be changed without consensus. If another editor seeing this concurs, please make the change.MayerG (talk) 19:15, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

clarification

I have taken some of the detailed discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome#Consul disambiguation and implemented them into the convention. Further expansion and clarification is till needed but this appears to clarify the position on disambiguation. --Labattblueboy (talk) 08:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

RFC – WP title decision practice

Over the past several months there has been contentious debate over aspects of WP:Article Titles policy. That contentiousness has led to efforts to improve the overall effectiveness of the policy and associated processes. An RFC entitled: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/RFC-Article title decision practice has been initiated to assess the communities’ understanding of our title decision making policy. As a project that has created or influenced subject specific naming conventions, participants in this project are encouraged to review and participate in the RFC.--Mike Cline (talk) 17:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Gens articles

WP:ROMANS exists because Roman names are confusing. There is an immense series on the gentes, each of which (depending on the size of the gens) is a prosopographical list. These currently follow a consistent naming practice, and to minimize confusion (especially with the names of women in the gens), it's highly desirable to maintain consistency. If the current system doesn't conform to MOS, then any style change would need to offer the same degree of consistency as an aid to title recognition. If a consensus can be achieved, I'd like to codify it here, and have drafted a temporary section toward that end. I seem to be having trouble attracting comment, though. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:27, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Below I'm copying a discussion on gens article titling. After seeking input at WP:Article titles and WP:Disambiguation, I was unable to get any outside editors to participate in the discussion here or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. I didn't see a clear consensus emerge from the other two discussions, nor did any editor volunteer to take on the massive job of moving all the gentes. I'm thus assuming that editors tacitly think that it isn't worth the trouble to change the status quo. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Discussion copied from WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome:

In my view, the crucial thing for these titles is that they all follow the same style; Roman nomenclature is confusing enough. Since I see no benefit to readers or editors if only those gens articles that have a title "ambiguity" are allowed to have the parenthetical explanation, I would like to reexamine titling options, in the hope of finding one we could apply consistently.

I don't recall where the original titling discussion took place, so let me summarize the options to the best of my ability:

• Nomen, masculine singular. The article could be titled by the nomen of the gens used for its male members: Licinius, Afranius, and so on. The nomen already redirects to the gens article when there is no other clear primary topic, or when there is no article on the nomen itself nor other prosopographical list of those who share the name. Problem: there are instances where the nomen would not be the clear primary topic, and would require disambiguation. Here I'll point out that Pompeius is the other gens article title that is anomalous; it should really be a redirect to Pompey the Great, as Syme and some routinely call him by his Latin nomen Pompeius, and he's either the clear PT or there is none.
• Nomen, masculine plural. This is possible, but not really accurate, as the article isn't about individuals, but rather the gens itself. Also potentially ambiguous: Licinii, Afranii, … Pompeii.
• Nomen, feminine singular. The word gens is understood, as in the example of the moved Annaea. But when women of the gens are notable, this would produce a sea of ambiguity. And some of these are already dabs (Aemilia or Cornelia, for instance) or prosopographical lists.
• The word gens + nomen (fem.). This would be the Latin form that would be clearest: gens Licinia, gens Afrania, gens Pompeia. No ambiguities. Drawback (a serious one, in my view): it's more useful when the nomen comes first in the search string. Readers are quite unlikely to be typing in the word gens. They're looking for a name.
  • (inserting a point here) In indices to scholarly works, a gens is often given as Afrania, gens, in alphabetical listings. Alphabetization of Roman names by the nomen is pretty standard in scholarly works that list a lot of names, even when a figure (such as "the" Crassus) is known more commonly by his cognomen (which would generate a cross-reference that functions like our redirects). This goes with what P Aculeius points out below about the utility of the gens name appearing first rather than the word gens itself, which would produce a hard-to-navigate drop-down menu if Latin word order were to be used. WP doesn't use this form of alphabetizing for article titles, so I don't see Afrania, gens as an option.
• Nomen (fem.) + gens. Not really standard Latin to say Licinia gens, Afrania gens, Pompeia gens, but conforms to English expectations: "the Licinia family".
• Nomen + (gens). This is the style P Aculeius arrived at in order to avoid bad Latin. But as we see with the move from Annaea (gens) (now a redirect) to Annaea, this system of naming is vulnerable to dab enforcement, and potentially results in a confusing lack of consistency for the gentes article titles. That's why I've brought the issue here.

Thoughts? Cynwolfe (talk) 15:43, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I added a note on existing practice to the bottom of WP:ROMANS, with a link to this discussion. If existing practice is backed by consensus, or if we can come up with another naming scheme, then I think that guideline page should codify the style point. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:57, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not actually away, just hadn't had time to respond, being busy. I can't claim to be unbiased, since I established the style currently in use. I could have argued with the move of Annaea from "Annaea (gens)" but chose not to because I didn't want to get involved in a war over MOS issues involving disambiguation. I'll briefly comment on the different options:

1. Nomen, masculine singular. I don't like this option, because it would be completely foreign to the Romans, isn't used by the most widely-available sources on the topic, and would certainly be problematic where some the gens wouldn't be the primary topic (and this would probably be the case with many important families).
2. Nomen, masculine plural. Also not a good choice in my opinion, for the reasons Cynwolfe gave above. And probably nobody would look for an article using this format.
3. Nomen, feminine singular. Ambiguous, especially where there are articles about women of the gentes (individually or collectively).
4. The word gens + nomen (fem.). Technically correct, for which reason I would recommend it if the word gens were ignored like "a" or "the." But it's not. If we use this, the search window will have far too many results to display, all beginning with the same word. A bit like filing things such as "a letter from Cicero to Licinius" and "a will belonging to Caesar" under A.
5. Nomen (fem.) + gens. I think this would work. It would mean redirecting a lot of articles, but some of that might be done by bots. It avoids the issue of the parenthesis conflicting with disambiguation policies. I doubt there would be many conflicts with other pages, since the word gens isn't that widely used outside of classical studies; it's also used in biology, but the two (related) meanings aren't used in the same context, so conflicts with existing articles should be rare. As for the objection that it's not standard in Latin, that's true. But the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, which is about as good a source as can be expected for general topics about gentes and their members, does use this form in a high percentage of articles. So I think we can say it's good English. And while I strongly prefer Latin forms for some purposes ("Pompey" for "Pompeius" drives me nuts), English forms have their place in English-language articles, and this seems like a good example.
6. Nomen + (gens). Sticking with this ought to be fine, although the non-parenthetical version above might be just as good. I don't think that the disambiguation policy should apply here, since in this case uniformity of titles is more important. But if the preceding suggestion would avoid difficulties arising from disambiguation policies, then that seems acceptable also. P Aculeius (talk) 23:10, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

end copied discussion

To P Aculeius's observation above that DGRBM lists the name as (for instance) Afrania gens, I would append a note. It does, but I believe the purpose is to keep related information together (all the Afranii and Afraniae), since it's arranged alphabetically. I'm not sure the principle differs from indices in modern works of scholarship that would list Afrania, gens for alphabetizing. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:45, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Tria nomina vs. WP:CONCISE

Recently a number of biographical articles on Roman men have been moved from their full names—usually the tria nomina plus or minus a cognomen or two—to whatever collocation of names makes them unique with respect to other article titles, on the grounds that this is required by WP:CONCISE. I think that this misapplies the policy in a way that does a disservice to our readers. I agree that there are some individuals who are so famous by abbreviated versions of their names that the articles should go under those titles, i.e. Cicero, Mark Antony, Tiberius. But for less well-known figures, I think our default policy should be to use the tria nomina plus regularly-used cognomina, and whatever other distinguishing factors are necessary for disambiguation. Some examples:

• Publius Cornelius Albus goes under that title, not Cornelius Albus, even though no other notable Cornelii used the cognomen "Albus", making the latter option unique.
• Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Niger should be under that title, not Lentulus Niger, although that would also be unique.
• Scipio Africanus stays where it is, because he's familiar enough under that name alone, and doesn't move to Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, even though that would be technically correct.
• Marcus Junius Brutus likewise stays where it is, instead of moving to the seldom used, but technically correct Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus. I note that we recently decided, after a lengthy discussion, that this title was preferable to either Brutus or Marcus Brutus.

I think it's a good time to discuss this because of recent moves and move proposals. Today I discovered that Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica—admittedly a mouthful—had been moved to Metellus Scipio, a collocation I wouldn't have thought to look under; if I had remembered the full name I probably would have looked under Scipio Nasica (which, as it turns out, is a disambiguation page). I reverted the move because I didn't think it was a likely search target; I don't know that the full name is that much more likely, but at least it's a predictable title. Note that this proposal wouldn't affect Roman women, who usually were known by just a nomen, occasionally accompanied by a praenomen or cognomen; I don't think articles about them are likely to be moved due to WP:CONCISE. P Aculeius (talk) 01:52, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

How would this apply to polyonomic names? -- llywrch (talk) 06:07, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't mean that the full nomenclature needs to be used in every instance, particularly when a specific surname or collocation of names is infrequently used or applied to an individual. For example, Augustus' father is listed as Gaius Octavius (father of Augustus) rather than the seldom-seen and not very recognizable Gaius Octavius Thurinus. The same would apply to polyonomous names of imperial times; we just need to apply common sense, and use the best-known version of the name, which in some cases will be the traditional tria nomina, possibly with one or two additional names. For example, Gaius Bruttius Praesens (consul AD 139) seems fine for Gaius Bruttius Praesens Lucius Fulvius Rusticus, since again, that's what he is usually called. If he were usually called by all six names, we could use that instead—it's a mouthful, but not really too long for a title. The goal of my proposal is to support titles like this, and prevent such articles from being moved to titles like Bruttius Praesens (consul 217) or Bruttius (consul 217) or Praesens Rusticus simply because those would be more CONCISE. P Aculeius (talk) 14:17, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but Gaius Octavius (father of Augustus) is not distinguished by his cognomen because he apparently chose not to use the surname Thurinus at all.Aforst1 (talk) 01:27, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we can say that; he died the year after putting down the rebellion, so we don't know whether he would have used it—but the article about him says that he bestowed it on his son—who seldom, if ever used it—so it's fairly clear that he thought it a worthwhile name, even if his son did not. Of course by the time the young Octavian was old enough to seek distinction, he'd already been adopted by Caesar, who was then deified—and it was far more in Octavian's interests to be remembered as a Caesar, and son of a god, than the son of a man whose signal accomplishment was putting down a slave revolt, which is what the name commemorated. Even so, if there were a lot of Octavii requiring disambiguation, and no more natural titles, then "Gaius Octavius Thurinus" might well be a good title. Since he was the father of Augustus, there's a much more helpful way to distinguish his article. P Aculeius (talk) 03:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I broadly agree. The name trio should be used in full for people who lack a different name by which they are commonly referred, since anything else might be arbitrary and cause confusion. In a case like the composite imperial-era name mentioned above, either the full name or a particular set of names (generally a tria nomina) by which he is more commonly known should be used, without arbitrarily removing name parts under the pretense of conciseness. It seems you brought up this subject in response to me moving Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica to Metellus Scipio. I still stand by the decision, since 'Metellus Scipio' is widely used in both modern and ancient sources, and I did not do it solely on basis of WP:CONCISE. If people have even heard of the man, they will most likely have heard 'Scipio' or 'Metellus Scipio', but probably not his full name.

Your example of Marcus Junius Brutus is a bit problematic since the name of his father's article – Marcus Junius Brutus (father of Brutus) – implies that "Brutus", rather than "Marcus Junius Brutus", is a better page name for Caesar's assassin. Aforst1 (talk) 01:27, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's problematic at all. I don't think that should be the title of the elder Brutus' article in the first place, as I said there and at CGR. But "Marcus Junius Brutus (father of Marcus Junius Brutus)" isn't a viable option either. From the article's creation until last fall, it was stable at "Marcus Junius Brutus the Elder", and that seems like a suitable title, even if the disambiguating phrase is a modern addition. Some other editors have voiced concerns that this type of disambiguation is problematic, in that it risks confusing ancient and modern disambiguation—but even so, I think it's preferable to the tautological title that the article has now. Still, what to call Brutus or his father is not what this particular proposal was about. And I wasn't proposing to make it a rigid rule—just a clarification to the policy for Romans to prevent "WP:CONCISE" from being used as a justification for reducing Roman biographical articles to the shortest possible distinctive combination of names or words, which has been done numerous times in the past—not just with Scipio Nasica. There will of course be exceptions: I may prefer "Gaius Julius Caesar" or simply "Caesar" to the present title, but the die is cast. Running text can of course use whatever seems appropriate to the circumstances; this discussion is just about article titles. P Aculeius (talk) 03:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

My purpose wasn't to derail the issue too much with the issue of Brutus. Again, I mostly agreed with what you said – to use the tria nomina as a rule of thumb –, in the paragraph just above that mentioning Brutus (perhaps you've missed it?) Aforst1 (talk) 04:06, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry if I went on ad nauseam. Just wanted to be clear about the limits of what I was proposing. P Aculeius (talk) 04:14, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

No problem, I'm glad we can reach an understanding on this. Aforst1 (talk) 04:20, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I think we've got general consensus, and have gone ahead and revised the middle portion of the article titling section accordingly. But maybe my wording could be improved upon, or maybe there's still disagreement on something—feel free to tweak it, revert it if you think it goes too far, or resume the discussion here. P Aculeius (talk) 23:49, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation: office vs. office and year

There's been some inconsistency over the years concerning how best to disambiguate Romans using magistracies or other official appointments, and I think perhaps it would be a good time to discuss it and see if we can come to a consensus. The policy currently says that between Romans sharing the same name, when the highest offices held were different, those offices alone should be used to disambiguate them; i.e. Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (praetor) to distinguish him from Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (grammarian) and Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (magister equitum). However, the practice of adding the year of office is long-established and, I think, helpful, particularly when several persons with the same or very similar names held different offices over a span of time. Under the current policy, which is supposedly informed by WP:CONCISE, an article titled Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (consul AD 217) is likely to be moved to Gnaeus Arcadius Maximus (consul) as long as none of his homonymous relatives held the consulship, even if Lucius Arcadius Maximus held the consulship in 215, Marcus Arcadius Maximus in 225, and Gnaeus Arcadius Cumulonimbus in 236. I think that this is an overly-strict application of WP:CONCISE. My suggestion is to revise our current policy, and state explicitly that the year of office should be included when an office is used as a disambiguator, and the year of office is known. I think this would be more helpful to readers and editors, as well as making disambiguation between Roman articles more predictable. P Aculeius (talk) 02:13, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Because the office and year are used for disambiguation, most article titles on Romans probably won't feature the year in which they flourished anyway. I once argued in favor of removing the year in a discussion with User:T8612, but if it helps readers and editors then I don't really have anything against it. The year-less article titles should, in such case, be redirected to those which feature the year. The very example in WP:ROMANS, Lucius Cornelius Scipio (praetor), violates the supposed conciseness rule since it redirects to Lucius Cornelius Scipio (praetor 174 BC). Aforst1 (talk) 01:51, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

In all probability it's there because none of the editors who favoured moving these to the most concise titles possible had noticed it. But the year is immensely helpful when there's an office involved, whereas the office itself usually isn't. For example: the article on the Junia gens lists twelve different Silani named Marcus, four named Decimus, and three each named Lucius or Gaius, covering the period from 216 BC to AD 65; at least ten of them were consuls, and every one of them had probably been praetor before that, along with some who didn't attain the consulship—to say nothing of the dozens of other Junii named Marcus, Decimus, Lucius, or Gaius over the course of nearly eight hundred years, who held numerous consulships and other offices.

It wouldn't make any sense to use just the year for disambiguation—"Marcus Junius Brutus (178)"—or even the year with "BC" or "AD", which I would say is pretty much obligatory for Romans, since Roman biographical articles span roughly 500 years in each direction. As it happens, only one of the ten men listed as "Marcus Junius Brutus" was ever consul—but since they and the other Junii Bruti held numerous offices over four and a half centuries, even someone with a firm grasp of Roman history might be excused for not knowing what time period "Marcus Junius Brutus (consul)" belongs to. Only with both the office and year does the meaning become apparent: "Marcus Junius Brutus (consul 178 BC)". Now, when one person stands head and shoulders above anyone else he might be confused with—say Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, or Marcus Furius Camillus—it isn't really necessary to have disambiguation. That can be used for articles about other members of those gentes. But when an office held is the most natural form of disambiguation for an article, it ought to have the year—and era, in most cases. P Aculeius (talk) 04:12, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I feel that this needs to be brought out of abeyance at least so that whoever decides to someday clarify the guidelines has a more solid consensus to work on. To sum up my position on this, I can accept the idea that the year should required when using a magistracy to disambiguate individuals. This would especially make sense for non-consuls or any office which doesn't have a complete enumeration (the fasti, for instance) of men who held it. On the topic of suffect consulships, I see no reason why they should be distinguished on the article title, as in Lucius Valerius Flaccus (suffect consul 86 BC) and Publius Cornelius Dolabella (suffect consul 44 BC). Either the 'suffect' should be dropped, or the year (as in Lucius Aurelius Gallus (suffect consul) or Lucius Cornelius Cinna (suffect consul)), but using both makes the title too long. If the year is to become obligatory, then the former alternative is surely preferable.

I do not want to complicate this too much but what is to be made with, for example, Publius Rutilius Lupus (consul) and Lucius Afranius (consul), who seem to lack similarly-named officeholder relatives (and thus, reasons for disambiguation) with Wikipedia pages? Is the year rule to be applied unalterably or do cases like these constitute exceptions? Finally, what should be the order of precedence for offices not within the cursus honorum? Should princeps senatus and dictator come before consul, as in Lucius Valerius Flaccus (princeps senatus 86 BC) (cos. 100), or not, as in Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (consul 115 BC) (princeps senatus) and Titus Manlius Torquatus (consul 235 BC) (dictator)? If so, should the year be used for these offices as well? Avis11 (talk) 13:59, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Agree with including the year (with era) for persons who held one of the annual magistracies or similar offices (i.e. tribunes of the plebs were not magistrates), when those offices are the most logical means of distinguishing among individuals. In some cases, where one person is head-and-shoulders above everyone else with the name, it won't be necessary. There is no point in distinguishing the consules ordinarii from the suffecti in article titles—they all held the consular dignity, with the same level of authority, and there will seldom, if ever, be two fully homonymous individuals holding the consulship in the same year. I would not except Rutilius and Afranius from having the year, even if there are no homonymous consuls; I think it would be simpler to apply this principle across the board when annual offices are used for disambiguation.

Even though dictators held greater imperium than consuls, I think I would go by consulships for those dictators who held the consulship at least once (there can be very few who did not). I would probably not use princeps senatus at all—presumably everyone with this title had been consul, the office was not an annual magistracy, and nearly all of our dates for them are approximate. If it is to be used, it should go without a year since its holders didn't serve for a particular year, and in any case it's relatively distinctive: our list includes only two dozen or so holders of the office for the entire history of the Republic, and the only fully homonymous individuals I noticed were the two Lucii Valerii Flacci—both of whom would be less awkwardly distinguished by their consulships.

My impression is that, with relatively few exceptions, this guideline—disambiguating by office and year—will apply mainly to consuls and praetors. Most consuls and some praetors who never attained the consulship will eventually have at least stub articles; nearly all dictators and most magistri equitum will have held the consulship at some point, as will most censors, principes senatus, and similar persons; relatively few articles will be written about quaestors, aediles, or tribunes of the plebs who never held higher office, but if this is the most convenient way of distinguishing them then it can be applied to them as well—except that I would probably not use a year with princeps senatus, pontifex maximus, rex sacrorum, or other Roman priests, since these were not annual magistracies. P Aculeius (talk) 15:02, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Lets sum this up then. When using an office of the cursus honorum for disambiguation, the one of highest imperium is used, always alongside the year of tenure (the first in which the office was held). Suffect consulships are not to be distinguished. Non-annual offices like princeps senatus and pontifex maximus, aside from cases in which sources use it as a primary identifier (e.g. Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex and Quintus Mucius Scaevola Augur), are to be avoided. I would only add my personal preference that dictator be used over consul when available, since the tenure was for 6 months and would thus fall within a single year; further, Sulla and Julius Caesar are more noted for being dictators rather than consuls. Avis11 (talk) 16:36, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Princeps senatus can probably be avoided altogether, but some non-annual offices such as pontifex maximus might still be needed in some cases. However, since they're non-annual and could span many years (with beginning and end points we frequently don't know) I don't think we should use years with them. With respect to your dictator examples, while Sulla and Caesar are well-known for their dictatorships, both are well-enough known that they don't require disambiguation in their articles' titles. I suspect the same is true of most of the famous dictators—Cincinnatus, Camillus, Corvus, Rullianus, Verrucosus. P Aculeius (talk) 17:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I support the use of a date combined with the magistracy. I prefer using consul over any other magistracy (dictator, censor, magister equitum), principally because these ones are less securely attested than consulships, especially for the early Republic, where you have a lot of hypothetical magistracies (I am aware that several consulships found in the Fasti are also dubious). The only exception I would make is for Triumvir, but that only applies to Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. There are some men who held the dictatorship/censorship without being consul though, so the order of the highest magistracy/office should be consul>dictator>censor>magister equitum>praetor>tribune of the plebs>aedile>quaestor. Some men are more famous for another magistracy than their consulship, such as Sulla and Caesar (dictatorship), or Appius Caecus (censorship), but they are often much more famous than their homonyms and their name does not need disambiguation. Princeps Senatus should never be used because there is too much uncertainty on the incumbents. Pontifex Maximus should also be avoided; however, when a man is not known to have held any magistracy, we could use some religious appointment (for example: Publius Cornelius Scipio (Flamen Dialis 174 BC) or Marcus Fabius Ambustus (pontifex maximus 390 BC)). Rex sacrorum may have to be used too since the Rex sacrorum could not hold magistracy.

I'm wondering what should we do with family connection, like: Publius Cornelius Scipio (son of Scipio Africanus). T8612 (talk) 23:06, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I would probably go with consul > censor > dictator > magister equitum > praetor, but honestly I don't think we need to include an official order of precedence in the policy. Common sense will usually suggest a title, and if there's some uncertainty in individual cases, we can thresh it out on the talk pages. As for Scipio, I think the best solution is to leave him where he is—we could call him "(augur)", but that would be less helpful than the current title, and we only have an approximate date for the start of his augurship to begin with—even though he died young, he may have been an augur for several years. That's my main objection to using continuing offices with years; if they're used at all, it should be without years, because it would be quite awkward using approximate dates and spans in article titles. I can see this problem occurring with some annual magistrates as well, at least with regard to approximate dates, but not that often during the Republic (magistrates important enough to have their own articles are likely to have held at least one dateable office; otherwise undistinguished suffecti in imperial times are unlikely to have articles), and at least we wouldn't have to deal with spans of years in the title ("consul under Domitian" or something similar might be a logical way of dealing with this, when it comes up).

Bear in mind that this particular policy proposal was designed to address articles that already use an annual office as a disambiguator in the title—it wouldn't apply to those who don't need this type of disambiguation, like Scipio. The goal was to have a uniform style for the title: "Titus Quinctius Flamininus (consul 150 BC)" instead of "Titus Quinctius Flamininus (consul)" or "Titus Quinctius Flamininus (consul 150)", both of which styles have been imposed based on WP:CONCISE simply because the resulting title was unique. The similar proposal above for preferring the tria nomina was intended to preclude editors from moving "Titus Quinctius Flamininus (consul 150 BC)" to "Titus Flamininus (consul 150 BC)" or "Flamininus (consul 150 BC)", also based on WP:CONCISE. I think we have substantial agreement on both proposals, but I'd like to make sure before writing them into the guidelines. P Aculeius (talk) 00:24, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Name in article text

I think it might be worthwhile to specify that in text, Romans should be referred to, in the first instance, by disambiguating linked name or with an explanatory phrase instead of the abbreviations common in classical scholarship. What I mean by that is not Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (tr pl 133) but rather Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the plebeian tribune of 133 BC. Similarly, a link is should be sufficient disambiguation. If the text simply says Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, this is a problem (which one?). If it links to Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (this time the tribune's father), I think that should be noted as okay. Ifly6 (talk) 10:08, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

This seems like basic common sense to me. Not sure why anyone would be intentionally leaving it unclear which of several potentially notable persons with the same name is being referred to. If it occurs, it's probably accidental, or in the case of using abbreviations instead of writing out words, being overly faithful to specialist sources. But in either case it's easily corrected: reword and/or link to the article on the intended person (if there is one). If abbreviations are necessary—i.e. in a table—then they can be written out and listed in a section preceding or following the table. I don't know whether any of this needs to be added to the guideline, because it's just basic editing. Is there some other circumstance I'm not aware of? P Aculeius (talk) 13:57, 5 June 2023 (UTC)