Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:45, 28 November 2021

/* Historically Inaccurate Cover Photo For This Article */ new section

This article had the main photograph changed from the historically verifiable likeness of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus by someone posting an image from a Russian site of Sulla and trying to pass it off as Scipio Africanus. Even in the Russian Pushkin National Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, there are marble sculpture busts of Roman General Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus that are labeled from antiquity with P•COR•SCIPIO•AFR at the bottom of the sculptures. You can see from Wikimedia commons these busts from Ancient Rome of Scipio housed at the Pushkin museum which are clearly labeled as Scipio. Now someone is trying to destroy the mainstream popular view of Scipio with a sculpture of Sulla with an uploaded image that is even labelled "ScipioAfricanusSulla". This bust is from Sulla from the Roman civil wars, not Scipio.

I find it incredibly offensive that someone who is misinformed about history passing off an alternative ridiculous theory can be allowed to alter the mainstream image identified with Scipio. This happened during the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and I noticed that someone changed the image from a historical marble bust of Scipio to a picture of a marble bust of Sulla or some other individual missing a nose.

In my academic pursuits as a historian of Greece and Rome, I have collected images of dozens of sculptures of Publius Cornelius Scipio, victor of the Second Punic War over Carthage, all dating from antiquity and matching the historical descriptions of Scipio as a bald man of large stature and muscular build. Anything else is just some non-historical theory.

In terms of the Latin expression, QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDVM - thus it is demonstrated - one must look no further than the Wikimedia commons articles showing marble busts from antiquity depicting Scipio's authentic physical appearance labeled with his name at the bottom as P•COR•SCIPIO•AFR clearly at the bottom of the marble bust, an abbreviation for Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. That should be definitive evidence compared to any non-historical pseudoscientific attempt to alter the image of Scipio Africanus in the public mind.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/File:Isis_priest01_pushkin.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Isis_priest02_pushkin.jpg

When you look at the caption of the image of Sulla replacing the image of the actual Scipio that was on this article for 10+ years, it says "Bust tentatively identified as Scipio Africanus, formerly attributed to Sulla. It might have been on the facade of the Tomb of the Scipios." So "tentatively" and "might have" replace identification of a man whose sculptures depicting his likeness were labeled in antiquity? This is obviously ludicrous and ridiculous. The citation used to justify this opinion misidentifying Scipio links to an article written in French, not English like this Scipio Africanus wikipedia article. To me it's also absurd that the image at the end of the article shows a sculpture from the 15th century which looks more like Pyrrhus of Epirus than Publius Cornelius Scipio.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Publius-Cornelius-Scipio

I have dozens of photographs of marble sculptures from antiquity that I've collected with the likeness of the real historical Publius Cornelius Scipio who was later given the title of "Africanus" after his victory over the Carthaginians at the Battle of Zama in North Africa. He is not to be confused with his father Publius Cornelius Scipio who fell at the Battle of Cannae. I've tried to upload these images to show the community the obvious truth with ancient Roman sculptures labeled bearing his name with marble busts compared to some ridiculous theory written in French that even shows a Roman denarius from c. 209 BC within that French article that clearly shows Scipio's historical physical appearance wearing a helmet.

I find this type of corruption of historical truth to be offensive in the extreme, antithetical to the principles of Misplaced Pages maintaining objective standards. This type of revisionism where one person can go in and alter the entire public's perception of a historical person is a chaotic, dangerous precedent. For example, what's to stop someone from going into the wiki article of Jesus and uploading a different picture and inserting a historical section about Jesus in the Talmud:

https://en.wikipedia.org/Jesus -----------> https://en.wikipedia.org/Jesus_in_the_Talmud#Possible_Talmudic_references

""Jesus son of Stada is Jesus son of Pandira?"

Rav Hisda said, "The husband was Stada and the lover was Pandera."

"But was not the husband Pappos son of Yehuda and the mother Stada?"

No, his mother was Miriam, who let her hair grow long and was called Stada. Pumbedita says about her: "She was unfaithful to her husband.""

If it's going to be permissible to break down historical truth based off a minority viewpoint, then how's about the minority viewpoint that the historical biological father of the man known to history as Jesus Christ was a Roman soldier named Tiberius Abdes Julius Pantera and that his historical mother "Miriam" was not a virgin, but rather an adulteress...

Unlike the appearance of the historical "Jesus" Yeshua, Publius Cornelius Scipio actually had marble sculptures made within his lifetime depicting his physical appearance that survive until the present day.

I mean if there is so little gratitude shown to a man that fought continuously against overwhelming circumstances to save Rome from foreign invasion, then what prevents the breaking down of every other historical figure in the same manner?

ZLinn1776 (talk) 22:45, 28 November 2021 (UTC) Publius