Talk:Florianus
DisINFOBOX[change source]
Ferien I have reverted your changes to the infobox and to the categories because they introduced errors. Much of the information in the English Wikipedia article (and Britannica's) on this emperor (and others of the 3rd century) is based on weak sources which repeat third-hand the uncritical acceptance of the Historia Augusta which characterizes the historiography of the 18th and 19th centuries and which has plagued popular literature ever since. For instance, where Florianus was born is unknown. Where he was buried is unknown. Only the Historia Augusta claims that a cenotaph (not a tomb) existed at what the Historia Augusta alone calls Florianus's birthplace and hometown. A specific date of death in August is erroneous or fictitious and contradicts the information (authoritatively cited) in the article's body. A birthdate in the 230s is reliant on speculation. The 16th-century image from the Icones Imperatorum Romanorum is not obviously "based on coins minted bearing his image" and is in any case no substitute for an actual coin, which the infobox had before (and to which state I have now reverted it). GPinkerton (talk) 14:02, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
- Ok, well that is also an issue on enwiki then. It hasn't seem to have been addressed there though. --Ferien (talk) 15:28, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
- Ferien I fear a lot of that is just inertia and the dead hand of Edward Gibbon, whose view of the 3rd century was heavily informed by the H.A., which was thought to be a reliable work in his day, and whose own view has been amazingly influential in the popular culture of the West (and thereby the internet, popular history, etc.) ever since. A lot of the detail in those sources is the only information we get from ancient texts, but at least this needs always to be framed as "the Historia Augusta says ..." rather than stated as fact. Much of the "history" in the H.A. is in fact veiled politico-religious satire on the 4th-century court of Constantine and sons, and nothing to do with the 3rd century emperors under whose fictitious biographies these burlesque details are described. The dates given in the H.A. are often out by months and years. GPinkerton (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
- Oh ok, I will not readd the infobox then. --Ferien (talk) 19:59, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
- Ferien I fear a lot of that is just inertia and the dead hand of Edward Gibbon, whose view of the 3rd century was heavily informed by the H.A., which was thought to be a reliable work in his day, and whose own view has been amazingly influential in the popular culture of the West (and thereby the internet, popular history, etc.) ever since. A lot of the detail in those sources is the only information we get from ancient texts, but at least this needs always to be framed as "the Historia Augusta says ..." rather than stated as fact. Much of the "history" in the H.A. is in fact veiled politico-religious satire on the 4th-century court of Constantine and sons, and nothing to do with the 3rd century emperors under whose fictitious biographies these burlesque details are described. The dates given in the H.A. are often out by months and years. GPinkerton (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2021 (UTC)