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Epikleros

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to take this to FAC and would appreciate anything that would improve the sourcing, prose or style of the article.

Thanks, Ealdgyth - Talk 17:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Ruhrfisch comments: What a fascinating article - I did not know about this before and really enjoyed reading it. Thanks! Very briefly, here are some suggestions for improvement. If you want more comments, please ask here.

  • Since this is known chiefly from Athens, why not use some pictures from the Parthenon Frieze too? They are sculptures of Athenian women - perhaps Image:Egastinai frieze Louvre MR825.jpg or this detail Image:Egastinai frieze Louvre MR825 detail.jpg}?? (Your Pergamon shot is nice too, but a deity from Asia Minor seems less applicable to this article).
  • I would try to provide context in a few places - most people will know Athens and Sparta, but Gortyn and Rhegium could use a locating phrase each.
  • As I read thism there were places where it was clear most of the topic is known from Athens and is assumed to be similar in other city-states, but in other places (Overview) it was just sort of "this is how it was in Ancient Greece" - those have to be made a bit clearer
  • Plato's The Republic could be linked, otherwise looks pretty good to me

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:39, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dr pda's comments: An interesting article. I've copyedited it to correct some typos in the Greek terms, both spelling and singular vs plural. I've also changed ancisteia to anchisteia, which is the more correct transliteration of αγχιστεια. Some more comments/suggestions for improvement (NB I knew nothing about the topic before reading the article, though I have skimmed a few sources since, to provide suggestions for improvement):

  • Does your source actually use the spelling patroiouchos? My Greek lexicon says the spelling used in the passage from Herodotus is patrouchos (though it does say 'perhaps patroiouchos'), while the spelling used in the laws of Gortyn is patroiochos. A quick google search (which is not necessarily conclusive) gives patroiouchos only in this article and mirrors of it.
  • Does city state need a hyphen?
  • According my widget dictionary, it does. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Athenian women were not allowed to hold property in their own name, so laws to regulate the marriages of epikleroi had to be introduced.—this seems to imply that the status of epikleros existed prior to laws regulating their marriage; is this true? Possibly omit the second clause and reorder this sentence and the subsequent one thus:

Athenian women were not allowed to hold property in their own name; in order to keep their father's property in the family epikleroi were required to marry the nearest male relative of their father.

  • And so occurs a few times. Is the word and redundant?
  • I plan to guilt trip Malleus into copyediting when we're done with research, he's used to my verbosity. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • only allowing a few observations to be made—this sounds a little like it is the writer of the article who is making the observations, which suggests WP:OR; perhaps this needs rephrasing
  • In the case of Gortyn is it true that the evidence is fragmentary and only a few observations can be made? From a quick look through other sources it appears that an inscription was made of the entire Gortynian (sp?) law code, with the relevant passages surviving and at least one source (should have made a note) spent roughly the same amount of time on the situation in Gortyn as in Athens. (FIND SOURCE)
  • I've added a bit about Gortyn, so it's bigger and I've reoworded the above anyway. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Plato wrote about the epikleroi in his Laws, offering idealized laws to govern their marriages. I've not read the Laws, but did Plato actually talk about epikleroi per se, or about an institution which was analogous?
  • My secondary source refers to "The estate of a deceased man is pass to his son; if he has no sons and has made no will, it goes to his daughter who becomes an epikleros." in describing Plato's work. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would be nice if the caption for (if not the content of) the lead image in some way related to the article. When I first saw it I thought "What's Artemis got to do with it?".
  • a feminine adjective acting as noun—is this a quote from the source cited? Epikleros is also the masculine form of the adjective; it would be more correct to say 'an adjective acting as a feminine noun'.
  • That phrase has been in the article since the beginning when I first touched it. If you have a source for the correct information, please feel free to add it. Otherwise I'll yank it out. I don't have the knowledge of Greek to begin to source that info. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would perhaps rephrase the first sentence of 'Overview' as The term epikleros (...) was used in Ancient Greece to describe...
  • Heiresses were required to marry... It seems a little odd to use the word heiress here, but only mention in the following sentence that epikleros is often translated heiress. Perhaps replace heiress with epikleros here?
Fixed. Ealdgyth - Talk 20
  • 13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Athens is the city-state that is best documented. This needs expansion; best-documented in all contexts or just re the epikleros?
  • Expanded to make it clear it's both. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The anchisteia also had other roles apart from avenging a murder; it looks like it was the same group of people who inherited if a man died without any heirs (male or female) (e.g. see here, would prefer a better source though).
  • Fixed and sourced from Just's work, which is indeed a better source. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Solon, however, discouraged the practice of some men being adopted by relatives of epikleroi in hopes of securing a rich heiress. This is very confusing and needs rewriting;who is hoping to get a rich heiress—the man? the relatives? Is the man being adopted posthumously as the son of the epikleros's father? If the heiress is rich, why would her relatives adopt someone else?
  • Lacey's very confused on this. I've reworked the section to hopefully avoid the confusion. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • He may also legislated needs an auxiliary verb/different tense
  • but by the time of Pericles this law was enforced. enforced or not enforced?
  • Enforced. I've worked this over a bit.
  • by the time of Pericles Could be useful to give an approximate date here. Also, during what period did the epiklerate exist? note 4 on this page suggests it fell out of favour by the fourth century BC
  • Added a death date for Pericles. I've found nothing that says when the epiklerate went out of favor. Menanader is still writing about them in the late 4th century, so I'm not sure when we can call it "over". Unfortunately, that page doesn't give a source for that footnote... Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It may have been Solon who legislated There are a couple of phrases like this; why is there uncertainty in the attribution?
  • Mainly because the attribution to Solon appears to come from Plutarch, not from anything contemporary to Solon. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • she was entitled to have sex with his next of kin Is have sex with too informal in tone?
  • No clue. This one is a Malleus problem (he's going to hit me...) Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a consequence of these rules—The rules immediately preceding this are the ones to do with sex! But even taking this to refer to the rules concerning the marriage epikleroi, I don't see how enrolment in a phratry follows. From the discussion in The Phratries of Attica around p186 it looks like this evidence is more speculative than scanty. I would be inclined just to drop this sentence.
  • There was a specialized procedure for the betrothal of an epikleros, a type of court judgement called epidikasia It might be nice to give details of the procedure
  • I haven't found a description of the procedure. Not that there isn't one, just I haven't found it. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • A young Athenian male serving his time as an ephebe, or military trainee, was allowed to claim epikleroi, the only legal right an ephebe was permitted in Aristotle's day. The phrase claim epikleroi needs to be clarified; does this mean to marry her? Also, this was not the only legal right; according to The Family in Greek History, Cynthia Patterson, p97 it was "to deal with an inheritance or an epikleros, or to take up an hereditary priesthood". It should probably be made clear than an ephebe had not reached his legal majority.
  • a couple of speeches by Demosthenes sounds a little informal; perhaps specify the number.
  • This second-to-last paragraph in the Athens section seems a bit choppy; it presents a whole lot of apparently unconnected facts.
  • was generally stressed in public speeches Stressed by whom? What sort of speeches, euologies?
  • It appears that Lacey's referring to legal speeches, but I'm not sure exactly as he doesn't specify. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The quotation from Herodotus should have a reference, i.e. work and line number
  • The sections describing the rules for heiresses in Gortyn and Sparta seems somewhat cursory. From the few sources I've skimmed it seems there's more information out there. I think Patterson's Family in Greek History does a comparison of Athens, Sparta and Gortyn.
  • A map indicating the location of Athens, Sparta, and particularly Gortyn and Rhegium would be useful
  • Speaking of images, diagrams indicating the relatives whom the epikleros could/had to marry would be nice; there's some in Patterson.
  • Charondas appears to be the name of another city rather than a person; perhaps add a couple of words to prevent this misapprehension.
  • the inherited plot might not be divided or added to another plot. I presume this is technical terminology used in Plato's Laws. It needs some explanation here.
  • Not all such heroic era royal successions followed that pattern however. Needs to be clearer that this refers to the epikleros pattern, not the son-in-law/father-in-law pattern. Also, might be useful to give both the father-in-law and son-in-law in the preceding list of examples.
  • Clarified a bit. I'm still debating adding the exact relationships. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sacred War—say between whom.
  • Do I gotta??? (whines). Added.
  • Could possibly give some sort of context for why the two (possible) historical examples are chosen. From this (and more so in the sentence in the lead which relates to this section) one sort of gets the impression that epikleroi were very rare, which was not the case. Maybe put the one in seven statistic in the lead.
  • I've actually added a few more examples. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Grant 1987 is missing an ISBN, as is Lacey 1968 (if that's not too early for ISBNs)
  • My copy of Grant Rise of the Greeks does not list an ISBN. I've added OCLC's instead for both. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • You mentioned you want to take this to FAC. At just under 10KB readable prose it's in the shortest 5% of articles. It might get challenged on that basis, which is really to do with whether it's sufficiently comprehensive. From a quick google search there appear to be loads of sources out there, which suggests there is still room for expansion. Ancient Greek Laws: A sourcebook gives a list of primary texts mentioning epikleroi or equivalents (including some relating to places not mentioned in the article), as well as a extensive list of 'Further reading', though its utility depends on how many languages you read. Some of the sources I've referred to above look like they might provide further useful information (though see [1] for a review of Patterson. This page also lists another couple of similar books published around the same time). Schaps has a 1979 book with a chapter on epikleroi; I don't know how much of that overlaps with the articles of his that you have already used. One possible area of expansion—there's a play of Menander in which the role of the epikleros is central to the plot. I think I read somewhere that quite a lot has been written about it.

Hope the above comments are useful. Dr pda (talk) 12:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! They were very helpful. It should be clear that ancient history isn't my field, and there is limit to how much I'm willing to spend to buy books in the subject area. I'll admit that one of the things I was hoping by listing this at PR would be to attract someone who is more knowledgeable in the subject area... and who reads something besides English and (very badly) medieval Latin.Thanks again! Ealdgyth - Talk 14:01, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think all the books I mentioned above (with the exception of those listed in the sourcebook) had full versions on Google Books. This topic is actually quite interesting, so I wouldn't mind helping to expand/improve the article. It's not really my field either, though I do have a degree in Greek and Latin (language and literature, not history), so maybe that qualifies me as your "more knowledgeable person". I won't be able to work on it for at least a few weeks, because I'm away at a conference next week, and am also working on referencing for a FAR. Dr pda (talk) 23:45, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All yours! (ducks and runs!) Ealdgyth - Talk 22:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're too kind :) Watch this space (or rather the article). Dr pda (talk) 22:23, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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