Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/De arte alea

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Renata 18:37, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] De arte alea

De arte alea (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

I had considered merely tagging this for references (which it lacks) but figured a simple subject like this, and I may as well try to source it myself. A Google search on the topic, however, turned up scant few results and each one was a mirror of this article. Google scholar was not of any more use. I now have to question whether this lost work really existed at all, and barring some new sources it appears to be more a non-notable, imagined work - if that. Arkyan • ^(talk) 19:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Unless a credible source can be made available to distinguish between "lost" and "non-existent." Leebo ^T/C 19:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete: Per nom and above: no citations, no assertion of any truth. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 20:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. No verifiability. 2005 22:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Thanks to Arkyan for actually doing the nominator correctly, it's not a lack of sources that should be the decider of deletion, it's the inability to find any after searching for them. Otherwise, we can delete such unsourced articles as June and thousands already tagged as unsourced. Carlossuarez46 23:19, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. I know it's bad form to use fiction works as source, but I remember that Robert Graves' I, Claudius, a fictional autobiography, had a section devoted to his writing this book. Upon remembering this, I did some research by googling just Claudius and gambling:
  - "The Emperor Claudius was interested in gambling and wrote a treatise on the use of dice." This is the work that has been referred to. (http://www.united-church.ca/policies/1977/r231.shtm)
  -From a short biography:
  "Suetonius says that Claudius devoted himself to literary work, much of which was learned and concerned with arcane subjects (Claud. 40.3). Among his works were a 20-volume Etruscan history and an 8- volume history of Carthage written in Greek, and even a book on playing dice." (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/7094/claud1.html)
  - Further search shows the best source I could find, from a board game site:
  "The emperor Claudius was not fond of playing tabula, but addicted to dice (see Seneca, Apocolocyntosis 14,4-15,1). According to Suetonius he even wrote a book about "the art of playing dice" (de arte aleae). Suetonius does at no point mention a board game tabula in connection with Claudius’ fondness of playing. It is 600 years later that Isidore reports that alea (which means "die") was also the name of a board game. At Claudius’ times the word simply meant "die", just as Caesar used the word in his famous saying "alea iacta est"." (http://www.boardgamesstudies.org/research/notes.shtml)
  Although I don't actually have any Suetonius on me to check to see if it's actually there, I think it's clear that being mentioned in four secondary sources (I count I, Claudius), including one that even mentions the title, proves its verificability for Wikipedian purposes. I've also put these sources into the article proper, to help it in that respect. DamionOWA 04:31, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep', its on the Lost Works article, and other works of far less renown by other less known people are still kept. Claudius was an emperor, surely that counts for something?? Zidel333 00:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I would agree with you wholly, the problem is a lack of reliable sources that prove the work even exists. Arkyan • ^(talk) 07:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Those sources do exist, though. The three articles I linked all mention an ancient work on dice by Claudius, and two of them specifically cite Suetonius, a known historian from whom much of our understanding about Rome, especially the Caesars, is drawn. After some more search, I actually found a reproduction of a translation of Suetonius' The Lives of the Twelve Caesars where it is mentioned: "He was greatly devoted to gaming, even publishing a book on the art" (part 33, page 65). If Suetonius is not a credible source, I can't think of anyone else in Roman studies who can be trusted. DamionOWA 06:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

• I can concede the fact that Claudius did write about the subject of gambling - Seutonius is a sufficient source for that fact. However to make the connection that the title was De Arte Alea is erroneous. The translation of Seutonius you provide says "even publishing a book on the art", and if we are to take the other link at boargamestudies.com at face value, at best we can expand that to say "publishing a book on the art of dice". To make the assertion that this, therefore, means a lost work titled De Arte Alea was written by Claudius constitutes WP:OR. Lacking a source to that effect or more information on the subject (which does not seem forthcoming) a better solution than this article would be to place that source in Lost work and change the entry under Claudius to read "a book on the art of dice" rather than a link to a purported book of this name. Arkyan • ^(talk) 14:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems clear a sentence or two could be added to the Claudius article, but this article plainly should be deleted. We don't have articles titled some name somebody just pulled out of their butt. 2005 21:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per the dichotomy presented by Leebo (and also per Arkyan's comment just above this one). -- Black Falcon 00:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.