Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman–Gallic wars

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. The clear sense of the discussion is that the article should not be deleted. There also is consensus for the position that the current title of the article does not accurately describe its contents. Beyond that, while there appears to be support that the article would be better as a list, there was not general agreement as to whether a move, rename, or other action was most appropriate. However, these discussions can continue on the talk page. Xymmax So let it be written So let it be done 02:03, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Roman–Gallic wars[edit]

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Roman–Gallic wars (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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WP:No original research, WP:PRIMARY, WP:SYNTH. (Addition 07-04-23: I understand the article's situation to be as in WP:BEFORE § D, scenario no. #3: I have "determine[d] that [the sources] are insufficient". WP:LISTCRIT, WP:NLIST and WP:SIGCOV have also been cited as relevant in the discussion; PRIMARY has been resolved thanks to the efforts of P Aculeius).
This article lumps together any battle or conflict or brawl "the Romans" and "the Gauls" (or "the Celts") are ever said to have had, framed under the largely self-invented name of Roman–Gallic wars. Because the term might seem plausible at first glance, I'd like to deconstruct why that isn't the case and we should delete this article. This term Roman–Gallic wars is not used in the primary sources (the only sources cited [when I filed this AfD]), and actually very rare in literature; when it does show up, it is used with inconsistent definitions. Note that when people write wars with a lowercase w, it is more likely to be an ad hoc grouping of battles/wars than a clearly defined set/series of wars, which usually goes with a capital W. Some examples:

  1. A synonym for the Gallic Wars of Julius Caesar (58–51 BCE), e.g Travis Gene Salley 2013, who uses the Gallic Wars, the Roman-Gallic Wars, the Roman-Gallic conflict and the Roman-Gallic battles interchangeably, treating them as synonyms.
  2. Jack E. Maxfield 2008 p. 3: In 400 B.C. the Gauls plundered Etruria in northern Italy, conquering Felsina, which subsequently became known as Bononia. Ten years later, under King Brennus, they sacked Rome itself and retreated only after the payment of 1,000 pounds of gold. Thus began the long Roman-Gallic wars which did not end until the time of Julius Caesar in the 1st century of the Christian era. So Maxfield frames the long Roman-Gallic wars as from 400 BCE until (implicitly) 51 BCE, much longer than Salley. However, this would still exclude the 40–37 BCE campaign of Agrippa against the Aquitani and the 28–27 BCE campaign of Corvinus in Gallia Aquitania, which the article includes in these Roman–Gallic wars by referencing Appian's Civil Wars, another primary source. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 02:11, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Endre Ferenczy 1976 p. 78 Some vague interpretation of Polybius s:The_Histories_(Paton_translation)/Book_II#18 about a Roman-Gaulish conflict in the mid-4th century BCE before the Latin War broke out in 340 BCE has the author say: (Polybius') evidence is considered of decisive importance by modern historians because it confirms the information of Livy concerning the revival of the Roman-Latin alliance. The historian of Megalopolis (Polybius), while unfolding the events of the Roman-Gallic Wars, writes the following: II.18.5. "Meanwhile the Romans re-established their power and put their affairs in order with the Latins." This sentence of Polybius is undoubtedly kindred in sense to the information of Livy: It says that the good relations between Rome and Latium were restored in the thirty years' period after the Gallic catastrophe [I suppose Ferenczy means the c. 390–387 BCE Battle of the Allia, which is also called the Gallic catastrophe in literature] and the second invasion of the Gauls. Neither the context Ferenczy provides (on the development of the Roman–Latin relations between 358 and 340) nor of Polybius is very clear on when these Roman-Gallic Wars supposedly look place. But given the Latin War broke out in 340 BCE, and that Polybius makes statements including Thirty years after the occupation of Rome, the Celts again appeared before Alba with a large army and But when, twelve years later, the Celts again invaded in great strength, which suggests either 30, 12 or 30+12 years after the c. 390–387 BCE Battle of the Allia, I'd say somewhere around 350 BCE, in the middle of Ferenczy's 350–340 period. That's 300 years before Caesar entered Gaul. Also the fact that they apparently were 'unfolding' at the time suggests there were no previous battles (including Allia) to be lumped into this Roman-Gallic Wars concept. Given that Polybius died c. 118 BCE, he also had no way of knowing about Caesar's Gallic Wars in the 50s BCE, so when Ferenczy speaks of how Polybius is unfolding the events of the Roman-Gallic Wars, he probably would have excluded Caesar from those "Wars" as well. But as these are primary sources, it's just difficult to tell, and this article has been based on Polybius and Appian alone since it was created in 2012 by User:Samuelhaldane (who ceased editing in 2014, and edited very little else).
  • There are virtually no other papers on Google Scholar that mention the term Roman-Gallic wars. On Google Books it is also rare; apart from Ferenczy 1976, it is unheard of before 2000. Some 2000s books use it ambiguously, but usually as a synonym for Caesar's wars in Gaul of the 50s BCE.
    • One exception is Claudia Sagona 2005 p. 197, who makes a passing mention of the Roman-Gallic wars of the 3rd century, suggesting they were either limited to the 3rd century, or that it is an ad hoc grouping of all Roman-Gallic battles in that century, to the exclusion of later ones such as Caesar's in the 1st century BCE.
  • Only very recent publications (since 2018) use the term in as broad a sense as this Wikipedia article; it is also likely that in some cases, usage of this term was influenced by this very Wikipedia article, so these probably aren't representative of the wider literature.
    • Example: Heather Lyn 2019 p. 59 probably consulted this Wikipedia article before writing this sentence about "the series of Roman-Gallic Wars": In approximately 387/386 BCE, the young and vulnerable city-state of Rome was sacked by the Senones, one of many Gallic (the Celtic people who inhabited Gaul, the area of present-day France) tribes that would engage in war with the Romans during the series of Roman-Gallic Wars. (She treats "Celts" and "Gauls" as synonyms, although incorrectly implying that Transalpine Gaul, where the Senones fighting at Allia lived, is also part of "present-day France" rather than Italy). On p. 60 she implies this "series of Roman-Gallic Wars" even continued into the 1st century CE: At the dawn of the new millennium, the Roman Empire continued to expand its range north and west, conquering territories held by Celts and other barbaric tribes. This Wikipedia article, however, doesn't stretch into the 1st century CE.
    • Even so, Hupfauf 2020 p. 124 still treats the Roman-Gallic wars as a synonym for Caesar's Gallic Wars: In 58 the Helvetii began to move westwards; however, Julius Caesar pushed them back. In 52 BCE Vercingetorix, chief of the Averni, lead the Gallic peoples in the Roman-Gallic wars. In the battle of Alesia the Romans won victory over the Gallic tribes (...). Hupfauf thus clearly suggests the Roman-Gallic wars are limited to Caesar in the 50s BCE.
  • We're left with a choice of deleting this mess, or keeping some vaguely defined term in the title that is not found in the primary sources (the only sources cited [when I filed this AfD]), with a generalised list/article hybrid full of OR, PRIMARY and SYNTH, while the very few scholarly references there are cannot agree on its definition and scope. And without a proper definition and scope, no Wikipedia articles can be justified. The default course of action is to delete the article, when policies and guidelines are not only not adhered to, but also cannot be adhered to, e.g. to due to lack of RS, or a lack of agreement in the few RS that do exist on what the term even means. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 02:11, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • PS: Alternatives: I suppose it's possible to rename it to Roman–Gallic war (singular) and make that a disambiguation page, and to merge possibly valuable contents into List of Roman external wars and battles or List of Roman civil wars and revolts. Another alternative (that I do not recommend) is reframing it by analogy to how Germanic Wars has been reworked as Chronology of warfare between the Romans and Germanic tribes, which, however, still suffers from OR, PRIMARY and SYNTH, and might have to be AfD'd later as well (but that's another matter). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:48, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History and Military. Shellwood (talk) 07:20, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This article is clearly in need of work, but the basic premise—documenting a series of distinct conflicts from the early fourth century BC onward, with or without including the Gallic War, seems sound. The primary objections to this article appear to be that the article title "Roman–Gallic wars" is "original research" or "synthesis", but this is not the case. Even if it occurs rarely in scholarship, it is a valid title; if no single title is widely used, then any title that clearly describes the subject is appropriate, and "Roman–Gallic wars" would appear to do that. if there is a better title, whether or not it is found in a significant amount of scholarship, then the article can be moved to it—but that would not entail deletion of the article.
The second objection seems to be to the composition of the list; which wars or conflicts should be included. This is not an argument for deletion. As the function of the article is a list of such conflicts, the only essential basis for inclusion would seem to be that the antagonists were Rome and the Gauls. Presumably any war in which Roman writers identified their enemies as "Gauls" could be included, unless a line is drawn for inclusion at a specific point in time (also a valid choice for a list article). Requiring a scholarly source to contain a single, comprehensive list would be pedantic. Deleting the list because some conflicts could be argued would be absurd; whether to include them would be grounds for a talk page discussion.
The nominator calls the article a mess (it certainly looks messier after three templates were added at the top, along with a dozen "citation needed" tags and a persnickety "according to whom?" tag next to the word "major"). These are all things that can be fixed—some of them quite easily—and WP:BEFORE was evidently not followed; the nominator appears to have spent an incredible amount of time documenting whether "Roman–Gallic wars" was used in scholarship, but no time whatever determining whether the issues—primarily the lack of citations—could be addressed. This is simply not a good nomination. I think I will see about adding some citations to primary and secondary sources, so at least we can eliminate the messy state of the article from confusing the issue. P Aculeius (talk) 13:04, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your response. Exactly because it seems sound at first glance, I have endeavoured to show it is not, and in simultaneous violation of multiple core policies.
The definition and scope/composition are inextricably linked to each other in an article/list that seeks to identify a set of items (see also WP:LISTCRITERIA); both need to be backed up by RS simultaneously to avoid WP:SYNTH. If it fails at either one, or fails to connect them, this necessitates deletion. This is not me being "pedantic", it is me following the rules (per WP:BEFORE, which you accuse me of having ignored).
On that point, I have spent an incredible amount of time (...) determining whether the issues—primarily the lack of citations—could be addressed, namely, whether sufficient citations could be found to support the very concept of Roman–Gallic wars in the first place (per WP:BEFORE D.). Answer: no. Conclusion: delete. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:28, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disambiguate. There are a number of them; they are not thematically joined except in an extremely facile way. Ifly6 (talk) 01:39, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: after spending several hours addressing the citation tags and revising the contents to be a little clearer, I utterly fail to understand the point of this nomination. The argument for deleting the article is that "only a few historians and publications use this title", while "no primary sources use this title" (ironic, since the nominator was complaining that the article only cited primary sources), thereby making the title of the article synthesis (!).
This argument is nonsensical. Many valid articles have titles that merely describe the contents. This is perfectly acceptable when there is no single title for the subject agreed upon by scholarship. But here we have a title used by various scholarly works—which the nominator rejects because none of the sources that use it were cited in the article! Even if that were a valid argument—and it is certainly not—it would be solved by simply citing any of those works, which the nominator identified and quoted from in this discussion! It is difficult to imagine a more blatant refusal to follow the guidance of WP:BEFORE before nominating the article for deletion.
A secondary argument seems to be that the sources the nominator quoted do not consist of identical lists of conflicts corresponding precisely with the list of conflicts in this article. The nominator is not arguing that these were not conflicts between Rome and the Gauls. Instead, the argument is that if the items making up the list come from different sources, then the list constitutes synthesis! This is a degree of formalism that ought to have been discarded some time in the last century. By this criterion, all Wikipedia articles should be deleted as synthesis and original research, because all of them consist of varying statements taken from different sources in order to produce a coherent discussion of a topic. The only articles that wouldn't fall afoul of this would be articles consisting entirely of information taken from a single source—which of course would be problematic for several other reasons.
The only thing necessary for inclusion on this list is that an item represent some conflict or milestone in the conflict between Rome and the Gauls. As long as reliable sources state that Rome fought against the Gauls on this or that occasion (or in one instance I added tonight, concluded a peace that didn't immediately follow a particular war or battle), that event can reasonably be included on the list, just as a list of cities in Outer Slobovia can include any city that a reliable source says is in Outer Slobovia. According to this nomination, however, you must cite the entire contents to a reliable source that provides a list of cities in Outer Slobovia, and you cannot include any cities that are not mentioned in that source, or another one saying that it is a list of cities in Outer Slobovia. A reliable source that merely says a city is in Outer Slobovia is not acceptable, because including that city would be synthesis! And checking various sources to find out what cities reliable sources say are in Outer Slobovia is original research!
This nomination should be closed as "keep" without any further discussion, as there is no valid reason for it—the only plausible reason for it at the time it was made is that the article needed more sources, and now it has them. WP:BEFORE says that the editor should have attempted to determine whether such sources existed before nominating the article for deletion. Either the nominator failed to do so, or having discovered them chose to ignore them and nominate the article for deletion, even though reliable sources existed. WP:BEFORE clearly states that articles should be deleted when a reasonable search indicates that reliable sources do not exist, not because they have not yet been cited. And now they have been cited, and the article is in much better shape than it was a day ago. An article that can be substantially improved and its actual problems addressed with a few hours' work is not a candidate for deletion. P Aculeius (talk) 09:01, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@P Aculeius: I've got 3 things to say.
  1. Thanks for improving the contents by adding a lot of secondary RS citations. Regardless of whether we keep the article (under the current title or in its current form), or split/merge its contents, these contents will now probably be rather valuable in one form or another.
  2. Although your edits have solved the WP:PRIMARY issue, the issues with WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and WP:LISTCRIT remain unaddressed. I can explain why, but first we need to deal with something else:
  3. I don't like your tone. You're systematically accusing me of incompetence and implying that I am deliberately ignoring rules such as WP:BEFORE. I'm not, and I have demonstrated this, yet you have ignored my reply to the accusation and accused me of violating WP:BEFORE yet again. This may amount to a violation of WP:CIVIL (Participate in a respectful and considerate way. Do not ignore the positions and conclusions of your fellow editors.) and WP:AGF (Unless there is clear evidence to the contrary, assume that people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it.). You are not doing so, by suggesting Either the nominator failed to do so, or having discovered [reliable sources] chose to ignore them and nominate the article for deletion, even though I explicitly listed almost every possible reliable source mentioning Roman–Gallic wars and assessing whether they could be used to save this article from deletion or not, exactly as WP:BEFORE D. Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability stipulates. (To be exact: we are in scenario no. #3: However, if a quick search does find sources, this does not always mean an AfD on a sourcing basis is unwarranted. If you spend more time examining the sources and determine that they are insufficient, e.g., because they only contain passing mention of the topic, then an AfD nomination may still be appropriate. My list of possible RS was intended to show exactly this: there are very few RS, and they fail WP:SIGCOV/WP:NLIST, and as a result, there are WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and WP:LISTCRIT issues.) How am I supposed to work with you and solve an issue if you're asserting that I am not even capable and willing of editing Wikipedia properly?
Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:02, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very well, I apologize for the hostility of my response last night. I recognize that you are capable of editing Wikipedia properly, and that you have done so for a long time. However, I still believe that you are misinterpreting what constitutes synthesis and original research.
With respect to SIGCOV, many reliable sources cover the topic of this article: wars between Rome and the Gauls. Virtually every article about Gauls generally or individual tribes of Gauls in a secondary source will discuss their interactions with Rome; every history of the Roman Republic discusses multiple wars between Rome and the Gauls or various Gallic tribes. Polybius, one of the main sources for this topic from antiquity, gives, as Cornell describes it, a general survey of Rome's wars with the Gauls down to his time.
A particularly good example of a general if brief treatment of the subject in modern sources is in Cornell's chapter on Roman expansion during the early Republic (chapter 12), sections 6 and 8. Section 6 deals specifically with the Gallic sack of Rome (section 7 discusses the mythologizing of Camillus), while section 8 returns to Rome's rebuilding and expansion following the Gallic sack, with a short survey of conflicts involving the Gauls during the fourth century at pp. 324 and 325, the latter concluding by mentioning panic over possible Gallic threats before, during, and after the Punic Wars, down to 114 BC. This is just after the death of Polybius, and all of the latter fall beyond the period upon which Cornell's book focuses (Rome from its foundation myths down to 264 BC, before the beginning of the Punic Wars), but he still regards all of these as part of a discrete topic.
NLIST says, "[o]ne accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". The sources you mentioned in your nomination do this; so does Cornell in his treatment; so do pretty much all articles about the Gauls in Roman times. It is not necessary that they use the word "list" or that they all refer to the various wars by a single name, much less the title of this article; if the title were problematic, it could be addressed by finding a better title, but that would not involve deleting the article. The fact that some of them do use this title, and the fact that the title accurately describes the content of the list, are both arguments that this title is fine, but again, disagreement about the title is not an argument for deletion.
NLIST also says very clearly that "[t]he entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been." Clearly it is not synthesis for the list to include items that are not listed in this source or that source. Only that reliable sources document that they meet the criteria to go in such a list, e.g. that they are conflicts between Rome and the Gauls. This is not an indiscriminate list of unrelated things, or a complex cross-categorization. It is a logical and discrete topic treated by various sources, even if none of them individually cover the entire list of conflicts from beginning to end.
I think you are confusing the name of this topic with whether it is notable. I cannot imagine any historian of Roman times arguing that it is not a distinct or discrete topic, or that it is not a notable topic. Greek and Roman historians frequently mention various Gallic wars together, as do modern surveys of various related subjects, such as Roman expansion from the late fifth century onward, or articles about the Gauls generally, or the Senones, Insubres, Allobroges, etc. This should be more than sufficient to demonstrate notability of the topic, and justify the existence of this list. P Aculeius (talk) 14:17, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Apology accepted. It's okay to believe I am misinterpreting rules, because everyone can make mistakes, including you and me, and I'm always open to learning more.
many reliable sources cover the topic of this article: wars between Rome and the Gauls. That just means each of those wars is individually pass WP:GNG, not that they are generally recognised as a group, and are notable as a group per WP:NLIST: One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines. You claim The sources you mentioned in your nomination do this, but I think I have demonstrated that they do not:
  • Salley 2013 and Hupfauf 2020 use Roman-Gallic wars as a synonym for Caesar's Gallic Wars (58–51 BCE), which is arguably just 1 war (which is why Webster 1996 alternately names it the Second Transalpine War, singular).
  • Ferenczy 1976 uses Roman-Gallic wars as a name for a conflict around 350 BCE, which does not (and cannot) include the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BCE because Ferenczy bases himself on Polybius who died in 118 BCE (before Caesar was even born in 100 BCE). Claudia Sagona 2005 similarly refers to the Roman-Gallic wars of the 3rd century, which by definition excludes the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BCE, as well as the mid-4th-century wars Ferenczy (and by extension Polybius) are talking about. (Although the fact that she uses a lowercase w implies it is an ad hoc grouping for that specific century, and other "Roman-Gallic wars" could have been waged in other centuries; but concluding that therefore, there were, would be WP:SYNTH).
  • Maxfield 2008 is the only one who provides a clear start and end date, and explicitly identifies the starting event (sack of Rome 390 BCE), and implicitly the ending event (Caesar's Gallic Wars). This is the only source that possibly meets the requirement of properly discussing the list topic as a group or set. But apart from those 3 sentences, Maxfield doesn't really say anything about these wars; the rest of his paragraph "1.1.4 Italy" is actually devoted to the wars between Romans and Etruscans; the Gauls are only mentioned once more: In the last of the century the Gauls actually settled down in northern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul) laying the foundations for the cities of Turin, Bergamo and Milan. Hardly a reference to their history of military conflict with Rome. So, this passing reference would still not meet WP:SIGCOV. Moreover, we can only extract a "set" of just 2 items from Maxfield: the starting and ending event. I don't know if there is a minimum requirement for the number of items that a list must have in order to be considered a "list", but 2 is.... rather meagre.
  • Heather Lyn 2019, the only other source that comes close to discussing the list topic as a group through the phrase the series of Roman-Gallic Wars, identifies only a single event, namely the Gallic sack of Rome in 387/6 BCE, and has no explicit starting and ending dates/events, except that she implies these wars were still not done by the 1st century CE, even though Maxfield ends them explicitly with Caesar (so, in the 50s BCE). Thus, Lyn's passing remarks do not meet NLIST and SIGCOV either, and it would be WP:SYNTH to assert she and Maxfield are in alignment.
This situation could be a reason to turn this article/list into a disambiguation page, as I suggested (and Ifly6 already voted for), but it would not be a sufficient reason to keep it as it is.
The argument you are making about Cornell allegedly regard[ing] all of these as part of a discrete topic by going through his entire book and selecting chapters, sections and pages, without ever citing a passage that clearly and unambiguously identifies and discusses the "Roman-Gallic wars" as a group or set still strikes me as WP:SYNTH: Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source.
It is not necessary that they use the word "list" or that they all refer to the various wars by a single name I know, but that is not what I am arguing. In fact, yesterday I argued at Talk:Roman–Etruscan Wars#Need for article? that the combination of RS that use "Roman–Etruscan Wars", "Etruscan Wars" and "Etruscan–Roman Wars" was just sufficient for keeping the article (because even though they use different terms and do not exactly agree on periodisation, together they allow the topic to pass SIGCOV/NLIST). If other terms have been used to discuss the so-called Roman-Gallic wars as a group with SIGCOV, I would be all open to that. My nom doesn't hinge on a single term, but I haven't seen any viable alternative.
Clearly it is not synthesis for the list to include items that are not listed in this source or that source. True, but the only RS that provides the faintest suggestion of a list that discusses the topic as a group or set, Maxfield, has only 2 items. The current article Roman–Gallic wars has 15 items. If this is not WP:SYNTH, it sure is a gigantic extrapolation, and an enormous stretch of WP:NLIST (and other policies such as WP:CSC that require every item [to be] verifiably a member of the group.).
In conclusion: I really tried. I just could not find enough RS that are sufficient to comply to the policies and guidelines that could save this article from deletion. I appreciate your efforts in improving the article, and you've solved the PRIMARY issue, but otherwise my objections stand. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:16, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PS: Greek and Roman historians frequently mention various Gallic wars together, as do modern surveys of various related subjects, such as Roman expansion from the late fifth century onward if so, would you be so kind as to cite them? That would solve this whole issue. I tried, but I haven't been able to find them, which is the reason for my nomination. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:22, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're still confusing the title of the article with a deletion discussion. You claim that the title isn't supported by a sufficient number of reliable sources—that doesn't make the topic invalid or even the title invalid, and even if it were, it wouldn't be a valid reason to delete the article. Articles are deleted because they're not notable, not because they don't have a good title. And a title that accurately describes the contents of the article is fine whether or not it's used by reliable sources, as long as those sources don't provide a better title.
Also, I clearly stated that the two sections in Cornell describing this topic are part of the same chapter, interrupted only by a discussion of the mythologizing of Camillus—a figure intimately connected with both the Gallic sack of 390 and the supposed Gallic raid of 367, which he is supposed to have come out of retirement to rout as an elderly man shortly before his death. Section 7 is a digression from an otherwise continuous narrative in Chapter 12 about Roman conflicts with the Gauls. And the discussion at pages 324 and 325 is one continuous discussion of Roman wars against the Gauls stretching from Camillus down to the Punic Wars and beyond. It is not picking and choosing different bits of scattered material—although I still maintain that as long as any sources discuss wars between the Romans and Gauls in general, then you cannot reasonably argue that listing such conflicts in a single article constitutes synthesis, no matter how many sources or how many parts of those sources you cite different incidents to.
The fact that we have sources already cited in the article that discuss one or more series of such conflicts, either describing Gauls generally or specific subsets of Gauls making war on Rome or being conquered by Rome on multiple occasions over many years ought to satisfy any criteria for proving that this is an actual topic—I cannot understand the distinction you are trying to make here. It makes absolutely no sense to me. You say your objections stand; I say they do not. P Aculeius (talk) 17:50, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, thanks for that response. I think you and I will not be able to reach agreement on this, as we seem to be repeating the same arguments, and I do not see a way of responding to your latest response except through arguments that I have already made. I suppose that input from other users is needed to resolve the matter. Shall I ping a few editors with whom I've been discussing Roman military history in recent days? (They aren't people who will necessarily agree with either of us, they are users I have never or barely interacted with before, but they are interested and experienced in these kinds of topics). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:11, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps that would be prudent. What about posting at the WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome talk page? I sometimes post there when I think a talk page discussion needs more input, although lately not as many different voices respond as I'm accustomed to seeing. Still, it's the logical place to ask, IMO. Thank you for keeping calm when I was having difficulty doing the same. We may not agree on this nomination, but we can at least discuss it civilly. P Aculeius (talk) 04:25, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well why not both? You could post on that talk page and I'll ping a few editors, and we'll see who responds. And you're welcome; frustration is common when Wikipedians cannot agree, and I'm glad we were able to get the discussion to this point. I don't do AfDs often, and although I've familiarised myself with all these rules over the course of years, it's still possible that I've missed something. I hadn't foreseen we would have such a different interpretation of the rules, but we'll see what others think. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:36, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I suppose the fact that your focus is classical antiquity, whereas mine is military history (although mostly post-antiquity), makes for different perspectives. I'm used to being very critical of a lack of (good) sources, but for antiquity we usually have very few (primary) sources to go on in the first place, so perhaps there are other standards at play. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:43, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the list is a mess (shouldn't it be defined as such on talk?) but it meets notability standard. Whether or not historians have bothered to come to a consensus on a general name is neither here nor there; what matters is that the events have been discussed in some sort of correlation, which they have been in Cornell and elsewhere. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:29, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I would say that they haven't been commonly discussed in a clear manner as a group or set, and I think "some sort of correlation" won't cut it. We have certain standards to maintain (WP:NLIST, WP:LISTCRIT, WP:SYNTH etc.). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 07:12, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not aware of a certain minimum quantity of sources necessary before one can cite the fact that Rome and the Gauls fought a series of wars or battles over the course of several centuries, something that is frankly somewhat self-evident from the contents of the article, and strikes me as citing the fact that the sky is blue.
But there are several sources already cited in the article that clearly describe a series of such wars together, beginning with the very first surviving source, Polybius, as well as a very concise discussion in Cornell, mentioned several times in this AfD. The articles I cited from the OCD about individual Gallic tribes and regions also treat multiple wars in this sequence as parts of single topics, i.e. multiple engagements with the Senones, or the Insubres, or the Boii, or the Allobroges—with the additional notation that in some instances the authorities disagree as to which of these was involved on particular occasions, which is a pretty good reason for combining the various conflicts into an article like this, which can serve as an overview of the topic and a means of navigating between related subjects, such as the aforementioned tribes, and articles about specific wars, battles, locations, or persons involved, i.e. Cisalpine Gaul, Aquitania, Brennus, Camillus, Caesar.
Even minimal documentation should be adequate to support the fact that various wars between Rome and the Gauls belong to a set of all wars between Rome and the Gauls—really this should be as simple as tautology—and we have much more than minimal documentation supporting this already cited in the article. It cannot be difficult to find and add more, although it should not be necessary to do so solely for the purpose of justifying the article's existence. P Aculeius (talk) 13:03, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, a point that I perhaps should have raised much, much earlier is the fact that, unlike the Romans, who were politically and military united in the Roman Republic, "the Gauls" weren't a united belligerent. It's a catch-all term for a very large and very diverse number of groups generally described as "tribes" which, according to our modern linguistic classifications, all natively primarily/predominantly spoke Celtic languages (until they were Romanised, of course). But as many, many recent CfDs, CfRs and CfMs, as well as several ones of several years ago, have shown, being a native speaker of a language that is a member of a language family is not that significant. The language family is considered WP:NONDEFINING for individuals, for (former) states/countries, and to an extent also to groups of people if no direct connection can be made to the language family purely from the point of view of linguistics. This is not an exhaustive list, but it might give you an idea why e.g. Category:Celtic rulers and Category:Germanic empires etc. have been deleted:
Thus, the idea that "the Gauls" fought a series of wars or battles over the course of several centuries with the Romans may not be that "self-evident" if it is not self-evident that we should regard them as a political or military unit. Although some sources indeed lump them together, it's questionable whether Wikipedia should go along with that rather broad generalisation. Based on the precedents above, I'm beginning to wonder whether we should CfD Category:Battles involving the Gauls, Category:Battles involving the Celts, Category:Battles involving Germanic peoples etc. as they appear to categorise groups of people united by a language according to the language family that language belonged to. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:03, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pinging some editors I've been discussing Roman military history with in the past few days @T8612, Botteville, GenoV84, and Eponymous-Archon: perhaps you would like to comment? Your input could be very valuable. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 07:27, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: I agree with editors P Aculeius and AirshipJungleman29 regarding the nomination of this page, which I find to be primarily concerned with the appropriate nomenclature of the article itself rather than with its content. The article definitely needs additional secondary sources and reworking, but it is relevant for the history of relations between the Romans and Gauls and clearly meets the WP criteria for notability; from my perspective, there's no need to delete it. GenoV84 (talk) 09:56, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Convert to list or disambiguation page, this article is just summing up a large number of independent conflicts. Marcocapelle (talk) 11:43, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose deletion. I think the article can either be converted to a list, or if someone feels brave enough to write an article about Roman-Gaul relations before the conquest. T8612 (talk) 12:53, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per P Aculeius and AirshipJungleman29. The page as is is a useful quasi-list or disam page which works fine. Renaming is a different matter, which only confuses the issue if discussed here - I might support a different title, or not. Johnbod (talk) 14:03, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Draftify. I got pinged. There is always a question whether original presentation amounts to original research. Granted there was no specific bunching of Rome's wars as "the Romano-Gallic" as opposed to Caesars "Gallic". Is therefore Romano-Gallic an original contribution or just a device of presentation? I would say, change the name, maybe to "Wars between Romans and Gauls" or "Roman wars with Gauls" or some such thing that does not imply an original public usage. Or, if we have an author that uses the term as we present it, bring him to the fore in the intro, and attribute the term to him. The article as I see it IS a list articles rather than a disambig. Since the term is not in general use why would we need a disambig to unconfuse it? Anyway to me the most attractive and flexible form of a list article is a table or tables, arrangeable by any scheme you wish. If you have one table you can have it sortable on any column, let us say by date or nation. As the Romans were surrrounded by Gauls on the north they certainly were not all of one nation; for example, Gallia was not Britannia. Tables also are most amenable to small pictures in one of the columns, and you can use abbreviated table-type talk. I therefore vote for reworking this article extensively in sandbox space with adequate cross-links so the editors can get back and forth. When it is done, delete the current article and drop in the new after a name change. That will give us something to do and open a path to improvement.Botteville (talk) 14:47, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The point that all the Gauls were a nation in ancient times is a good one. To me it feels like some of this disagreement emerges at the root from the 19th century retrojection of nationhood onto every ethnic group but set that aside. What do you think about a disambiguation or list that answers the question "which Gauls"? Ifly6 (talk) 16:45, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Excellent points, both of you. It's similar to the one I have made about regarding "the Gauls" as if it is a politically and militarily united group which acts like a united group. The evidence very much shows they did not; we've got a very large and diverse number of tribes that appear to have nothing in common, except speaking languages that belong to the family of Celtic languages. And "Celtic" and "Gallic/Gaulish" aren't even synonyms, because folks like the Celtiberians were/are not counted amongst "the Gauls" and not categorised as Category:Gauls, but they are still counted as "Celts" and categorised as Category:Celtic tribes of the Iberian Peninsula. The same goes for the Celtic tribes in Britannia.
    Another point is that Gaul/Gallia is not reducible to just modern-day France (as Lyn 2019 incorrectly claimed), because there was this thing called Gallia Transalpina, Gallia Belgica etc. which (partially) lay outside of the modern French Republic's borders.
    All of these just point to modern efforts to unite "the Gauls" into a unit, even though "the Gauls" never were united. And Wikipedia shouldn't take things so far beyond the reliable sources so as to imply unity – be it in space, in time, or in populations – where the reliable sources describe none. The result of rash generalisations could be an article claiming or implying that the Romans and "the Gauls" were at near-constant war for c. 339, even though the years of peace massively outnumbered the years of war, and the, say, Insubres, had probably pretty much faded from history and been Romanised by the time Caesar ran into the Menapii, and these two "Gallic" tribes will absolutely never have known about each other's existence. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:28, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disambiguate per Ifly6, redirect to Gallic Wars which is the WP:PTOPIC for the term, or just delete. The conflicts are unrelated to and independent of each other, and no source groups them all together. Avilich (talk) 15:51, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- This is essentially a list article, listing conflicts between Rome and various Gallic tribes. I do not see much wrong with the title, but if some one can suggest a better name we can of course change it. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:08, 8 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to a more common or descriptive name, like, List of wars between the Roman Empire and Gallic/Celtic tribes, or what have you. Andre🚐 04:05, 9 April 2023 (UTC) Andre🚐 04:05, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question (and I realize this may sound like a dumb question for an experienced editor, but I'm being cautious): would calling it a list impose any new restrictions on the article's content or formatting? I don't think it should, since I know we have Roman-related articles classified as lists that contain significant amounts of text in non-listing sections, but the ones I'm thinking of aren't are titled as lists. And I'm not worried about preserving the contents unaltered, but I do want to be sure that there's no objection to any of the current contents based solely on whether the article is called "list of Roman-Gallic wars" or something similar. Even if there's not, I'm not certain that it's better than the current title, which is reasonably descriptive, but more concise. P Aculeius (talk) 13:41, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is an Afd discussion. We should concentrate on Keep/Delete. If, as seems likely, it is kept, then other discussions can sort the format & title. Johnbod (talk) 15:07, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, but I also think it's worthwhile asking those who want to do something other than merely keeping or deleting the article whether their proposals would require other changes to the formatting or contents of the article. Given that I spent quite a while rewriting the individual items and citing various sources in order to help save the article from deletion, I wouldn't want to see it reduced to a few lines with minimal information and citations, like a disambiguation page (which some people here have proposed). P Aculeius (talk) 15:21, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm largely still of the view that it should be reduced to a disambiguation page. But the work that you've put into the article doesn't need to and shouldn't be deleted. The Romans did in fact fight a number of wars with different Gallic or Celtic peoples. Many of the articles we have on those conflicts are very bare. There does not exist, for example, any article at all on the Roman conquest of Cisalpine Gaul – the specific name may be up for determination, though Liv. 31–34 doesn't seem to provide an overarching name beyond "Consul XYZ fought [Gallic tribe] ABC", – after the Second Punic war (though even the name "Cisalpine Gaul" is somewhat anachronistic for that period; see CAH2 8 p 107 In 201 there was not even a geographical expression to apply to the area which the Romans later came to call Gallia Cisalpina... it was not a single political or even ethnic unit). If it is disambiguated, that content can just be moved. Ifly6 (talk) 17:09, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, the Roman "conquest of Cisalpine Gaul" should probably be focused around the Battle of Clastidium, the conquest of Mediolanum and the wider war they waged in the 220s BCE against the Insubres (and Boii). I would personally expect something like Roman–Insubric war, but I would have to check the literature on that. I'm not sure if "Cisalpine Gaul" captures the proper region though; as your quote says very well, Gallia Cisalpina (...) was not a single political or even ethnic unit. For one, contrary to popular belief, Gallia Cisalpina didn't become a "province" as far as I can tell. Secondly, the Adriatic Veneti had always been Rome's faithful allies and gradually assimilated into Roman/Latin culture without being "Gallic" or ever being "conquered", yet as part of northern Italy, their territory is often lumped together with "Cisalpine Gaul". And so on.
    For First Transalpine War, there are sufficient secondary sources to turn that redirect into a fully-fledged article.
    And so on and so forth. Rather than a great big article lumping everything and everyone together under the rubric "Gallic", I think we should indeed focus on the individual conflicts. The disambiguation option is probably one of the best we currently have. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 03:12, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    And something that hasn't been noted yet: improving and expanding the Roman expansion in Italy page is perhaps a much better strategy. It allows us to talk about all military engagements within Italy that Rome fought against any opponent, rather than trying to lump particular groups together according to modern ethnolinguistic classifications that don't fit ancient reality. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 03:17, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Moving, splitting and merging are best discussed in a different venue at this point. Srnec (talk) 20:44, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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