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Use of Ilkka Syvänne

I've recently endeavoured to make a number of articles on Byzantine military history (mainly the late 6th century and early 7th centuries) and have questions regarding the use of Ilkka Syvänne as a source on these events. It came to my attention that a lot of reservations were expressed about the use of material by this author in Archive 34. I have read through most of his work, and while I agree that in a fair few instances he does stretch his sources too far in the conclusions he draws from them, I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater in this manner. A lot of historians, even prominent ones, also make questionable observations at times. For instance, James Howard Johnson (whom I've also cited in my 7th-century articles) does not believe the Alexiad could have been written by a woman, contrary to the academic consensus on the period. Syvänne also makes a multitude of very well-reasoned conclusions, and when he critiques the sources, they can be very sound. His analysis of Theophylact Simocatta's abysmal treatment of Comentiolus is completely well-founded (and is also supported by similar observations made by Michael Whitby) and worthy of inclusion in any article dealing with that matter, to the point where exclusion of that analysis would make such an article incomplete.

I have sought to include a diverse set of sources in each of my pages so as not to rely on Syvänne alone, as is advisable for all articles made on wikipedia, but when the general narrative of his work is in agreement with those of other scholars, his work is generally reliable enough to be included in these pages, in my opinion. As long as it is noted as a disclaimer to readers whenever his reconstructions are at variance with those of other scholars as I have done here and not academic consensus, it's too stringent to remove citations on him. Anarawd ap Rhodri (talk) 09:32, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

I agree fully.★Trekker (talk) 20:52, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

Greek mythology templates

I think our Greek mythology templates need an overhaul. The main set of Greek mythology sidebars is the "Greek deities (...)" series, created in 2004. It was seemingly designed to cover the main regions of the pantheon, but some of the original set have been merged or redirected, and I think that the organisational principles followed are often far from ideal. We also have several templates with very broad scopes (eg. Template:Greek mythology (deities), Template:Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Template:Ancient Greek religion, Template:Greek mythology sidebar); I think that at least one of these is too long, and they don't coordinate with one another clearly. The full list of templates can be viewed here: Category:Greek mythology templates. (To be clear, my concern is not with templates for particular texts, such as Template:Iliad navbox and Template:Odyssey, or with navboxes that list post-classical depictions of certain myths, such as Template:Cupid and Psyche and Template:Echo and Narcissus.)

Here are a few changes that I think would be good to start with:

• Template:Greek deities (nymphs) lists various "types" of nymphs, as opposed to individual nymphs. This is part of the broader tendency on Wikipedia to treat the various names applied to nymphs in poetry as though they designate well-defined groups, or, worse, species that can be fitted into some sort of precise taxonomy. There was a discussion a while ago at Talk:Nymph that fixed most of the pages about these types of nymphs. I think the passage from Robin Hard's Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology that I quoted at the end of that discussion sums up the nature of these names nicely, and illustrates why using them as a basis for organisation isn't ideal. I also think that the template gives unnecessary prominence to topics which are usually going to be of little relevance to the article from which the template is being viewed; does everyone reading a page about any nymph really need a link to Limnades on hand, for example? (The old version of the template was worse.) I think a reader viewing an article about an individual Oceanid or Nereid would be better served by links to pages about other Oceanids or Nereids. As such, assuming we want to have a template (or templates) covering nymphs, I suggest we remove the sidebar listing the types of nymphs and opt for one or more navboxes that cover individual nymphs.
• I think that Template:Greek deities (personifications), at over 100 linked pages, is too long for a sidebar, and that the included articles don't qualify as fairly tightly related (which WP:SIDEBAR asks them to be). I suggest this becomes a navbox.
• Related to the above suggestion about the nymphs template, I recommend that nymphs are removed from Template:Greek mythology (deities). We have a good few hundred pages on individual nymphs, and a template that attempted to list all of them in addition to all of the deities would be terribly long. (To be clear, the current template doesn't do either, and it doesn't seem to have any clear criteria governing inclusion.) The other issue is that categorising nymphs as deities without caveat or qualification isn't entirely uncontroversial. See Larson's Greek Nymphs for a scholarly discussion of the matter, and this comment, from an unrelated context, for a few relevant primary sources. The nymphs who should be kept are the handful that are at least sometimes explicitly described as goddesses in their own right (eg. Calypso and Circe).

There are other things we could think about changing. (For example: Template:Ancient Greek religion and mythology seems extremely long, and it duplicates much of what's in Template:Greek mythology (deities); I think Template:Greek mythology (deities) should either be split or restructured; I think some of the topics around which the sidebars are centred, such as Template:Greek deities (water) and Template:Greek deities (primordial), are open to question; the links at the top of the sidebars to pages like Twelve Olympians, Titans, Primordial deities, Greek water deities, and Chthonic deities almost imply to me that these are canonical divisions of the pantheon; Template:Greek mythology sidebar doesn't seem all that clear about what it's covering; and I think that creating sidebars that gather closely related links about the most important gods, such as Template:Zeus, is something we could consider.)

Do others have any thoughts on the above three proposals, or on what should be done with these templates in general? – Michael Aurel (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Without knowing too much about the subject, these seem excellent ideas, long overdue. Johnbod (talk) 12:37, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Ditto -- this all looks very sensible to me. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:40, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Without (yet?) giving much thought to any of the specifics, my first reaction is go to! Paul August ☎ 14:16, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

It's great that you might tackle these, with your expertise. Re Template:Greek deities (nymphs), yes, we have a much better guide at Nymph with lists at Nymph#List, and we have Category:Nymphs too. The article's accessible to all users, whereas mobile app users don't see sidebars (or categories), so refining the template is bound to be less productive. It's not a structured sidebar that would lead readers to articles they might not have imagined we have, and the selection is, well, capricious (the notion that the Amnisiades are a distinct type of nymph looks rather like a misunderstanding of some translator's decision to render Callimachus' term as a proper noun rather than as, say, "nymphs from" or "daughters of Amnisos"). In the default browser view on a tablet, with the article already squeezed between menus left and tools right, the sidebar's peculiarly prominent and I can't see that this one justifies its presumption.Likewise for the very long, amorphous Template:Greek deities (personifications).

I guess we should all watchlist the ones you're working on in case we need to repeat such arguments on the individual talk pages. NebY (talk) 15:00, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Certainly a centralised discussion would be preferable to repeating the same discussion over and over again on a thousand different pages. Ifly6 (talk) 00:19, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it would. I've included a link to this discussion in most of my edit summaries, so anyone disgruntled should find their way here. – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:15, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Just noting that I've converted the personifications sidebar into a navbox (see Template:Ancient Greek personifications), and replaced it at all of the relevant articles. The list of figures that are included should also be more accurate now. Its approach is perhaps open to question – in particular, it covers personifications of abstract concepts, whereas possibly it should cover other kinds of personifications – but I think it suffices for the moment. Nymphs have been removed from Template:Greek mythology (deities), and I'll put together a navbox of nymphs that others can comment on. – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:13, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

What do others think of this? The "Other nymphs" section isn't finished yet, but other than that it should be pretty much comprehensive (with the exceptions noted below). (Note: as of this edit, the "Other nymphs" section should also be complete. – Michael Aurel (talk) 12:57, 14 May 2026 (UTC))

Looks good to me. I'd suggest finding a different disambiguator for "Abarbarea (naiad)", since in this context it's pretty useless: "daughter of Aesepus"? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:18, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I've created the navbox (see Template:Nymphs) and added it to all of the relevant articles. And yes, that page needed moving. (The lead seems to have been a bit confused: Abarbarea is the mother of Aesepus, so I've gone with "Abarbarea (lover of Bucolion)".) – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:36, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Note that this doesn't include set index articles. (Do we include these in templates? The navbox will be much longer if we do.) When in doubt about a particular nymph, I've leaned towards using the more general classification: she is only listed as a "dryad", "naiad", etc., if reliable sources unambiguously and fairly consistently use that Greek label. Otherwise, she has been relegated to the "Other nymphs" section (and figures are similarly only included there if reliable sources fairly consistently call them nymphs). Our articles tend to be pretty slapdash in their application of such nomenclature, so there will be discrepancies between this template and what's displayed at some pages. Most of the "types" of nymphs who were covered in the sidebar template are under "Other groups and names", which is hopefully a sufficiently broad title to avoid making assumptions about the nature of these terms. Dryads and hamadryads have been combined into a single category, per Hard, Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, p. 210. – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:05, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Given that little apprehension was expressed above, I think it would be worth tackling the biggest group of templates: those listing the Greek gods. Such templates include the cycle of sidebars covering different "sections" of the pantheon. Partly because of this discussion, there are now only three of these: Template:Greek deities (primordial), Template:Greek deities (Titans), and Template:Greek deities (water). As far as I know, the original set included an additional four: Template:Greek deities (Anatolian), Template:Greek deities (chthonic), and of course Template:Greek deities (nymphs) and Template:Greek deities (personifications). Template:Greek mythology (deities) is a large navbox that attempts to cover the entire pantheon, and Template:Twelve Olympians, as the title suggests, contains the thirteen gods commonly counted among the "twelve Olympians". The existence of Template:Muses and Template:Greek underworld should also be noted. (This is all in addition, of course, to the newly created navboxes Template:Ancient Greek personifications and Template:Nymphs.)

I think we have three main options here:

1. We have a cycle of sidebars covering different parts of the pantheon, and one large navbox which includes all of the gods. This would require redoing Template:Greek mythology (deities) and planning out a new set of sidebars to replace the current group.
2. We have a cycle of navboxes covering different parts of the pantheon. This would require planning out such a set, and doing away with Template:Greek mythology (deities) and the sidebars.
3. We have only the one large navbox covering the entire pantheon. This would require redoing Template:Greek mythology (deities) and redirecting the sidebars and Template:Twelve Olympians there.

The issue with option 1 is that I'm not sure it's possible to squish deities into small, tightly related groups while ensuring that together these groups constitute a coherent set. Option 2 has a similar problem, although navboxes can be longer and their links less closely related. The main trouble is that there would be a miscellany of deities left over and an "Other deities" navbox surely wouldn't be reasonable; we'd need to accept that some deities won't be in a template. The obvious drawback of option 3 is that the resulting navbox would be very large.

Figures should only be included in one of these templates if they are unambiguously and fairly consistently described as deities in scholarly sources. This means that there will some discrepancies between the template(s) and List of Greek deities, which includes certain figures whose divine status is debatable. One area of particular difficulty is personifications; currently, we have both Template:Ancient Greek personifications, which lists abstract personifications, and the "Personifications" section at Template:Greek mythology (deities), which lists roughly the same figures. If option 1 or 3 is chosen, I think the smaller navbox should be merged to the large navbox, as figures such as Nike, Tyche, and Nemesis really should be included in a list of the gods. There are scholars who draw a distinction between personifications and gods, though, so perhaps it would be defensible to list some or all personifications separately. (For example, see Amy C. Smith's Polis and Personification in Classical Athenian Art, pp. 2, 13.)

Realistically, doing all of this would probably require a few people willing to hash out the design of these templates. Any opinions on this would be welcome and appreciated. (@Paul: I might be particularly interested to know your opinions, if you have any, and are willing to be extricated from the ancient Spartan weeds! In particular, does partitioning the pantheon in the way options 1 and 2 would require seem at all sensible, or even feasible?) – Michael Aurel (talk) 02:07, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Corinth#Requested move 29 April 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Corinth#Requested move 29 April 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 09:43, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Featured article review for Orion (mythology)

I have nominated Orion (mythology) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria, or help improve the article. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regard to the article's featured status (see review instructions). – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:48, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Lenaia#Requested move 14 May 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Lenaia#Requested move 14 May 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 1isall (talk | contribs) 18:30, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Moving Template:Infobox ancient site to Template: Infobox historic site

There is a discussion at Template talk:Infobox historic site where the decision was made to merge Template:Infobox ancient site to Template:Infobox historic site. Has this been addressed by anybody in this WikiProject, since this directly concerns the work of this WikiProject? Gavingaebe (talk) 12:44, 27 May 2026 (UTC)