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I went through and did some work on the referencing and some rewrites for early life. But that has (fatally) undermined for me any confidence in the article's contents. There were incorrect assertions littered through the first sections: someone added something citing Plut Caes not realising that is the wrong person and a section placed pro Caecina a decade too early to make it look like part of some kind of anti-Sullan legal crusade. Nor do the regular references to Everitt (who evidently from the first chapter does not understand the republican constitution) and Parenti (an ignoramus) build any confidence.
Something also really ought to be done on the structure of the article. The subpages Political career of Cicero and Personal life of Cicero probably should be folded in or deleted; even if not nobody will read or maintain them. The current structure also fails to present things at all chronologically; intermixed in the first section with Cicero's biography is a long digression on his philosophical legacy. Serious work, probably a rewrite, is needed. Ifly6 (talk) 09:20, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This page relies heavily on Plutarch; many classicists consider Plutarch unreliable, even though he's one of our only sources. The ancient understanding of history was different from our modern one, and he wasn't exactly trying to stick to Wikipedian standards of objectivity. I agree with Ifly6 that this page needs basically a deep clean; honestly the classics stuff on wikipedia is outdated in general. Periferal (talk) 14:29, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense: Hi, I wanted to ping you to explain a revert I just executed. You left a message reverting Periferal saying that the edits there were unnecessary WP:puffery and editorializing. I disagree.
The vast majority of the commit reduces puffery. Eg important influence... wrote more than three-quarters of extant Latin literature... it has been said that subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style → greatly influenced... substantial percentage of his work has survived... admired by both ancient and modern authors alike; introduced into Latin → adapted. Re ditorialising: Romans often chose down-to-earth personal surnames → omitted. This is also the correct outcome for that passage; cognomina were not always chosen, not always common (Mark Antony; Gaius Marius), and we shouldn't paint them in this character, which is regardless not supported by Plut. Cic. 1.3–5.
Periferal's edits also fix some rather old problems like reliance on an outdated and fictitious "optimates faction", which your revert returned. The fictitious "populares" and "optimates" are a cancer here on Wikipedia driven largely by editors' anachronisms and ignorance of Roman republican politics. We should make between it. Ifly6 (talk) 15:45, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, an IP reverted my revert of your revert of an edit which I think is reasonable, on the grounds there's too much refactoring of sourced material which I definitely think is, if it is to be at all relevant, an exaggeration of WP:SUMMARY's requirements. If someone else wants to revert that IP revert go ahead. Ifly6 (talk) 20:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't expect to cause an edit war; I really need to just make a new version of the article and hope it's accepted. Agreed on the optimates/populares thing. They're useful categories, but Cicero wasn't going around calling himself an optimates as a political party! Periferal (talk) 21:22, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you're interested in doing something like that – rewrites can be challenging – I'd be happy to offer feedback. The Oxford Classical Dictionary Online now has some seriously excellent articles on Cicero:
We have access to all the OCD Online articles via WP:LIBRARY, which is very useful.
The standard biographies in English, if I recall correctly, are Tempest Cicero (2011), Habicht Cicero (1990), Rawson Cicero (1975), and Stockton Cicero (1971) (both getting rather old). The somewhat recent Cambridge Companion to Cicero (2013) is also useful, as is the somewhat older Brill volume by analogous title. Ifly6 (talk) 23:04, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Re Plutarch specifically, Lintott's commentary Plutarch: Demosthenes and Cicero (2013) may also be helpful. If you already know all these things, my apologies, perhaps they might be useful to someone else reading the talk page. Ifly6 (talk) 23:06, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some of these I know but I appreciate it! I'm still in my Master's program, but that does mean I have institutional access to these things! And if I do indeed do a rewrite--though Catullus's page is a higher priority for me--thank you for the offer! Periferal (talk) 23:37, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-3 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
