Talk:Cicero#Requested move 20 May 2025

Is the character Cicero in Gladiator (2000 film) the same person? Aminabzz (talk) 15:29, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

:No. Ifly6 (talk) 09:13, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

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)

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 I agree with Ifly6 that this page needs basically a deep clean; honestly the classics stuff on wikipedia is outdated in general.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)

:{{ping|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 {{green|unnecessary WP:puffery and editorializing}}. I disagree.

:The vast majority of [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cicero&diff=prev&oldid=1217046200 the commit] reduces puffery. Eg {{!tq|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}} {{right arrow}} {{tq|greatly influenced... substantial percentage of his work has survived... admired by both ancient and modern authors alike}}; {{!tq|introduced into Latin}} {{right arrow}} {{tq|adapted}}. Re {{green|ditorialising}}: {{!tq|Romans often chose down-to-earth personal surnames}} {{right arrow}} 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)

::Cheers and thanks for the explanation, I agree. Remsense诉 16:04, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

: Well, an IP reverted my revert of your revert of an edit which I think is reasonable, on the grounds {{!tq|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)

::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)

:::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:

:::* [https://oxfordre.com/classics/viewbydoi/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.6597 Tullius Cicero, Marcus, life]

:::* [https://oxfordre.com/classics/viewbydoi/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.7133 Tullius Cicero, Marcus, speeches]

:::* [https://oxfordre.com/classics/viewbydoi/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.7134 Tullius Cicero, Marcus, works on rhetoric]

:::* [https://oxfordre.com/classics/viewbydoi/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.7135 Tullius Cicero, Marcus, poems]

:::* [https://oxfordre.com/classics/viewbydoi/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.7137 Tullius Cicero, Marcus, philosophica]

:::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)

:::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)

::::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)

The use of semi-invalid is confusing because it's an uncommon term to use and his disability is not stated. 65.211.3.153 (talk) 16:29, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

:I've expanded this. Thanks for the suggestion. AntientNestor (talk) 18:32, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

{{requested move/dated|Marcus Tullius Cicero}}

:Cicero → {{no redirect|Marcus Tullius Cicero}} – On Wikipedia, articles about people are nearly always located at the full name, even if the person is usually known just by their last name (Beethoven). TheLatinNerd (talk) 22:15, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose Wikipedia uses one-word names for many famous Romans: Virgil, Pompey, Livy, Lucretius, Sallust, Juvenal, Terence, Nero, Ovid and indeed, most of the famous ones. This is in accordance with WP:COMMONNAME and the five WP:CRITERIA: recognisability, naturalness, precision, concision and consistency. NebY (talk) 23:02, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose, not because there's anything really wrong with using the full name, but because we consistently use the most recognizable name as the article title when there's little chance of confusion; I realize there are still some contentious cases, but this isn't one of them. Many of the most famous people in history are referred to mononymously, even though they had other names, and this is frequently the case for people up to the middle ages (not including modern celebrities).

:Even today, we usually don't use someone's full name if there are more than two names, except when the person is known by his or her full name. If you check the guidelines for article titling, I'm sure you'll notice it mentioning the titles of articles about U.S. presidents: "Bill Clinton", not "William Jefferson Clinton"; "Jimmy Carter", not "James Earl Carter". Other examples: "Winston Churchill", not "Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill"; "Michelangelo", not "Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni", "Erasmus", not "Desiderius Erasmus".

:Among Romans, and besides the examples given above, a high percentage of emperors and generals are typically known by one, or sometimes two names, omitting their full nomenclature even when it's well-documented. For there to be a strong case to move Cicero to his full name, there'd need to be a chance of confusing him with other Ciceros; but neither his son, Marcus, nor his brother, Quintus, though notable, are well known today, or likely to be confused with him. While some people in the modern age may have been called "Cicero", all are better-known by other names, and few of them are known nearly as well as the subject of this article. P Aculeius (talk) 23:26, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Cicero, as such, is instantly recognisable. You need a "stop and think" moment for Marcus Tullius Cicero. AntientNestor (talk) 06:13, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose: Cicero is mainly referred to as just 'Cicero' in most reliable sources. KnowDeath (talk) 06:40, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose Common name is just Cicero and has been for over 2000 years. Same reason Julius Caesar isn't at Gaius Julius Caesar.★Trekker (talk) 15:06, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose per NeBY. Ifly6 (talk) 02:22, 22 May 2025 (UTC)