Galatia
Encyclopedia
Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia
in modern Turkey
. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls
from Thrace
(cf. Tylis
), who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans
in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of the East, Roman writers calling its inhabitants Galli (Gaul or Celt). The Galateans themselves were not literate, and their name for themselves remains unknown.
and Paphlagonia
, on the east by Pontus
and Cappadocia
, on the south by Cilicia
and Lycaonia
, and on the west by Phrygia
. Its capital was Ancyra (i.e. Ankara
, today the capital of modern Turkey ).
and other Renaissance writers called them "Gallo-Graeci", "Gauls settled among the Greeks" and the country "Gallo-Graecia", as had the 3rd century AD Latin historian Justin. The more usual term in Antiquity is (Hellēnogalátai) of Diodorus Siculus
' Biblioteca historica v.32.5, in a passage that is translated "...and were called Gallo-Graeci because of their connection with the Greeks", identifying Galatia in the Greek East as opposed to Gallia
in the West.
The Galatians were in their origin a part of the great Celtic migration which invaded Macedon
, led by Brennus. The original Celts who settled in Galatia came through Thrace
under the leadership of Leotarios and Leonnorios
circa 270 BC
. Three tribes comprised these Celts, the Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii
.
Brennus invaded Greece in 281 BC
with a huge war band and was turned back in the nick of time from plundering the temple of Apollo at Delphi
. At the same time, another Gaulish group of men, women, and children were migrating through Thrace. They had split off from Brennus' people in 279 BC
, and had migrated into Thrace under their leaders Leonnorius and Lutarius. These invaders appeared in Asia Minor
in 278
–277 BC
; others invaded Macedonia, killed the Ptolemaic
ruler Ptolemy Ceraunus but were eventually ousted by Antigonus Gonatas, the grandson of the defeated Diadoch Antigonus the One-Eyed
.
The invaders came at the invitation of Nicomedes I
of Bithynia
, who required help in a dynastic struggle against his brother. Three tribes crossed over from Thrace to Asia Minor. They numbered about 10,000 fighting men and about the same number of women and children, divided into three tribes, Trocmi
, Tolistobogii
and Tectosages. They were eventually defeated by the Seleucid king Antiochus I, in a battle where the Seleucid war elephants shocked the Celts. While the momentum of the invasion was broken, the Galatians were by no means exterminated.
Instead, the migration led to the establishment of a long-lived Celtic territory in central Anatolia
, which included the eastern part of ancient Phrygia
, a territory that became known as Galatia. There they ultimately settled, and being strengthened by fresh accessions of the same clan from Europe, they overran Bithynia
and supported themselves by plundering neighbouring countries.
The Gauls invaded the eastern part of Phrygia on at least one occasion.
The constitution of the Galatian state is described by Strabo
: conformably to custom, each tribe was divided into cantons, each governed by a chief ('tetrarch') of its own with a judge under him, whose powers were unlimited except in cases of murder, which were tried before a council of 300 drawn from the twelve cantons and meeting at a holy place, twenty miles southwest of Ancyra, written in Greek as Drynemeton (Gallic *daru-nemeton holy place of oak). It is likely it was a sacred oak grove, since the name means "sanctuary of the oaks" (from drys, meaning "oak" and nemeton
, meaning "sacred ground"). The local population of Cappadocians were left in control of the towns and most of the land, paying tithes to their new overlords, who formed a military aristocracy and kept aloof in fortified farmsteads, surrounded by their bands.
These Celts were warriors, respected by Greeks and Romans (illustration, right). They were oftentimes hired as mercenary soldiers, sometimes fighting on both sides in the great battles of the times. For years the chieftains and their war bands ravaged the western half of Asia Minor, as allies of one or other of the warring princes, without any serious check, until they sided with the renegade Seleucid prince Antiochus Hierax
, who reigned in Asia Minor
. Hierax tried to defeat king Attalus I of Pergamum
(241
–197 BC
), but instead, the hellenized cities united under Attalus's banner, and his armies inflicted several severe defeats upon them, about 232 forcing them to settle permanently and to confine themselves to the region to which they had already given their name. The theme of the Dying Gaul
(a famous statue displayed in Pergamon
) remained a favorite in Hellenistic art for a generation.
Their right to the district was formally recognized. The three Celtic Galatian tribes remained as described above:
The king of Attalid Pergamene employed their services in the increasingly devastating wars of Asia Minor; another band deserted from their Egyptian overlord Ptolemy IV after a solar eclipse
had broken their spirits.
In the early 2nd century BC, they proved terrible allies of Antiochus the Great, the last Seleucid king trying to regain suzerainty over Asia Minor. In 189 BC, Rome sent Gnaeus Manlius Vulso
on an expedition against the Galatians, the Galatian War
. He defeated them. Galatia was henceforth dominated by Rome through regional rulers from 189 BC onward. Galatia declined and fell at times under Pontic
ascendancy. They were finally freed by the Mithridatic Wars
, during which they supported Rome.
In the settlement of 64 BC, Galatia became a client-state of the Roman empire, the old constitution disappeared, and three chiefs (wrongly styled "tetrarchs") were appointed, one for each tribe. But this arrangement soon gave way before the ambition of one of these tetrarchs, Deiotarus
, the contemporary of Cicero
and Julius Caesar
, who made himself master of the other two tetrarchies and was finally recognized by the Romans as 'king' of Galatia.
Upon the death of Deiotarus, the Kingdom of Galatia was given to Amyntas
, an auxiliary commander in the Roman army of Brutus and Cassius who gained the favor of Mark Antony. However, on his death in 25 BC, Galatia was incorporated by Octavian Augustus
into the Roman Empire, becoming a Roman province. Near his capital Ancyra (modern Ankara), Pylamenes, the king's heir, rebuilt a temple of the Phrygian god Men
to venerate Augustus (the Monumentum Ancyranum
), as a sign of fidelity. It was on the walls of this temple in Galatia that the major source for the Res Gestae
of Augustus were preserved for modernity. Few of the provinces proved more enthusiastically loyal to Rome. The Galatians also practised a form of Romano-Celtic polytheism, common in Celtic lands.
During his second missionary journey, St. Paul of Tarsus
, accompanied by Silas
and Timothy , visited the "region of Galatia," where he was detained by sickness .
Josephus
related the Biblical figure Gomer to Galatia (or perhaps to Gaul in general). "For Gomer founded those whom the Greeks now call Galatians, [Galls,] but were then called Gomerites." Antiquities of the Jews
, I:6. Others have related Gomer to Cimmerians
.
The Galatians were still speaking the Galatian language
(Gaulish) in the time of St. Jerome
(347
–420 AD
), who wrote that the Galatians of Ancyra and the Treveri
of Trier
(in what is now the German
Rhineland
) spoke the same language (Comentarii in Epistolam ad Galatos, 2.3, composed c. 387).
In an administrative reorganisation about 386-95 two new provinces succeeded it, Galatia Prima and Galatia Secunda or Salutaris, which included part of Phrygia. The fate of the Galatian people is a subject of some uncertainty, but they seem ultimately to have been absorbed into the Greek-speaking populations of west-central Anatolia.
There was a short-lived eleventh century attempt to re-establish an independent Galatia by Roussel de Bailleul
.
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
in modern Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls
Gauls
The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period. They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish....
from Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
(cf. Tylis
Tylis
Tylis or Tyle was a capital of a short-lived Balkan state mentioned by Polybius that was founded by Celts led by Comontorios in the 3rd century BC, after their invasion of Thrace and Greece in 279 BC. It was located near the eastern edge of the Haemus Mountains in what is now eastern Bulgaria...
), who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans
Gallic invasion of the Balkans
Gallic groups, originating from the various La Tène chiefdoms, began a south-eastern movement into the Balkan peninsula from the 4th century BC. Although Celtic settlements were concentrated in the western half of the Carpathian basin, there were notable incursions, and settlements, within the...
in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of the East, Roman writers calling its inhabitants Galli (Gaul or Celt). The Galateans themselves were not literate, and their name for themselves remains unknown.
Geography
Galatia was bounded on the north by BithyniaBithynia
Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine .-Description:...
and Paphlagonia
Paphlagonia
Paphlagonia was an ancient area on the Black Sea coast of north central Anatolia, situated between Bithynia to the west and Pontus to the east, and separated from Phrygia by a prolongation to the east of the Bithynian Olympus...
, on the east by Pontus
Pontus
Pontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Πόντος...
and Cappadocia
Cappadocia
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine...
, on the south by Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
and Lycaonia
Lycaonia
In ancient geography, Lycaonia was a large region in the interior of Asia Minor, north of Mount Taurus. It was bounded on the east by Cappadocia, on the north by Galatia, on the west by Phrygia and Pisidia, while to the south it extended to the chain of Mount Taurus, where it bordered on the...
, and on the west by Phrygia
Phrygia
In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...
. Its capital was Ancyra (i.e. Ankara
Ankara
Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....
, today the capital of modern Turkey ).
Celtic Galatia
Seeing something of a Hellenized savage in the Galatians, Francis BaconFrancis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
and other Renaissance writers called them "Gallo-Graeci", "Gauls settled among the Greeks" and the country "Gallo-Graecia", as had the 3rd century AD Latin historian Justin. The more usual term in Antiquity is (Hellēnogalátai) of Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
' Biblioteca historica v.32.5, in a passage that is translated "...and were called Gallo-Graeci because of their connection with the Greeks", identifying Galatia in the Greek East as opposed to Gallia
Gallia
Gallia may refer to:*Gaul , the region of Western Europe occupied by present-day France, Belgium and other neighbouring countries...
in the West.
The Galatians were in their origin a part of the great Celtic migration which invaded Macedon
Macedon
Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....
, led by Brennus. The original Celts who settled in Galatia came through Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
under the leadership of Leotarios and Leonnorios
Leonnorius
Leonnorius was one of the leaders of the Celts in their invasion of Macedonia and the adjoining countries. When the main body under Brennus marched southwards into Macedonia and Greece , Leonnorius and Lutarius led a detachment, twenty-thousand strong, into Thrace, where they ravaged the country to...
circa 270 BC
270 BC
Year 270 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Clepsina and Blasio...
. Three tribes comprised these Celts, the Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii
Tolistobogii
Tolistobogii is the name used by the Roman historian, Livy, for one of the three ancient Celtic tribes of Galatia in central Asia Minor, together with the Trocmi and Tectosages...
.
281 BC
Year 281 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Barbula and Philippus...
with a huge war band and was turned back in the nick of time from plundering the temple of Apollo at Delphi
Delphi
Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...
. At the same time, another Gaulish group of men, women, and children were migrating through Thrace. They had split off from Brennus' people in 279 BC
279 BC
Year 279 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Saverrius and Mus...
, and had migrated into Thrace under their leaders Leonnorius and Lutarius. These invaders appeared in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
in 278
278 BC
Year 278 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Luscinus and Papus...
–277 BC
277 BC
Year 277 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rufinus and Brutus...
; others invaded Macedonia, killed the Ptolemaic
Ptolemaic dynasty
The Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Macedonian Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC...
ruler Ptolemy Ceraunus but were eventually ousted by Antigonus Gonatas, the grandson of the defeated Diadoch Antigonus the One-Eyed
Antigonus I Monophthalmus
Antigonus I Monophthalmus , son of Philip from Elimeia, was a Macedonian nobleman, general, and satrap under Alexander the Great. During his early life he served under Philip II, and he was a major figure in the Wars of the Diadochi after Alexander's death, declaring himself king in 306 BC and...
.
The invaders came at the invitation of Nicomedes I
Nicomedes I of Bithynia
Nicomedes I , second king of Bithynia, was the eldest son of Zipoetes I, whom he succeeded on the throne in 278 BC.-Overview:He commenced his reign by putting to death two of his brothers but the third, subsequently called Zipoetes II, raised an insurrection against him and succeeded in maintaining...
of Bithynia
Bithynia
Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine .-Description:...
, who required help in a dynastic struggle against his brother. Three tribes crossed over from Thrace to Asia Minor. They numbered about 10,000 fighting men and about the same number of women and children, divided into three tribes, Trocmi
Trocmi
The Trocmii or Trocmi were one of the three ancient tribes of Galatia in central Asia Minor, together with the Tolistobogii and Tectosages, part of the possible Celtic group who moved from Macedonia into Asia Minor in the early third century BCE ....
, Tolistobogii
Tolistobogii
Tolistobogii is the name used by the Roman historian, Livy, for one of the three ancient Celtic tribes of Galatia in central Asia Minor, together with the Trocmi and Tectosages...
and Tectosages. They were eventually defeated by the Seleucid king Antiochus I, in a battle where the Seleucid war elephants shocked the Celts. While the momentum of the invasion was broken, the Galatians were by no means exterminated.
Instead, the migration led to the establishment of a long-lived Celtic territory in central Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
, which included the eastern part of ancient Phrygia
Phrygia
In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...
, a territory that became known as Galatia. There they ultimately settled, and being strengthened by fresh accessions of the same clan from Europe, they overran Bithynia
Bithynia
Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine .-Description:...
and supported themselves by plundering neighbouring countries.
The Gauls invaded the eastern part of Phrygia on at least one occasion.
The constitution of the Galatian state is described by Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
: conformably to custom, each tribe was divided into cantons, each governed by a chief ('tetrarch') of its own with a judge under him, whose powers were unlimited except in cases of murder, which were tried before a council of 300 drawn from the twelve cantons and meeting at a holy place, twenty miles southwest of Ancyra, written in Greek as Drynemeton (Gallic *daru-nemeton holy place of oak). It is likely it was a sacred oak grove, since the name means "sanctuary of the oaks" (from drys, meaning "oak" and nemeton
Nemeton
A nemeton was a sacred space of ancient Celtic religion. Nemeta appear to have been primarily situated in natural areas, and, as they often utilized trees, they are often interpreted as sacred groves. However, other evidence suggests that the word implied a wider variety of ritual spaces, such as...
, meaning "sacred ground"). The local population of Cappadocians were left in control of the towns and most of the land, paying tithes to their new overlords, who formed a military aristocracy and kept aloof in fortified farmsteads, surrounded by their bands.
These Celts were warriors, respected by Greeks and Romans (illustration, right). They were oftentimes hired as mercenary soldiers, sometimes fighting on both sides in the great battles of the times. For years the chieftains and their war bands ravaged the western half of Asia Minor, as allies of one or other of the warring princes, without any serious check, until they sided with the renegade Seleucid prince Antiochus Hierax
Antiochus Hierax
Antiochus Hierax , or Antiochus III, , so called from his grasping and ambitious character, was the younger son of Antiochus II and Laodice I and separatist leader in the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom, who ruled as king of Syria during his brother's reign.On the death of his father, in 246 BCE,...
, who reigned in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
. Hierax tried to defeat king Attalus I of Pergamum
Attalus I
Attalus I , surnamed Soter ruled Pergamon, an Ionian Greek polis , first as dynast, later as king, from 241 BC to 197 BC. He was the second cousin and the adoptive son of Eumenes I, whom he succeeded, and was the first of the Attalid dynasty to assume the title of king in 238 BC...
(241
241 BC
Year 241 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Atticus and Cerco...
–197 BC
197 BC
Year 197 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Cethegus and Rufus...
), but instead, the hellenized cities united under Attalus's banner, and his armies inflicted several severe defeats upon them, about 232 forcing them to settle permanently and to confine themselves to the region to which they had already given their name. The theme of the Dying Gaul
Dying Gaul
The Dying Gaul , formerly known as the Dying Gladiator, is an ancient Roman marble copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture that is thought to have been executed in bronze, which was commissioned some time between 230 BC and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Celtic...
(a famous statue displayed in Pergamon
Pergamon
Pergamon , or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey, in Mysia, today located from the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus , that became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 281–133 BC...
) remained a favorite in Hellenistic art for a generation.
Their right to the district was formally recognized. The three Celtic Galatian tribes remained as described above:
- the TectosagesVolcaeThe Volcae were a tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedon circa 270 BC and defeated the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC...
in the centre, round with their capital Ancyra, - the TolistobogiiTolistobogiiTolistobogii is the name used by the Roman historian, Livy, for one of the three ancient Celtic tribes of Galatia in central Asia Minor, together with the Trocmi and Tectosages...
on the west, round PessinusPessinusPessinus was a city in Anatolia, the Asian part of Turkey on the upper course of the river Sakarya River , from which the mythological King Midas is said to have ruled a greater Phrygian realm...
as their chief town, sacred to CybeleCybeleCybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...
, and - the TrocmiTrocmiThe Trocmii or Trocmi were one of the three ancient tribes of Galatia in central Asia Minor, together with the Tolistobogii and Tectosages, part of the possible Celtic group who moved from Macedonia into Asia Minor in the early third century BCE ....
on the east, round their chief town TaviumTaviumTavium, or Tavia, was the chief city of the Galatian tribe of Trocmi, one of the three Celtic tribes which migrated from the Danube Valley to Galatia in present-day central Turkey in the 3rd century BCE. Owing to its position on the high roads of commerce was an important trading post...
. Each tribal territory was divided into four cantons or tetrarchies. Each of the twelve tetrarchs had under him a judge and a general. A council of the nation consisting of the tetrarchs and three hundred senators was periodically held at Drynemeton.
The king of Attalid Pergamene employed their services in the increasingly devastating wars of Asia Minor; another band deserted from their Egyptian overlord Ptolemy IV after a solar eclipse
Solar eclipse
As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun as viewed from a location on Earth. This can happen only during a new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. At least...
had broken their spirits.
In the early 2nd century BC, they proved terrible allies of Antiochus the Great, the last Seleucid king trying to regain suzerainty over Asia Minor. In 189 BC, Rome sent Gnaeus Manlius Vulso
Gnaeus Manlius Vulso
Gnaeus Manlius Vulso was a Roman consul for the year 189 BC, together with Marcus Fulvius Nobilior. He led a victorius campaign against the Galatian Gauls of Asia Minor in 189 BC during the Galatian War. He may have been awarded a triumph in 187BCE...
on an expedition against the Galatians, the Galatian War
Galatian War
The Galatian War was a war between the Galatian Gauls and the Roman Republic supported by their allies Pergamum in 189 BC. The war was fought in Galatia in central Asia Minor, in present day Turkey....
. He defeated them. Galatia was henceforth dominated by Rome through regional rulers from 189 BC onward. Galatia declined and fell at times under Pontic
Pontus
Pontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Πόντος...
ascendancy. They were finally freed by the Mithridatic Wars
Mithridatic Wars
There were three Mithridatic Wars between Rome and the Kingdom of Pontus in the 1st century BC. They are named for Mithridates VI who was King of Pontus at the time....
, during which they supported Rome.
In the settlement of 64 BC, Galatia became a client-state of the Roman empire, the old constitution disappeared, and three chiefs (wrongly styled "tetrarchs") were appointed, one for each tribe. But this arrangement soon gave way before the ambition of one of these tetrarchs, Deiotarus
Deiotarus
Deiotarus of Galatia was a Chief Tetrarch of the Tolistobogii at Western Galatia, Asia Minor, and a King of Galatia at Anatolia, Asia Minor. He was considered one of the most adept of Celtic kings, ruling the three tribes of Celtic Galatia from his fortress in Blucium...
, the contemporary of Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
and Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, who made himself master of the other two tetrarchies and was finally recognized by the Romans as 'king' of Galatia.
Roman and Christian Galatia
Amyntas of Galatia
Amyntas , Tetrarch of the Trocmi was a King of Galatia and several of the adjacent countries between 36 BC and 25 BC, mentioned by Strabo as contemporary with himself. He was the son of Brogitarix, King of Galatia and his wife, a Princess of Galatia. He seems to have first possessed Lycaonia, where...
, an auxiliary commander in the Roman army of Brutus and Cassius who gained the favor of Mark Antony. However, on his death in 25 BC, Galatia was incorporated by Octavian Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
into the Roman Empire, becoming a Roman province. Near his capital Ancyra (modern Ankara), Pylamenes, the king's heir, rebuilt a temple of the Phrygian god Men
Men (god)
Men was a god worshipped in the western interior parts of Anatolia.The roots of the Men cult may go back to Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC. Ancient writers describe Men as a local god of the Phrygians....
to venerate Augustus (the Monumentum Ancyranum
Monumentum Ancyranum
The name Monumentum Ancyranum refers to the Temple of Augustus and Rome in Ancyra , or to the inscription Res Gestae Divi Augusti, a text recounting the deeds of the first Roman emperor Augustus, the most intact copy of which is preserved on the walls of this temple.The temple was built between 25...
), as a sign of fidelity. It was on the walls of this temple in Galatia that the major source for the Res Gestae
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
Res Gestae Divi Augusti, is the funerary inscription of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, giving a first-person record of his life and accomplishments. The Res Gestae is especially significant because it gives an insight into the image Augustus portrayed to the Roman people...
of Augustus were preserved for modernity. Few of the provinces proved more enthusiastically loyal to Rome. The Galatians also practised a form of Romano-Celtic polytheism, common in Celtic lands.
During his second missionary journey, St. Paul of Tarsus
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
, accompanied by Silas
Silas
Saint Silas or Saint Silvanus was a leading member of the Early Christian community, who later accompanied Paul in some of his missionary journeys....
and Timothy , visited the "region of Galatia," where he was detained by sickness .
Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
related the Biblical figure Gomer to Galatia (or perhaps to Gaul in general). "For Gomer founded those whom the Greeks now call Galatians, [Galls,] but were then called Gomerites." Antiquities of the Jews
Antiquities of the Jews
Antiquities of the Jews is a twenty volume historiographical work composed by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the thirteenth year of the reign of Roman emperor Flavius Domitian which was around 93 or 94 AD. Antiquities of the Jews contains an account of history of the Jewish people,...
, I:6. Others have related Gomer to Cimmerians
Cimmerians
The Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads of Indo-European origin.According to the Greek historian Herodotus, of the 5th century BC, the Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, in what is now Ukraine and Russia...
.
The Galatians were still speaking the Galatian language
Galatian language
Galatian is an extinct Celtic language once spoken in Galatia in Asia Minor from the 3rd century BC up to at least the 4th century AD, although ancient sources suggest it was still spoken in the 6th century....
(Gaulish) in the time of St. Jerome
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
(347
347
Year 347 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rufinus and Eusebius...
–420 AD
420
Year 420 was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Theodosius and Constantius...
), who wrote that the Galatians of Ancyra and the Treveri
Treveri
The Treveri or Treviri were a tribe of Gauls who inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle from around 150 BCE, at the latest, until their eventual absorption into the Franks...
of Trier
Trier
Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....
(in what is now the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
) spoke the same language (Comentarii in Epistolam ad Galatos, 2.3, composed c. 387).
In an administrative reorganisation about 386-95 two new provinces succeeded it, Galatia Prima and Galatia Secunda or Salutaris, which included part of Phrygia. The fate of the Galatian people is a subject of some uncertainty, but they seem ultimately to have been absorbed into the Greek-speaking populations of west-central Anatolia.
There was a short-lived eleventh century attempt to re-establish an independent Galatia by Roussel de Bailleul
Roussel de Bailleul
Roussel de Bailleul , also known as Phrangopoulos , was a Norman adventurer who travelled to Byzantium and there received employ as a soldier and leader of men from the Emperor Romanus IV Roussel de Bailleul (also Ursellus de Ballione in Latin or Roscelin or Roskelin de Baieul, called Urselius by...
.