Talk:Roman Empire

Wiki Education assignment: Communication and Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 February 2021 and 14 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Waltersaraceni (article contribs).

GA Reassessment

Roman Empire

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: It's been a month, and there's been no real improvement. I'm already working on Byzantine Empire, sadly. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Uncited prose, including the entire "Painting" and most of the "Literature" sections. It has a good structure, but it needs a topic-subject expert to go through to cite or remove the uncited sections. Z1720 (talk) 14:22, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Adding to this, a few scattered thoughts:

• The "Fall in the West" section is very out of step with a complex and fast-moving scholarly field. It's been decades since one could respectably write a narrative that begins and ends with invasions of nasty foreigners with beards.
• The same is true of the article as a whole, I'd suggest: it reads like it was written by "fans" of the empire rather than people with a real background in its academic study.
• The Languages section is also pretty outdated in its treatment of "vulgar Latin" and non-treatment of other Italic languages.
• The "Society" section is pretty rose-tinted, put mildly. Again, most treatments of Roman society in the last few decades have not shied away from the general brutality and unpleasantness of it.
• The article seems chronologically confused: it's theoretically about Rome post 27 BCE or so, but occasionally lapses into talking about the mid Republic, centuries earlier.
• The Freedmen section needs to at least acknowledge the existence of women.
• The "census rank" section gets bogged down in the idea of the ordines (which included only a minute fraction of the population), and then tries, not very successfully, to talk more broadly about social class and mobility. There's also a lot of chronological confusion and imprecision, where situations that changed over time (such as labels like honestiores or conversion to Christianity) are presented as if always part of Roman life.
• This thing is a monster! I know it's a big topic, but it definitely needs hacking up and shrinking down.
• There are a number of points where complex debates are reduced to one side of them, and cited to a single source. The Empire is best thought of as a network of regional economies, based on a form of "political capitalism" in which the state regulated commerce to assure its own revenues (cited to Potter) sticks out: it's not necessarily wrong, but at the moment the article is far too confident in its conclusions and often badly devoid of nuance, and will give the reader a false impression that ancient history is nicely settled and clear-cut.
• The "Legacy" section makes some rather odd choices as to what to focus on and leave out.
• More generally, and related: I don't think this article really knows what sets it apart from Ancient Rome: there's a lot here that's really about "the Romans" in general, rather than the specific material the article claims to cover.
• Citing Luttwak makes me sad.

UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:34, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with all of these comments, except as to the size of the article. There's no just way to cover everything that is relevant with the Roman empire without it being very long. Ifly6 (talk) 20:41, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I feel paring it down to focus on the Empire as opposed to Ancient Rome in general will solve the length problem. Generalissima (talk) 21:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

All good observations. This article deserves not just an general update, but for someone to drive it to FA status.

If any one decides to take on this challenge and upgrade this article I'll support you. I intend on spending most of this year reading sources as I work on the FAR of the Byzantine Empire and can offer my (unprofessional) perspective on modern scholarship where it overlaps. Biz (talk) 07:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I have long said that the Roman Empire article is impossible to write within the parameters of Wikipedia. Here are some thoughts from a long-time contributor who worked on an overhaul ten years ago (at that time, the key was to get a more comprehensive outline structure) and whose doctoral work is in classical studies.

• Length. The current article is indeed too long. Most sections that have their own main article, such as "Languages", are far too long and detailed. When some of the sections were sketched in ten years ago, there were no main articles for those topics. It's a harder writing task than you might think to offer both clear broad statements that are useful to the wide range of visitors to this article in combination with some concrete details that bring those to life. Maybe we should just link them to the Jason Momoa SNL video and be done with it.
• The dangers of recentism. Classical studies is not a field in which older work is discarded. It isn't like either the sciences (where older ideas are actually proven wrong and progress is made) or, say, literary studies (the latter meant to continually renew the vitality of texts for current readers). What you find in classics, because it's inherently multidisciplinary, is that areas of focus within the field change over time, so that research on some topics may be concentrated during certain decades, like republican prosopography in the Ronald Syme era. All that work is still valuable and perceptive; classicists took up other questions and other approaches. I have read some awfully lightweight published articles lately by newborn classicists in which I could immediately spot internal contradictions and research gaps that make me wonder what's happening in the field—support for the humanities in the US is drying up, of course. Still good work in English from the UK but more so from younger multilingual European scholars. Anyway, in classical studies the date of publication is not a measure of the depth or value of research, though archaeology and text retrieval (as of Philodemus from Herculaneum) continually provide new resources to build on.
• Neutrality. Neither rosy nor brutal should be the aim. If you go in thinking "my job is to show just how nasty the Roman Empire really was," then that's as detrimental a mindset as wanting to wear a toga and lie about on couches eating grapes. Scholarship is about trying to understand what the Romans were about in relation to their own time and to the world as they received, entered, and reshaped it. If anything, scholarship in the last decade has moved away from the "Romans bad" agenda.
• Audience. This article gets high traffic. What do visitors come for? My occupation IRL is book editing. At least half of all compositional problems in nonfiction can be solved by putting yourself in the shoes of the average reader. What questions are they likely to bring to the article, and how can the article be structured and compiled to best answer those questions?

Cynwolfe (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Vexilloid of the Roman Empire

Why was the Vexilloid of the Roman Empire.svg removed it was present in previous revisions.Can anyone tell me the reason of the removal of the symbol. Augustus indicus (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Add an FAQ on the vexillum

Perhaps as follows, via {{FAQ|collapsed=no}},

Why is there no vexillum in the infobox?

The Roman Empire was not a modern state. It had no flag or coat of arms. Not only did designs for vexilla proliferate in the imperial period, they were not used as a representative symbol (as is very commonly done in modern films and video games) for the empire, emperors, or the state. It is the consensus of editors to avoid inclusion of any vexillum in the infobox which anachronistically suggests that the empire had any such representative symbol.

imo that paragraph reasonably summarises the previous discussions: in Archive 9, in Archive 9 again, in Archive 10, and in Archive 13. Ifly6 (talk) 19:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

See also

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roman_Empire&oldid=1235589590 removed fictional vexilum from infobox
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roman_Empire&oldid=1241456813 rmv speculative modern creation; while it is also speculative to what extent vexilla were similar, only one vexillum survives and it doesn't look like this
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roman_Empire&oldid=1262829167 actually, you're the one who needs to justify their changes per both WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS here, as you're trying to change sourced material. you're essentially trying to substitute a military standard as a national flag, which is incredibly misleading

I'm sure there is more, but honestly the revision history is so long and poorly detailed I don't want to keep searching. Ifly6 (talk) 20:06, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Official name of the Roman Empire

All political both present and past entities should have their description box to show as the official title in the official or de facto language of that said entity. In this case. Roman Empire must have its Latin title also represented. This was how things were for decades I am not sure why it was changed but seems some rogue vigilantes are purging the official title of past nations in the details box because supposedly there is no common consensus of the official name. That is misguided because it is of common knowledge that the Roman Empire was known exactly as that. And in Latin that is Imperium Romanum. I move that we must reinstate this without further argument as it has always been and always needs to be. Same with all other political national and regional entities both past and present. Mattk0516 (talk) 02:38, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Provide reliable sources which assert that the Roman Empire had an official name and that it was imperium Romanum. Ifly6 (talk) 19:36, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

First lead paragraph

Existing first lead paragraph:

The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Romans conquered most of this during the Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC. The western empire collapsed in 476 AD, but the eastern empire lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Proposed replacement:

The Roman Empire was one of the most influential and enduring political entities of the ancient world, spanning large parts of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East at its territorial peak and shaping the development of Western civilization. The Romans conquered most of the empire's territory during the era of the Roman Republic (founded 509 BC), and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC. The western half of the empire collapsed in 476 AD, but its eastern half (also called the Byzantine Empire) lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

User:Biz reverted this change with the reason "lead should reflect article content", but in my opinion the wording of the proposed replacement both better reflects the article content and is more clear. The "ancient world"/"antiquity" should definitely be mentioned, at the least. — Goszei (talk) 16:48, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

• Where in the article is the following supported: "The Roman Empire was one of the most influential and enduring political entities of the ancient world."? As the first sentence, I'd expect a whole section to cover this.
• Similarly, where is the extensive coverage in the article that explains "shaping the development of Western civilization"?
• why do we need to mention the start date of the Republic when this is about the empire?
• why do we need to add more words to explain "(also called the Byzantine Empire)" when this mentioned further in the lead again?
• We had a long discussion 7 months ago, if you can find support for other things (ie, Near East was discussed) then that works.

Biz (talk) 17:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

There is a Legacy section which gets this across, though the current fourth lead paragraph may be better at that. The lead should quickly answer the question "Why is the Roman Empire important?", and I think something close to what I wrote gets this across. I accept your third point on the start date of the Republic, and your fourth point on mentioning the Byzantine term. — Goszei (talk) 17:09, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

The fourth paragraph, an extension of the first paragraph lede, is unsourced and cannot be relied on (and the lede shouldn't self-reference the lead section). This should be in the legacy section, but if you read it, it is inadequate. A good next step is to improve the article with quality scholarship, and then we can revisit your proposal. Biz (talk) 18:12, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Further to Biz's points: by and large, we don't start articles with an appraisal - cf British Empire, Ming Empire, Donald Trump. I'm sure there are counter-examples, but with leads being such magnets for editing, such openings tend not to survive, perhaps because they're too contentious, too open to argument, too provocative. (The one you offer, for example, uses a restricted, Eurocentric concept of "the ancient world" that disregards China, India, Africa, the Americas, and more.) Instead, Wikipedia tends to employ Show, don't tell, and the bigger our subject, the less we need to big it up or tell our readers what to think. Indeed, this is a monster of an article on a massive subject. It's hard to see how it could be shrunk any more after this major effort in 2023 - see GA review above – but we can at least let the reader get through the introduction to the introduction making them stop to consider evaluations.

It's not clear why you say that "The "ancient world"/"antiquity" should definitely be mentioned, at the least." Aren't the three dates we provide sufficient, both for those who do know what we might mean by "antiquity" and those who don't, or who find the term itself a little antiquated?

We spent a lot of time on [[different geographic descriptions; if you're going to read that, you probably don't want me going over it all again here too.

Is it necessary to insert "half of" (twice), or beneficial?

If we are to mention the term "Byzantine Empire", then it would be as "later called", not "also", but we get to that soon enough anyway. NebY (talk) 20:18, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

The first paragraph of British Empire does in fact contain an encyclopedic appraisal that conveys its importance in world history. It is named as the largest empire in history and the foremost global power of the 19th and early 20th centuries, with a wide-reaching political and cultural legacy. The Roman Empire is a similar case, and just a dry statement like "ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa" is completely insufficient, in my opinion. Perhaps it shouldn't be written like I proposed, but it should be rewritten. — Goszei (talk) 20:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)