Talk:Ambrosius Aurelianus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have removed the statement:

Perhaps Gildas' statement inspired -- or is explained by -- the Welsh tradition that he was one of the sons of the emperor Magnus Maximus and his Celtic wife, Helen.

I do not remember ever encountering this and am dubious that the tradition exists.

I also removed:

In speculating about this conflict, one must admit that it is very likely the historical Ambrosius and Vortigern never even heard of one another during their real lives, let alone actually met.

Why must one admit something so dubious? Certainly, if Vortigern actually lived, then Ambrosius certainly would have heard of him, even if their careers did not overlap and even if Vortigern was rather unlike the figure that tradition provides. jallan 01:25, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

---

Removed the following (saved here for comments):

McCarthy's Synchronised Irish Annals include the entry "Ambrosius duc" for the year 479, implying that 479 was when Ambrosius took over from Vortigern as leader (became "wledig" or Overlord) of the Romano-British.

I'm not sure just who McCarthy is, but unless he has access to a primary document discovered within the last 10 years, what he writes is just one more theory to explain the facts; had the original Irish Annals mentioned Ambrosius, I would have heard of it.

Apparently Pachiaammos wrote:

Italic textBold text He is and he does. He is a precise scholar who has re-examined the various annals and used the ferials in their margins to co-ordinate them.

So you believe this McCarthy is a reliable source. Would you be so kind as to provide his full name & the necessary information to identify his book (such as title, publisher, date)?

(P.S. Please sign your comments; you can do this by adding three tildes -- ~~~ -- to append your name, or four tildes -- ~~~~ -- to add both your name & the time of your post.) -- llywrch 01:19, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have put back a shorter, less controversial, reference to the date 479. McCarthy published his Chronological Synchronisation of the Irish Annals from the Dept of Computer Science, Trinity College Dublin in 1999. The web reference is <<www.cs.tcd.ie/Dan.McCarthy/chronology/synchronisms>>. The author gives his own email for enquiries as <mccarthy@cs.tcd.ie>. ||||

I type 4 tildes and I just get 4 vertical lines, but yes this is Pachiaammosand it's 22 April at 9.05am BST

The more-precise meaning, "grandfather" is probably intended, for Gildas is addressing his contemporary (in c547) King Cynan of Powys whose Latin name, Conanus Aurelius, suggests direct descent from Ambrosius Aurelianus.

While some would argue this, it assumes that Aurelius & Aurelianus were the same family name -- much like Johns & Johnson. This assumption might be credible were it not for the fact both Aurelius & Aurelianus were very common family names in Late Roman times; thus to state this similarity (which just as easily can be argued is coincidence) tips the scales is POV.

The name 'Aurelianus' means (at least during earlier Roman times) that he was originally from gens Aurelia, and was adopted into some other family (an example: Gaius Octavius being adopted into gens Julia and thus being named Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus). Therefore, it is entirely possible (even if not definitive) that 'Aurelianus' and 'Aurelius' refer to the same family. Kuralyov 20:11, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Guoloph, according to Nennius, is Wallop in Hampshire, and the battle took place 12 years into the reign of Vortigern, said elsewhere to have begun in 425. The Ambrosius who fought there is surely, by inference, the father of Ambrosius Aurelianus, the one who wore the purple, or an earlier ancestor. Elsewhere, Nennius indicates that Aurelianus was still a lad when he was called to lead the Britons.

"Nennius" (as this contributor calls the Historia Britonum) is quoted to give this period a reliability that does not exist for this period, & Nennius' details raise as many questions as they appear to answer. If we are to spend the time extensively discussing Aurelianus in Nennius, then we should devote similar space to Aurelianus in Geoffrey of Monmouth, de Boron & the Welsh legends.

I've also had to fix some errors in the translation from the Latin (which is based on Michael Winterbottom's translation), where the orginal use of the singular has been replaced by plural forms for reasons I don't understand. -- llywrch 20:00, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 The Location of the Battle of Guoloph 2 Aurelianus in modern (as opposed to Monmouthian) fiction 3 Other accounts of Aurelianus 4 Chronicon Maiora

[edit] The Location of the Battle of Guoloph

I hadn't known there was a Wallop in Wilshire; from my reading, I had assumed the only place identified as the location for this battle was Norton Shrubs, a village near Cirencester. (Admittedly it's an old identification, but when it's the only guess one has, one goes with that guess.) And I'd add this to the article, but I've misremembered the reference I had found this in. -- llywrch 18:11, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Aurelianus in modern (as opposed to Monmouthian) fiction

Supposition about medieval sources is one thing, but it seems off to make unreferenced suppositions about a 2004 film. Surely the movie makers know whether they based the movie "King Arthur" on Aurelianus or not, and we could find out which if anyone actually cared enough to put the effort in. So including guesses in the article, even if they're reasonable guesses, seems inappropriate. I've revised the paragraph accordingly. Have cleaned up the rest of the section a bit as well, to fix punctuation and remove a bit of commentary. I would recommend (but have not done) removing anything from the fiction summaries that is not directly relevant to Aurelianus.--Bedawyn 04:08, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other accounts of Aurelianus

The last two paragraphs of this section are problematic. First, what connection is there between the Welsh Emrys Wledig and Robert de Boron's version? If none, why are they in the same paragraph? "This is probably a confusion that entered oral tradition" -- Probably? Is there a source that validates this supposition? "someone has taken an early mention of Uther's epithet" -- Someone? Who? After several rereadings, I think that the writer meant this as a possible origin for the confusion (i.e., someone long ago made a mistake, leading others to repeat the mistake), but it's not really clear from the sentence structure. The final paragraph also includes editorial comment: "This makes Appelbaum's suggestion more likely. If we combine [Applebaum's?] etymology with ... then it is extremely tempting to connect this shadowy figure with Amesbury." If no one else does so and there's no further discussion here to the contrary, I'll remove these sentences the next time I stop by (whenever that may be). I'm hesitant to do so without giving the author(s) a chance to fix them first because the sentences in question do contain worthwhile content as well.

Finally, I'd love to see at least dates, if not dates and titles, for the Applebaum and Myres references.

The above was me, back in April.--Bedawyn 19:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I just stumbled across your request now. I'm the one who wrote that back in the early mists of Wikipedia, but haven't had the time or the prodding (as in a nudge, not a delete ;) to find my source for Applebaum's statement. (I think it may have been in his contribution to The Agrarian History of Britain.) As for Myres & Vortigern's Pelagianism, I'll try to find the time to dig thru my pile of photocopied articles & reconstruct this scholarly myth; it's a fascinating tale, but one I didn't want to include because it was tangential to the subject of this article. -- llywrch 20:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chronicon Maiora

I have removed the citation to the Chronicon Maiora because there's no reference to Ambrosius in this work at all.