Talk:Telesilla

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This article is plagiarized!!!! http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/TAV_THE/TELESILLA.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.173.106.154 (talk) 02:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Telesilla/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Urve (talk · contribs) 09:40, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Will review. My first thought is that I'm surprised that the Greek rendering of her name, Τελέσιλλα, is not here; Robbins gives it and the alternative transliteration Telésilla. Urve (talk) 09:40, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments! I've replied inline to them. I have added the Greek spelling of Telesilla Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:04, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not trying to be difficult, below I am just wondering what the state of scholarship is. Maybe my comments come off as asking for things that aren't required by WP:GA?, but I'm seeing the sources I listed below as part of the broadness criterion - you can't know if something is broad without taking a look at scholarship and seeing if there are things that aren't included here. So all I'm really asking for your feedback on whether it's something that should be included, and if not, why we should omit it - it's not a demand to include these things, some of which (like the Apollo-Sun connection) may be inconsequential to this poet's biography. And of course, I might be totally off base with everything... this is my first look into Greek poetry on WP, so be gentle ;) Urve (talk) 22:14, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Please do be difficult – this is really useful feedback! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:48, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Urve: I think I've now addressed all of your comments :) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:38, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Well-written:

• later

Verifiable, broad, neutral:

• Looking through some sources, I am genuinely unsure whether we can say "the story was probably not true". This chapter – Martinez Morales, Jennifer (2019). "Women on the Walls? The Role and Impact of Women in Classical Greek Sieges". In Armstrong, Jeremy; Trundle, Matthew (eds.). Brill's Companion to Sieges in the Ancient Mediterranean. Brill's Companions to Classical Studies. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-41374-0. – has a much less authoritative stance on the matter, saying that while "Many modern scholars are somewhat sceptical" of the Pausanian account, "there is nothing ... to suggest this is an implausible story" because of other attested accounts of women's involvement in Greek sieges, and because women would have been left behind to defend.
  • I could add a mention of Martinez Morales' position, but I think "the story was probably not true" is a fair description of current scholarship; Davies' commentary in LAFGP 2021 says that Telesilla's involvement at Sepeia is "usually regarded as a later invention", and he doesn't mention any scholars who disagree. And even Martinez Morales' extreme position only goes so far as saying that "with the exception of Telesilla's leadership role" there is nothing unusual about the story and that other than the fact that the one nearly contemporary source about the battle doesn't mention it it's not inherently implausible. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:04, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Davies' writing on Telesilla in LAFGP is not without criticism. "As regards the method used for Telesilla, both the bibliography (outdated) and the contextualisation of the references to her dating are poor" says D'Alfonso, Francesca (2021). "A Commentary on Greek Lyric Fragments". Classical Review. 71 (2): 291–292. doi:10.1017/S0009840X21001293. If its bibliography is outdated, can we rely on it? Not trying to be difficult - I really don't know the answer to this and am genuinely asking. I don't research much classical antiquity, but what I do look at (biblical apocrypha), some subjects can change rapidly in scholarly understanding within a few years, and others are essentially moribund for centuries.
    • There is a collection of writings that treat the story as historical, albeit an old one (and scholarship has doubtless changed since then?), at fn 28 of Leahy, D. M. (1958). "The Spartan Defeat at Orchomenus". Phoenix. 12 (4): 141–165.
    • I can't read Italian and can't find it, so I don't know whether this book is saying something different than what the article is (our statement of "probably invented" makes me think it is?). But according to a review at doi:10.1017/S0009840X14000444, the book E. Franchi; G. Proietti, eds. (2012). Forme della memoria e dinamiche identitarie nell'antichità greco-romana. Università degli Studi di Trento. ISBN 978-88-8443-447-0. suggests a mapping rather than invention.
      • Hmm, I shall have to do some thinking. Along with Martinez Morales, Tomlinson (1972) Argos and the Argolid is on team the story of the women defending Argos is not impossible, though Telesilla's role is likely exaggerated, and Valdes Guia ("La batalla de Sepea y las Hybristika"), as far as I can make out with my very limited Spanish, also talks about a "historical nucleus" to the story, so possibly that's a sufficiently mainstream viewpoint to merit some mention in the article. I don't have access to Franchi's chapter on Telesilla from Forme della memoria, and my Italian is basically nonexistent, but the English-language abstract here seems to be broadly in agreement with the article's current viewpoint (and this 2022 article also seems to broadly agree). I will try to write up some more nuance on this at the weekend. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:48, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Martinez Morales discusses a "statue of Telesilla" - are you familiar with it? Can any more info be added? Thorsen, Thea Selliaas (2012). "Sappho, Corinna and Colleagues in Ancient Rome. Tatian's Catalogue of Statues (Oratio ad Graecos 33-4) Reconsidered". Mnemosyne. 65: 695–715. says it was made by Niceratus.
  • The statue of Telesilla by Niceratus is already mentioned in the article. We could maybe add that Tatian saw the statue in Rome, but other than that I don't think anything else is known about it. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:04, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Yes, I thought I deleted this comment - not sure what was actually deleted! Thank you.

• Martinez Morales says Argos had no men; so should it be "the old men, slaves, and women of the city"? Or possibly "the women of the city, including the old and the enslaved"? Martinez Morales also says the Pausanian story describes her only giving arms to those "'in their prime' or 'most vigorous'". And Martinez Morales gives more details on what we mean by "defend it until the Spartans withdrew" - "they surrounded the walls (τείχη) with arms"

• On that point, Scott also says it was women in the city because the men were gone. (Appendix 6, n 4)
  • Rayor explicitly says old men. Plant says "all those left in the city, including the women", which implies some men. Pausanias says that Telesilla sent "those who were too young or too old to bear arms"; as no women served in the Argive army regardless of their age we can presume that he means men who were too young or old to bear arms. (And Scott, when he discusses the Telesilla story in depth, also says "she manned the walls with the household servants, the old men, the youths, and the women" [App.15 §7]) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:04, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Thanks. I trust you on this - out of my own curiosity I'll keep reading, though, and report back if I have anything to say :)

• More information on her Apollo writings (relating him to the Sun as Φιληλιάς, an early identification with some debate) can be found in Bilić, Tomislav (2021). "Early Identifications of Apollo with the Physical Sun in Ancient Greece: Tradition and Interpretation". Mnemosyne. 74: 709–736.
  • Interesting article, but I don't think super important for a discussion of Telesilla. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:36, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

• A description of the stele can be found in Pretzler, Maria (2017). "Pausanias". In Koen De Temmerman; Evert van Emde Boas (eds.). Characterization in Ancient Greek Literature. Ancient Greek Narrative. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-35631-3.
  • I have added a brief description of the stele. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:04, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Thanks, this is what my comment about the statue was supposed to be :)

• more later

• I found an interesting discussion on the purpose of some of Telesilla's writing - not only women's lives, but placing women in choral ceremonies. Ingalls, Wayne B. (2000). "Ritual Performance as Training for Daughters in Archaic Greece". Phoenix. 54 (1/2): 1–20.
  • Thanks - not much new in this, but I've added a little more on the role of choruses of young girls Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:48, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Stable, images:

• images OK per ; may want to structure File:Apollo Met Museum.jpg like the file at File:Limestone statuette of Artemis with a fawn MET DP148318.jpg.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Recent edits / historicity of Telesilla's involvement in the defence of Argos

In recent edits, ~2026-33228-98 has repeatedly removed the summary of the mainstream academic consensus that Telesilla's supposed role in the defence of Argos is "doubted by most modern scholars". Initially they argued that the cited source, Malcolm Davies' Lesser & Anonymous Fragments of Greek Lyric Poetry was "old"; when I pointed out that it was published in 2021, six years after their favoured source and within the last five years, they switched to claiming without elaboration or evidence that "Davies is controversial". In fact Davies' LAFGLP has been favourably reviewed in e.g. JHS.

The text favoured by ~2026-33228-98 fundamentally violates WP:NPOV (Wikipedia articles must represent fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic). The view that Telesilla's involvement in the defence of Argos is ahistorical remains a fundamentally mainstream one – Snyder (1991) says that modern scholars "have reacted with varying degrees of skepticism", from considering it entirely false to merely exaggerated (pp.61-2); Campbell (1992) says that it is "improbable" and likely an "Argive fabrication" (p.3); Carey (OCD 4ed, 2012) calls it a "later tradition" and says "it has been suggested that the incident is a fabrication based on the oracle cited [in Herodotus]"; Davies (2021) says that it is "usually regarded as a later invention" (p.26). Even those on the more pro-authenticity side of the dispute, like Martinez-Morales, admit that "many modern scholars are somewhat sceptical of the story" (p.154). Claiming in Wikipedia's voice that this belief is "wrongly dismiss[ing]" the exploits of Telesilla is making no attempt at avoiding editorial bias.

Changing modern scholars mostly doubt the historicity of the story to some 20th century scholars mostly doubt the historicity of the story misrepresents the sources, playing down how widely this position is held (Martinez Morales says "many modern scholars"; Davies says that the historicity is "usually" doubted) and implying that the viewpoint is outdated (it continues to be widely held in the 21st century).

The idea that Telesilla suffered damnatio memoriae is wildly non-mainstream; I can find not a single source other than Popov which supports this. Putting it in Wikipedia's voice is totally unsupportable. It is notable that even more recent sources than Popov who argue that Telesilla might have been involved in the defence of Argos such as Martinez Morales do not mention or cite Popov. I have moved this to a more logical place in the paragraph and explicitly attributed it to Popov, but frankly I think this is sufficiently non-mainstream a view (and advocated by a non-Hellenist, in what appears to be a popular general history of ancient Greece) that it is undue to include in the article at all. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:57, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

if your claim about "most scholars" is true, it is nothing more than Argumentum ad populum and has proven nothing. A british textual critic talking about Balkan history is always funny thing. The fact it was written in 2021 (it looks like it was written in 1921, I think) means nothing, because it simply repeats the old prejudices of the 20th century. Davies is a textual critic, not a historian. His methodology is old, incorrect, he does not do any analysis, he did not consider the data of a historical, cultural, cultural anthropological studies. In general a useless sexist source.--~2026-33228-98 (talk) 05:22, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

if your claim about "most scholars" is true, it is nothing more than Argumentum ad populum and has proven nothing. On the contrary, on Wikipedia we report the scholarly consensus. If most mainstream scholars believe something that absolutely makes it important to include.

His methodology is old, incorrect, he does not do any analysis, he did not consider the data of a historical, cultural, cultural anthropological studies. I don't know how you can possibly know this, given that you have clearly neither looked at the source or into Davies if you think LAFGLP "looks like it was written in 1921". Not that any of that is relevant to his point about what scholars "usually" believe. On Wikipedia, if you want to dismiss Davies you need to find scholarly sources that do so, not simply make your own arguments. If you think the consensus of cultural anthropologists is that Telesilla did in fact direct the defence of Argos, then what sources support that? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 06:14, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Furthermore, your latest edit once again misrepresents what the sources say, for the reasons I have already explained. Please self-revert. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 06:22, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

I quoted a source saying there was a bias against the role of Telesilla in many 20th century works. Why was the rest of the biography accepted as true by those authors, but the military activity ignored? The reason was that ancient Athenian society was skeptical because it contradicted the gender norms in Athens around and after the Pentecontaetia. Davies work (and other cited by you) took Herodotus' interpretation literally, but did not explain why he did so. They did not demonstrate any scientific skepticism. Herodotus had written a lot of nonsense, dismissed as myths by modern historians. The perspective of cultural anthropology is missing, other fragments and sources were not properly analyzed. There was no reading from the perspective of modern methodology in historical science and even from a feminist perspective. They did not analyze other sources that considered Telesilla's actions in the defense of Argos to be genuine. Yes, the deliberate erasure of one's biography is damnatio memoriae.--~2026-33228-98 (talk) 07:01, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia's job is to summarise the scholarly consensus, not to make our own arguments. You have provided one source which argues that Telesilla was the victim of damnatio memoria, which is a general book by an author who doesn't specialise in a relevant field. This is not the scholarly consensus and we must not put such a fringe claim in Wikipedia's voice.

More recent sources uniformly do not mention either Popov or the idea of damnatio memoriae: along with those already cited in the article, see e.g. Chabod 2022, "Poétesse, guérillera, héroïne civique: Télésilla d’Argos en maîtresse de vérité"; Cianci 2022, "L'elmo di Telesilla"; and Petracca 2016, "La Battaglia di Sepeia, Telesilla e gli Hybristika". All say that the historicity continues to be doubted (not that it only was in the 20th century!); none mention damnatio memoria; none cite Popov.

At any rate, the text of the article as it currently stands after your most recent edit says that some 20th century scholars and Malcolm Davies, a British textual critic mostly doubt the historicity of the story cited to Davies and Martinez Morales. Neither Davies nor Martinez Morales restrict their claims about modern scholars to the 20th century, and both make a stronger claim than "some". Please self-revert your misrepresentation of the sources. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:22, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

The text as it currently reads comes across like an argument, but supports neither A) that a consensus exists for or against the historicity of the claim, nor B) that doubts about its historicity are restricted to a particular group in terms of time period or qualification. You cannot infer a consensus from the opinions of a few sources widely scattered in time; if A. and B. write something in 1921, and C. and D. write the opposite in 2021, all you know is that different opinions have been voiced at different times; if instead A. and C. wrote in 1921 while B. and D. wrote in 2021, you would not conclude that there was a consensus. In both cases that is an interpretation for which there is insufficient data. The facts have not changed; each source voices their own opinion based on their own knowledge, experience, and perspectives. Time alone does not make one opinion more likely to be correct than another.

The best solution as it stands now would probably be to avoid describing any opinion as though it represented a consensus, and remove language that suggests that any of the opinions are more or less worthy of consideration than the others. Something along the lines of, "some scholars doubt the historicity of these events, because.... Others counter that Telesilla's role has been omitted or downplayed in certain sources due to damnatio memoriae.... Still others have suggested that she was involved in the events, but that her role was exaggerated by the sources mentioning her...." It's fine to say which sources support each position. But probably not to describe these sources in a manner that suggests that some of the sources are more or less worthy of consideration, unless there is something exceptionally untrustworthy about them, in which case they should probably not be included at all; but that one scholar is "a 20th century textual critic" does not sound like it makes the source unreliable, and so probably should not be mentioned. P Aculeius (talk) 13:20, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

supports neither A) that a consensus exists for or against the historicity of the claim: the text as it is now does not support that. The sources do support that most scholars disbelieve it. The fact that the TA insists on removing the well sourced claim that most scholars are skeptical is the entire point of this dispute. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:50, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

How many scholars are there, and what percentage of them have stated they disbelieve it? Has there been a formal survey? Were they asked to choose between each of the options? Because the sources you cited above say that scholars have varying degrees of skepticism and have reached differing conclusions. If only a minority have concluded decisively in one direction, and the others don't stake out a position, whatever their doubts or concerns might be, then there is obviously not a consensus against the historicity of the claim. The source of the dispute is that you want to present one position as though it's strongly supported, when it isn't; and your opponent wants to cast doubts on the qualifications of some of the sources in order to suggest that their opinions are unworthy of consideration, which is equally wrong. P Aculeius (talk) 03:40, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Okay, I've had a go at rewriting this. If you don't like "most", are you happy with the current "many"? (the exact word used by Martinez Morales – although if you don't think Davies' "usually" is strong enough to support "most scholars", Chabod 2022 calls it "l’hypothèse désormais la plus communément admise" ('the most commonly accepted hypothesis'!) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 07:58, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

One small thing: it might be worth clarifying (e.g. by quotations in the refs) that the citations of Davies and Martinez Morales for "many modern scholars" really are of D and MM describing modern scholarship. All too often on Wikipedia, a couple of citations would merely indicate a WP editor calling the couple of scholars they've found "many". NebY (talk) 17:51, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Your reworking seems quite reasonable to me. I tweaked a couple of things in the last sentence for grammar and flow (verb tense, punctuation, prepositional phrase), but without changing the intended meaning. P Aculeius (talk) 03:16, 10 June 2026 (UTC)