Talk:Lycurgus

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 March 2021 and 11 June 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): FishMan312. Peer reviewers: PimpDaddyPeaches, ZuesChill.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 September 2019 and 15 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MetaFeta777. Peer reviewers: KortClifford.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:59, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Long discourse about Minos in the summary of Lycurgus

Reading a rather in depth explanation about Minos (that even digresses to Incas) in the summary of the article about Lycurgus throws the article out of sync. If all that information is relevant in an article about Lycurgus (at all), a nice little footnote would do, to inform those interested. Now it almost seems like an advertisement about Minos' great achievements. The place for that is not the summary of the article of Lycurgus. I vote for removal. TessT (talk) 09:05, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

TessT the IP editor who made the edits has been blocked for a month. Feel free to remove it from the article - there is no need to vote for an uncontroversial removal. If you're interested in where this edit comes from refer to my talk page section 85. Mr rnddude (talk) 09:09, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I created a section 'Influences', transported the core of the Cretan influence to it, and added two other known influences to give a more balanced view.

Question: I added two quotes in the footnotes, to support the statements I made, and avoid major quoting sessions in the body of the text. I italicized the text. Is that the way it to do it, or is there a neat little wiki template for verbatim quotes in footnotes?TessT (talk) 10:47, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

TessT there is a more technical way to do it. You should separate notes from citations. The easiest way to do that is to use {{notelist}} to separate citations from references in the sections titled "notes". Then, in the actual text use the {{efn}} template and input the text you wish into that template. You can refer to the GA article Macrinus for guidance on how to use efn and notelist templates on articles. I'll give you an example here though that may help you as well. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:57, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! That was very helpful and a tool I'll certainly use in the future as well.

I'll end my edits for now, but there are a great many more things to say about Lycurgus. For instance about the education of boys and of girls, about marriage, and the eugenic measures (regarding babies), and his allowance of post-marital promiscuity. I'll be back later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TessT (talk • contribs) 11:50, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Untitled and ill-formed Thread

When was the town or city state of Sparta founded?

It existed in Mycenean times already and is a key player mentioned in the Iliad, but the Dorian conquerors who founded what we think of as "Spartan culture" arrived probably in the 11th century. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 17:58, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Citing sources

This page needs to cite sources. I'd re-edit, but i haven't time

Was first to make crepes? I'd like to see the citation for that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.170.213.62 (talk) 15:29, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Which also doesn't match the current content. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 02:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Biography

This whole section has gone without sourcing, and it's quite obvious it is a whole personal opinion. The majority of what's being said in this section is still being debated amongst historians, and the author of this is speaking as if it were definite fact. It needs some SERIOUS editing. -Jezzk (talk) 10:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I found the text noteworthy but had a different original take (before the first placement of the tag) and I've adjusted the scope and made the type of the tag specific to the complaint above. My reading was that the author was a modern greek and was recounting their understanding of their own traditional culture. Lycurgus (talk) 14:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

pretty sure all of the biography is from Plutarch's 'Greek Lives' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.180.235.3 (talk) 17:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I think some of it goes beyond Plutarch and some of his sources survive I believe, but will remove tag and replace with in-line fact check if no further comment. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 02:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

None having occurred, did remove. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 13:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Influence on modern political philosophy

Certain conservative 19th century writers, such as Jean-Joseph Gaume, have claimed that Lycurgus exercized an influence on modern political philosophy, his legacy being later revived by Enlightenment authors such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire. It would be a good idea if anybody could verify such claims, since they seem to imply that comparatively new ideologies, such as socialism and communism, actually have ancient Greek roots. ADM (talk) 11:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Iron money

Nothing about Lycurgus giving the spartans their iron money? 24.36.78.185 (talk) 03:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think in the legendary timeline of the development of Sparta that came after the time of Lycurgus. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 12:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

24.17.14.132 (talk) 09:37, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Deletion?

This article should be edited from the floor up or deleted. The article is substantially unsourced (as other contributors to this page have pointed out) and is little more than a medley of legends and folk-tales surrounding Lycurgus, some of which have their origins well outside of the temporal or cultural context of the classical world. There is obviously a place for 'according to speculation in the 19th century' type information within such an article, but such information has to be acknowledged as being ahistorical rather than presented as fact. My view is that allowing this article to remain intact detracts from the integrity of Wikipedia. It's tantamount to presenting 16th century ballads about Robin Hood as verified biographical fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.168.92.181 (talk) 19:37, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

This sounds almost a little like me but FTR, it's not. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 11:42, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed with non-me. We know nothing about Lycurgus for a fact; we should instead be stating who believed him to have done what. What we can also document is what different historians think of his role as a semi-mythical figure: what does the image of Lycurgus tell us about the Greeks? Feketekave (talk) 20:13, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Compare with the rather good article about Solon. Feketekave (talk) 20:31, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

--- "Lykos" is from IE *wlkwos, which means wolf. Wolves are not named for their 'lucid eyes,' therefore the final sentence in the 'Legends' section should be deleted."

But deleted for what reason? Is it because the author does not believe that Wolves have "Lucid Eyes?"

That has to be it unless the author of the above can or will dispute it!

But, perhaps the above mentioned author should have looked at a definition of "lucid" in a dictionary?

And, perhaps in the first two definitions found here; http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lucid, and perhaps the first two definitions do not seem correct, but I would suggest that you look at definition number 3. Meaning in essence "Translucent or transparent. See Synonyms at clear.", then one could well see some relationship to the eyes of some wolves! Actually, today, it is known that many wolves have what appear to us to be "blue" eyes, and it is further known today that "blue eyes" are in essence "clear!" It is only by refraction that we see them as "blue!"

Perhaps some of you might well want to also refer to the Synonyms of "translucent or transplarent at clear!" Perhaps with this background my post may well become "clear" to all?

Regards,

Ronald L. Hughes96.19.147.40 (talk) 00:34, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

An almost absent detail

I had to read this article twice to find the one fact I came looking for: the dates of Lycurgus' life. When I did find this information -- the first half of the 8th century -- it is tagged as being unsourced. Sigh. I examined my copy of the Oxford Classical Dictionary & found there are two possible dates (both based on early traditions): Herodotus states Lycurgus was the guardian of the Agiad king Leobotes (fl. 900 BC), while later writers associate him with the Eurypontid Charillos (c. 775 BC). If I find no one else updates this article, based on these leads, I guess I'll have to do it in my own Copious Spare Time. -- llywrch (talk) 06:34, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

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Primary topic

Is this Lycurgus the primary topic for the name? I would think so. It seems rather evident from the page view statistics. Ifly6 (talk) 13:56, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Possibly, though there are rather a lot of other mentions, as well as Lycurgus Cup (WikiNav) Iskandar323 (talk) 07:44, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

In the specific context of the cup Lycurgus means something else; I don't think outside that context, when someone says Lycurgus one would think of the somewhat obscure king of Sparta rather than the subject of Plut. Lyc. Ifly6 (talk) 14:46, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:STUBIFY article

i've removed most of the content of this article as blatant WP:OR that uncritically tried to use primary source data (Plutarch) to report a variety of fanciful myths and legends in wikivoice. Psychastes (talk) 01:52, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Rewrite

After some hiatus, I was (and now once again am) working on a rewrite at User:Ifly6/Lycurgus. Comments on that are appreciated. Ifly6 (talk) 18:12, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I copied the draft over the stub. Significant work is needed on the Legacy section, preferably with reference to journals or books on classical reception. I will continue to work on the topic but am currently somewhat burnt out. Ifly6 (talk) 15:38, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

These chapters might be of some use.

• Jensen, Sean R. "Reception of Sparta in North America: eighteenth to twenty-first centuries". In Powell (2018), pp. 704–22.
• Rebenich, Stefan. "Reception of Sparta in Germany and German-speaking Europe". In Powell (2018), pp. 685–703.

They are cited in the article already but unused. Ifly6 (talk) 15:39, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Good article nomination?

@UndercoverClassicist: Do you think this article might be a decent candidate for GA or FA? Ifly6 (talk) 16:41, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello -- thanks for the ping, though I'm not a Sparta expert by any measure. A few fairly scattered thoughts after a quick-ish read:

• The big difference between GA and FA is the level of comprehensiveness required: an FA needs to be a fairly full summary of its topic, whereas a GA "only" needs to cover the major aspects of it. At the moment, I think the level of coverage is closer to GA level -- as you note above, the legacy section could say a great deal more, particularly about the international picture and the place of Sparta in (far) right-wing thought post 1945.
• Prose-wise, the writing is mostly clear, though I think we could do a better job at setting out what the mythical Lycurgan Sparta actually was (what was the gerousia, for example?) before we demolish it. In many ways, this article is trying to do the same difficult job as Marian reforms -- that is, to write about something that fundamentally didn't exist, but which has been sufficiently widely believed-in that the myth has to be the starting point.
• Most of the scholarship is impressively up-to-date, but there are a few lapses: I don't think anyone nowadays would really talk about the common Dorian inheritance of Sparta and Crete, especially now that the Dorian invasion is well and truly dead and buried (another article that needs the Marian Reforms treatment!).
• The article gestures at the idea of the Spartan mirage, but I think it would benefit from spending a bit more time there, and explaining how the myth of Lycurgus (at least in modern thought) is part of a bigger picture.
• This is one of those topics with big fault-lines in the scholarship, so (again for FA) sourcing and threading the needle between those various sides is going to be important. Some observations on that:
  • The source list is relatively short: it does cover most of the heavy hitters, but reviewers may ask why some have not been used more extensively -- Cartledge's many works, for example, or the other papers in Hodkinson and Powell eds.
  • Massimo Nafissi and Hans van Wees together account for the overwhelming majority of citations -- they are excellent scholars, but this raises some concerns when the topic is one on which so few people agree. I would prefer to see uncontroversial details multi-cited to people on both sides of the fence (Cartledge would be the obvious "traditionalist" to use here), and it made very clear when we are in one person's particular interpretation.
  • Nafassi also gives an extensive and multilingual biography in his article, most of which is unused here. I do sympathise with the challenges of working with non-English sources, but I think it's going to eventually be unavoidable, since so much important work on Sparta has been done in French and German.
  • Nigel Kennell has written extensively on Spartan education and its myths: he probably has some useful material in e.g. The Gymnasium of Virtue (2000) or Spartans: A New History (2010)
  • On the legacy, see Elizabeth Rawson The Spartan Tradition in Modern Thought (1969) and Hodkinson and Morris (eds.) Sparta in Modern Thought (2012).
  • When we use primary sources as evidence -- which is fine, as long as they are appropriately mediated through modern scholarship -- I think we need to be clearer about who these people are, what they are writing and when. Tyrtaeus, Aristotle and Xenophon get thrown in as names, but their works have contexts that are very important to bear in mind when evaluating them as historical records (which none of them really are).
• For FA in particular, technical matters are important -- for instance, spell out the names of classical sources rather than abbreviating them, make sure that possessives are done according to the MoS, check transliteration conventions (why crypteia but perioikoi?) and so on.

I hope this lot is helpful. Most of it won't be an issue for GA, unless you are (un)lucky enough to get a reviewer who knows the subject, but I hope that the goal here is to improve the article as far as possible, and so that at least some of these comments will be useful to it and you in the future. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 18:28, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the in-depth feedback. Certainly agree that giving some explanation of the more obscure figures or institutions is worthwhile and made a few edits to that effect. I'll have to look at the Dorian line but I doubt I wrote that; it may be one of the few remnants of the pre-stubification article.

As to the other chapters in Sparta: new perspectives, if I recall correctly I didn't find them very useful for this project. Maybe I'm a bit unimaginative on that. But as to the other sources I agree that some additions are likely of some value. Doing that would be of some difficulty in terms of placement and where to fit them. I'm also not 100pc sure that this article here is the proper place for a discussion of Spartan reception broadly; I think gestures to that effect and a focus on Lycurgus specifically are necessary.

Are people in FA really insistent on trailing 's and fully specifying classical source names? I'm rather comfortable with the conventions prevailing in the field but whatever. But the latter has problems though: how do they intend to disambiguate something like Suetonius Calgiula from Suetonius Tiberius without consuming rather excessive amounts of citation space? How are they picking which name to use (which itself has been so bothersome for so many abbreviation schemes)? Ifly6 (talk) 19:19, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I haven't read those sources looking for Lycurgan details, but I'd be surprised if there isn't important material in the major works in the Sparta and Sparta-reception fields -- if only to give readers a sense of who stands where in the historiographical debate. On source names, see WP:NOTPAPER -- there's no problem with taking up a bit of extra space in a footnote, and the benefit of allowing readers from outside the field to understand what we're on about (see WP:MTAU) outweighs the (minimal to zero) cost of space. On apostrophes, yes, the FA criteria require full compliance with the MoS. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:42, 28 August 2024 (UTC)