Galatia

GALA´TIA(Γαλατία Γαλατική, Gallograecia). The history of the establishment of this province is connected with the emigration of Gallic nations to the East, This emigration is an obscure subject, but we may collect enough from the extant authorities to establish the main facts.
Strabo (p. 187) says that the Tectosages, who occupied part of Gallia adjacent to the Pyrenees and extended along a portion of the north side of the Cévennes, were once a powerful people, and had a large population. Domestic dissension drove some of them from home, who were joined by others from various tribes; and these were a part of the Galli who occupied Phrygia, bordering on Cappadocia and the Paphlagonians. As a proof of this, he alleges the fact of the Galatians about the city Ancyia being named Tectosages. There were two other Gallic tribes in Galatia, named Trocmi and Tolistobogii; and he infers that they also came from Gallia, because they were akin (σύμφυλον) to the Tectosages; but he cannot say what parts the Trocmi and Tolistobogii came from, for he had not heard of any Trocmi or Tolistobogii in his time who dwelt either north of the Alps, or in the Alps, or south of the Alps. Justin (Justin. 24.4), after mentioning the Gallic invaders of Italy who took Rome, says that other adventurers passed into Illyricum and settled in Pannonia. They subdued the Pannonians, and for many years carried on war with the neighbouring nations. The Galli, then, according to these authorities, spread along the east side of the Adriatic, and along the valley of the Danube. When Alexander (B.C. 335) made his expedition over the Haemus to the banks of the Danube, he had an interview with some Celtae, who lived about the Adriatic. This is on the authority of Ptolemaeus, the son of Lagus. (Strab. p. 301.) Arrian (Arr. Anab. 1.4), who also used the work of Ptolemaeus, speaks of the Celtae on the Ionian gulf sending an embassy to Alexander when he was near the Danube. This appears to be the first time that the Hellenic and the Gallic nation saw one another beyond the limits of Gallia.
The Galli seem to have been established in the neighbourhood of Macedonia during the troublesome times that followed Alexander's death, or probably still earlier. At the close of the reign of Ptolemaeus in Macedonia, who is named Ceraunus, a band of Galli, under a leader Belgius or Bolgius, invaded his kingdom. The king despised the invaders, because they offered to retire for a sum of money; but his army was totally defeated by them, and he was taken prisoner. The barbarians cut off the king's head, and carried it about on a spear to terrify their enemies (B.C. 280). The Macedonians shut themselves up in their cities, and made no resistance; but when all hope seemed lost, Sosthenes, a Macedonian noble, collected a force, and for the time saved his country from further ravage. (Justin, xxiv.; Paus. 1.16.2, 10.19.7.) But another Gallic chieftain, named Brennus,—probably a title of rank, and not a name,—entered Macedonia with a large force, defeated Sosthenes, and ravaged the country. (Justin (Justin. 24.6.) Either in the same campaign, or perhaps in another (B.C. 279), Brennus led the Galli to plunder Delphi, for the fame of this temple's wealth excited his cupidity. The Galli were an immense force, under several commanders; but they could not agree, and a large division under Leonorius and Lutarius,—as the Greeks and Romans write the names,—separated from Brennus, and, taking their way through Thrace (Liv. 38.16), reached Byzantium.
Brennus, with several commanders, one of whom the Greeks named Acichorius, led his savage troops through Thessaly to the pass of Thermopylae, where the Greeks under Leonidas had tried to stop the Persians about 200 years before. The Greeks, who had been weakened and disunited since the establishment of the Macedonian supremacy, were roused by a danger that threatened their very existence. A large force from the states north of the Isthmus, and some troops from Macedonia and Asia, reached Thermopylae while the Galli were still in Thessaly, and a detachment was sent forward to destroy the bridges over the Sperchius, and to dispute the passage of the river. The Gaul, who had the talents of a general, seeing the enemy opposite to him and a rapid river between, made no attempt to cross in that part, but he got over a large body of troops by night near the lower part of the river, and prepared to force the defile of Thermopylae. He was driven back in disorder and with great loss. The Athenians distinguished themselves most of all the Greeks on this day.
The Gallic chief now sent off a division to ravage Aetolia, in order to detach from the confederate army of the Greeks the Aetolians, who had left their homes in a numerous body, to repel the invaders at Thermopylae. The barbarians under Combutis and Orestorios (the second seems to be a Greek name) committed dreadful devastation in Aetolia, though they were at last compelled to retreat with great loss. (Paus. 10.22.) Less than half of them returned to the Gallic camp at Thermopylae. Brennus at last made his way to Delphi, with the assistance of the Aenianes and Heracleotae, through the country of the Aenianes, by the very pass by which Hydarnes the Persian led his troops in the invasion of Xerxes. (Hdt. 7.215; Paus. 10.22.8.) The story of the defeat of Brennus at Delphi is told with many miraculous circumstances; but it seems that the weather greatly helped the Greeks in defeating the barbarians, who made their retreat with difficulty, and amidst dreadful sufferings. Only a few out of so many got back to their camp at Heracleia, where Brennus put an end to his life. Pausanias says that none of the Galli escaped. Justin contradicts himself, for he says in one place (24.8) that not one escaped, but in another place (32.3), following, as we may suppose, a different authority, he says that some of the Galli made their way into Asia, and some into Thrace. He also adds that the Tectosages returned to their city Tolosa ( Toulouse), carrying with them the gold and silver that they had got in their marauding expeditions. Strabo (p. 188) mentions the tradition of the Tectosages returning with their booty to Tolosa, but he does not believe the story. It is possible that some of these Galli did effect a retreat; for the Galli Scordisci, who were settled at the confluence of the Save and the Danube, were said to be a remnant of them (Justin (Justin. 32.3; Strab. p. 293, 313), and to be mingled with Thracians and Illyrians. Caesar was told that Volcae Tectosages once settled in Germany about the Hercynian forest ( Bell. Gall. 6.24), and continued to maintain themselves there to his time. But instead of concluding that a remnant of the Tectosages returned from the expedition of Brennus, and settled in the basin of the Danube, it seems more likely that their settlements east of the Rhine were made by emigration from Gallia; and it may be that the Tectosages in the army of Brennus did not come direct from Gallia, but from some of the settlements already made beyond the limits of Gallia. Polybius says that some Galli under Comontorius, having escaped the danger at Delphi, reached the Hellespont, and settled in the neighbourhood of Byzantium. The Byzantines paid them a heavy tribute, until the Thracians, who had been subdued by the Gallic invaders, by a change of good fortune succeeded in destroying them. (Plb. 4.46.)
Leonorius and Lutarius escaped the misfortunes of Brennus by having taken a different road, as already observed, and through a less difficult country. Livy (Liv. 38.16) does not mention the arrival of Comontorius at Byzantium. Leonorius and Lutarius levied contributions along the coast of the Propontis, and having seized Lysimachia by treachery, they got possession of all the Thracian Chersonesus. They saw the tempting coast of Asia separated from them by a narrow sea, and they applied to Antipater, the Macedonian, who had. then the command of these coasts, to supply them with ships. While waiting on the shore of the Hellespont, the chieftains quarrelled, and Leonorius with the larger part of the Galli returned to Byzantium. Lutarius seized two decked vessels and three boats, which Antipater had sent to the Hellespont, nominally to negotiate with the Gaul, but in fact to watch him. In a few days Lutarius conveyed all his men over the straits. Shortly after, Nicomedes I., king of Bithynia, carried Leonorius and his men over the Bosporus, to help him in his war against his brother Zyboetes. The terms on which the Galli were to serve him were fixed before they left Europe. The Gallic chief promised every thing: he only wanted to get across the strait. (Memnon, ap. Phot. 100.20). This disgraceful bargain, which brought so much misery on Asia, was made B.C. 278. There were seventeen chieftains in the Gallic army, of whom Leonorius and Lutarius were the chief (Memnon); from which we may collect that the two principal chieftains were reconciled after they reached Asia, which Livy expressly states (38.16). Nicomedes, with the help of the Galli, had the superiority over his brother. and secured the kingdom of Bithynia. Daring this war, in which it seems that many of the Bithynians perished, the Galli divided among themselves the booty, and probably they had the women, for it is not said that they brought any with them. (Memnon, ap. Phot. 100.20.) Justin states (25.2) that Nicomedes gave the Galli part of his conquests, and that they thus got the country called Gallograecia. But they were not permanently settled in Galatia so early, if we follow Livy (Liv. 38.16) and other authorities. After seating Nicomedes on his throne, they set out on a marauding expedition, 20,000 in number, of whom not more than half were armed. All the authorities agree in making three divisions of these Galli, Tolistobogii or Tolistoboii, Trocmi or Trogmi, and Tectosages or Tectosagi. They struck such terror into the people west and north of the Taurus, that all submitted to their demands. They divided the country among them. The Trocmi had the shores of the Hellespont on which to levy contributions; the Tolistoboii took Aeolis and Ionia; and the Tectosages, the central parts of Asia. Their fixed abode, however, says Livy, was about the Halys; but it is hardly consistent to speak of their having yet a settled habitation, when they were rambling about Asia. The Ilium of the historical time was one of the places that the Galli occupied in the Troad, but they soon left it, as Hegesianax says (quoted by Strabo, p. 594), because it was unwalled. It is quite uncertain to what time this event must be referred. No record has been left of the miseries inflicted by the barbarians on the unwarlike Greeks of Western Asia. A few lines in the Anthologia tell us that Miletus was one of the cities that suffered.
The Galli at last found an enemy who resisted them, Antiochus Soter, king of Syria. Lucian ( Zeuxis, vol. 1. p. 838, ed. Hemst.) tells circuinstantially, whether truly it is hard to say, the story of this Antiochus fighting a desperate battle with the Galli and defeating them. Indeed, it was owing to this victory that Antiochus took or had the title of Soter, or Saviour (Appian, Syriac. 100.65), an appellation which shows that his victory was thought no small affair. It is said, however, by several authorities, that this Antiochus fell in battle against the Galli, B.C. 261; but this must have been in some battle subsequent to his victory, if it is true that he gained his name of Soter from his success against these barbarians. The kings of the East in their wars with one another often employed the Asiatic Galli. (Justin (Justin. 25.2). The second Ptolemaeus, king of Egypt, had some of them in his pay, but they formed a design to seize on the country, and were all cut off by a stratagem. In the dispute between the two Syrian kings, Seleucus Callinicus and his brother Antiochus Hierax, Antiochus employed Gallic mercenaries, who, after gaining him a victory, compelled him to ransom himself, and to form an alliance with them. (Justin (Justin. 27.2.) And there were Galli in the battle of Raphia between Antiochus Magnus and Ptolemaeus Philopator, B.C. 217. Attalus, the ruler of the petty state of Pergamum, was the first of the Greek kings who effectually checked the licence of the Galli. He defeated them in a great battle, and thereupon assumed the title of king. (Strab. p. 624; Plb. 18.24; Liv. 33.21.) The reign of Attalus was from B.C. 241 to B.C. 197. It was the glory of Attalus that he was the first prince to refuse to pay tribute to the Galli, and that he confined them within the limits of that part of Asia which is called Galatia. (Paus. 1.8.1.)
This invasion of Asia by the Galli, and the victory of Attalus over them, were foretold in the prophecies of Phaennis, a full generation before the events happened. (Paus. 10.15.2.) It must have, been a great necessity which compelled Attalus, in his war with Achaeus, to invite a body of Tectosages (the text of Polybius (Plb. 5.77, has Αἰγοσαγεῖς) to cross the Hellespont to assist him. The Galli came, with women and children. Whether this was a fresh; body of emigrants to the East, or a part of those who had settled in Thrace, as mentioned before, is not. stated. Attalus employed these mercenaries against the cities of Aeolis, which had joined Achaeus from compulsion. While Attalus was encamped on the Macistus an eclipse of the moon took place, which the Galli took to be an unfavourable sign; and they were also wearied of moving about with their wives, and children, who followed in the carts. Accordingly they refused to march on. Attains, being afraid of the treachery of his hirelings, and, unlike the king of Egypt, too scrupulous to destroy the people whom he had himself invited into Asia, left them on the Hellespont, with fair promises. The consequence was what might have been foreseen. The Galli began to plunder the cities along the Hellespont, and nothing is said of Attalus checking them. They attacked Ilium, the siege of which was raised by the people of Alexandria in Troas, and the Galli were driven out of the Troas. The barbarians then seized Arisba near Abydus, which they. made their headquarters, and from thence annoyed the neighbouring cities, until Prusias I., king of Bithynia, defeated them in a regular fight, B.C. 216. Nearly all their children and women were massacred in their fortified place; and the soldiers of Prusias had the moveables for their booty. Thus Prusias, says the historian (Plb. 5.111), released the Hellespontine cities from great alarm and danger; and he left a noble warning to posterity that barbarians should not rashly pass over from Europe into Asia.
The three tribes, when permanently settled, occupied part of the country between the Sangarius and the Halys. Memnon incorrectly says that the chief city of the Trocmi was Ancyra; of the Tolistoboii, Tavia or Tavium; and of the Tectosages, Pessinus. (Memnon, ap. Phot. 100.20.) The complete reduction of the Asiatic Galli was reserved for their hereditary enemies the Romans. Though they had now a country of their own, they still plundered their neighbours, and were a formidable power to the time of the wars of Antiochus the Great with the Romans. They fought on the side of Antiochus in the great battle at Magnesia ad Sipylum, in which the Syrian king was defeated (B.C. 190); and the consul Cn. Manlius, in B.C. 189, made this a pretext for invading their country. But his real grounds were better than his pretext. He saw that the Romans could not secure their power in Western Asia, if the Galli were not subdued. He led his troops from Ephesus by a circuitous route into Gallograecia, as Livy calls it (38.12). The consul, after entering Phrygia, passed by Synnada, Beudos vetus, Anabura, and the sources of the Alander to Abbassus, which was on the borders of the Tolistoboii, where he halted and encouraged his men. He then marched through the woodless tract [AXYLOS], crossed the Sangarius, and reached Gordium. He was accompanied in this expedition by Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, king of Pergamum, who was now at Rome.
The Galli had enemies in their own country, the native Phrygians. The priests of the Mater Magna from Pessinus met the consul with sacerdotal pomp, and declared that the goddess had promised the Romans victory. The Galli had moved off with their women, children, flocks, and carts to the mountains. The Tolistoboii occupied a strong place on the range of Olympus; the Tectosages chose another mountainous spot named Magaba; and the Trocmi, leaving their wives and children to the care of the Tectosages, turned to help the Tolistoboii, against whom the consul was marching. Manlius, who was both bold and cautious, looked at the ground well before he attacked such desperate fighters. He had a great superiority in all munitions of war, and chiefly in light troops, who could annoy the enemy at a distance. The entrenchment of the Galli was stormed and the ground was covered with their dead bodies, whether 40,000 or a smaller number the authorities do not agree, and it is not material. An immense number of men, women, and children were made prisoners. (Liv. 38.18—23; Florus (Flor. 2.11.)
The consul now marched to Ancyra to attack the Tectosages, who were 10 miles from that town. While the Galli were amusing him with negotiations, an event happened, for which there is better evidence than for most romantic stories; and it gives us some insight into the character of these Galli. Chiomara, the wife of a Gallic prince, Ortiagon, was among the prisoners, and she was the captive of a Roman centurion. The man not being able to corrupt her chastity, used violence. But lust was not his only passion. He was greedy of money; and he accepted the offer of a large ransom. According to agreement, he went alone with the woman to the banks of a river, on the opposite side, of which the Gallic friends of Chiomara were ready with the money. The Galli crossed the river, gave the money, and received the woman; and while the greedy Roman was counting it, one of them, on a signal given by Chiomara in her own language, cut off the centurion's head. She wrapped up the bloody head in her clothes, and on meeting her husband, threw it down before him. She told her story, and her husband exclaimed, My wife, fidelity is a glorious thing.True,she replied, but still more glorious that there should be only one man living who has known me.The historian Polybius says that he talked with Chiomara at Sardis, and he was amazed at her noble spirit and her good sense. We may perhaps infer that Chiomara had learned the Greek language in Galatia. (Liv. 38.24; Plut. Moral. 2. p. 58, Wytt.; Valer. Max. 6.1.2.)
The treachery of the Tectosages, according to the Roman historian, stopped the negotiations. They only wanted to get time to send their women and children, and moveables, beyond the Halys; and they made an attempt to seize the Roman consul. Manlius carried the strong position of the Tectosages as he had done that of the Tolistoboii, and this victory ended the campaign. As the cold weather was coming on, the consul retired after giving the Galli orders to see him at Ephesus. In the winter there came to Manlius, who was now proconsul, the year of his consulship having expired, embassies from all the states west of the Taurus. They brought him golden crowns, and their thanks for delivering them from the incursions of the Galli. The Gallic envoys were told that they must wait the arrival of king Eumenes, who was still absent, before their affairs could be settled. It was on the banks of the Hellespont, a country which the Galli well knew, that the Roman proconsul dictated his terms to the Gallic chiefs, who had been summoned there: they were to keep the peace with Eumenes, to give up wandering about, and to confine themselves within their own limits. (Liv. 38.40.) The humiliation of these terrible invaders, who for a century had kept Western Asia in alarm, made the Roman name known in the East, and even more than their victory over Antiochus the Great, contributed to their future dominion in Asia. Judas Maccabeus, the heroic leader of the Jews, heard of the fame of the Romans: It was told him also of their wars and noble acts which they had done among the Galatians, and how they had conquered them, and brought them under tribute(Mace. 1.8. 5.2). The commentators suppose that the Galli of Europe are meant here, and the context is consistent with this explanation; but the Jews could not be ignorant of the defeat of the Asiatic Galli, which so soon followed that of Antiochus, the great king of Asia(Mace. 1.8. 5.6); and we must conclude that the Galatians of this chapter included the Galatians of Asia, whom the Jews had seen or heard of in the armies of the Egyptian and Syrian kings, and whose horrible barbarities were known through all the East. Manlius did not obtain a triumph at Rome for his great victories without opposition from the majority of the ten Roman legati who had attended him to assist in the settlement of Asia after the defeat of Antiochus. They objected that he had no commission from the senate or the Roman people to carry on war with the Galli, and they meanly attempted to disparage his generalship and the enemies whom he had subdued. Manlius defended himself in a vigorous speech, of which Livy (Liv. 38.47) has given the substance, and he got a triumph. In the procession he displayed gold and silver crowns of great value, and an immense amount of coined money, probably the gift of the grateful Asiatic cities, for Manlius had maintained strict discipline, and he is not accused of plundering. Gallic arms and Gallic spoils were carried in chariots, for it was called a Gallic triumph; and fifty-two Gallic chieftains walked in front of the triumphal car. (Liv. 39.6.) Whether the Galli would have ever established a Gallic kingdom in Asia, is doubtful, for the nation, though it has carried its arms into all parts of the world, has never yet been able to subsist as a nation out of the limits of Transalpine Gallia. But Manlius did not give these Galli an opportunity of trying the experiment; and he did a good work in stopping the career of these merciless plunderers.
Though the Galli no longer ravaged Asia, they were still troublesome to Eumenes, king of Pergamum, whose family they had no reason for liking. In B.C. 167 Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, was sent to Rome to complain of a Gallic rising (tumultus). The Romans sent commissioners into Asia to expostulate with the Galli; but P. Licinius, who had an interview with a Gallic chieftain, Solovettius by name, at Synnada, reported that his remonstrances only increased the insolence of the Gaul. (Liv. 45.19. 34; Plb. 30.1.) Livy remarks that it seemed strange, when the words of Roman commissioners had so much weight with powerful kings like Antiochus and Ptolemaeus, that they had no weight with the Galli. The Romans had their reasons, which may be easily conjectured, for leaving Eumenes to deal with the Galli; and it seems that he was successful. (Diod. Excerpt. xxxi.) The fragments of Polybius show that the Romans were jealous of Eumenes, who had great talents, and they did not choose that he should reduce the Galli under his dominion. One passage (31.2) states that certain ambassadors of the Galli, who came to Rome, were told that they should be independent, if they would stay at home, and not move with any force beyond their own boundaries.
In the wars of Mithridates against the Romans, the Galli were again in arms, both on the side of the king and of the Romans. There were Asiatic Galli in the great army which Mithridates sent into Greece under the command of Archelaus. This army was defeated by L. Sulla at Chaeroneia (B.C. 86). Mithridates, fearing. that he should be deserted by the Galli if Sulla should come into Asia, murdered all the Gallic tetrarchs, both those who were about him as friends, and those who had not joined him. He murdered also their women and children. Some of the Galli were killed at a feast to which the king invited them, and the rest in various ways (Appian, Mithrid. 100.46); three only of the chiefs escaped. Mithridates seized all the property of the men whom he had murdered, put garrisons in the towns, and set over them as governor Eumachus, probably a Greek. He could not, however keep Galatia, but he kept the money that he had got. The Galli served Cu. Pompeius in the subsequent wars against Mithridates, and Pompeius rewarded the tetrarchs by securing them in their Galatian dominions. (Appian, Syriac. 100.50, Mithrid. 100.114.) One of them was Deiotarus, who had done good service in the war by defeating Eumachus. (Appian, Mithrid. 100.75; Liv. Epit. 94.) Mithridates kept some Galli about him to the last; and, in the hour of his extreme need, one of them named Bitoetus, a genuine Gallic name, did the king the last service that he could, by killing him at his earnest request, B.C. 63. (Appian, Mithrid. 100.111; Liv. Epit. 102.) Pompeius, in settling the affairs of Galatia, extended the Gallic limits, for he gave Mithridatium, a town in the former kingdom of Pontus, to a Gallic chief named Bogodiatorus, whose name, with a slight variation, appears on a silver coin. (Strab. p. 567.) Pompeius gave to Deiotarus part of Gadelonitis in Pontus, an excellent sheep country, and the parts about Pharnacia and the Trapezusia, as far as Colchis and the Less Armenia, of all which countries Pompeius made him king; and Deiotarus kept also his paternal tetrarchy of the Tolistoboii. (Strab. p. 547.) Galatia and its chieftains were now under Roman protection, and Deiotarus was involved in all the troubles that followed the wars of Caesar and Pompeius. He was with Pompeius at the battle of Pharsalia (B.C. 48), and escaped with him. Cicero, in an extant oration, pleaded before Caesar at Rome the cause of Deiotarus, who was charged with a treacherous design against Caesar's life when Caesar was in Galatia. After all his reverses Deiotarus died a king; and was succeeded by his son Deiotarus, who went to Actium on the side of Antonius, but he had the Gallic prudence to go over to Octavits before the battle, in company with Amyntas (B.C. 31). Amyntas was one of the tributary Asiatic kings that M. Antonius set up (B.C. 39). He had Pisidia first, and in B.C. 36 he received from the same king-maker Galatia, with a part of Lycaonia and Pamphylia (Dion Cas. 49.32), and he was confirmed in these possessions by Augustus, B.C. 31 (Dion, 51.2). He died B.C. 25, having held, besides Galatia, Lycaonia, and Isauria, the south-east and east part of Phrygia, Pisidia, and Cilicia Trachea. (Strab. pp. 568, 569, 571, 577, 671.) Amyntas was one of the great flock-masters of Asia Minor. He had above 300 flocks on the high, waterless table-lands of Lycaonia. Plutarch ( Ant. cc. 61, 63) calls Amyntas king of the Lycaonians and Galatians at the time of the battle of Actium; and he also calls Deiotarus a king. This is not inconsistent with other authorities, if we suppose that Deiotarus had his father's kingdom that was beyond the limits of Galatia, and that Amyntas had Galatia, or a great part of it, and the title of king of the Galatians. On the death of Amyntas, Augustus made a Roman province of Galatia, Lycaonia, Isauria, East and South Phrygia, and Pamphylia. The extent of the province of Galatia to the south is expressed by Pliny saying that Galatia reaches both to the Cabalia of Pamphylia and the Milyes, who are about Buris and the Cyllanticus and Orcandicus tract of Pisidia ( H. N. 5.32). But the Galatia of Ptolemy is still more extensive (5.3), being bounded on the west by Bithynia and part of Phrygia, on the south by Pamphylia, and on the east by a part of Cappadocia; it thus extended from the Euxine to the Taurus. The sea-coast of Ptolemy's Galatia commences after Cytorus, which is in Bithynia, and extends to the mouth of the Halys and to Amisus. Sinope is within these limits. The three Gallic tribes and their three several cities assumed, under Augustus, the names Σεβαστηνοίand Σεβαστή : the people of Pessinus were named Σεβαστηνοὶ Τολιστοβώγιγιοι : those of Ancyra, Σεβαστηνοὶ Τεκτοσάγες : and those of Tavium, Σεβαστηνοὶ Τρόκμοι.The first Roman governor of this Galatia was M. Lollius, who governed it as the legatus of the emperor, with the title of pro-praetor. This province of Galatia is supposed to have continued in this form to the time of Constantine. The metropolis of the province was Ancyra; and Termessus and Sagalassus were free towns.
The Romans established in Galatia Ptoper the colony of Germe, which is known both from Ptolemy and its coins; Ptolemy also has a place called Claudiopolis in the country of the Trocmi.
The country properly called Galatia lay south of the range of Olympus. The limits can only be approximated to by the enumeration of the towns. The Tolistoboii, the most western tribe, made Pessinus, near the left bank of the Sangarius, their chief town. There were also in their territory, Tricomia, the Roman colony Germe, and Vindia; Abrostola, Amorium on the road to Laodicea Catacecaumene; and a place Tolosochorion, a compound of a Gallic and a Greek word, the first part of which looks like the name Tolosa. The Tolistoboii probably occupied the principal part of the country between the Alander. a branch of the Sangarius, and the Sangarius up to its junction with the Alander. They bordered on Bithynia and Phrygia Epictetus. Pliny (Plin. Nat. 5.32), besides the Tolistoboii, mentions the Gallic tribes Voturi auld Ambitui as settled in this part. They were probably the names of tetrarchies. The Tectosages, who were between the Sangarius and Halys, had the old town of Ancyra for their chief place. [ANCYRA] Pliny mentions the Teutobodiaci as a Gallic tribe, occupying this country with the Tectosages. There were few places in the territory of the Tectosages, and they are insignificant. There were several roads from Ancyra, but the names in the Itineraries are apparently so corrupted, that it is difficult to say if we can discover a Gallic element in them. Ptolemy has a list of places among the Tectosages, and among them Corbeus [CORBEUS]: Aspona [ASPONA] is mentioned by Ammianus. The Trocmi seem to have been partly on the east side of the Halys: they bordered on Pontus and Cappadocia; and Strabo says that their country was the most fertile part of Galatia. Their chief town was TAVIA or TAVIUMT here were also in this territory Mithridatium, already mentioned, and Danala, where Cn. Pompeius and L. Lucullus had an interview, before Lucullus gave up the command to Pompeius in the Mithridatic War. Ptolemy has a list of unknown Trocmic towns.
One undoubted Gallic name appears in the Itineraries on the road from Ancyra to Tavium, Eccobriga, a place at the ford or bridge of some river.
When the Galli settled in the country which was called from them Galatia, or Gallograecia, there were Phrygians in it, Greeks, Paphlagonians, and probably some Cappadocians. The Paphlagonians were on the north of Galatia. The Phrygians were the most numerous race, and occupied the west and centre of Galatia. The Greeks probably were not in any great numbers in Galatia till after the time of Alexander; but they must have been numerous at the time of the Gallic occupation, for their language became the common language of the country. The three Gallic tribes had each their territory, as we have seen; and each tribe was divided into four divisions, which were called tetrarchiae. Plutarch ( de Virt. Mul. vol. ii. Wytt.) mentions the Tosiopi as forming a tetrarchy, that is, one of the subdivisions of the tribes. Each tetrarchia had its tetrarch, and one judge and one general, both subordinate to the tetrarch; and two lieutenant-generals. The council of the twelve tetrarchs was a body of 300 men, who met at Drynaemetum. [DRYNAEMETUM] The council were judges in cases of murder; but the tetrarchs and the judges heard all other cases. This,says Strabo (p. 567), was the old constitution; but in my time the power had come into the hands of three rulers, then two, and finally one, Deiotarus, who was succeeded by Amyntas.He seems to mean the elder Deiotarus, and to take no notice of the younger, whose Galatian kingship is a doubtful matter.
The Galli probably at first, after their fashion, treated the Phrygian worship with contempt. At any rate we have seen that at the time of Manlius' invasion the Phrygian hierarchy turned against the Galli. The Romans and the Phrygians were already acquainted, for in the Second Punic War the Romans sent five commissioners to Attalus, king of Pergamus, who politely conducted them to Pessinus in Phrygia, where they got what they wanted,—a large stone. But this stone was the Mother of the Gods, and the deliverance of Italy depended on her being brought to Rome. (Liv. 29.10, &c.) We are not told how the Phrygians were persuaded to part with such a treasure; but the transaction, which was a friendly one, was well adapted to make them favour the Romans, especially as the Galli were intruders. Caesar says of the European Galli ( B. G. 6.15), Natio est omnis Gallorum admodum dedita religionibus; and the Asiatic Galli got a taste for the Phrygian worship, as the temples were rich, and priesthood was profitable. Cicero (pro Sestio, 100.26) mentions one Brogitarus, who was the chief priest of the Mother of the Gods at Pessinus; and he had a good title to the place, for he bought it: also another Gaul, Dyteutus, in the time of Augustus obtained the valuable place of chief priest at Comana [COMANA]. We also read of Camma, a priestess of Artemis, a deity held in great veneration by the Galli. Camma is one of Plutarch's noble women ( de Virt. Mul. ) of whom he tells the tragic story of her fidelity to her husband, and her vengeance on his murderer. The nation had its wonderful women in Asia as it has had in Europe. The Galli, the richer at least, adopted with Phrygian and Greek superstitions the language of the Greeks, even before the time of Augustus. Deiotarus had a Greek wife whose name was Stratonice, and the evidence of coins and inscriptions fully establishes the fact of the Galli being Hellenised; which indeed we might infer from their name of Gallograeci, if there were no other evidence. Yet we have the testimony of Hieronymus, who visited Galatia in the fourth century of our aera, in his preface to his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, that the Galli still kept their own language, which was almost the same as the language of the Treviri or the people of Trèves; and Hieronymus, who was a good linguist, and had lived at Trèves, was a competent judge of this. Thierry ( Histoire des Gaulois), who cites this passage of Hieronymus, misinterprets it however, when he infers from it that the Gallograeci did not use the Greek language. He also derives from this passage a confirmation of his hypothesis that the Tolistoboii and the Volcae Tectosages of Narbonensis were Kymri, and that the Volcae Tectosages were Belgae, and came to the south of Gallia from the north.
The Apostle Paul visited Galatia after it had been made a Roman province, and established churches there. ( Ep. to the Galatians, 1.2.) His first visit is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, 16.6; and his second, in 18.23. In his epistle to the Galatians he does not speak of more than one visit, from which some commentators derive very unfairly the conclusion that he wrote the epistle in the short interval between the two visits. This inquiry, however, does not belong here. It is generally assumed that St. Paul in his epistle addresses the Galli or Gallograeci; but there is nothing in the epistle from which this can be inferred. In the Acts of the Apostles, the term Galatia is indeed used in its limited and proper sense, and not in the sense of a Roman provincial division; for Lycaonia is also mentioned in the Acts, and Pisidia. There is no doubt, then, that the Epistle to the Galatians is addressed to the inhabitants of Galatia Proper; but to the Greek inhabitants of Galatia and perhaps the Hellenised Galli, who were the wealthier and better instructed part of the Galli. For this Gallic constitution of Galatia was evidently an aristocratic constitution, like the political systems of Gallia Transalpina, in which the common sort went for nothing, paene servorum loco habentur( B. G. 6.13). The bulk of the Galli of Asia, the herdsmen, shepherds, and tillers of the land, probably knew no language except Gallic; and it is clear that the epistle was not addressed to such people.
The student may read with profit Amedée Thierry's Histoire des Gaulois, if he will always turn to the ancient authorities, which will set the author right, when he gets wrong. COIN OF GALATIA.
[G.L]