Wikipedia's article on the Mutilation of the Herms is a community edited reference page rather than a peer reviewed publication. It is reliable for the standard, well attested account of the 415 BCE incident and its political fallout, and less reliable for evaluating specialist historiographical argument over its causes. Use it for the standard narrative; a claim resting on specialist classical scholarship needs a dedicated source.
Facts
Assessment
Reliability TierWikipedia's article on the Mutilation of the Herms, the 415 BCE Athenian scandal in which boundary statues of Hermes were vandalized on the eve of the Sicilian Expedition, the lower tier reflecting that it is a crowd sourced, not independently peer reviewed encyclopedia entry, though it draws on well known ancient testimony from Thucydides and Plutarch. Cite it for the standard account; a specialist argument about the affair's political causes needs a dedicated classical scholarship source. NotesCrowd-sourced tertiary reference, summarizing an event Thucydides records in his own History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 6. Used here for the plain, checkable civic fact that Athens's herms, boundary markers under Hermes's protection standing at doorways and crossroads across the city, were found vandalized on one night in 415 BCE, on the eve of the Sicilian Expedition, provoking a political scandal. 1 Citation
Publication Year URLhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutilation_of_the_Herms 1 Sources
Claims Backed By This Source (6 claims)
This source backs 6 claims across the atlas. As facts: 4 well-attested. As cited relationships: 1 connected. Plus 1 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Articles, 5 claims: 3 well-attested, 1 connected, 1 general references.
- Sources, 1 claims: 1 well-attested.
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