Galatians: The Celtic Invaders Who Settled in Anatolia

The Galatians were Celtic tribes who crossed from Europe into Asia Minor in 278/277 BC and settled in central Anatolia, in the region of modern Ankara. For about a century they were feared raiders who fought the kingdoms of Pergamon, Bithynia and the Seleucids, and their defeats inspired some of the most famous sculptures of the Hellenistic world. They later became loyal Roman allies, and their land became the Roman province of Galatia in 25 BC.

Crossing into Asia

The Galatians came out of the great Celtic invasion of Greece of 279 BC. Even before the attack on Delphi, some groups had split off and moved east into Thrace under the leaders Leonnorius and Lutarius.

In 278/277 BC King Nicomedes I of Bithynia, in north-western Anatolia, invited them across the straits to fight for him against his brother and other enemies. Ancient sources say about 20,000 people crossed, of whom only half were fighting men; the figure is uncertain but suggests a migration of families rather than a raiding army alone. Once in Asia, the Gauls began raiding the rich Greek cities of the Aegean coast.

Settling in central Anatolia

Over the following decades the newcomers were pushed or settled inland, onto the high plains of central Anatolia along the Halys (Kızılırmak) and Sangarius rivers. Three tribes divided the land: the Tolistobogii in the west around Pessinus, the Tectosages in the centre around Ancyra (Ankara), and the Trocmi in the east around Tavium.

According to Strabo, each tribe was divided into four parts, each led by a tetrarch, and a council of the twelve tetrarchs and 300 delegates met at a sacred place called Drynemetum. The name contains the Celtic word nemeton, meaning a sanctuary. The Galatians kept their language for centuries: in the 4th century AD the Christian scholar Jerome wrote that they spoke a tongue similar to that of the Treveri in Gaul.

Wars with Hellenistic kingdoms

The Galatians demanded tribute from Greek cities and hired themselves out as mercenaries to rival kings. The Seleucid Empire fought them repeatedly; Antiochus I won a celebrated victory over them, the so-called Elephant Battle, in the 270s BC, when his war elephants panicked the Gallic horses.

Their most famous enemy was Pergamon. Around 238 BC Attalus I defeated the Tolistobogii near the springs of the river Caicus, refused to pay them tribute and took the title of king. Pergamon celebrated this and later victories with monuments, and the Roman marble copies known as the Dying Gaul and the Ludovisi Gaul are believed to come from a bronze group dedicated by Attalus. The battle of gods and giants on the later Pergamon Altar is often read as an allegory of the same struggle.

Rome and the end of independence

In 189 BC, after Rome’s victory over the Seleucid king Antiochus III, the Roman consul Gnaeus Manlius Vulso campaigned against the Galatians, who had fought on the Seleucid side. He defeated them in battles at Mount Olympus and Mount Magaba, and the historian Livy describes the campaign in detail.

The Galatians then became allies of Rome. In the 1st century BC Deiotarus, tetrarch of the Tolistobogii, made himself king of most of Galatia and backed Rome against Mithridates VI of Pontus. When he was accused of plotting against Julius Caesar, Cicero defended him in a speech of 45 BC. The last king, Amyntas, died in 25 BC, and Augustus annexed Galatia as a Roman province. In Ankara the Temple of Augustus and Rome still carries the best-preserved copy of Augustus’s own account of his deeds, the Res Gestae.

Society and culture

Archaeology shows that the Galatians lived mainly in fortified hilltop settlements and villages, raising cattle and horses on the plains. Over time they absorbed much of the culture around them. They worshipped local gods alongside their own, and Pessinus, in Tolistobogian territory, was the chief sanctuary of the Anatolian mother goddess Cybele. Members of the elite took Greek names, and the last kings issued Greek-style coins, while Celtic personal names survived in inscriptions into the Roman period.

Myths and facts

The Galatians are sometimes imagined as a short-lived war band. In fact they kept a distinct identity for more than five centuries, including their own language, even as they adopted Greek gods and later Christianity. Nor were they the only Celts in the east: other groups settled in Thrace, while the Galatians alone formed a lasting state in Asia.

Timeline

• 279 BC: The Celtic invasion of Greece; some groups move east into Thrace.
• 278/277 BC: Leonnorius and Lutarius cross into Asia Minor at the invitation of Nicomedes I.
• 270s BC: Antiochus I defeats the Galatians in the Elephant Battle.
• c. 238 BC: Attalus I of Pergamon defeats the Galatians and takes the title of king.
• 189 BC: Gnaeus Manlius Vulso defeats the Galatians for Rome.
• 45 BC: Cicero defends King Deiotarus before Julius Caesar.
• 25 BC: Death of Amyntas; Galatia becomes a Roman province.

Why it matters

The Galatians are the easternmost Celtic people known to history. Their story links the Celtic world of Europe with the Hellenistic kingdoms and Rome, and through St Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians their name became familiar to readers of the Bible across the world.