Methodology
The rules this site runs on. Read this to know exactly what a certainty label means, what counts as a quotation, and where the line is drawn.
Certainty labels
Every timeline date and many claims carry one of five labels:
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| certain | Dated by multiple converging sources (e.g. the Ides of March). |
| attested | Reported by an ancient source with no reason to doubt it. |
| probable | Reconstructed from good evidence (e.g. the Rubicon crossing’s approximate date). |
| disputed | Scholars or sources disagree (e.g. the birth year). |
| traditional | The conventional date/claim; evidence thin but long-standing. |
Absence of a label means the claim is presented as the scholarly consensus; contested points always get one.
Quotation policy
- Verbatim only. A quotation appears only if it is traceable to Caesar’s writings or a named ancient reporter, with the passage cited.
- Latin/Greek given where the original survives; translations identified as translations.
- Reported speech is labeled. Suetonius’s iacta alea est and Plutarch’s Greek version are both presented as reports, not transcripts.
- Misattributions quarantined. Famous lines with no ancient basis live in the misattributed section of Sayings — never in the verified list, never on quote cards.
Source weighing
Contemporary sources outrank later ones; independent agreement outranks single testimony; archaeology outranks anecdote. Ancient numbers (casualties, sums, crowds) are treated as order-of-magnitude. Omens and deathbed speeches are literary conventions until corroborated. Full policy: Sources.
What is never invented
No invented dates, quotations, statistics, consensus claims, or “typical day” scenes presented as fact. Dramatized material (the stream scripts, character art) is fenced off and labeled as dramatization. Where evidence runs out, the site says “we don’t know” — see the “What we don’t know” boxes throughout.
The birth-date problem (worked example)
Caesar’s birthday shows the system in action. The tradition gives 12 July 100 BC. But:
- Suetonius implies a chronology consistent with 100 BC; some scholars read 102 BC from the career dates.
- The day (12 vs 13 July) rests on late evidence.
- Result: the timeline labels it traditional, the biography notes the dispute, and no argument on this site depends on the exact day.
Image honesty
- Real artifacts: public-domain or freely-licensed photographs/scans, each with a provenance.json entry (hash, source URL, rights). Busts are labeled by type and date: the Tusculum portrait is the only lifetime type; the Farnese is a later copy; the Arles bust’s attribution is disputed.
- Generated images: the owner’s animated character and quote cards — always captioned “AI-generated dramatization art,” never presented as historical.
- The owner’s Vizlings character sheet is a style reference only and is never displayed.
Corrections
This is a research build (2026-09-26). Where new evidence overturns a claim, the page’s source notes record the change. Uncertainty is a feature, not a bug.
Source notes
- This page is the policy; it was written 2026-09-26 alongside the site build.
- Birth-date scholarship: summarized from the standard biographies listed in sources.md.
- Calendar conversions before 45 BC: the pre-Julian calendar’s irregularity makes exact Julian equivalents approximate; see calendar.md.