Talk:Hortensius (Cicero)

Page Creation

I wish to expand this page and categorize it. I came across the title in St. Augustine's Confessions; however, this page has not yet been created, nor has a proper page to re-direct. From my own work: "In section seven, Augustine is eighteen years old, and the Hortensius brings thoughts that cause him to doubt his current life style. Cicero’s Hortensius had flooded his mind, for it "contains an exhortation to study philosophy... The book changed [his] feelings. It altered [his] prayers... to be toward [God].” Tradereddy (talk) 20:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Expanding the Page

There is more content on the French[1] and Italian[2] pages that could help us expand the page. Tradereddy (talk) 13:56, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Thoughts for GA nominator

Hi, I've just added template:sfn formatting to the references here. I think the article is good, but could do with some tlc on the sources. Especially providing pages in inline citations. Augustine's Confessions, for example, is a massive book and some indication of where to find the bits referred to here would be invaluable. The same goes to the works cited here where lack of page numbers could be confused for an unread bolt-on citation. Anyway, these shouldn't be big things and I wish you the best with the nomination. —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:54, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

I added more sources, if you wanted to give those a some TLC. Augustine writes about the Hortensius prodominately in Book III.4.7 - III.6.10. I plan to go through the book again, and I'll bring some additional information if there is some concering the work. Tradereddy (talk) 16:46, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, and the edits look really nice. I went ahead and made a few more minor adjustments. How does it all look now, @Brigade Piron:?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 23:00, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

That's great! I like the inclusion of quotes which, given the nature of the subject, seem very appropriate. A couple of source things remain though I think:

• reference 4 (Augustine 2006) - could that be converted into the same format as the new references 1 and 2 (Confessions III.4 for example).
• Is "Encyclopedia Americana, v. 2, p. 685. Danbury, CT: Grolier, 1997. ISBN 0-7172-0129-5." The same book as "Cummings, Mark, ed. (1997). Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Incorporated. ISBN 0-7172-0129-5."? If so, I'll convert that to an sfn citatation like the other Cummings one.
• Would it be possible (not essential of course) to have page references for the Rabinowitz 1957 citation?

All best! —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:24, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Additional research and fragments

I discovered a scholarly article that would be a good launching point to several additional sources for our Wikipedia article, 'Reconstructing Cicero’s Hortensius. A note on fragment 43 Grilli (Philologica Jassyensia X, 1 (19) / 2014 Suppl.)'.

In addition, I would like to open the discussion about creating a new section on the page for the quotation of selected fragments. As far as my sense of aesthetics goes, any additional side quotation boxes would be a step against GA status rather than toward.

Chadwick's edition of Augustine footnotes this senetnece as "a quotation or at least a paraphrase of Cicero (Hortensius, fragment 106 Grilli)": "For 'it is not the discovery but the mere search for wisdom which should be preferred even to the discovery of treasures and to ruling over nations and to the physical delights available to me at a nod'" (Page 145, VIII.7.17) -Tradereddy (talk) 16:08, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

This is an excellent article! I think a section like the one you suggest is a good idea.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 19:48, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I have used the article in addition to other sources to create a new section Scholarship. I haven't yet found a good source for an overview of fragments. I'm going to find a copy of Rabinowitz (1957) at my university library to fix that citation. Tradereddy (talk) 20:31, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Hortensius (Cicero)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 00:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Summary: Fail. Major problems with inadequate coverage of available source material, insufficently specific referencing, and close paraphrasing. A sufficiently long way to go to get this into shape for GA that it would require a new and independent review.

Good article criteria

1. The prose is acceptable, with occasional problems with weasel wording or overly vague wording, but with large fractions of our article too closely paraphrased from a single source. The lead contains some material that should be placed elsewhere in the article and summarized in the lead. The short length of the lead is acceptable given the short length of the overall article, but the overall article is too short to adequately cover its subject.
2. Many of the references are incomplete, one major reference appears to be nonexistent, and many likely references are not used. On the other hand, the references used appear reliable. Some material in the article is extrapolated past what the reliable sources actually say about the same topics.
3. The article is too short to cover the topic as broadly as it should be covered. Given this, there are no problems with overly detailed treatments of subtopics.
4. What material is covered seems to be covered neutrally enough.
5. The article had a significant edit soon after its nomination, and since then edits have been small but ongoing. I think there is no significant issue with stability at this time.
6. The article is illustrated by a bust of Cicero, with no copyright issues. Given the subject, and the fact that the original manuscript has been lost, it is not reasonable to expect much more.

Lead section

• The one-paragraph length is appropriate for the relatively short (3174B) length of the article
• The lead includes an analysis of the content of the dialogue ("that genuine human happiness is to be found...") that properly belongs, with an expansion if possible, in the text of the article, with a summary in the lead.
• The source given for this analysis does not support what our article says: it says that Hortensius rebuts a previous argument that philosophy is useless and doesn't contribute to happiness, but does not say what we say here, that Hortensius describes philosophy as being the way to happiness.

History and composition

• This section mixes up three different things in a single paragraph: what was happening in Cicero's life as the context for writing this, the content of the dialogue, and the literary connection of the dialogue to other works of the time. Each of these deserves more than a third of a paragraph.
• "unhappy time in Cicero's life" is closely paraphrased from the source, "unhappy period in Cicero's life", and "isolated himself in his villa at Astura" is again uncomfortably closed to the source "shut himself up in his villa by the sea at Astura".
• What is the point of having two separate copies of the same footnote in the same paragraph with no other intervening footnotes?
• Taylor gives some indication of the length of the remaining fragments of this text, but our article does not.
• Taylor also says that there are many critical studies, and cites two as the most notable, but these two are not among the sources and aside from Taylor himself the only other study cited is Russell's. Searching Google scholar for Cicero and Hortensius again finds many works on the subject not mentioned nor summarized here.
• The whole sequence of sentences from "The Hortensius was modeled" to "Cicero himself praises the virtues of philosophy" is lifted almost verbatim from Taylor.
• "inspiring its readers": this is a dangling participial that grammatically appears to attach to "the ancient world". When one attempts to resolve where it should really attach, it is unclear whether Hortensius or Protreptikos is intended.
• The source says that Cicero used arguments from Protreptikos, but again that's different from what our article says, that Hortensius is an adaptation and expansion of Protreptikos. Additionally, our article says that Cicero's purpose was to spread Greek philosophy to Rome, but that appears not to be in the source (at least, the one source I could check).

Legacy

• "Some have theorized" — who? Be specific.
• The entire first half of this paragraph is again cribbed from a single paragraph of Taylor (with the same claims in the same order and very similar phrasing).
• Again, what is the point of having two consecutive copies of the same footnote?
• The claim that it "survived into the Christian era as a schoolbook" is surprisingly vague in its dating etc., given how we know this: because Augustine used it as a schoolbook. And the effect of this book on Augustine deserves at least a whole paragraph, not a single-sentence summary tacked on to the end of a paragraph about something else (how much of the text survives and how it survived).

Notes and references

• Footnote [4], "Augustine 2006", gives me "Harv error: link from #CITEREFAugustine2006 doesn't point to any citation."
• The Cummings footnote could use some indication of which encyclopedia entry is being cited, not just which page number it was on, in case a reader has access to a different version of the encyclopedia.
• Hutchinson and Johnson is missing an ISBN and indeed I can find no online evidence that this book exists at all. D. S. Hutchinson is known as a scholar of the Protrepticus so the title is plausible, but Worldcat lists nothing by him with anything resembling this title.
• The footnote to Taylor should be split into four separate footnotes that give the specific pages in Taylor where the sourced information can be found. Giving the whole range of page numbers for a 13-page article is not helpful. This range should be included in the references section entry for Taylor, not in the footnote.
• The other reference to an academic journal article (Russell) is also missing page numbers. The use made of the Russell reference is very shallow; Russell argues that Augustine developed a youthful zeal for philosophy but lapsed into worldly concerns and that his reading of Hortensius marks the beginning rather than the end of his turn towards philosophy. But the editors of our article appear to be using only the opening lines of Russell describing what anyone can read for themselves: the literal words of Augustine, without any such analysis.
• The reference to a whole book (Rabinowitz) as "passim" rather than giving specific page numbers is unacceptable, especially when it is an offline source rather than one that can be searched electronically.

—David Eppstein (talk) 01:17, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

German speakers needed

Under the new section Scholarship, I included Laila Straume-Zimmermann's work. The only online resource commenting on her book is this German JSTOR article. Is anyone able to read the text and contribute to this article? Tradereddy (talk) 20:31, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Hortensius (Cicero)/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Farang Rak Tham (talk · contribs) 06:50, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Introduction and limitations

Before starting this review, I'd like to state that I have little knowledge on the subject, but I am very interested in Roman history and culture, and most of my GA reviews are very well received. I have time to do this review until the 30th, after which I won't be available for two weeks.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 06:50, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Overview

1. Prose:

• No copyright violations.
• The article generally reads professional and smooth, but a little confusing at times. In some parts, more explanation may need to be added for the uninitiated. Below I will do a detailed review.

2. MOS: The article meets MOS standards.

3. References layout:

• Just noting here that there is one link that requires subscription.
• Some sources do not have ISBN numbers or OCLC numbers. Please add those to help identify sources.

4. Reliable sources: Sources appear very reliable.

5. Original research: None found.

6. Broadness: Will check later.

7. Focus: Yes, very.

8. Neutral: Yes.

9. Stable: article is stable.

10-11. Pics: Pictures are relevant. Are you sure that the File:Cicero_-_Musei_Capitolini.JPG image of Hortensius is allowed? Italy does not have freedom of panorama.

Excellent catch. I went ahead and swapped it out for an image that I'm nearly positive is in the public domain (photo scan from a book published in 1900).--Gen. Quon (Talk) 14:24, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Great!--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 09:46, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Detailed review per section

I will continue with a detailed review per section. Feel free to insert replies or inquiries. To keep communication to the point, you might want to use templates like  Done,  Doing...,  Not done,  Removed,  Added, and  Fixed. Please do not cross out my comments, as I will not yours but only my own. I will do the review of the lead mostly at the end.

• According to the Constantinian writer Trebellius Pollio I would move this note into the main body of the article, as it is is quite relevant to the subject. Perhaps it could be integrated with the section "Relation to Aristotle's Protrepticus".

• Done. I've re-arranged this section a bit, too.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 20:15, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

• John Hammond Taylor Please say briefly what kind of scholar this is, just to help build some context.

• Added.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 20:15, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

• In 1976, Laila Straume-Zimmermann produced Cicero's Hortensius. That is not very useful information: please expand a little on this, or if not relevant enough, remove it.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 09:46, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

• I've just removed it, as I don't think it really matters.--Gen. Quon (Talk)

Broadness

The following information is relevant enough, that a GA should cover it to some extent:

• Taylor 1963, pages 487–8 explains the attitudes which led Cicero to write the Hortensius. Though you mention the part about the personal tragedies, you do not mention how he emotionally responded to political events that occurred. There is also some more psychological analysis with regard to the Hortensius in Schmidt 1979, page 121.

• In regard to the first part, how does this edit look? I don't want to dive too far into it, as it seems more background than anything, but I totally see your point.--Gen. Quon (Talk)

• I'll try to work the second part into this article in a bit.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 20:23, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

That's all. I found the article to be quite comprehensive.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 10:49, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Lead

• After Hortensius argues that oratory is the greatest art, Cicero "appeal[s] as earnestly as [he can] for the study of philosophy" This quote is interesting, but would perhaps better be placed in the body of the text. You should add a general statement with regard to Cicero's purpose in writing the Hortensius, or with regard to its main tenets.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 04:24, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

January

Sorry for the delay. I have a tendency to focus my time first on problematic articles, and this isn't one of them. My review is above. there are not many comments for this article—in fact, the least comments of all my reviews. There is also the request on oclc numbers underlined above.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 09:46, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

For searching oclc numbers to add to the references to help other editors identify the older sources with no isbns, try this link.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 04:26, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Just the lead remains.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 08:43, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

@Farang Rak Tham: No worries on the delay! Thanks for reviewing this. I'll get to work later today.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 18:45, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

@Farang Rak Tham: I found OCLCs for a good chunk of the references. A few of them don't have them still, but I don't think they exist.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:21, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

@Farang Rak Tham: I did an ol' switcheroo. How does this edit look?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 14:39, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Looks good enough to me. I am passing for GA. Let me know if you do a DYK. Also, I'd appreciate it if you could do a GA review of one of my articles at WP:GAN#REL as well. Thanks!--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 16:35, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

@Farang Rak Tham: Thanks so much! And sure, I'll try to do that in the next few days. If it slips my mind, feel free to ping me.--16:36, 25 January 2019 (UTC)