Talk:Antioch

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. To participate, improve this article or visit the project page for more information.

B
This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
Mid	This article is on a subject of mid-importance within classical antiquity.

The article says Antioch remains the seat of one of the Eastern Orthodox patriarchs. But I have read that the Patriarch of Antioch is now located in Damascus, Syria (see [1] (about an Antiochian Orthodox bishop charged with groping a woman in a casino)). And if he's in Syria, why does he continue to be called the "Patriarch of Antioch"? Michael Hardy 23:50, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Response: As I noted in the article itself, the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch indeed resides in Damascus, but retains the title "Patriarch of Antioch." Patriarchal headquarters were moved to Damascus presumably because the Syrians were more hospitable than the Turks.

The name Antioch still has prestige in terms of Christian history, but the city has had a very checkered history, and Antioch hasn't been any kind of real Christian population center for a very long time (and the Greek Patriarchate was headquartered in Damascus even under the late Ottoman Empire, according to http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01567a.htm ). AnonMoos 03:53, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Could the writer of this article, or someone else knowledgeable, provide me with a source on the population of the city being around 500.000 in the Roman era, if possible with a distinction between the number of free people and of slaves? I do not especially doubt the statement, since the figures I have gathered from various sources range wildly from ca. 100.000 to ca. 450.000, but whether or not slaves are included in the number usually accounts for such fluctuations with regard to population figures of ancient and classical cities. --Santetjan 9 July 2005 18:46 (UTC)

I don't have such a source (unless you count a brief mention in the old Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01570a.htm , or its being drawn with a double circle on several maps in Colin McEvedy's "Penguin Atlas of Ancient History"), but Antioch was clearly one of the two most important cities of the Roman East (three after the foundation of Constantinople), down to the Arab conquest. AnonMoos 03:53, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

1 Self contradictory
2 other uses template
3 cleanup
4 Antioch/Antakya
5 Why revert?
6 Map Request
7 Vandalism

[edit] Self contradictory

I am unsure of which part of the article is incorrect, but it does contradict itself, placing Paul's speech at both this Antioch (Antioch-on-the-Orontes) and a different place called Antioch (Pisidian Antioch).

Statement 1:

Antioch occupies an important place in the history of Christianity. It was here that Paul preached his first Christian sermon in a synagogue, and here that followers of Jesus were first called Christians (Acts 11:26).

Statement 2:

Many other cities within the Seleucid empire were also named Antioch, most of them founded by Seleucus I Nicator. For instance Pisidian Antioch in Central-West Turkey is where Saint Paul gave his first sermon to the Gentiles.

Or perhaps Paul's "first Christian sermon" is not the same as Paul's "first sermon to the Gentiles"? It would help if this matter could be clarified. --Tabor 18:40, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

humm, why would gentiles be in a synagogue? ~~

I would assume that this is definitely contradictory. The Bible itself provides no answers - it just refers to "Antioch." john k 19:38, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Response: See Acts 13:13ff.

[edit] other uses template

Why, oh why, must we clutter up the top of the article with rubbish? The other uses template might not be the correct solution for every article. I have no probelm with that. The text as-is, however, uses the word "Antioch" three times. Woe is me! Tedernst | talk 05:09, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, when I first changed it to Otheruses, Antioch was actually mispelled once! And it's not just repetition, almost every word is duplicated in the very next sentence (the lede). Bad form. Excrable editting.

William Allen Simpson 13:00, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I see that several others have applied the same analysis, and it currently is {{Otherplaces}}.

William Allen Simpson 13:20, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] cleanup

TodorBozhinov has applied the cleanup tag. I suggest that the text on modern Antakya be moved into its own article. Many historical cities have their own pages.--William Allen Simpson 13:20, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

That's a good idea. In addition we should seriously review the EB1911 text that this article was sadly based on. It takes 10 seconds to cut and paste blocks of EB1911 text, and years to "cleanup". --Stbalbach 18:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, initial Antakya stub split done. --William Allen Simpson 00:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I made some changes in the early history, added info on the archaeological excavations and did some other miscellaneous moving around and cleanup - I hope this is a good start. The middle of the article still needs some major pruning and cleanup, as Stbalbach mentioned above. HVH 13:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Antioch/Antakya

Mr. Simpson, I don't want us to make a mess of the version history so I thought maybe we should discuss on here about when this article should make it's initial reference to Antakya. I really think splitting it into a separate article was an excellent idea on your part. You're probably very familiar with the subject but I just looked at both the articles, and to somebody unfamiliar with this bit of history, there's a fair amount of reading to be done before they make the connection between Antioch and Antakya. It seems to me that the relation is fairly important if the subjects of the articles were similar enough that they used to be one! Maybe you could suggest some wording for how to weave the Antakya reference into the introduction (I also put one to Antioch in the Antakya article, since its likewise important). My ideas go something along the lines of: "..., (a(n) ancient/classical (Hellenic/Greek/Syrian?) city located on the same site as) present/modern day (Turkish?) Antakya,..." Forgive the computer scientesque notation. That leaves quite a few combinations. Have you got any other ideas? Adam Mathias 02:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

This is an article about an ancient city that is near to a modern one. They aren't actually on the same site (although the modern one is overtaking the ancient one).

Had you more experience working on articles of this region, you'd know that sticking a modern word in the translation at the top is frowned upon. Sometimes, there are a series of cities on/near the same site. Each city (with enough historical information) gets its own page. The "See also" at the end references the others. That's what "See also" means.

Also, you'd know that there is some sensitivity about where in a modern article to begin references to ancient names. After many revert wars, the general consensus is that ancient names in a modern article are not mentioned except in a section labeled "History", not at the top.

This is especially sensitive here, as the Greek "Antioch on the Orontes" and Medieval Ecclesiatical Latin "Syrian Antioch" is located in an area disputed between modern Syria and modern Turkey. The Turks are entirely rational in finding the church latin name offensive.

--William Allen Simpson 12:33, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I just read on anohter page in here that the dispute between Syria and Turkey was resolved in 2005. I made some edits just b/c I could not figure out what was going on just by reading the intro paragraphs, I hope I did not step on any toes by moving a link to the modern day city into the 1st para and saying that its an historic city, now extinct, that also had that latin name unsigned 69.107.125.159

That's better, but then the See also has to be removed per WP:Section. Done.

--William Allen Simpson 17:11, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why revert?

Why the article was reverted to a clearly inferior form?--RafaelG 16:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map Request

Requested map

In the Requested Maps section of the community portal, I found a request for a map noting the position of Antioch within turkey. I've made one, but before I post it I would like to make sure that it is the correct Antioch, and that the map is the correct color/style/etc. If any contributor to this article could point me in the right direction, it would be appreciated. --CommKing 21:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Judging by the date of the last post to this talk page, I'm attaching the map now. I will make edits if they are requested. --CommKing 21:48, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It's accurate but I had to get out my atlas because I've never seen Turkey portrayed like that. It would be helpful if the water surrounding Turkey was colored blue and the surrounding land black (it's all black currently and hard to see that Antioch is on the sea). -- Stbalbach 00:07, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm working on it now. --CommKing 20:32, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's a new copy. I cannot gaurantee perfect accuracy on the western Caspian Sea border. Tell me what you think. --CommKing 21:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)