Template talk:Western Roman Empire infobox

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[edit] Successor states

I have intentionally stripped the successor states down to those who claimed succession:

• Eastern Roman Empire - as it was the eastern "twin" of the Western Roman Empire - after the end the Western Emperors the Eastern Emperors claimed supremacy over the Western parts as well, Odoacar and Theoderich nominally ruled as his representatives.
• Ostrogothic Kingdom - as Theoderic was sent by the Eastern Emperor to replace Odoacar and nominally rules as the Emperor's representative. He and his successors retained a close contact to the East, Roman senators were ministers of Theoderich and also appointed Consuls. The Kingdom ended when the Eastern Empire invaded its "illoyal vassal".
• Frankish Empire - Charlemagne renewed the Western Empire in 800
• Holy Roman Empire - continued and renewed Charlemagne's Empire.

I excluded the following realms:

• Kingdom of Soissons - it was Roman but also short-lived and not centred around Rome, it had separated before the demise of the Western Empire and claimed the supremacy of the Eastern Emperor
• Visigothic Kingdom - a Germanic kingdom not centred around Rome
• Kingdom of the Vandals - a Germanic kingdom not centred around Rome, with no attempt to even claim a descent, short-lived
• Burgundy (not included but also a candidate) - a Germanic kingdom not centred around Rome, retained some Roman elements but short-lived
• Frankish Kingdom - a Germanic kingdom not centred around Rome, retained some Roman elements but is best subsumed as the result of this process, the Frankish Empire
• Romano-British - is not actually a realm/state at all but rather a remnant which got merged into Celtic principalities
• Roman Catholic Church - is not a state, the Pope did play a role in local administration but always under the political supremacy of the Eastern Emperor

We shouldn't bloat this infobox, hence my reduction.

Str1977 17:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First Western Roman Emperor

The article Western Roman Empire says:

"The Western Roman Empire is the name given to the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 286."

So the first Western Roman Emperor can't be Augustus. And can't be Honorius, who ruled since 395. So it must be Maximian, with the beginning of the Tetrarchy. Note also that this template is used only by Western Roman Empire atricle, so we should stick to the information in that article. --Panairjdde 10:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

WP articles are not proper reference and the above is inaccurate. Western Roman Empire is a term given retrospetively by historians (and non-historians) to the Western half of the Roman Empire after its ultimate division in 395. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 10:53, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

What?! Do you realize that if you maintain that WP articles are not proper reference, we can write whatever we want in the template?! If you don't agree with the definition of WRE that appears in its own article, gather consensus and change it. But in anyway, since the template is used only by this article there can't be any discrepancy between the two. Plus, as regards the retrospectivness of the name, it was called "Parts Occidentis" in 4th century Notitia Dignitatum. --Panairjdde 11:04, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I take your point about consistency but I'd prefer both article and template to be correct and anyway would advocate putting in Augustus again, as he is the First Roman Emperor. In my book, Pars (no t) does not translate to Empire but to Part - the article/template however are called Western Roman Empire and not Western Part of the Roman Empire or Roman Empire - Western Part in English (and the headline is hence inaccurate). Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 11:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I am completely against Augustus. The reason is that if Augustus is the first emperor of the WRE, then WRE and Roman Empire are not different in any way. The alternatives are Maximian and Honorius. Apart the fact that I prefer Maximian, the important thing is to keep consistence (and we agree here): I would accept Honorius, if there is consensus that the WRE started with him, thus deleting all previous references in the WRE article.

As regards Pars, I agree that it stands for "part" instead of "empire", but (1) my point was just that they already had a clear distinction of the two halves in 4th century, and (2) actually also "Roman Empire" is a retrospective name, since "imperium" just meant a particular power, rather than a form of government. --Panairjdde 11:44, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Reality and history is not clear and simple as we might wish for, it is complicated and contradictory. You defend Maximian and Honorius as the first western emperors and I agree with to a certain point, but I personnaly think that Augustus would be a good compromise.

The problem is that there is not a clear date in which the Western and Eastern empire were founded. We don´t have the founder(s) of a(two) new nation(s). A "rebel" would separate a part of the empire and the "rightfull" emperor would reconquer it, and this happened again and again. It can be argued that the Gallic Empire (by the way this name was given retrospectivly) is the first "western empire" making the first Western Emperor Postumus.

But I wouldn´t agree with any of these names because: 1) the western and the eastern part were rejoined several times by very strong emperors (like Constantine, Diocletian, Theodosius, etc) re-uniting the old roman empire. 2) it was and still is widely recognized (and accepted as fact by themselves) that the western emperor and the eastern emperors were the political heirs of Augustus. So let the mention of Augustus stand, for Chris´sake.

As for the name, it is basicly the same problem with the "cursed" name of the Byzantine Empire. We must use the more current name (even if that name was given retrospectivly) in the name of common sense, if nothing else. Perhaps we should explain the basic problem in the article like it is done in the article about the Byzantine Empire.

A fine example in more recent times would be Muhammad Ali. At birth his name was Cassius Clay (given by his mother) and at a certain point he changed it. Now which is the more correct name? Everybody says the second, because he himself changed it. In reality if everybody (at least the majority) had ignored his wish we could write an "thruthful" article about Cassius Clay ".....in 19?? Cassius Clay wanted to change his name to Muhammed Ali but the public ignored his wish". If that had happened it would not be wrong, but as the wider public accepted his change... Flamarande 12:16, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

"The problem is that there is not a clear date in which the Western and Eastern empire were founded." The Western Roman Empire, with the meaning showed by its WP article, was founded in 286. Since the term is fuzzy, just stick to the current interpretation (at least this is my opinion).--Panairjdde 12:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

If the article said "it has no clear founding date but the more accepeted date is 286" would it satisfy you? You are using the current article to argue against an another part of the article (this template is a part of it) on the grounds of inconsistency. Well I have to say you: it is the article which is unclear, and the template is right. Flamarande 12:42, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok let's discuss here (but you changed the template...). The "Establishment" voice says "originated with the division of the Roman Empire". This clearly cuts out Augustus (whose ruling years should be 31 BC-AD 14, not 63 BC-AD 14). If we integrate "Establishment" voice with "originated with the division of the Roman Empire, 286 (Tetrarchy) or 395", we could write, for voice "First emperor", "Maximian, first Augustus of the West (286), or Honorius (395)". The WRE article, itself, should clearly state that the birth of the WRE could be traced back to the first administrative division of Diocletian, of to the definitive division of Honorius. --Panairjdde 14:15, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

First, I have to ackonwledge my guilt, I changed the template towards the current look and asked to debate any future changes (Hey, I never said that I am perfect).

Now for the main issue: we want find the "founder" of the Western Roman Empire. We have several canditates: Postumus, who founded the Gallic empire, his claim is mainly overlooked because the Gallic empire is generally classiefied as a diffrent state and not related to the WRE. Next we have Maximian who was Augustus of the West, this claim is challenged by the reconquest of Constantine, who ruled over the whole Empire. Then we have Honorius who reigned over the WRE after Theodosius (who had reconquered the whole empire for the LAST time, and had ruled a single year? over it). From a legal point of view Honorius has the better claim, for after him the WRE was never absorbed into the a "new-old" Roman empire.

What is my own personal opinion? It is simply not as easy and clear as we wish for. All these persons (above) were the founders of the WRE. To confuse us even further, the WR emperors claimed succession of Augustus in order to gain prestige and because they BELIEVED THEMSELVES to be his heirs. So my proposals are the following: 1st)we leave it as it is. OR 2st)we include all of them (Postumus, Maximian, Honorius and Augustus) in the template. Something we have to do no matter what: We have to improve the article and explain this issue throughly.

This point is also a "hot topic" in the article of the Byzantine Empire. Go there and see if they could agree on a founder :). They simply couldn't because there are several strong candidates, something I guess is going to happen here again. Its very roughly like this : Who was the founder of the USA? Washington or the founding fathers ? All of them ? Remember always: Reality and history is not clear and simple as we might wish for, it is complicated and contradictory. Flamarande 12:05, 25 March 2006 (UTC) PS: I would be much obliged for a reply.

Let me quote myself:

If we integrate "Establishment" voice with "originated with the division of the Roman Empire, 286 (Tetrarchy) or 395", we could write, for voice "First emperor", "Maximian, first Augustus of the West (286), or Honorius (395)".

This is my position. I am against adding Postumus and Augustus. --Panairjdde 09:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

And if we improve the article from: "The Western Roman Empire is the name given to the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 286." to a more correct: "The Western Roman Empire is the name given to the western half of the Roman Empire after its division into the Eastern Roman Empire (betterknown as Byzantine Empire) and the Western Roman Empire." ? It would be more correct, as it is impossible to simply designate a(the) founder(s) of both empires. It happened more gradually. We could then follow with a good presentation of all the candidates (including dates) and explain the problem. Flamarande 12:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it is common, in English, to refer to the western part of the Roman Empire after Diocletian reform as WRE. In this case, the WRE article should reflect this common usage. --Panairjdde 09:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is the problem with AD?

Look, I have plenty of books wich use the AD/BC system. I have the impression that BC is used in all dates prior to the official birth of Jesus of Nazareth. AD as far as I know is bit more complicated, being used in all dates during the first 900 years (it is very unclear, but it is around there somewhere).

So have to ask you: why are you deleting the ADs? I am really praying that it isn´t because of the "war" between AD/BC versus BCE/CE users. Flamarande 12:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Look better. I am a supporter of BC/AD format. I am just deleting ADs where they are redundant. If you say that something lasted from 31 BC to AD 476, it is unnecessary to write AD before 286, since it could not be 286 BC. However, this question should be on my talk page, or am I missing something?--Panairjdde 14:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, I see. So the AD is being used if the subject spans a time period before and after the birth of J.C. to avoid confusion. If it is unneccessary (solely after the "zero event") it is not used, right? Well I can live with that. As for the fact that I did not use your talkpage, it is simple: By debating it here, a new user interrested in this article can read here, and hopefully learn from the debate before making any changes. Flamarande 11:05, 25 March 2006 (UTC)