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Attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple

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Sources:

THEODORET of Cyrus: „Historia ecclesiastica“ („The Ecclesiastical History“), Book III [A.D. 361-363]: „Chapter XV. - Of the Jews; of their attempt at building, and of the heaven-sent plagues that befel them.“ → https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030098.htm „20. Die Juden und ihr Versuch des Tempelbaues und die von Gott über sie verhängten Strafen“ → https://bkv.unifr.ch/de/works/cpg-6222/versions/kirchengeschichte-bkv/divisions/91

AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS: „Res Gestae“ XXIII.1. [A.D. 390-392]: → http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Ammian/23*.html → https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_AVAMAAAAYAAJ/page/488/mode/2up (Seite 490))

GREGORY NAZIANZEN (Gregor von Nazianz) (he was a fellow student of Julian the Apostate in Athens): "Julian the Emperor" (1888). Orationes XLV; Oration 5: Second Invective Against Julian, 3.+4.+7. → https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_nazianzen_3_oration5.htm 3. → https://bkv.unifr.ch/de/works/cpg-3010/versions/reden-bkv/divisions/265 4. → https://bkv.unifr.ch/de/works/cpg-3010/versions/reden-bkv/divisions/266 [s. footnotes! / Fußnoten!: Chrysostomus + Ambrosius + Sokrates + Sozomenus + Theodoret + Rufinus + Philostorgius + Rabbi Gedalja + Ammianus Marcell. + Cyrillus + Julian (!) ] 7. → https://bkv.unifr.ch/de/works/cpg-3010/versions/reden-bkv/divisions/269

--91.89.11.105 (talk) 00:07, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

JULIAN THE PHILOSOPHER

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I know that this nickname is very widespread in many languages, including English. I tried changing this on another account a year ago but it got immediately reverted. I’m going to try it again now. If anyone thinks it is not widespread enough or has any other counter arguments I’m open to learn. Populares rome (talk) 17:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I dont really have anything against the edition, but if anyone has sources to suport this claim it would very helpful Optimates greece (talk) 15:29, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I saw some on Google Books—some aren't any good as sources, but a few look valid. An ngram suggested that the title is pretty rare, but not a new coinage. I just couldn't decide what to do with it, so I decided to defer and let other editors decide. P Aculeius (talk) 16:09, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the claim because of a lack of sources to support it. If anyone has the sources needed feel free to add it again. Reman Empire (talk) 22:16, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It certainly doesn't belong in the first sentence, before "the Apostate" has been mentioned, which is by far his most common nickname. If it really is used in reliable sources (none have so far been cited), it probably belongs down in the section on "Religious issues" Furius (talk) 22:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
From what I could gather it’s mainly used by modern pagans, but also several historians and philosophers trying to reevaluate Julian as a good ruler, mainly in french, so the term has probably got some neutrality issues in general and not just religious. Reman Empire (talk) 01:16, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which would make it unfit for the article Reman Empire (talk) 01:16, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fine with me, I just didn't want to make the call based on what I found. I didn't really dig into the sources that weren't obviously no good (the first result was based on an earlier version of this article, for example). P Aculeius (talk) 01:17, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Still, a lot of other Wikis, notably the simple English and French ones, have Julian the Philosopher cited at the top as one of the principal nicknames Julian had and has. Now those articles aren’t necessarily the best, neither are they necessarily better than the English one, in fact they are often inferior in quality to the English Wiki, but still like it’s been back there a long time from what I can understand, so wouldn’t it be better to look at the situation a little closer than saying
"it’s mainly used by modern pagans but also several historians and philosophers trying to reevaluate Julian as a good ruler, mainly in French"
because if it were really only used by super bias Historians and Philosophers, which are according to this guy "mainly French", then why would specifically the French article have this nickname cited alongside Julian II and Julian the apostate. Now the thing is I have some hard time believing that all those editors on the French Wikipedia page are all "modern pagans" and "historians and philosophers trying to reevaluate Julian as a good ruler". And those editors, considering the fact they’re all (or almost) speaking French, would most likely be aware of such shananigans. Plus if any of those "historians and philosophers" are modern, then that would definitely count as a (most likely) pretty valid source. On the other hand while I don’t think there’s any issues with neutrality here we are on the English Wikipedia and the thing seems to be not very known back here. Yet again it’s on the Simple English article. But then again it’s the Simple English article. Anyway I just don’t think it’s good to stop this discussion know because if there are truly "several historians and philosophers" claiming this it would be nice to know which ones and maybe give the thing a second look. I’m the Editor who wrought the message I just finished criticizing, and I don’t remember much , but while I did do research, It was quick and honestly bad research. Most of the research here was done by simply scrolling down the discussion page on the French Wikipedia. The editors there had some good arguments. Reman Empire (talk) 17:56, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In all probability, the language in those Wikis originated here. Including it based on those would be circular (see WP:CIRCULAR). P Aculeius (talk) 19:49, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
After further research the French article seems to have originally been titled "Julian the Apostate", which is why there was a lot of discussion about the nicknames of Julian. One editor said that, out of all books (admittedly French) on him written after 1960 (that was in 2004) , there are 27 books simply referring to him as Emperor Julian, and only 8 referring to him as "Julian the apostate" and 6 out of those eight are newer editions of works from the early 20th century. Moreover out of the two remaining works, one adresses the nickname in irony. There is one book calling him "Julian the Philosopher". I’m not saying it should be here because it’s in the French article, I’m just saying that if there are somewhat reliable sources stating other nicknames in other languages then why not in English. In general I think it would be good to give other surnames a chance on the article in order for it to not just be featuring the Christian Name. Reman Empire (talk) 15:38, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I found a source. The name is also mentioned on a fairly reliable YouTube channel (Kings and Generals, I think. That’s obviously not a reliable source, but it’s worth mentioning), and the sources for that Neo-Hellenic religion site may also be worth looking into. As a result I’ve added the name again; this time after the apostat was mentioned. Il do some searching and add a few more soon. Have great day ! Reman Empire (talk) 13:02, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a source: it's the title of a book, which makes it what the author of that book decided would make a good title. What does she say about him in that book? Does that or any scholarly source actually claim that he was called "Julian the Philosopher" by his contemporaries, or by historical sources before people started trying to publicize this name on the internet? If not, then it doesn't belong in the lead, if at all—that gives undue weight to what is basically historical revisionism. P Aculeius (talk) 14:03, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@P Aculeius: There are. As I’ve said at least in French, as you can see from the above list. The name probably isn’t contemporary of Julian, but it’s most likely a courant of revisionism important enough (in this case trying to rehabilitate Julian’s reputation) to be mentioned in the lead. The rest obviously belongs to religious issues. But academic sources do mention the name. I usually edit on the Inca, so I’m not to engaged here. But revisionism or not, it is mentioned by academic sources. I do not have the work at hand. *The author is a historian*, just so you know when I’m telling you the following: It’s most likely a nickname used in the book, because from what I’ve read the nickname is sometimes used in France to replace the old Apostat with a more "laïc" name. In the description available on Amazon the author made Julian the inventor of a (primitive) "laïcité". That’s obviously anachronistic , and that’s also the words used. This historian is not a outlier, and is fairly mainstream as well from what I’ve seen. The name needs to be mentioned somewhere behind The Apostat. If mentionning in the lead is really that bad, maybe we could put it to religious issues, but it’s important enough to be mentioned.
It also isn’t just present in French historiography, as that YouTube video (which I do obviously not claim is a good source, but it shows the name is present) and the Hellenic site prove. All in all it’s old and known enough to get the mention. Il try to procure myself the book to see further. Maybe for now it should be removed. Il inform you if the name is used. Have a great day !

Note: I am not using the term Revisionism in its negative meaning here.

Reman Empire (talk) 14:50, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 3 December 2023

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 00:40, 11 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Julian (emperor) → Julian the Apostate – WP:COMMONNAME, this is how he is usually known. I realise that some might consider that this reflects Christian bias. However since nearly everything we know about him has been filtered through Christian sources, even non-Christians usually refer to him by this name e.g. even the Turkish Wikipedia uses a version of this name in its opening line. PatGallacher (talk) 22:34, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, per the arguments at Talk:Julian_(emperor)/Archive_5#Consensus_name_change_sought and Talk:Julian_(emperor)/Archive_5#Straw_Poll:_Proposed_Move_to_Julian_(emperor), which resulted in the page being moved here. "The Apostate" is POV and increasingly less common in scholarship. Furius (talk) 23:11, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. We've had this argument at length repeatedly, and achieved consensus on a name that's neutral and uncontroversial. I understand the argument for the old name, and I agree that it's got a lot of history behind it and that it's not out of the question to use a title that reflects the hostility of a particular group, when it's commonly used with little of its original intent. But I still like the present name better, and it doesn't cause any confusion. I see no advantage to re-opening this debate, which certainly brings out strong feelings on both sides. P Aculeius (talk) 00:10, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"What about..." some other article isn't really a persuasive argument, particularly in the case of Ivan the Terrible (I note that that article was moved from the comparatively unrecognizable "Ivan IV of Russia" following consensus in 2011). There's still a scholarly consensus about that name, which wasn't bestowed as a form of religious condemnation, and for which there is plenty of historical as well as etymological justification: he wasn't called "the Terrible" because he was very bad, but because he was terrifying; it's an older use of the word, although many of the things he did, and the consequences of his actions, still make sense if we understand "terrible" to mean "very bad". Only a fringe minority seems to argue that the epithet doesn't fit in either sense. Meanwhile, apostasy is a concept that modern readers generally have to look up in order to understand, as it's no longer hurled around in everyday life, and isn't considered particularly relevant; as Furius points out, scholarly sources have increasingly moved away from it, while appraisals of Julian as emperor, from anything other than an extreme religious perspective, are generally positive to neutral.
But besides these distinctions, the title of this article was argued at length in 2006 (two discussions, including one formal page move discussion), 2007–2008 (seven discussions, including three formal page moves), 2009 (one page move with extended arguments with multiple sections, subsections, collapsed boxes, etc. that continued from March to June), 2010–2011 (two extended discussions), then finally in 2013 a proposal for the current title received strong consensus. And since that time most of the discussion—apart from a move request for an undisambiguated name last year—has been about the highly dubious claim that Julian was widely known as "Julian the Philosopher". The current title is stable, unambiguous, and consistent with both modern scholarship and the way other articles about Roman emperors are treated. Having finally achieved consensus after years of argument, I see no persuasive reason to plunge back into the same argument again. P Aculeius (talk) 14:26, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Meanwhile, apostasy is a concept that modern readers generally have to look up in order to understand" Not in Greece, where I live. The term has no religious meaning, but it is used for political defectors. It is commonly used for the Apostasia of 1965, one of the events which led to the formation of the Greek junta (1967-1974). Dimadick (talk) 07:53, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support By far his most common name.★Trekker (talk) 13:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Inclined to support, mainly on the grounds that the arguments for the current title are weak and natural disambiguation is preferred.
    • Works using 'Apostate' in the title:
      • Julian the Apostate (1978)
      • Julian the Apostate (2007)
      • The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World (2008)
      • Emperor and Author: The Writings of Julian the Apostate (2012)
      • Julian's Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of Julian the Apostate (2013)
      • The Last Pagan Emperor: Julian the Apostate and the War Against Christianity (2017)
      • Beyond Intolerance: The Meeting of Milan of 313 AD and the Evolution of Imperial Religious Policy from the Age of the Tetrarchs to Julian the Apostate (2018)
      • A Companion to Julian the Apostate (2020)
      • Julian the Apostate in Byzantine Culture (2022)
    • Works using only 'Julian' in the title:
      • The Emperor Julian (1978)
      • Emperor Julian: Panegyric and Polemic (1989)
      • Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome (2012)
      • The Specter of the Jews: Emperor Julian and the Rhetoric of Ethnicity in Syrian Antioch (2019)
      • The Emperor Julian and the Jews (2019)
      • Julian: Rome's Last Pagan Emperor (2023)
As can be seen, reliable scholarly sources don't seem to have a problem with the nickname. And why would they? Srnec (talk) 21:01, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It has been said in the past to be POV, implying a Christian outlook, which of course it does. Try this vintage discussion from the archives, one of many such that should have been linked by the nominator. Johnbod (talk) 02:15, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do any scholars explicitly reject the name "Julian the Apostate" for that (or any other) reason? Surtsicna (talk) 21:06, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In The Emperor Julian and the Jews, Adler refers to the epithet as "opprobrious" and having "been added to his name by his opponents": In spite, however, of the opprobrious epithet of 'Apostate' having been added to his name by his opponents, and of the fact that he has been accused of being one of the bitterest persecutors of Christianity, more sober critics have arrived at the conclusion that ... Jhvx (talk) 21:30, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I see no reason to reflect Christian hostility in an article name, and Julian's status as a Christian was at best nominal. Dimadick (talk) 08:00, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, per oppose arguments above. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:02, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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.

@P Aculeius:

appraisals of Julian as emperor, from anything other than an extreme religious perspective, are generally positive to neutral

Source for that claim?

And what do you consider "an extreme religious perspective"?

What are your views on Christianity, by the way?

Capitalization of "emperor"

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From the MOS "When a title is used to refer to a specific person as a substitute for their name during their time in office, e.g., the King, not the king (referring to Charles III); the Pope, not the pope (referring to Francis)." Primergrey (talk) 23:20, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here the title is a common noun, used to describe the person, not a substitute for a name. If you look at the table below the section you're quoting, you'll see that this situation ("the emperor died") is most closely analogous to examples such as: "Nixon was the president" or "The French king Louis XVI was later beheaded". Wikipedia also tends to follow typical practice, and avoid capitalization unless it is overwhelmingly done in given cases.
Here, from Michael Grant, The Roman Emperors, p. 251 (the chapter on Julian): "In about 342 the emperor transferred him to Nicomedia" (referring to Constantius II transferring Julian); subsequently: "through the influence of the emperor's first wife Eusebia"; "he learnt that the emperor was dead". Browning, The Emperor Julian, pp. 34, 35: "The old emperor, who did not really want a successor", "the bejewelled catafalque on which the embalmed body of the emperor lay", "a will had been found in the hand of the deceased emperor". Bowersock, Julian the Apostate, p. 12: "The emperor's strong neck often ran with sweat under the strain of ceaseless toil"; p. 18: "The emperor's spiritual life equipped him to dissemble with confidence"; p. 23: "In the Misopogon the emperor paid a luminous tribute to Mardonius".
In each of these instances, "emperor" is used in the same way as in "the emperor died", and it is not capitalized, because it is not being used as part of his name or official title, but in the generic sense, even though it refers to a specific emperor (Constantine, Constantius II, Julian). I don't deny that some writers might choose to capitalize "emperor" in similar circumstances, but it doesn't seem to be the usual practice in modern English. P Aculeius (talk) 02:01, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But that is specifically the guidance our MOS provides. Primergrey (talk) 04:00, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's not—the examples provided make that pretty clear. Just because the word "emperor" refers to somebody in particular doesn't make it a proper noun. In fact, words like this nearly always refer to specific people, without becoming proper nouns. There's a difference between "Mayor McCheese opened the new playground" and "the mayor opened the new playground". "Mayor" may be his title, but it's not a proper noun whenever it happens to refer to a particular person, irrespective of whether he's in office at the time referred to. In "the emperor died", "emperor" is a common noun. P Aculeius (talk) 04:42, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your examples are contrary to the examples in the MOS. e.g., the King, not the king (referring to Charles III); the Pope, not the pope (referring to Francis). Primergrey (talk) 06:35, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're misinterpreting "during their time in office". Charles is the UK king right now, and Francis is the pope right now. Julian is not currently the Roman emperor; no one is. In my opinion, that MOS "rule" (which was doubtless lifted from any one of several possible style guides with similar statements) may be useful for journalism, but is rarely applicable in an encyclopedia. Deor (talk) 12:37, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Then get the guidance in the MOS changed. Primergrey (talk) 12:56, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see a lot of uses of "the Queen" in Elizabeth II. Is this suggesting that when a queen dies or a new president of a country gets elected, we should go through various articles and convert such mentions to lowercase? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Did you look at the other examples? It's not the word "the" you should be focusing on. Your reading also conflicts with the guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Titles of people: "In generic use, apply lower case to words such as president, king, and emperor (De Gaulle was a French president; Louis XVI was a French king; Three prime ministers attended the conference)." The line you're relying on is meant to be part of the explanation of this statement; it doesn't make sense to read it as contradicting it.
The more general explanation at top also says, "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia" (emphasis in original). And here multiple scholarly sources dealing with Roman emperors (and Julian and his family specifically) consistently do not capitalize "emperor" in like circumstances. There are certainly counter-examples, but that does not indicate consistent capitalization in English.
The article as it currently stands has inconsistent usage, with nine instances where "emperor" is capitalized without being directly juxtaposed with an emperor's name—but almost three times as many where it is not, even though in most of those instances it refers to a specific emperor, and in some cases is followed by the name of the emperor mentioned. My understanding of Wikipedia policy is that we don't go out of our way to capitalize titles when they occur in like circumstances, but another reasonable interpretation would be to treat it as an area of disagreement that cannot easily be resolved by project-wide consensus, and therefore should simply be consistent throughout individual articles. In this article most instances are not capitalized, and that also weighs against doing it here. P Aculeius (talk) 12:29, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that the statement "the e(E)mperor died" is generic when it has been established who the emperor is. "...when an emperor dies..." is generic. Primergrey (talk) 12:59, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You stated above that, " Just because the word "emperor" refers to somebody in particular doesn't make it a proper noun." Our MOS disagrees. Primergrey (talk) 13:01, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's your interpretation of it—and it's contradicted by the other statements and examples given in the manual of style, quoted above. It's also inconsistent with Wikipedia's general guidance on capitalization of titles, since "emperor" is not consistently capitalized in general usage. The fact that it refers to a particular emperor is of no importance—the examples above make that clear, since they also refer to specific persons, and yet are treated as common nouns. P Aculeius (talk) 14:18, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Although I believe that P Aculeius and Deor are correct that "emperor" is not capitalized when it isn't used as a title followed by a name, I might note that British English has a greater tendency to capitalize stand-alone titles especially, as pointed out above, in referring to the reigning monarch. So could this debate be partially driven by differences in British and American style preferences? Which is the article written in? Reasoning on the basis of the definite or indefinite article (the versus a/an) won't hold water. We don't write "the oldest Man in the world died" or "the Oldest Man in the World died" even though only one person can be the single oldest man in the world and so that phrase refers to "somebody in particular". Unique applicability is not what transforms a common noun into a name. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:30, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going by the MOS. Nothing else. I've never been on the pro-capping side of a dispute here before. I don't give a shit about the philosophical nuances of this debate. I will go try to get the MOS changed to reflect this apparent consensus. Primergrey (talk) 15:16, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'm pro-caps on this one. "On the third day a major hemorrhage occurred and the Emperor died during the night." This is "a title is used to refer to a specific person as a substitute for their name during their time in office". Where is there an example that contradicts this? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 06:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the article, for starters. And both of the two biographies of Julian I have, by Browning and Bowersock, as well as Michael Grant's The Roman Emperors, all cited above. These all treat "emperor" as a generic noun describing his position rather than a proper noun as his official title. Of course, his title wasn't actually "Emperor of the Romans" (I believe that was the title of Charlemagne and his successors). His title as emperor was "Augustus"; you could also say that his title was "Imperator", which is the word from which emperor was derived, but that was a secondary title used as part of an emperor's name. "Augustus" was functionally a title and not regarded as a name (although we use it as the name of the first emperor, and a few Romans did have it as a proper name, though the only one who comes to mind is the last emperor, Romulus Augustus). P Aculeius (talk) 14:29, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, what would be wrong with using the person's name instead? A person died. The role of "emperor" did not. A lot of this kind of thing on WP has to do with contributors not understanding usage of imperator among the Romans themselves, and how it isn't like "the King" for the British monarchy, nor like the Holy Roman Emperor or Emperor of Russia or Emperor of Japan. The framing of this issue as if imperator were the same thing imposes anachronistic assumptions on the Roman context. This is implicit when someone says "I don't see the difference between a Roman emperor and King Charles." Respectfully, the not seeing might be the issue. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:34, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In fairness, there are also counter-examples. The OCD 2d Edition does this in the articles about emperors I checked. Usage is not even close to uniform, but where that is the case, Wikipedia comes down in favour of not capitalizing things. I have of course been on the opposite side in some debates (Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, for example, where there are two of them to distinguish, and local sources, at least, consistently treat them as proper names of regions, and capitalize them; but I lost on this one).
As for why Julian's name wasn't used in this instance, I believe it was because he had just been named in a preceding sentence, and the writer was trying not to repeat "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla" too many times. Or I may have misunderstood your question! P Aculeius (talk) 18:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When I asked for examples that contradict using uppercase, I was asking for examples from Wikipedia policies & guidelines, not off-Wikipedia examples or examples from within article space. I thought someone was saying there was some example in the Wikipedia MoS. In any case, I don't see anything wrong with rephrasing to avoid the construction. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:31, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why, yes, there is! And it's also cited above: 'the guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Titles of people: "In generic use, apply lower case to words such as president, king, and emperor (De Gaulle was a French president; Louis XVI was a French king; Three prime ministers attended the conference)."' And '"Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia" (emphasis in original)' This seems like a pretty clear statement of policy from the Manual of Style.
So, while we all agree that "Mayor McCheese opened the restaurant," we seem to have a disagreement about whether we can say "the mayor walked across the street to shake hands with a constituent" or "the senator retreated into his office for a much-needed nap." Primergrey's interpretation would require that every time we use the words "mayor", "senator", "president", etc. they must be capitalized if they refer to a particular person, rather than "any old president". That doesn't seem like a rule of grammar to me, and I don't read that as the intention of the MoS; at best it's a personal preference that ought not to be turned into a required house style. P Aculeius (talk) 18:58, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, those three examples quoted above (De Gaulle, Louis XVI, and multiple prime ministers appearing together) use either an indefinite article or a plural. Those are much more clearly generic uses than "a major hemorrhage occurred and the e(E)mperor died" or "the k(K)ing ordered an invasion of Elbonia." In the latter cases, the personal name could be used instead. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:39, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"...at best it's a personal preference that ought not to be turned into a required house style." Well, it's not my personal preference. It's exactly what the MOS guidance is. Primergrey (talk) 06:11, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So what you're saying is, "I'm right and you're wrong, so I win." P Aculeius (talk) 11:44, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All this personalizing and talk about "winning". You're projecting so hard I can almost see you on my wall. Primergrey (talk) 06:27, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But that's what your argument boils down to: "this is what it says, this is what it means, there's no interpretation involved, I'm right and you're wrong, so it has to be done my way." Right now four out of the other five people in this discussion disagree with your conclusion, while the fifth is arguing that whether the name of an office is a proper noun boils down to whether it's singular or plural and uses 'a' or 'the', which I don't think is a tenable position. P Aculeius (talk) 13:21, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of the MoS is not to cover things that are "like a rule of grammar", for which people generally agree that something is "wrong". The MoS doesn't discuss that kind of thing. Instead, it covers aspects about which different people might tend to do things differently but it seems desirable to try to be consistent, in order to have a more professional result. For example, there are well-respected publications that title all of their articles with title case, but high-quality publications try to minimize variation about such stylistic differences that can otherwise often be a matter of personal taste. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:47, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of Wikipedia's Manual of Style isn't at issue here. At issue is whether there's any compelling reason to capitalize words that can be titles of people whenever they are used to refer to specific people, as in "the Mayor walked across the street to talk to the Senator and the Representative", which is what the interpretation of the MoS urged by Primergrey and you would require.
How the phrase being relied upon for this should be interpreted is the subject of a dispute, but the interpretation urged seems to contradict the general guideline quoted from the Manual of Style: "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia" (emphasis in original). And here it is not clear that a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources consistently capitalize "emperor" when referring to Roman emperors; and several important sources discussing Julian in particular consistently do not.
If there is no generally-accepted rule that clearly covers the situation, and the Manual of Style says to follow what is consistently done, and prefer lowercase when words are not consistently capitalized, then there is no good reason to insist on uppercase here. At best you could argue that either form could be used, but then you would need to be consistent throughout each article; here the majority of examples are lowercase. But if you're not going to make that argument, then the result is clear: lowercase. P Aculeius (talk) 14:09, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not being used in a way where we might cap it IAW MOS:JOBTITLES - ie Emperor of X or Emperor Julian. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:28, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Flavius Claudius Julianus (331-363); known to history as "Julian the Apostate;" is one of the most interesting Roman Emperors (361- 363); and his life is one of the most fascinating in all of ancient history. (There is more accurate historical information about him than about any other Emperor.) From literally the first book I checked out. Primergrey (talk) 20:25, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's literally the blurb on Amazon.com for Giuseppe Ricciotti's 1958 book, L'imperatore Giuliano l'Apostata secondo i documenti, as translated into English by M. Joseph Costelloe in 1960 (reprinted by TAN Books in 1999). However, that somewhat ridiculous opening isn't from the book, which begins (in the translation):

1. Flavius Claudius Julianus, surnamed "the Apostate," was the son of a half brother of Constantine the Great; but even though they were related, it would be difficult to find in history two rulers so different in their make-up as this uncle and his nephew.

Julian's father was Julius Constantius, who like Constantine was a son of Constantius Chlorus, but of different mothers. Theodora, stepdaughter of Maximian and legitimate wife of Constantius Chlorus, was the mother of Julius Constantius...

As far as how this work actually treats the word emperor, see page 4: "This was the new capital which his half brother, the emperor, had finished building and inaugurated in this same year." Here it is distinguished from emperor as part of someone's official style, on the same page: "He [Julius Julianus] had held high offices under Emperor Licinius". On page 5 we have the generic use again: "...toward the end of his life, the emperor established direct contact with Arius himself...." And the distinction is made again on page 7: "A list of the victims from his own immediate family was later drawn up by Julian when he charged Emperor Constantius with the crime..." shortly followed by Julian's own words (in translation): "[a]nd what this most benificent emperor did for us who were so closely related to him!"
So what we have here is that emperor is only being capitalized when it is used as part of a person's name, not when it is used by itself, even though it refers to a specific individual and is preceded by "the". But I've already said that counter-examples exist. Whether someone can find a book that capitalizes emperor is beside the point, because the Manual of Style says that should be consistently done in a substantial majority of sources, not merely a few, or "about as often as not". As far as I can tell, a substantial majority of sources about Julian follow the same distinction being made here, not to capitalize emperor unless it's being used as part of a name or official style. Possibly if we survey all literature on Roman emperors we might find mixed usage, but probably not a substantial majority for capitalization, and such a survey would be an immense undertaking. P Aculeius (talk) 21:12, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
From our MOS, "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. In English, capitalization is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, and for the first letter of a sentence.[a] Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.
There are exceptions for specific cases discussed below." (Italics mine) If not for that last line, that would be all the MOS consisted of. Primergrey (talk) 22:33, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And yet, the examples provided with the paragraph you depend on include: Richard Nixon was the president of the United States. A controversial American president, Richard Nixon, resigned. Louis XVI was the king of France when the French Revolution began. How much clearer does it have to be? Even if you take the wording of the paragraph to be ambiguous, the fact that you have multiple examples explicitly contradicting your interpretation of it should be dispositive. You cannot possibly mean to argue that you have to capitalize emperor when referring to events that occurred while he was emperor, but not when referring to him after his death. That is a nonsensical distinction, since he ceased to be emperor at the moment of his death, and all references to anything that he did are equally in the past. By that logic, the examples above are all wrong, since they each refer to things that happened when the person in question was in office (being the president; resigning as president; being the king). P Aculeius (talk) 23:35, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
None of those three quoted examples use the title as "a substitute for their name" – e.g., as in "When the French Revolution began, the k(K)ing ordered his troops to attack the crowd as they entered the palace grounds." —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:12, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not a logical distinction here: that would mean that if you omit "Louis XVI" from The French king Louis XVI was later beheaded. you suddenly have to capitalize "king": The French King was later beheaded. I don't believe that's what the Manual of Style intends! A title doesn't suddenly become a proper noun because the name of the person described doesn't occur in the same clause. P Aculeius (talk) 00:42, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"French k(K)ing" is not a title. It is a reworded description of the role. The title is "King of France" or as a substitute for the name, simply "the King". As a prefix for the name it would be "King Louis XVI entered the room" (capitalized), like the examples "President Nixon" and "Pope John XXIII". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:45, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So if you leave out "French" do we have to capitalize the King was later beheaded because it "substitutes for his name"? "The French king" is a description, not a substitute for his name, whereas "the king" is not a description, but a substitute for his name? The logic of this argument is becoming increasingly tortured. P Aculeius (talk) 03:37, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, "The King was beheaded" or "The President resigned" or "The Pope issued a decree", when it refers to the person holding the title at the time of the event in question. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 03:49, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Richard Nixon was the president of the United States. A controversial American president, Richard Nixon, resigned. Louis XVI was the king of France when the French Revolution began..
These examples are all lowercase precisely because they are not being used as a substitute for someone. Look: "Richard Nixon was the President Nixon of the United States." A controversial American President Nixon, Richard Nixon, resigned." "Louis XVI was the King Louis XVI of France when the French Revolution began." Primergrey (talk) 02:52, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's lower-case when not direclty attached to the name as a title. This is exactly the same as every other kind of nobility/sovereign/elected-official title matter. It's "Emperor Julian was ..." or in longer form "Emperor of Rome Julian was ..." or (arguably) "Julian, Emperor of Rome, was ..." but conversely use "Julian, the emperor, was ...", "Julian was the emperor of Rome in this era, and ...", "In his role as the Roman emperor, Julian was ...". If (as is sometimes claimed), the side idea of also capitalizing the title when it is used by itself as a stand-in for the name of a specific person (as in "During President Biden's phone coference with Charles III of the United Kingdom, Biden asked the King whether ...") is ultimately too confusing and strife-inducing, then a proposal should be made at WT:MOSBIO to change or remove it. (And such a proposal might work, since this capitalization is not "consistent ... in independent, reliable sources" (lead criterion of MOS:CAPS) but is just fairly common and probably decreasingly so, meanwhile the amount of conflict about it has been rather noteworthy, so it may just be more trouble than it's been worth.) But re-re-re-discussing this matter in random article talk pages is never going to produce resolution. This simply is not the right venue.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:55, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In fact there was such a discussion at WT:MOSBIO—and you have seen and participated in it—but it seems to have died down due to lack of sustained interest. This is the argument that precipitated that discussion. Primergray's position is that the (in my opinion) ambiguously-worded passage compels us to capitalize "emperor" because it refers to but does not name Julian; my position is that it does not, and I suspect that it was intended primarily for situations where it is customary to refer to say, a currently-reigning monarch, with his title capitalized, as in your example referring to Charles III. Which I think is the custom, and one that I do not wish to argue with. I simply fail to see any need to do so in articles about persons from the distant past, where there is either no distinct customary usage, or the scholarship relevant to the persons in question tends not to capitalize the title. I believe that is consistent with Wikipedia's general policy on capitalization, which is to capitalize things that aren't uniformly agreed upon only if they are capitalized in a substantial majority of sources. In the case of Julian, the opposite seems to be the case. P Aculeius (talk) 04:31, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When such discussions don't quite make it to the finish line, the solution is to let them lie still a while (to avoid "issue fatigue")m catalogue the prior discussions, then re-formulate a proposal or question that takes those prior discussions into account, and post this in the proper venue for hopeful actual resolution this time.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:07, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Use of "born at" vs "born in"

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@P Aculeius, regarding your revert of my edit, I don't necessarily think that "was born at Constantinople" is incorrect, but rather I think that "was born in Constantinople" sounds more natural. RedactedHumanoid (talk) 22:21, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It may "sound more natural to you" because you're used to hearing it, or because a small number of editors hunt down and replace "at" with "in" wherever they find it, out of a mistaken belief that it is grammatically wrong; but traditionally events occurring at cities and towns have used "at" when the person's precise location relative to the boundaries was unimportant, as it is here. Nothing that follows the statement of his birth in this article depends on or concerns whether his birth occurred within the city walls or in a villa outside them; it is an irrelevant detail. There is no good reason to choose a preposition that implies a particular spatial relationship to the place when no such relationship is being discussed.
I'm not sure whether the belief that "in" a place is natural while "at" a place is not is more prevalent in American English, but I still see "at" used this way frequently in British English—and it has not been that long since it was more common than "in" in American English, which only makes sense given how spread out localities can be, and how often their boundaries are indefinitely referred to in speech or writing. I have no illusion that I'm going to convince you that "at" is generally preferable whenever there is no intention of locating some event with precise regard to the city boundaries; all I can do is urge you to consider that such language is often carefully chosen with equally precise regard for its meaning. Small changes such as this are better employed when one word is clearly wrong, or creates unwarranted ambiguity, not when the choice of words conveys precisely the meaning that was intended. P Aculeius (talk) 22:44, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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