Talk:Third Servile War

Featured Article Status

The article finally made it :) It was a long hard struggle, but the article finally passed its FAC review :) - Vedexent (talk) - 18:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

"Province of Italia"

Sorry, it's been years for me, but I'm really, really pretty sure that there was no such thing as a "province of Italia" in the 70s BC. Italy was treated as a special jurisdiciton outside of the system of provinces in the Republic and early Empire -- I think it only became a province in the 3rd century AD. I mention it because the phrase "province of Italia" is right now (7/24/07) on the front page of Wikipedia and really jumped out at me ... not to cast aspersions on the hard work of what is a great article, but I'm going to fix this unless someone wants to tell me I'm wrong... --Jfruh (talk) 00:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Quoth the Wikipedia article on the subject:

During the Republic, Italia (which extended at the time from Rubicon to Calabria) was not a province, but rather the territory of the city of Rome, thus having a special status: for example, military commanders were not allowed to bring their armies within Italia, and Julius Caesar passing the Rubicon with his legions marked the start of the civil war.

I'm going to make the change and try to get the front page fixed. --Jfruh (talk) 00:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Good catch - I originally thought this was someone making "improvements" without checking their facts, and changed the page back, but you make a good case here - I've reverted the page back to your version. - Vedexent (talk) - 04:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

There's actually nothing wrong with the change you made from "Italy" to "Italia" -- you're right that strictly speaking they aren't the same thing (1st century BC Italia not including the land north of the Po), and certainly the name "Italia" was common then. My gripe was with the word "province", and I probably should have switched the text to Italia rather than Italy to be consistent with the rest of the article. --Jfruh (talk) 15:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

It might be worth including in the article the fact that Roman legions operating within the territory of Italy was a most unusual circumstance which was not normally allowed under Roman law - I hadn't caught this earlier - but it emphasizes both the extremity of the actions sanctioned by the Senate, and the "extra-legal" actions of Pompey and Crassus following the end of the rebellion. - Vedexent (talk) - 04:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The accepted English word for the country in question is "Italy". I am well aware that, as is mentioned above, the delimitation of Italy in ancient times was not exactly the same as it is now, but it is still referred to in English as "ancient Italy". Normal Wikipedia policy is to use the name by which a person or place is most commonly known in English. Calling it "Italia" does not convey any different meaning: anyone who is aware that ancient Italy did not have the same boundaries as modern Italy will still know that whichever word we use; anyone unaware of it will still be unaware of it whichever word we use. I therefore propose to edit the article to conform to normal English usage and Wikipedia policy. JamesBWatson (talk) 23:37, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

When (ambiguous seasonal references)

in the spring of 71 BC

In the spring of 72 BC

the winter of 73 BC

Poetic wordings such as these are ambiguous and are likely to cause confusion. Seasons should not be used interchangeably with dates as seasons occur at different times of the year in different parts of the world. Thus, they are not encyclopedic. These should be reworded so as to be more precise. If a specific month is known, it should be used instead. Otherwise, substitute other wordings as appropriate. --B.d.mills 03:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest you aim these criticisms at the original Roman historians who don't get much more specific than this; As stated in the FAC defense, more precise dating is not available. If you have other wording you feel is more appropriate (early? mid?), feel free to substitute it. - Vedexent (talk) - 04:03, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no ambiguity as the action of the article takes place entirely within the northern hemisphere. I've removed the silly {{when}} templates. 09:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

While I would not call the templates "silly" in general, in this case they are. Seasons played a very real direct role in ancient warfare. Mentioning them here serves a real purpose, it is not a sign of bias. Moreover, since the whole description refers to Italy only, there is no ambiguity introduced.--Stephan Schulz 09:24, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

This is an example of the general northern-hemisphere systemic bias exhibited in Wikipedia in general. I will restate - unclarified seasons are not good substitutes for time periods because they are ambiguous. If this was a series of battles in the Southern Hemisphere and it was sprinkled with southern-hemisphere seasons with no further clarification, would you be able to guarantee that every member of the audience in the northern hemisphere would be able to get the time period right? No.

Note in particular the wording winter of 73 BC. While the other wordings can ultimately be translated into a particular time period (with some effort), this is genuinely ambiguous. Consider that the northern-hemisphere winter starts in one year and ends in another. This particular time period cannot be disambiguated into "the start of 73 BC" and "the end of 73 BC" without further research, and thus the article is deficient and the "when" tag is justified here. I live in the southern hemisphere and I don't know how to resolve this particular ambiguity without a lot of additional research. Many northern-hemisphere readers will also have difficulty because seasonal conventions differ in the various northern-hemisphere countries. There may be unspoken conventions that describe how to clarify this but I am not aware of them. I shouldn't have to be aware of these conventions to work out this time period.

More appropriate wordings would be early, mid, late, or by clarifying it with northern-hemisphere before the seasons.

As an example of a reasonable way of clarifying, I refer to precedent elsewhere within Wikipedia. The following quotations are from the Falklands war article (emphasis mine):

The first landings of SAS troops took place on 21 April, but — with the southern hemisphere autumn setting in — the weather was so bad that their landings and others made the next day were all withdrawn after two helicopters crashed in fog on Fortuna Glacier.

The ships of the task force could only remain on station for a limited time in the worsening southern hemisphere winter.

Here, a specific date was mentioned in one of the quotations, but that is not material to the example. Notice that it clarifies the season using southern hemisphere. Nothing wrong with that. So why is it needed at all? Because some members of the audience need that clarification, to wit, those that live in the northern hemisphere. So why not clarify this article in the same way? It is reasonable that some members of the audience will need the clarification - the southern hemisphere audience.

Vedexent points out important information regarding the seasons and ancient history. It is difficult to disambiguate the seasons here because the historians who recorded these details recorded them years later.

Thus, I suggest that the article be clarified as follows:

in the northern hemisphere spring of 71 BC

In the northern hemisphere spring of 72 BC

The "winter of 73 BC" reference is more difficult. In addition to disambiguating the seasonal reference, it is also necessary to establish which "winter of 73 BC" is being referred to here, and reference it accordingly.

Someone may complain that such revisions will "spoil the readability of the article" or other such nonsense. If you believe that, I suggest you read the above quotations from the Falklands war article and imagine that the "southern hemisphere autumn" and "southern hemisphere winter" references instead read "autumn" and "winter". It is essentially the same - the weather of a season having an impact in the theatre of war. The only difference is that the seasons are southern hemisphere instead of northern hemisphere. Would you be willing to accept this wording - this is the exact argument made by user 62.145.19.66 - or would you seek clarification as I have done in this article? --B.d.mills 00:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

In one particular case, it is still somewhat ambiguous: winter. Is it the winter at the beginning of the year (Jan, Feb) or at the end of the year (Dec)? That's the only place I think more precise wording should be added, (not substituted). Mdotley 00:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

In light of the above, I plan to revise the two date references by inserting "northern hemisphere" before the other seasonal references as discussed above. I will also re-insert the when tag after the ambiguous "winter of 73 BC" date reference if it has not been clarified by another editor before then. If there are no reasonable objections I will make these revisions in the next day or two (unless someone else does it first). --B.d.mills 05:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, I don't think many people need to be reminded that Italy is in the northern hemisphere, and it is pretty clear that the article is about events in ancient Italy. Secondly, I've updated the phrasing to include the year spans i.e. "winter of 73-72 BC" - Vedexent (talk) - 05:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You have done well with the revision of the article to disambiguate the appropriate winter season, but the other possible flaws remain.

With respect, your insistence that "winter" and the like without further qualification cannot possibly be confused by anyone may be a sign of northern-centric systemic bias.

To identify the time of year correctly, it is necessary to know the following: (1) that the battles occurred in Italy; (2) that Italy is located in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere; (3) that Northern Hemisphere seasons begin with winter at the start of the year. Compare the Falklands War article with the quotations I provided earlier. To disambiguate seasonal references in that article, it is necessary to know a similar chain of facts. The location of the Falklands War is well defined within the article, so there is no essential difference in point (1). Although the Falklands are not as well known as Italy, this is not an issue because these geographical locations are linked in the article and anyone who needs to know more can use the links to learn the locations for themselves. So point (2) does not apply either. Point (3) can be disambiguated in the same manner as a swag of articles about northern-hemisphere battles. However, due to the inherent northern-centric bias in Wikipedia in general, someone has seen fit to clarify the southern hemisphere seasons in the Falklands War article by marking all of them with "southern hemisphere".

There is no objective reason why northern hemisphere seasons cannot be marked in the same manner. If "southern hemisphere" must be used within articles to warn readers from a northern-hemisphere audience that the seasons are different, I see no good reason why "northern hemisphere" cannot likewise be used to mark northern-hemisphere seasons for a southern-hemisphere audience. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 09:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Seeing as how the ancient calendar didn't always coincide with the seasons I think we should leave it with the seasonal references. Regardless of what month it is called, we know what time of year they are referring to. Missjessica254 16:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The legality of the legions

As Jfruh mentioned above, there was a law which prevented Caesar from crossing the Rubicon with his standing legions. This makes me wonder about the legal status of legions operating within Italy at this time, which should be reflected in the article.

What I’m wondering is

• Under what circumstances were legions allowed to operate legally within Italy?

• Why were Caesar’s later actions illegal? Was it because he brought a standing army within Italy? Was it because he took a standing army outside the territory in which he held imperium?

• Did the laws which forbade Casesar’s actions exist at the time of the Third Servile War?

This does have bearing on this article. For example:

• If legions could not operate within Italy without Senate sanction, this was most likely a contributing reason to why Gaius Claudius Glaber took a militia against the slave uprising in Campania and not regular legionnaires.
• If Senate dispensation was required for Legions to operate within Italy, or if Legions were forbidden under law to operate within Italy under any circumstances, then the raising of Legions of Lucius Gellius Publicola, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus and Marcus Licinius Crassus become extraordinary acts sanctioned by the Senate, or outright “extra-legal” actions of the Roman senate.
• If Caesar’s later crime was in bringing his legion outside the territory in which he held imperium, then the use of the legions of Pompey, and the repatriation of Lucullus’ legions to deal with the uprising become “extra-legal” acts, or acts that required special legal dispensation by the Senate.

I believe that the legal exceptions, which I believe had to have been made – unless the laws which later barred Caesar’s actions were not in place at the time – emphasizes the alarm of the Senate with regards to the uprising, and should be mentioned in the article.

I would urge anyone who has a clearer understanding the legal implications of the Roman legions working within Italy, and/or the legal status of the imperium imparted on the individual commanders (if any) to chime in. - Vedexent (talk) - 09:31, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

It was not unlawful for Roman legions to operate inside Italy itself at any time in Rome's history. Legions that had to fight in Italy were commanded by the consuls or people appointed by them. It was unlawful for any officer in command of troops to enter the city of Rome, except as a triumphator on the day of his triumph. This was why Pompey (and others in the same situation) had to camp outside the city waiting for the Senate to grant him a triumph, since he could not enter Rome without surrendering his proconsular imperium.

Caesar's actions were unlawful because the Senate had revoked his extraordinary magistracy over all of Gaul and ordered him to return to Rome alone, as a private citizen. Since his imperium would not end until he left his province, he was within the law in bringing his legions to the Rubicon, but by bringing them across it he was defying the command of the Senate and implicitly declaring war. Fumblebruschi 17:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification :) - Vedexent (talk) - 00:59, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

References

The first reference (seen in the introduction) doesn't follow the style of the rest of the references. I'm unaware as to how to properly format it, but if someone could do that for uniformity's sake, I would appreciate it. Kampfers (talk) 01:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Lead

The last sentence of the third paragraph is quite long and complex grammatically. Perhaps it could be rewritten or broken into multiple sentence to aid readability. Kaldari (talk) 18:35, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Slave ombudsman

Hi there, I'm interested in that Slave ombudsman (as a ref, from Seneca's "On benefits". Where can I find more? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.70.113.244 (talk) 09:43, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Numbers

The size/strength of ancient armies is often controversial, and it would help to have sources for armies and other large groups. Especially with sizes above 80,000-100,000.72.66.37.62 (talk) 00:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

That's why I added the Appian and Smith references in footnote #35; They discuss the ambiguity. It's also why I created size ranges not authoritative strength statements. - Vedexent (talk) - 17:34, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

BC or BCE?

The article on Spartacus uses the BCE format, whereas this uses BC. Consistency (using BCE/CE rather than BC/AD, IMHO) should occur across Wikipedia articles. 69.42.13.45 (talk) 13:54, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Forces and Casualties Disagreements

There has recently been a bit of a tug-of-war about Roman force strength, and casualties - all made without citations or supporting arguments. I have reverted them back to the original - including some reversion of my edits, BUT I am willing to discuss the matter if there are supporting arguments and citations for the changes.

To my mind:

• The quoted references are pretty clear on the variable size of Republican Legions, however - please feel free to read. I expanded the original troop counts to a more descriptive phrase showing the difficulties making a precise estimate. I originally used a middle-of-the-road estimate, based on Smith.

• Roman causality counts are also slippery - I could find no consistent claim for them in the 4-6 months I was re-writing the article for FA status back in 2006, so I left those results out. Since then, they've been added in as hard numbers - but without citation, even though I've requested such. As these have been unsupported - yet - I've been removing them again (with explanation).

• I can see there being claims for more legions - while it's quite clear that Crassus had 8 legions (the 2 consular legions, plus an additional 6), the Legions of Pompey and Lucullus need to be considered, although some references as to the number and size of those legions should be included.

Does anyone have any input on these points? - Vedexent (talk) - 10:52, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Spartacus MIA or KIA?

On this article it says he was last reported as MIA (missing in action), however on his personal article, it says it was confirmed that he was killed IN the war. What should his final status be noted as????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crelache (talk • contribs) 10:38, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I checked the Spartacus article, and it notes that while most of the classical historians count Spartacus killed, some sources note that his body was never identified. To me - when I did the FA re-vamp of the article - that translated as MIA, presumed KIA - but we'll never really know. Although, I'm pretty sure that - by now at least - he is dead. - Vedexent (talk) - 17:04, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

No MIA, man - I am Spartacus! 83.254.151.33 (talk) 10:47, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

"Also called the Gladiator War"

Is that so? Is it an important enough name to deserve mention in the article? I see two problems with this name. First, it is misleading, since the gladiators were only the first of the rebels, and were soon a minority of the rebels. Second, it is ungrammatical, at least in my own dialect, because nouns do not work that way. Gladiatorial War, adjective+noun, Gladiators' War, and War of the Gladiators would be grammatical, though still misleading. I think I have seen the last form elsewhere. Ananiujitha (talk) 04:36, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

"Doubly alarming" and "Roman people"

At present, the lead claims "The Third Servile War was the only one to directly threaten the Roman heartland of Italy and was doubly alarming to the Roman people due to the repeated successes of the rapidly growing band of escaped former slaves against the Roman army between 73 and 71 BC."

So the revolt is alarming due to the rebel victories; it is doubly alarming due to what else? Ananiujitha (talk) 20:28, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Presumably the revolt was especially alarming to the Roman aristocracy and to the Romans, of any class, in the paths of the contending armies. But I'm nervous about claims about the opinions of the Roman people as a whole in this period. Roman society was deeply divided at the time, as shown by the Sullan Civil War, and the ongoing Sertorian War to the west, and some Roman citizens are supposed to have joined the rebellion. Ananiujitha (talk) 20:28, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Roman commanders' KIA status

I removed most Roman commanders' KIA status from infobox, because:

• Glaber's status was unknown after his defeat, no records clearly say he was killed or survived.
• Varinius was confirmed to have survived.
• Furius, Lucius Quinctius, Gnaeus Tremellius Scrofa, Gnaeus Manlius were defeated by rebels, no records gave their fates as killed in their defeats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.79.48.137 (talk) 13:18, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

This is why you put comments in your initial edits - Vedexent (User talk:Vedexent) 16:53, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Roman Casualties

I note that someone has added unsubstantiated causality figures for Rome in the infobox. If you look at these casualty figures, they claim that the Roman militia and the garrison under Gaius Cassius Longinus (which only appears in some of the accounts), were butchered to a man, with no survivors - which seems extremely unlikely, and would have been specifically called out by the Roman historians.

Given the nonsensically high casualty rates, and inclusion of troops whose historical participation in the battles is uncertain, I've reverted the figure to "unspecified". If someone can provide concrete citations for the figures, I'd be happy to put them back, and update the body of the main text to accommodate the new sources.

Additionally, the differing values for those lost to Crassus' decimation have been removed in favor of the more sensational 4,000 figure. I've reverted that as well, since reported values do vary from 50 to 4,000.

Vedexent (talk) - 17:36, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Problems with lead

Various changes have been made to the lead since the article was featured on the main page. Not all have been beneficial; some of the details added over the years make for awkward reading. To be fair, almost all those changes have been sourced -- but then, we shouldn't need to source the lead; it should be just a summary of sourced content in the main article. Readability has not been helped by the overuse of transitives, and convoluted sentences; perhaps a consequence of adding more detail than the original sentence structure can carry. The changes since then have been minimal, but even the smallest addition can muddy a formerly well-constructed sentence. Here's a link to the main page FA version; [1] for comparison. I intend restoring that version -- it's not perfect (what is?) but it's clearer than what we have, and can be edited. In particular, the long-term significance and consequences of the war belong in the final para. Haploidavey (talk) 10:52, 12 April 2017 (UTC) (also pinging Vedexent, as instrumental in bringing this article to FA)

Done. Haploidavey (talk) 16:11, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

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