Talk:Battle of Taginae

Progress

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Comments

• Prose: Overall, the prose reads smoothly, is interesting, and is an engaging narrative.
  • Y Noted
• Images are very relevant and informative. Can't imagine the article without them.
  • Y Noted
• I'm lovin' the author-links. Nice.
  • Y Thanks
• I ran the Earwig CopyVio tool. Reported one yellow warning, to the Proc. books. It is a false positive. So no copy vio issues seen.
  • Y Noted
• Citations/sources: all look excellent, both in layout and content.
  • Minor style issue: RefCheck tool says of the 12 book sources, 9 have location/city provided, 3 do not. Ideally all 12 would display location/city; or none would. (Not required for GA).
  • Y Added the remaining one, hopefully I did not miss something
• Following comply with GA criteria: Broadness; focus; images free; images relevant; Stable. See the Progress template above.

• "...encountered each other at Busta Gallorum, near the village of Taginae..." Can "Busta Gallorum" be defined? Is it a Village? River? Valley? Normally it would not be a big deal, but that place is mentioned in the very 1st sentence of the article, so some readers may be curious. I see there is a footnote later "Ancient Greek: Βουσταγαλλώρων, romanized: Boustagallṓrōn, lit. "Tomb of the Gauls"." but that is not the same as saying what the location is (river, town, etc).
  • Comment: Reading from the sources, I do not think historians know the exact location beyond what is give. It supposed to be a hilly terrain somewhere near Taginae in central Italy.
  • Rance p. 452 Procopius supplies no further information concerning the topography of the battlefield other than his earlier remark that the Roman army set up camp "in a location that was level but closely hemmed in by many hills"; given Narses' defensive tactics, however, it is legitimate to speculate that the Roman line occupied higher ground, and the great importance both sides attached to possession of the hill on the Roman left suggests that the right ...
  •  Done I added the description of "hilly terrain"

• " ... who died during the retreat or from an arrow wound." A bit confusing, since it could be both, no? Do the sources clarify?
  •  Done rephrased.
  • Comment: There is speculation and conflicting stories about his death: Bury p. 268 Totila himself had fled in the dark and there were various stories as to what befell him. On the other hand, Syvänne p. 344 Totila perished in this encounter, either during the retreat or from an arrow wound. The story of the arrow wound relates that when Totila consequently withdrew from the battle, the morale of the army finally collapsed and that it was because of this that the rout began.

• ISBN uniformity: some contain hyphens, some do not. Consider making uniform. Not required for GA.
  •  Done

• Attribute quotes? "... and Totila's cavalry charge "with spears only," resulted in a narrative of the brilliant "eunuch-general" outsmarting the brave but impetuous "barbarian king"... Readers will wonder who spoke those three quotes: Primary source Procopius ("Proc. 8.29.6- 1")? Secondary source Rance? Or the Wikipedia editor? Can some words be added to help the reader?
  • Rance p. 426 At one level this has resulted in repeatedly simplistic caricaturing of the wily "eunuch-general" outwitting the brave but rash "barbarian king". He cites Procopius description.
  • Rance p. 465-466 The criticism of Totila's "folly" begins with Procopius himself, though again it should be remembered that Procopius is not well informed of Ostrogothic policy, intentions or decision-making, nor are his statements free from contention or literary effect. ... In the secondary literature there is a long tradition of repeating Procopius' accusations and puzzlement. After which Rance outines the modern version of what probably happened.
  •  Done added a brief clarification

• Source? "Modern military scholarship has rejected this interpretation." Readers might be comforted seeing a cite at the end of that sentence, since that is the kind of statement that is often an editor's opinion (hence runs afoul of WP:OR, WP:SYNTH). Of course, the cite can be later in the paragraph. E.g. the following sentence is cited to "Rance 2005, pp. 426, 429." .. if that cite also applies to the "rejected" sentence, consider duplicating the cite immed after the "rejected" sentence.
  •  Done added Rance citation with additional pages

• Box quote: MOS:BOXQUOTE discourages box quotes (standalone quotes inside a box on the side of the article). Generally, if the article has a box quote, the context & significance of the quote should be mentioned in the body text. I cannot find mention of "Last part of Totila's speech to his soldiers before the battle" in the body text. As presented to readers now, the box quote gives readers the impression that the quote is 100% accurate and verbatim. But Procopius was not present when the speech was given, correct? Perhaps Procopius's text is a paraphrase of what some battle survivors reported? Or even a wholesale invention? Either way, the body text (or caption at the end of the box quote) should explain to readers how accurate the quote is. Contrast with block quotes which are large quotes embedded within the body text. Those are preferred over box quotes because the body text before and after the block quote can give the reader context.
  •  Done Removed, I agree with some of your raised concerns. Personally I think it adds context even if this is coming from Procopius, who is the sole primary source of the Gothic War.

• Accessibility for visual impaired:
  • Alt text could be a bit better. This one is good: "Gravure depicting the victor Narses over the dead body of Totila by Reinier van Persijn in 1655".
  • But for the map of of the order of battle, maybe describe the picture better? per WP:Manual_of_Style/Accessibility#Alt_text which says "[alt text] describes the image's content and function, and acts as a substitute for the image for blind readers..."
  • (FYI: I'm doing an FA review of USS Anzio (CVE-57) now .. I see you reviewed it also. That article's images have excellent alt text, if you were looking for examples. )
  • MOS:ALTINCAPTION - Eg alt text "Alt text: Painting of Totila by Francesco Salviati c. 1549" Generally, alt text should not simply repeat the caption. If the caption is sufficient for blind users, the alt text should say "alt=Refer to caption". (Reason: Screen reader apps will generally read both the caption and the alt text to the user, so they should not be the same.) That might apply to the map of Italy with Via Flav.
    •  Done Alt text is FA level, if not mistaken. Nevertheless, I changed the alt text to "alt=Refer to caption" and expanded the figure caption being more descriptive.

• Image Data verifiability: Some images contain important facts, so they should ideally have cites. E.g. the map of Via Flam ... that Commons image says the source is "Based on a map from "Historical Atlas" by William R. Shepherd, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1923" Can that book be identified in the article (as a cite for that caption)?
  •  Done added source + citation at the figure caption

• Ditto for the OOB map ... Some of the map data is repeated/described in the body text, and it has a cite/source in body text. But not all the map data is in the body text. Suggest add cite to image caption naming the source where that battle layout came from (e.g. what source justifies showing 10 Byz. cavalry graphics? If any of that map is speculative by a WP editor, that is okay, but the portions that are speculative should be identified in the caption.)
  • The map is closely reproduced from the maps in Syvänne's book (In google books choose the chapter called "Glory days" and scroll a few pages to see the map (there is a second one but it is not available online). I find this map an improvement over Bury's map because Bury failed to account the topography. Haldon in Byzantine Wars p. 39 also provides a map but it is too simplistic as well. Added at the WikiCommons page of the map the source of inspiration.

• Ditto for the map at top of InfoBox ... From which source did those routes come from?
  • Long story. Initially, I was using the following figure File:Erster und Zweiter Gotenkrieg.png (featured picture on the German language Wikipedia). However, one reader complained in the talk page for being in German. I also had issues with the particular map as it has two major issues:
    1. in 535 Belisarius landed to Sicily, just south of Syracuse coming from the Balkans, not from Africa
    2. in 537 Byzantine reached Milan not by land, they took ships from Rome and landed at Genoa

For these reasons, I decided to make the map myself. I made a similar figure that captures only the second part of the war since for the first phase of the war I rely on the excellent figure File:Gothic War - First Phase, 535-540.svg made by someone else. The routes are approximate, especially the one for the Franks. The Franks went all the way down to south Italy then they split into two and move north, one was met by Narses near Naples and the other disintegrated by plague or poison upon their return to north of Italy. Anyhow, Totila's and Narses routes are similar to the german map and I can provide Procopius, Bury, Hughes, or Syvänne sources for these routes. Please note that the army movements capture in a coarse-grained way approximately 12 years of war, so clearly it will not capture everything. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about the map, as I am using it in the article of the second phase of the war (I am trying to get all the relevant battles/sieges to GA status).

@A.Cython: Regarding the two remaining maps that do not have cites (InfoBox and OOB diagram) I'm not suggesting they should be removed from the article. But is there any way to add a superscript cite or even a footnote that gives readers some idea of the underlying factual basis? For the OOB: maybe just copy a bit from the Commons image source text (readers shouldn't have to click-through to the image). For the InfoBox image, let's say the routes are a distillation of three separate books you read: just name the books ... don't even need a page number. Any kind of breadcrumb leading readers back to the origin. Gotta keep WP a cut above Grokipedia :-) Noleander (talk) 02:19, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

@Noleander: I added a detailed source information for the infobox map at the WikiCommons page see here. I felt that this is a better place to include the source as this would help all articles that use the particular map. For the battle map, I added a efn note about the source () information and mentioned the location of alternative maps in the sources for the curious reader. Let me know if this was sufficient. A.Cython(talk) 03:08, 28 May 2026

Yes, the changes look fine. I think the article is across the finish line. I will pull the trigger on the promotion tomorrow. Fine article! Noleander (talk) 03:58, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

• Grammar "On the battlefield and despite his numerical superiority, Narses placed his troops in a strong defensive position,..." I'm having trouble parsing that. Consider Despite his numerical superiority, Narses placed his troops in a strong defensive position on the battlefield, ...
  •  Done per your suggestion

• Link? "The Battle of Taginae or Battle of Busta Gallorum took place in July of 552 AD, where Byzantines led by Chamberlain Narses defeated the Ostrogoths ..." Consider a link to Chamberlain (office), otherwise some people will think that is Narses' first name. I see it is linked later in the article. The lead should not have too many links ( MOS:CONTEXTLINK "Most Featured Articles contain about 12 to 25 links in the lead, with an average of about 1.5 links per sentence or one link for every 16 words.") but I suspect 90% of readers may get confused in that 1st sentence.
  •  Done removed, as this run foul with MOS:SEAOFBLUE, also rewrote the main text to avoid possible confusion

• Capitalization of source titles: MOS as of summer 2025 requires uniform capitalization style for all source titles. MOS:CITEVAR "... the capitalization of titles to consistently use the chosen style for that article, whether that be title case, sentence case, small caps, etc. (but not all caps, per MOS:ALLCAPS). If title case is used, follow Wikipedia conventions (MOS:TITLECAPS) for which words are capitalized. An article may use distinct capitalization styles for different media kinds; for example: all newspaper articles capitalized one way, and all book titles capitalized a different way". This article has a mixture e.g.
  • Sentence case : The falls of Rome: crises, resilience, and resurgence in late antiquity
  • Title case: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire 2

MOS says to pick one or the other and use it for all titles (and ignore how the source titles itself).

•  Done

• That's all for now. Ping me when you have considered the above. Noleander (talk) 15:03, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

  @Noleander: Thank you for your thoughtful and constructive comments. I believe I have replied to your comments. If I missed something or you require additional info, please let me know. A.Cython(talk) 00:42, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Article is looking great now. Practically ready for FA, thanks to the alt text :-) Only remaining issue is some sort of brief footnote for two of the maps. See above for details. Noleander (talk) 02:19, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

• I inspected four random citations (from amongst those I had access to content, including Rance, Burns, and Procopius) and validated source-to-text integrity.

• Passing this GA nomination. Meets all GA criteria. Noleander (talk) 15:00, 28 May 2026 (UTC)