Talk:Siege of Tunis (Mercenary War)

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Good articleSiege of Tunis (Mercenary War) has been listed as one of the Warfare good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Featured topic starSiege of Tunis (Mercenary War) is part of the Mercenary War series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
Did You Know Article milestones
DateProcessResult
October 28, 2020Good article nomineeListed
October 28, 2021Good topic candidatePromoted
November 15, 2021WikiProject A-class reviewApproved
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 13, 2020.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that at the Siege of Tunis, the Carthaginian general Hannibal was crucified on the same cross to which he had previously nailed a rebel leader?
Current status: Good article

Did you know nomination[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:36, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Crucified rebels at Tunis
Crucified rebels at Tunis
  • ... that at the Siege of Tunis Hannibal had ten rebel leaders crucified (pictured) before he was captured when his camp was overrun and nailed to one of the same crosses? Source: Hoyos, Dexter (2007). Truceless War: Carthage's Fight for Survival, 241 to 237 BC. Leiden ; Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-474-2192-4, pp. 222, 224.

5x expanded by Gog the Mild (talk). Self-nominated at 21:29, 26 October 2020 (UTC).[reply]

ALT1: ... that at the Siege of Tunis the Carthaginian general Hannibal was crucified on the same cross to which he had previously nailed a rebel leader?
ALT2: ... that the Carthaginian general Hannibal was crucified on the same cross to which he had previously nailed a rebel leader during the Siege of Tunis?
ALT3: ... that the same crosses were used to crucify leaders of both sides at the Siege of Tunis?
ALT4: ... that leaders from both armies were crucified on the same crosses during the Siege of Tunis?
General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: Yes - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
  • Interesting: Yes
  • Other problems: No - The hook wording is confusing. It took me a while before I understood what you meant.

Image eligibility:

  • Freely licensed: Yes
  • Used in article: Yes
  • Clear at 100px: No - The issue with this image is that it is not a photograph or contemporary depiction but 19th century speculation about what it might have looked like. It should not be used as the context cannot be explained adequately in a very short caption.
QPQ: Done.

Overall: (t · c) buidhe 02:13, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hi Buidhe and thanks for picking this up, and so promptly! Same alternate, image free, hooks suggested above. Any of them up to scratch? Gog the Mild (talk) 12:23, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, of these hooks I think ALT1 is best. Should not be run with the image for reasons explained above. (t · c) buidhe 18:37, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Buidhe: Yep. Understood. Hence no "(pictured)". Gog the Mild (talk) 18:43, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Siege of Tunis (Mercenary War)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 14:13, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Lead
  • "They were tortured, mutilated and crucified still living." - Should it be while still living?
It could be. Done.
  • The aftermath section isn't really summarized in the lead
True. Added a bit.
War
  • I find it a bit odd that "Mercenary War" is not linked or mentioned in the body proper, just in the title, lead, infobox, and a caption. My recommendation might be to replace the complicated further reading section hatnote under the war section with a simpler one just to Mercenary War. You do mention it as the Truceless War after the Naravas battle, but I'd still recommend stating directly when the fighting started what they called the war
You are quite right. Added a bit about it at the point where the pay dispute turned into a war, and added a hat note to the top of that section.
  • Note 1 probably needs a citation. The patrilineal relationship of Carthaginian leaders isn't quite to the "the sky is blue" level of knowledge.
Oops. Must have stopped checking at the end of the text! Added.
  • "At some point between March and September 239 BC the previously loyal cities of Utica and Hippo slew their Carthaginian garrisons and joined the rebels." - Do we know why?
No. Nothing at all. I could OR, but it would be complete speculation.
Opposing armies
  • "Roman sources refer to these foreign fighters derogatively as "mercenaries", but Goldsworthy describes to this as "a gross oversimplification"" - Who's Goldsworthy? I've read enough of these articles to know who he is, but the average reader won't
I thought that he was already introduced. I too have clearly done too many of these. Fixed.
Done.
Siege
  • "Hamilcar then travelled to the northern camp with the ten captured rebel leaders" - The bit about the Saw doesn't directly state that it was ten captured rebel leaders there, so the reader is forced to make a conjecture, which I'd recommend just stating directly.
Well I already have "Eventually, the surrounded troops forced their leaders, including Spendius, to parley with Hamilcar, but on a thin pretext he took them prisoner." but a bit added to clarify for readers.

Tidy work here. That's about all I can find in my GA reviewing mode (I mentally approach different levels of reviews with different mindsets, which look for different things).

I struggle a bit to do that, although I try not to apply FAC expectations to GANs.

Hog Farm Bacon 01:31, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers Hog Farm, that is great responses above. If you fancy tackling the prequel, Battle of the Saw it has recently been GANed. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:30, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]