Chapter 7
The essential element to note for the history of the Galatians for the two centuries after their settlement in Asia Minor is that they remained as three distinct ‘tribes’, each of which, once it was occupying a specific territory, was actually an independent state. They had arrived as three separate mobile states, which divided the Seleukid enemy’s territory into three areas from which each conducted separate military operations.
Just as it is necessary to avoid the term ‘tribe’ in referring to each Galatian political entity, it is also necessary to avoid the word ‘raid’ in referring to the Galatians’ military exploits. Both are denigratory and imply a lack of organization and intelligent direction. Their ‘raids’ were, in fact, military campaigns with specific objects in view. They were conducted in a particular way, which their Greek opponents did not like – the mass charge, naked champions, and so on – but this does not make them any the less military. The one set of battles we are informed of in detail – against Vulso’s army in 189 – show evidence of advance planning and firm command. They were in fact not very good at battles, and their victories were very few. Their original aim, as already remarked, was to secure a territory on which to settle; afterwards they aimed at retaining those territories.
It became clear very soon in their first Asian campaigns that the land from the Aegean coast to Armenia was already divided among existing states. It was going to be necessary therefore for each tribe to persuade at least one of the established states to agree to allot them land. At that point peace could be made, and presumably the tribe and the allotting state would become allies.
The land they gained was in the interior of the peninsula, high above sea level, dry in summer, cold in winter. The Tolistobogii were first, by a treaty with Antiochos I in 274 after the Elephant Victory.1 They took over the upper valley of the Sangarios River, including the town of Gordion and the temple town of Pessinos. The Tektosages continued raiding for some years, but it seems probable that the Trokmoi were settled by treaty at the same time as the Tolistobogii. The Trokmoi took a large area east of the Halys River, with a centre at Tavion. The Tektosages were allotted land between the other two tribes by Mithradates I of Pontos in the early 260s, including Ankyra; this must have been organized before 266, when Mithradates died. By that date all three had taken over their new homelands.
This was all achieved, first by a suspension of fighting by a truce, then by a treaty agreed between tribal leaders and the king. Technically, this will have made the new Galatians in some way subjects of the king, since it was part of his kingdom they were receiving. This was perhaps of little account, for the Tektosages were settled by Mithradates but on Seleukid land, and the Trokmoi were settled on land which may not have been part of any kingdom. Certainly from the time the three tribes became settled they behaved as independent states.2
Much of the land which now became ‘Galatia’ had been Phrygia until then, and was inhabited by the descendants of the subjects of the ancient kingdom of Phrygia, destroyed by the Assyrians and Lydians centuries before. The Tolistobogii, the first settlers, took over the prime part of the region in the western part of Galatia, with the temple city of Pessinos within their territory. Neither of the two urban centres in their territory, Pessinos and Gordion, was damaged, and they did not, it seems, interfere with the rites or with the priests at Pessinos. It is another indication that the Galatians were not the ravenous raiders and destructive looters as they are so often depicted. There is, however, some evidence from Gordion that the Keltic practice of human sacrifice was practised, as well as the sacrifice of other animals. The evidence is not wholly conclusive, being archaeological, but it was a practice common with other Keltic groups, and it is hardly surprising that it was practised by the Tolistobogii.3
To the east of the Tolistobogii, on land higher, drier, and colder, and centred on the ancient town of Ankyra, were the Tektosages, whose territory was narrower than the others, but stretched well to the north to the northern mountains. The Trokmoi were even further east, in the poorest and most thinly populated part of Galatia, where part of the land was mere sand. In total, these three states occupied a land which was roughly oval in shape, perhaps 400 kilometres from east to west, and 200 from north to south. It was thus a relatively large area, but thinly populated even after their arrival. Antiochos and Mithradates were not giving away territory which was of much value.4
The geography is rather odd. The Trokmoi’s western boundary was the Halys River, a clear geographical line, and this became the Tektosages’ eastern border. Their western border is less clear, and was presumably negotiated with the Tolistobogii, already in occupation. In fact, the latter may have surrendered some territory to give the Tektosages a reasonable area, which would help explain the relatively small size and curious shape of the Tektosagian territory. The Trokmoi could hardly be expected to give up their clear western boundary, and because theirs was an extra dry country they obviously needed a larger area than the others. No doubt the continued raiding by the Tektosages was almost as unsettling to the other two tribes as it was to Antiochos and Mithradates, and all concerned would be relieved to see them settled.
These new settlements had separated Pontos on the north coast from the southern and western Seleukid lands in Asia Minor, and provided Pontos with a certain shelter from Seleukid annoyance. The Trokmoi, settled east of the Tektosages, were also clear of Seleukid annoyance by the relatively remote situation of their new land. The intervening territory was Kappadokia, under the authority of a local ruler; it became a recognized kingdom in 255 when the king married a Seleukid princess.
The settlement of the three Galatian tribes therefore began in 274, but the process continued for several years. The three tribes seemingly operated separately, according to the several agreements made by the original rulers – mainly probably with Antiochos I, no matter that Mithradates interfered. There was surely considerable disturbance within the new states. The local Phrygian ruling class will no doubt have objected, but probably fruitlessly: possibly the Phrygian peasantry did not, or did not care – one overlord was probably like any other. There is, however, no hint of civilian troubles, though, given the lack of sources, this is not surprising. Yet some indication might have been expected if disturbances had been wide or long continuing. The relative smallness of Galatian numbers perhaps helped here, since their capacity for oppression would have been limited.
The main geopolitical result of the three tribes’ settlement in central Anatolia was to decisively limit the authority of the Seleukid king, not only in the areas in which the Galatians settled, but in the surrounding states as well. Pontos is an obvious benefactor: no matter the precise nature of the intervention by Mithradates, the fact of the Galatians being settled in lands between his kingdom and that of the Seleukids placed him in a much more independent situation. Seleukid kings had claimed suzerainty over Pontos since the time of Seleukos I; this was no longer a realistic notion. Ironically, this did not directly cover Bithynia, though that kingdom remained allies with the Galatians for the next forty-odd years.
Seleukid power had already been truncated by the success of the northern kingdoms and cities in asserting their independence, so that Bithynia, Herakleia Pontike, and Pontos were all by 270 or so formally independent states. Nikomedes’ policy of turning the Galatians against Antiochos’ lands had thus been highly successful. He secured control of his whole kingdom and his throne, and he prevented Antiochos from returning to the attack against him and his allies.
The treaties which permitted the three tribes to take over their sections of ‘Galatia’, as the land must now be called, had a further effect. For example, Antiochos’ treaty with the Tolistobogii, agreed after the Elephant Victory, did two things: it allocated land in Phrygia on which the tribe could settle, and it established peace between the two parties during the lifetime of Antiochos I; we do not know the timing on the Galatian side which was equivalent to the king’s lifetime, but there is no hint of any hostilities between them in the years following the treaty – so long as one accepts that for the moment the three states were acting independently, and that the later raids in the south were by the Tektosages alone, with whom Antiochos did not (yet) have a treaty. After all, the Tolistobogii had achieved their aim by their agreement, which was to acquire a new homeland. It seems reasonable to assume that something like a treaty also established the other tribes in their new homelands. Mithradates of Pontos is supposed to have settled the Tektosages around Ankyra, but since this was technically Seleukid territory and had been publicly recognized as such in 280 by Seleukos’ defeat of Lysimachos, no doubt Antiochos I made an agreement to this as well; the Trokmoians’ settlement was also presumably agreed.
These treaties were successful in solving the Galatian problem if that is seen as a matter of raids or terrorism. The Galatians clearly had certainly indulged in raids and theft, before being allocated their new homeland, but this had only been a secondary aspect of their aims. It bears repeating that their primary aim was always to settle in a new homeland, and that their mode of warfare in the 270s was aimed at persuading the reluctant local powers to accommodate them. Therefore, once settled in Galatia, they had no obvious motive to go raiding again. Politically, once settled they became a group of weak states, and were therefore vulnerable; staying quiet and peaceful was protection. By their treaties they had become part of the state system of Asia Minor.
The purpose of Mithradates I in settling the Tektosages south of Pontos was probably defensive, in that they formed a barrier protecting his kingdom from any aggression by the Seleukid king. In addition, by a treaty with the Tektosages he established peace with them, and could prevent any raids by them on his own territory while he was alive. The Bithynian kingdom had done the same by its alliance with the whole Galatian group when they crossed into Asia in the first place, an alliance, it may be noted, which remained in effect until 230. The treaties with Antiochos I had the same result.
By the 260s, therefore, the Galatians were settled in their new homelands and were also pinned down by a series of treaties made with all the kingdoms surrounding them. The cities they had been attacking in their campaign against the Seleukid kingdom were now out of their reach, in effect protected by the treaties of the Galatians with the kings, of which the cities were dependents. However, these treaties gradually expired, either after a number of years, or more likely on the deaths of the kings who concluded them; Mithradates I died in 266, Antiochos I in 261, and Nikomedes I in 255. From this point, therefore, the Galatian state or states were no longer either restrained or protected by those treaties, though the power of the successor kings was probably sufficient to prevent them from resorting to war at once, certainly in the case of Antiochos II. Nor is it clear that the Galatians still wished to indulge in wars; having achieved their main aim they were no longer internally compelled to go raiding; any young men who were so attracted could fulfil their aggressive impulses by enlisting as a mercenary somewhere. Instead the Galatians could operate as normal states and enter into treaties, or wars, as they chose.
This interpretation conflicts, of course, with the generally accepted assumption that the raids continued, and that they terrorized the Greek cities during the next century or so. Yet the evidence for raids after they were settled is thin to non-existent. There were certainly instances of warfare in which the Galatians were involved in Asia Minor, and these will be discussed in sequence in the rest of this chapter, but it will be worth considering the difference between state warfare, which I will maintain is what happened, and ‘raids’, for which I can find no evidence after the three tribes can be considered to have settled, that is, after, say, 268.5
Before considering the Galatians’ wars, it is necessary to examine the states themselves, their society, and their governing system. In the geopolitical circumstances of their settlement in the new homeland it was obviously necessary that the Galatians organize themselves in such a way as to be able to act as a normal Hellenistic state. They were clearly not willing to be a kingdom – the three distinct ‘tribes’ continued to be their basic organization until Roman times, and rivalry between the three, to put it no stronger, may be assumed. It seems that Leonnorios remained as leader, or chief, of the Tolistobogii from the time they were in Europe until after 274, and he was evidently the pre-eminent war leader. He was able to conclude the treaty with Erythrai, and perhaps with other cities, and Antiochos I, but there is no sign of him ever being king, nor any other man being suggested as such in any of the three tribes at this early period.6
A loose political association was clearly preferred, in which the three tribes retained their identities as states. We have no direct information from the settlement period as to how they were internally organized, but Strabo has a passage in which he claims to be describing their organization ‘long ago’. The account he gives is evidently based on information from before the emergence of the Galatian monarchy under Roman auspices in the early first century BC and therefore it refers to conditions at some point or period in the two centuries before then. The description he gives may be taken as a reasonable overview of the conditions in the early years, without the details necessarily being wholly accurate.7
There are two main theories of the development of the governing system of the states. One is that Strabo’s description refers to the earliest period after the settlement, and that few changes took place until the upheaval of the Roman Republican period, in which Roman warlords trampled across the country, and several disasters happened. The other theory assumes that Strabo’s description refers to the situation in the second century BC, after the Galatians had been in occupation of the new lands for a century. There were a series of military conflicts in the first half of that century, which would have triggered changes. This, of course, implies that we know little or nothing of their condition in the first century of their presence, and that they were not capable of organizing themselves, which is patronizing. Given that the three states made international treaties with the surrounding kingdom on several occasions in the third century, it is clear that they had a good understanding of the diplomatic system they had intruded upon; and given that individuals happily took service as mercenary soldiers, a good understanding of the political (and military) systems of those states is clear. But the main thing is that the governing system Strabo described is one which is very similar to that which operated in other Keltic tribes; and it is distinctively Galatian. I conclude that Strabo’s description is a good indication of the Galatian governing system from the start. (Strabo came from Sinope, close to Galatia on the Black Sea coast, and he may be presumed to have had access to good local information; he was a careful investigator, and we may accept that his account bears a reasonable relationship to what existed.)
A central authority for the three states as a group existed in the form of the Council (boule) at which each of the subdivisions of the three tribes was represented. Each state was divided into four tetrarchies, each of which had a tetrarch, a judge, and a military leader, with two subordinate commanders. How these were chosen is not stated, though heredity or wealth or achievement could be the criteria, probably a combination of all three. In an early account, as the tribes left Bithynia, they are said to have had seventeen chiefs and two named leaders (Leonnorios and Loutarios), so the quadripartite system was a later adaptation, though based on Keltic tradition.
The Council of tetrarchs met at Drunemeton, whose name implies that this was a shrine or grove or nemeton, a vague word implying a treesurrounded sacred space. The meeting took place either in a building or in a grove of (usually) oak trees. Its location is not known – though Pessinos has been suggested, but if so why not call the place by that name?8 Strabo’s description of the Council’s functions is that it was the court for judging murder cases for the whole three tribes, but he then notes that its ‘power’ passed to the new kings who emerged in the first century BC. There is no indication that the Council had more than legal functions, though it was perhaps consultative.
The Council met once a year and all the political notables of the three states attended. It is not conceivable that they simply paid attention only to murder cases. Informal discussion of mutual problems is to be expected, and one of its obvious functions would be to smooth over disputes between the tribes, which, to be sure, are not recorded anywhere, but which surely existed.
The three states were self-governing, and conducted their own foreign affairs, a matter which implies internal consultations. Examples are when the Tolistobogii assisted Ziaelas to gain the Bithynian throne in 255 after Nikomedes’ death; both the Tolistobogii and the Tektosages attacked Pergamon into the 230s, while next year it was the Tolistobogii alone doing the fighting. They were clearly acting as independent states.
The society which the Council and the tetrarchs headed may be seen as oligarchic in political terms. The invading Galatians no doubt became the rulers and the chiefs. The Phrygian natives will have composed the peasantry. In the few towns there was an exiguous middle class. The lords established themselves in castles and manor houses, collected some taxes – or perhaps tithes would be the appropriate term – , supervised local affairs, and probably interfered with the peasantry as little as possible. Much of the area which became Galatia was dry; pastoral farming, particularly of flocks of sheep, appears to have been the main livelihood of all classes. The river valleys, and areas of particularly fruitful soil, would support agriculture, but true wealth lay in the flocks of sheep. There were perhaps some Phrygian lords still surviving, who integrated themselves into the Keltic culture as they could.
The internal arrangements in each tribe was one of extreme decentralization. Below the level of the tetrarchs there was a large number of chiefs – 183 of them, a massive increase on the 17 in 278. Settlement in their new homeland would clearly permit a more expansive society, and a chief could build up a small province of his own by establishing a fortified manor house and lording it over the local peasantry. In addition, there were an unknown number of units each with their own names, of which we know the names of a few – Voturi, Okondiani, Ambitouti, Artigniakon – all of which, as it happens, were part of the Tolistobogii. (The Rigosages hired by Antiochos III in 221 may have been another of these.) Each tribe was therefore deeply subdivided, and identities were no doubt as multiple as in any Greek city. It would perhaps be difficult to motivate the whole tribe into a single action.
The evidence for Galatian rule and presence in the new lands is first of all the written material, such as Strabo and the Hellenistic historians, who give evidence for the settlement itself. In more detail there is place-name evidence, in which a number of Keltic names for particular locations in Galatia are known, though it has to be said there are not many of them. The preceding Phrygian and Greek names continued to be used, an indication that the Galatians were not numerous enough to impose many of their own names on this new land. Then there is a considerable amount of archaeological evidence from Galatia, burials and cemeteries, and finds of La Tène-type metalwork, which are likewise clear evidence of settlement, but only if they can be specifically identified as Galatian; finds of jewellery and metalwork are ambiguous, since they are valuable and movable objects. They could be evidence either of the presence of Galatian settlers, or of trade; there are finds of this material all over Asia Minor, often well outside the Galatians’ homeland. A number of sites indicate that they were fortified by the Galatians. These are often called oppida, and the term implies the presence within an encircling wall or earthwork of a settled population; perhaps a dozen places show such evidence.9
While individual elements in this catalogue might be disputable, particularly when taking the presence of isolated items of La Tène jewellery as a mark of the Galatian presence, the sheer concentration of oppida, burials, cemeteries, and other finds in a clearly geographically restricted area is wholly convincing of the presence of Galatians. The indigenous population on which the Galatians imposed themselves was Phrygian, and the fusion of the two peoples appears to have been fairly rapid, although there is evidence of Phrygians still speaking their particular language well into the Roman period. A number of scattered notices show that, particularly in the rural areas, the Keltic language also continued in use throughout the Roman period. What the balance was between them, and between them and Greek, is impossible to judge, except that urban areas tended to use Greek, perhaps in combination with one of the other languages; it was above all in the rural areas that the older languages survived.10 The penetration of Greek into the interior area only took place in the Galatian period, not before, and the Galatians are thus, somewhat ironically, identified as agents of Hellenization. At Gordion, for example, a series of graffiti record twenty Greek names out of thirty identifiable names, with just two others certainly Keltic – and this was before 189, when the town was abandoned. At Abydos in 197 an inscription lists four men with Greek names and identifies them as Galatian.11
Ancient historians remark on the increase in the number of Galatians,12 and this may be accounted for by the continued immigration of reinforcements from Europe, though there is no actual evidence for this. The number of Galatians who originally settled in each area was probably no more than 10,000, perhaps less, but in a new land their numbers would certainly increase. The fusion of Galatians and Phrygians is likely to have been rapid, particularly in the acquisition of wives and concubines from the Phrygian population by unmarried Galatian warriors. The Galatian territory was untroubled by invasion or war for a full generation after 274, so there was plenty of time for intermarriages and procreation. It is highly probable that the Phrygian population, which undoubtedly had its own memories of independence and of its own kings, may well have welcomed the opportunity to participate in a new independence after several centuries of subjection to alien Lydian, Persian, and Macedonian rulers, even if they were being ruled by yet another alien group.
There is, however, an indication that other Galatian groups did arrive in Asia Minor after the original settlers. One specific instance is the arrival of the Aigosages in the Troad by arrangement with Attalos I in 217, though they became such a nuisance that Prusias I of Bithynia massacred them, supposedly to extinction. Antiochos III employed the Rigosages in 221, a Galatian nation which may have been part of one of the Galatian states. Within Asia Minor there were other possible Galatian groups, living fairly close to, but outside, the Galatian borders. These may be later migrants, or chieftain groups who had split off from the original conquest tribes – but the evidence is late, and they may not be Keltic at all.
The Galatians were always regarded by the Greeks, and later by the Romans, as ‘barbarians’. This has had serious consequences for the study of the people and the states they formed. The various meanings of ‘barbarian’ have led to the assumption that they were politically unorganized and unsophisticated, wild in their warfare, and fit only to be Hellenized or Romanized. In the Greek time, of course, the term primarily meant that they did not speak Greek, which, at least for the upper layers of Galatian society, was probably not correct, but it also implied that their society was not organized into poleis, cities, which is probably correct. There were a few old urban settlements in their area, but none of these was set up as a polis until the Roman period, and Gordion at least was abandoned.
But there is, first, no reason why they need to be organized in a way recognized by Greeks and Romans as ‘civilized’, which would presumably mean as city states. A political organization obviously existed from the start in each part of Galatia, capable of command and of making treaties. The migrants were set down in the midst of a possibly hostile population, and they were surrounded by other political units – cities, kingdoms, empires – who may be, or may become, hostile. Setting up a governing system, no matter how exiguous, was a way of stamping their authority and presence on this new home, and inevitably it was the sort of organization with which they were already familiar which was used.
This would ensure their continuing control of the land to which they had been assigned, and provide a framework for assigning estates and lands to individuals. Strabo is quite definite this organization was set up ‘long ago’, which to be sure is vague, but no more than two centuries before his time. Above all, it is the international situation in which they found themselves which demands that they organized themselves into a recognizable and effective government quickly. They were new to the area, very much resented, and obviously vulnerable. This would require that they integrate or dominate the local population quickly, fortify their settlements at once, and erect a government which would be able to treat with other powers and command in war.
In considering the international position of the Galatian states it is also necessary to avoid characterizing them as composed of out-of-control barbarian raiders, likely to set off on a raid at any moment. Instead they must be seen as three of the many independent states in the Mediterranean world, which varied in size from single cities to intercontinental empires. ‘Their governing interest was in their own profit and advantage, for which they would change any allegiance of break any pact.’13 This is a description of the supposed conduct of the Galatians, and is to a degree denigratory, based on Greek and Roman perceptions of barbarian conduct, but it is also a description of the conduct of any and every Hellenistic state, with the exception of ‘breaking any pact’, of which no instances by the Galatians can be found, and none are listed; it is a reasonable characterization of the Galatian states, but not only of them.
From their arrival in Asia, the Galatians stood by any treaties they made. They were allies of Nikomedes, who was at war with Antiochos I, and the Galatian invasion of Seleukid Asia Minor was therefore a logical extension of Nikomedes’ treaty with them, and of his war with Antiochos. The Galatians were no doubt unscrupulous, but then so were their contemporaries; Nikomedes’ use of them is one case, and one may also instance in particular Ptolemy II, whose conduct was best described in the words above quoted, and as deceitful, murderous, and conscienceless.
Once established, therefore, and organized, the Galatian states must be seen to have operated internationally with the same priorities as every other contemporary state – with the aim of maintaining or increasing their own wealth and security, and ensuring above all their own political continuance. The initial problem was that one of the three tribes was constrained (and protected) by a treaty – that of the Tolistobogii with Antiochos I – though all three were parties to the alliance with Nikomedes. The situation of the Trokmoi is always unclear; it may be that they were the weakest of the three tribes, and it is certain that they were settled in the poorest part of Galatia: evidence of their presence in the form of archaeological finds and place-names is thin on the ground in that region.
King Mithradates of Pontos and the Tektosages formed an alliance against a Ptolemaic maritime intrusion into the Black Sea, and this is a good indication that their alliance dated from the time he allotted land to them. The date of this event is not known if it actually took place; doubts have been cast. Mithradates may have been moving from hostility to friendship with Antiochos, while Antiochos had been involved in the settlement of the Tolistobogii by their Seleukid treaty, so they were now counted as Seleukid friends, or perhaps clients. So the Ptolemaic raid on the Black Sea coast would be part of Ptolemy II’s strategy to destabilize the recent settlement in Asia Minor. The force which landed was driven off by a joint Pontic-Galatian force, which captured some of the ships’ anchors. Also named as an ally in this fight was Ariobarzanes, Mithradates’ son, who was presumably joint king with his father (who was about eighty years old by 270). If Pontos had earlier been subjected to the Tektosages’ raids, the alliance will have stopped them, and opposing Ptolemy’s attempt to disrupt the new settlement would have been in accordance with both their interests.
By then, perhaps in the early 260s, the Galatian states were at peace with all their neighbours. They were still capable of mounting their own expeditions, as the Tektosages did in alliance with Mithradates, and they were still no doubt perceived as a restless threat by their neighbours, perhaps as a result of internal rivalries, but they also saw their neighbours as threats to themselves – which made them normal states of the time. Galatian restlessness would be taken as given for some time; it would take a period of peace and quiet on their part to convince former victims or nearby communities that they were no longer a threat.
The deaths of kings automatically extinguished the treaties they had made. When Nikomedes of Bithynia died, at some time in the late 250s, possibly in 255, his two sons disputed the throne – a repetition of the situation in 279, and the same solution was adopted. The elder of the two claimants, Ziaelas, had been driven into exile by his father, and was excluded from the succession in favour of a younger son by a different mother. He made an agreement with the Tolistobogii, or perhaps he activated the clause in his father’s treaty which extended the alliance beyond Nikomedes’ death. The succession struggle pitted the Galatians against a substantial coalition of guardians appointed by Nikomedes for his chosen successor in his will – Kings Ptolemy II and Antigonos Gonatas, the cities of Byzantion, Kieros, and Herakleia. This last was the most active, it seems, and it was the only one within reach of the Tolistobogii; it was therefore the enemy of both Ziaelas and the Tolistobogii, and it was quite reasonably attacked (though this has usually been interpreted as a Galatian ‘raid’).14 In the end Ziaelas succeeded, as a result of mediation by Nymphis of Herakleia. The Tolistobogii might well have celebrated their success against such a coalition of enemies, though how active the kings were in the affair is not known. Politically, one result was a renewed alliance between Ziaelas and the Tolistobogii; another was enmity between Herakleia and the Tolistobogii.15 This was all quite reasonable military and political conduct by them, but it was nevertheless depicted as an act of spite and is too often listed as a typical Galatian ‘raid’ on an unoffending city, though it was not a raid, and Herakleia was an open enemy.
One reason for seeing these Galatian wars as ‘raids’, apart from researchers’ laziness in continuing to accept an old interpretation, is probably the Galatian method of war. This, as Greeks and Romans both knew, consisted mainly of a charge by the mass of warriors. This was certainly frightening. It had succeeded often enough that the Galatians in Asia saw no reason to change it, and they continued to employ it against the Roman army in 225 at Telamon, and in Asia in 189 against the army of Manlius Vulso. This, to well-drilled hoplites and legionaries, clearly looked barbarian; hence their attacks were ‘raids’, despite the obvious political and international involvement. But it is time such a false interpretation was abandoned.
The alliance of the Tektosages and Pontos expired on the death of Ariobarzanes in about 250; his participation with his father in the alliance had extended it beyond Mithradates’ own death in 266. The ‘Galatians’ – presumably the Tektosages – freed from the treaty restrictions, immediately invaded Pontos. The new king, Mithradates II, was a child, which was perhaps an added incentive for the attack, and it is evident that the new government of the kingdom, presumably a regency, did not have the time to renew the old treaty, if they had even thought of it.
The exact reason for the war is not known, but it was more than a mere raid on the kingdom; there had presumably been a build-up of enmity between the two states, but the quarrel had been restrained from war while Ariobarzanes lived. The invaders laid siege to the city of Amisos on the Black Sea coast. Herakleia intervened by sending supplies into the city. Foiled in the siege, the Galatians attacked Herakleia – the friend of their enemy, and looted what they could seize. This is all perfectly normal international behaviour – Ptolemy III attacked the Seleukid kingdom in very much the same way and with the same excuse four years later – that the peace between the kingdoms had expired, and that he felt like gaining a cheap victory. We are not told why the war began between Pontos and the Tektosages, but it only became possible once the treaty expired. There was surely more to the issue than a new king’s minority.
The point of this discussion of these minor political crises is to emphasize that the Galatian states, once established, operated in the same way, and with the same priorities, as all other contemporary states. In each case the cause of the fighting was different. In Bithynia the Galatians were invited in by Ziaelas; in Pontos the treaty with Mithradates and Ariobarzanes had expired and they were perfectly entitled to declare war, though something more than the child king’s minority was surely involved.16 Herakleia was clearly acting in a hostile manner by interfering against the Galatians, both over Ziaelas and at Amisos. All this is perfectly normal political behaviour, and is to be expected in a diplomatic system which was centred on treaties which lasted only during a royal lifetime.
The third royal death in this period was that of Antiochos I in 261. He was succeeded by his son Antiochos II, who had no conflict with the Galatian states. This immunity was perhaps enforced by the extensive fortifications of Antiochos’ territory carried out by his father, and which he continued to extend, but it is more likely to have been because he made new treaties with the Galatian states, to replace that, or those, which had expired with his father.
Antiochos II was busy enough without the complication of a Galatian war. His first wife Laodike was from the family of Akhaios, and so they were cousins. (It was Akhaios’ steward who was responsible for ransoming the villagers seized at Neoteichos and Kiddioukome about 269.17) Laodike lived in Ephesos later in Antiochos’ reign when he was briefly married to Berenike, the daughter of Ptolemy II. (He returned to Laodike in the last years of his life, leaving Berenike in Syria.) He was responsible for building or developing some of the new and/or reconditioned cities in Asia Minor which formed the defence line. He married his daughter Stratonike to the ruler of Kappadokia, Ariarathes, who dated his kingship to 255, the year of the marriage, though he had evidently been the effective ruler in Kappadokia for perhaps two decades already. This was the territory south and east of the new Galatia, even drier and winter-cold. The promotion of Ariarathes to the status of king was the direct result of the marriage; it also put Kappadokia into a subordinate alliance with Antiochos, who recognized it as an independent kingdom. This is one more state which geographically hemmed in the Galatians. We do not know what the relationship was between Ariarathes and his Galatian neighbours – the Trokmoi – but he had survived without difficulty for twenty years as their neighbour, so one might suppose they were in a treaty relationship analogous to that between the Tektosages and Mithradates I.
One of Antiochos’ military exploits was to take his army into Thrace. This area was one of the regions to which the Seleukid kings had long laid claim, from Seleukos I’s defeat of the earlier ruler, Lysimachos, though since Seleukos’ murder no Seleukid king had approached it. The date and extent and context of this expedition are all unclear and disputed, as ever in this dark period for historical source material, but it took place in the 250s (he reigned 261–246), and Antiochos certainly conducted sieges of Byzantion and Kypsela, so his forces penetrated deep into Thrace.18 One result was the repossession of the city of Lysimacheia by the Seleukid king, where Antiochos’ coins were issued. The absence of the Tylis kingdom in every discussion of the event is notable, and implies that it was resolutely impartial, though the siege of Byzantion cannot have pleased the Tylis king. The tributary relationship with Byzantion implied by the payment of frequent sums of gold pieces to the king of Tylis clearly did not require the Tylis king to come to the city’s defence or assistance. Antiochos’ expedition implies strongly, along with his alliance with Kappadokia, that he had no fear of any hostile Galatian activity in Asia. From this one would conclude that he probably had binding treaties with the Galatian states from very early in his own reign.
This comfortable international situation ended with Antiochos’ death and the crisis which followed. In 246, in January, Ptolemy II died, and was succeeded by Ptolemy III, who married Berenike of Cyrene; she brought Cyrenaica with her as her dowry and so joined that country with Egypt again; as a result an independent Cyrenaica was no longer available to the Seleukids as a distraction when a war began with Ptolemy. In June or July of the same year, Antiochos II died, leaving one wife, Laodike, in Ephesos with her two sons, Seleukos and Antiochos, and the second wife, Berenike (Ptolemy III’s sister) in Antioch in Syria with an infant son, another Antiochos. All earlier treaties between the two monarchies ceased to have effect, and Ptolemy III soon began a campaign to disrupt the Seleukid kingdom. Some Seleukid governors and cities recognized the child Antiochos as the new king, but most recognized Seleukos.19
The child was quickly eliminated. A plot, probably instigated by Laodike, procured the murder of Berenike and her son. Ptolemy discovered this when he landed at Seleukeia-in-Pieria and marched into Antioch. From there, using reinforcements from Egypt, he occupied north Syria and Kilikia as far as the Euphrates River and the Taurus Mountains, the political heart of the Seleukid state. In Asia Minor the elder son of Antiochos II and Laodike assumed the kingship as Seleukos II, and set out to recover his lost territories. He commissioned his younger brother as joint king at some point and put him in command in Asia Minor. The date of this commission is not clear, but Antiochos remained in Asia Minor while Seleukos campaigned in Syria, so Antiochos will have become much more familiar with Asia and its politics than his brother.
Seleukos slowly recovered Syria and Kilikia, but not all of his lost lands: Ptolemy kept control of the imperial capital of Seleukeia-in-Pieria and of a string of small Kilikian cities; but Seleukos regained Antioch, and this became the replacement capital. In Asia Minor, Antiochos, having gained the nickname Hierax (‘the Hawk’), acted independently, apparently encouraged by his mother, who perhaps favoured him from the first. The dynastic war, however, only began when Seleukos had recovered Syria, made his peace with Ptolemy in 241, and then tried to reassert control in Asia Minor. The succeeding ‘War of the Brothers’ which followed lasted until a truce in 237, but soon recommenced and lasted for almost another decade. Seleukos’ peace with Ptolemy III came at considerable cost, for Ptolemy secured control of many cities along the southern and Aegean coasts of Asia Minor, and in the Thracian Chersonese. Lysimacheia had therefore remained in Seleukid control for little more than a decade.
The legacy of that war, the Third Syrian, was to weaken decisively the Seleukid Empire: apart from the losses in the west to Ptolemy, the far eastern province of Baktria broke away into independence, and its neighbour Parthia was soon conquered by nomad invaders. The effect in Asia Minor was even more serious. The various kingdoms failed to renew their Seleukid allegiance, at least to Seleukos, who was in Syria. A long series of ports and cities on the coast from Seleukeia-in-Pieria to Lysimacheia and the Hellespont were taken from Seleukid control.20 The independent kingdoms of the interior and the north could now dabble in the Seleukid divisions. Parts of the Seleukid territory broke away into effective independence, notably Karia in the south-west, where the satrap Olympichos became effectively an independent ruler, going so far as to make arrangements with the Antigonid kings of Macedon for his protection.21 The dynasty of Philetairos in Pergamon moved in the same direction of independence.22 The longer the crisis of the dynasty lasted, of course, the more entrenched the new conditions became.
Details as ever are sparse, but the main event of the Brothers’ War was an offensive against Antiochos by Seleukos out of Syria, probably in 239. Two years before, Seleukos, freed from the Ptolemaic war by his peace treaty, had indicated that he would be resuming full control throughout the empire, to which intention Antiochos demurred and recruited his forces. Antiochos had also secured alliances with Kappadokia and Pontos, where two of his sisters were married to the kings (but these women were also sisters of Seleukos). He was also allied with some or all of the Galatians, whose forces reinforced the local levy of troops from the Seleukid cities. Seleukos’ invasion penetrated west all the way into Lydia, the local centre of Seleukid power, but then he turned north-east into the territory of the Tektosages, where a decisive battle was fought near Ankyra. Seleukos’ opponent was an army composed of the forces of Mithradates II of Pontos, Antiochos Hierax, and the Galatians – this must be seen, therefore, as a triple alliance, the Galatians being the Tektosages, since Ankyra was in their territory. Probably outmatched in numbers, at the end of a long line of communications, and well inside hostile territory, Seleukos was defeated.23
The Galatians (Tektosages) evidently took the view that the victory was due to them, even though Antiochos was apparently in overall command, and it is certain that it was their territory which had been invaded. They insisted on changing the terms of the agreement they had with Antiochos.24 It seems that he did not agree to this new arrangement, and ‘paid a ransom’. This break therefore marks the end of the alliance of Antiochos and the Tektosages. With Seleukos defeated and for a time believed to be dead, the alliance was no longer needed; probably the agreement had been that the alliance should last for the duration of the war against Seleukos. It seems also, though on minimal evidence, that Mithradates in Pontos removed himself from the triple alliance at once, perhaps as a consequence of the break between Hierax and his Galatian allies;25 he certainly never appears with his former allies in the later fighting. The new king of Pergamon, Attalos I, proved to be hostile to Antiochos at once, but Olympichos in Karia was neutral, so it seems.
The general assumption about this is that the Galatians were disappointed at their share of the loot acquired in the fighting.26 This is hardly a sufficient reason for such a decisive alteration in the political relations, and notices are clearly based on the assumption that the Galatians were still a wild undisciplined force with no political sense – Justin likens them to bandits; it may also be a result of Attalid propaganda.
Antiochos may already have been thinking of carrying the war into Syria to displace his brother entirely. Seleukos had gone east with an expedition to attempt the recovery of the eastern provinces, protected by the truce with his brother. He failed in this, but by leaving he removed any pressure on the kings of Asia Minor. One result may have been the separation of Antiochos and his former allies, no longer under pressure from Seleukos.
The one enemy left for Antiochos in Asia Minor was the Pergamene ruler, Attalos I. He was a grandnephew of Philetairos, and had inherited the position from his cousin Eumenes I in 241. Eumenes had only a small territory, which he had concentrated on expanding during his reign, and both Eumenes and Philetairos had devoted much attention, energy, and resources to establishing good relationships with a series of cities in western Asia Minor, which gave them potential allies in a crisis, and helpful friendships at the least. The wealth which Philetairos controlled was available for hiring mercenaries, as well as subsidizing the local cities. The kingdom was small but had considerable potential.27
Attalos inherited the family propensity for expansion; he was one of the predators aiming at exploiting the dynastic Seleukid division to his own profit. The withdrawal of Seleukos II back to Syria after his defeat at Ankyra was followed by a peace, or a truce, between the brothers in 237.28 It was this which permitted Seleukos to march off to the east, but it also meant that Asia Minor became a cockpit of continuing hostilities.
The role of the Galatian states in all these events is difficult to discern, since what few sources there are were concerned above all with the Seleukids or with Pergamon. Antiochos in Asia Minor had a series of allies with whom he was in treaty relationships of some sort. He had alliances with the Tektosages and Mithradates of Pontos, both of whom had fought beside him against Seleukos, but who broke off the alliance at some point after the Battle of Ankyra. Ariarathes of Kappadokia was his brother-in-law; Antiochos himself married the daughter of Ziaelas of Bithynia, who was, of course, in a treaty relationship with the Tolistobogii. (These marriages did not necessarily signify close political relationships – Mithradates was married to another of Antiochos’ sisters – but at least they indicated a scheme of friendships, and perhaps an unlikelihood of hostility.) The one potentate in the region who was outside Antiochos’ system was Attalos of Pergamon.
Antiochos’ ambition was to overthrow his brother, and to do this it would be necessary to secure control over Attalos, who, equally ambitious, would inevitably seek to profit if Antiochos moved against Syria. No doubt Seleukos’ move east was done in part with the assumption that Antiochos would soon find himself in trouble in Asia Minor; if Antiochos moved against Seleukos, the latter would inevitably seek Attalos’ alliance. When Seleukos’ eastern expedition ended in defeat in 235,29 he returned to the west, with his army, and this was probably the signal for Antiochos to seek to remove the threat of Attalos in his rear.
The main evidence for the wars which soon followed is a broken and fragmentary statue base from the sanctuary of Athena at Pergamon, which commemorated a series of victories achieved by Attalos I. The reassembled fragments can be arranged in various ways so as to provide different but arguable histories, so that various solutions are possible. There are seven separate fragments, six of them recording a different victory by Attalos and his forces – no defeats are mentioned; and all the sections have to have some words restored. It is a precarious base for any historical discussion.30
The reconstruction of events must begin with the new alliance of Antiochos Hierax with two of the Galatian states, which was agreed sometime after the Battle of Ankyra; this gave Antiochos renewed strength. Two battles are recorded between the allies and Attalos’ forces; the first, against ‘the Tolistoagii the Tektosages and Antiochos’, was fought close to Pergamon, near the temple of Aphrodite, which indicates that the allies had invaded Attalid territory. The second battle was against the Tolistobogii alone, and was fought near the sources of the Kaikos River, not far from the city of Pergamon, probably also within territory ruled by Attalos. It seems best to link these two fights and place them within the period of the alliance of Antiochos with the two Galatian states. This does not seem to have lasted very long after Ankyra, and so the fighting probably took place in the mid-230s. Three other battles of the war were recorded, one ‘against Antiochos’ alone in Hellespontine Phrygia, one ‘near Koloe’ (possibly in Lydia), and one near Harpassos in Karia. In these fights the Galatians were not involved, so they may be placed later in the 230s, after the alliance with Antiochos ended.
If this arrangement is plausible, it means that the two Galatian states, having twice suffered defeats at the hands of Attalos, pulled out of the war. Antiochos, however, could not, and continued fighting for some years. The result was that he was repeatedly defeated (at least according to this Attalid record). No matter how edited the record is, it is certain that Attalos was eventually victorious in the war, and extended his power throughout the Seleukid territory in Asia Minor which Antiochos had been ruling, as far as the Taurus Mountains. (This is not to say that this is the total of the fighting in the war; it is, after all, an Attalid victory monument in which no defeats are admitted and in which victories could be manufactured out of minor fights; the complete record of the fighting is out of our reach.)
Attalos had achieved the conquest of Seleukid Asia Minor by 228, so the fighting against Hierax had taken place before that date – and the war had probably lasted six or seven years, or there had been two wars, one between Attalos and the allies, the second between Attalos and Antiochos. Attalos used his victories to enhance his reputation, and chose to emphasize that he had been fighting the Galatians. He posed as a champion of Hellenism against the barbarians, though most of the fighting was actually against Antiochos.
It must be assumed that the defeats inflicted on the Tolistobogii and the Tektosages knocked them out of the war altogether. The second battle, against the Tolistobogii alone, might imply that Antiochos failed to turn up to the campaign. The Galatian states no doubt then made peace with Attalos, leaving Antiochos to fight on alone, with or without a contingent of Galatian mercenaries in his employ. Antiochos eventually attempted an invasion of Mesopotamia, but was driven away, and took refuge in Thrace with the Ptolemaic governor there. But there he was killed by a band of Galatians led by a chieftain called Kantarates – unless this was an assassination by Ptolemaic mercenaries.31
Antiochos died in 227, which puts all but one of the battles listed by Attalos I before that date, beginning probably in the early part of the period of the war/s. During that time the Galatians and Ziaelas of Bithynia also fought a war, in which Ziaelas was killed.32 The reason for this war is unclear, though it is probable that it was connected in some way with the war between Antiochos and Attalos. Ziaelas had married his daughter to Hierax, and was allied with the Tolistobogii after they had assisted him to gain the throne. The killing is explicitly dated after Attalos’ victory over the Tolistobogii. Perhaps Ziaelas allied himself at one point with Attalos, and so found himself attacked by Attalos’ enemies; clearly his alliance with the Tolistobogii was broken at some point. Ziaelas’ death is generally dated about 230, which puts the war between Attalos and the Tolistobogii before that date. So the Tolistobogii–Bithynian war took place between 235 and 230.
Given that the Galatians are regarded by historians as ‘barbarians’, and so treated as liable to break treaties and be generally treacherous, it would be normal to suppose that they had betrayed Antiochos, and had left him to fight on alone. We cannot, however, conclude from the record that this was the case. The terms of the alliance between Antiochos and the two Galatian states are not known, and to know if a betrayal took place we need that information. Antiochos Hierax has a bad reputation as a wild boy in the sources and the literature, so his own behaviour may have caused the rift. The involvement of Ziaelas is also curious, and essentially unexplained, unless his delivery of a daughter to Antiochos was the trigger for a political alliance.
The previous record of the Galatians in international affairs would in fact suggest that they were as scrupulous as any other state in adhering to the letter, and perhaps even the spirit, of any treaty to which they were party. They faithfully carried out their obligations to Nikomedes; the Seleukid kings had no complaint about the settlement treaties, once they had been agreed; Ziaelas made an alliance with the Tolistobogii to gain the Bithynian throne, and this was carried out; the Tektosages fought beside Antiochos at the Battle of Ankyra, and these two tribes joined him in the invasion of Attalid territory, after which the alliance was severed. We do not know why, though we have no reason to assume it was a Galatian betrayal; it could just as likely have been a betrayal by Antiochos, (who did not join with the Tolistobogii in the second battle against Attalos) or a result of a clause in their alliance.
Attalos busily exploited his victories. He gained control over the former Seleukid territory as far as the Taurus, which put the Galatian states and Kappadokia on his northern flank; this expansion was no doubt gratifying, but his real strength lay in western Asia Minor, and there he dominated, by one means or another, the well-urbanized Aegean coastlands, or at least those not under Ptolemy’s control. He must have understood from the beginning that the victory over Antiochos Hierax was never going to be enough to secure permanent possession of his winnings, and a glance at the geography will have shown him clearly that it would be very easy for a Seleukid army to come over the Taurus and sweep up all his new conquests as far as the Aegean. His control of Asia Minor, which the new extent of his kingdom seemed to give him, was purely temporary.
Attalos set about convincing public opinion that he had performed a great service for the civilized world. This involved labelling the Galatians as barbarians, exaggerating the threat they had posed both to him and the Greek cities, and possibly fashioning a link between the Galatians, the Seleukids (his obvious next enemy), and barbarism. His propaganda included written accounts of his victories, suitably slanted (which later became one of the main sources of the events for historians), dedications such as that which is the main source for the information we now have about the war, and commissioning the Great Altar at Pergamon, displaying dead and dying Galatians of heroic size, musculature, and beauty – of a barbarian sort, of course. There were no doubt other elements to the distorted story, including offerings at the major Greek shrines at Delos and Delphi and on the acropolis at Athens. It seems to have worked, for, even to this day, the Attalids are still seen as strong defenders of Hellenism and civilization against barbarism.