Chapter 8
The last battle recorded in Attalos’ list of victories was against ‘Lysias and the generals of Seleukos’.1 Lysias was probably a member of one of the notable families which, like that of Akhaios, had come into the possession of large estates in Asia Minor – there was a city with his name, probably founded by a member of the family, the members of which can be followed through four generations at least.2 Lysias may have lost these lands by taking the side of Seleukos II against Antiochos Hierax, or by taking the side of Seleukos II or III against Attalos; the notice of his fighting Attalos’ forces suggests the latter.
The wording of Attalos’ notice suggests that Lysias was leading his own force alongside that of ‘the generals of Seleukos’ and therefore that he had independently stood in opposition to Attalos’ occupation of Seleukid Asia Minor, and had succeeded in raising a substantial force to do so. No doubt there were other men displaced and angered at Attalos’ presumption – Lysias’ contemporary Akhaios, the grandson of the earlier man of that name, who possessed extensive estates in Asia Minor and had posed for a time as loyal to Seleukos III’s brother Antiochos III, before striking out for a kingship of his own, is probably another. This attack by Lysias and a Seleukid army against Attalos may have come during Attalos’ initial conquest of Seleukid territory in the early 220s, or it may have been as part of an expedition which is known to have been sent by Seleukos III; whenever it happened it was defeated.
Seleukos II died in an accident in 226, and Seleukos III was assassinated in 223 (one of the assassins was a Galatian, Apatourios, who was presumably a soldier in his army). Neither king therefore succeeded in the dynastic aim of recovering control of Asia Minor, even after Antiochos Hierax had fled and been killed. But the next phase of the contest came in 222 when Akhaios (the younger) was sent in the name of the next king, Antiochos III, to reverse Attalos’ conquests, and succeeded in driving Attalos back to his small ancestral kingdom around Pergamon. Akhaios was, of course, a member of a cadet branch of the royal family which was settled in large estates in Asia Minor, a grandson of the Akhaios who ransomed the villagers of Neonteichos and Kiddioukome, and he was a cousin of Antiochos III.3
Akhaios operated for a year as Antiochos III’s viceroy and avenger in Asia Minor, but then, having defeated Attalos, he allowed himself to be proclaimed king. The basis of his decision to make himself king was evidently his victory and his familiarity with the region as a native, and the evident loyalty to him of his army.4 Having claimed the royal title he had intended to challenge Antiochos in Syria with his locallyrecruited army, but that army refused to march out of Asia Minor,5 so he had to be content with being king in Asia Minor alone. (In this he was a successor of Antiochos Hierax – and of Attalos). Ostensibly the reason for the army’s refusal was that the men refused to fight against the king – meaning Antiochos – but the more likely reason is that the men were now thoroughly domiciled in Asia Minor and had no wish to be taken to fight in Syria; it is likely they were commanded by their local lords, who similarly may not have been inclined to distant expeditions. Asia Minor had been separated from direct Seleukid rule by this time for a full generation, under Antiochos Hierax, and then Attalos; the army’s decision was clearly a gesture towards regional independence. Akhaios succeeded in taking over the former Seleukid territory, but not in suppressing any of the local potentates –Attalos of Pergamon retained his inherited base. Indeed Akhaios probably relied a good deal on the local lords to assist him in governing. From his position as king he was removed (that is, defeated, captured, and executed) by Antiochos III by 212.6
In all this the Galatians were completely uninvolved. There is no reference to any Galatians, other than the assassin Apatourios (whose actual origin is not known), in any of these events – with one exception. The final, approximately dated, notice of Galatian political and military activity was in the war against Attalos in about 236 or 235, when he defeated the Tolistobogii (assuming that date is correctly calculated).7 The Galatian retreat from that war, and the breaking of the alliance with Antiochos Hierax, which is implied by that and by the story of a Galatian attempt on his life (though that was in Thrace, and the ‘Galatians’ may not have been from Asia Minor),8 also obviously involved a Galatian peace agreement with Attalos. This peace would last until Attalos died (in 197). It may also be that a treaty was negotiated between the Galatians and one or more of the surviving Seleukids. There is no record of this, but the failure of any Seleukid king to display any concern about any official Galatian involvement in their wars in Asia Minor or in Europe tells its own story – the Galatians were thus in all likelihood in treaty relationships with Seleukos II, Akhaios, and Antiochos III, as well as Attalos I – a perfect neutral position, which entirely suited a minor power. It has already been noted that Antiochos III was evidently reluctant to employ Galatian mercenaries: it seems he was determined to have nothing to do with the Galatian states either, though it will be argued later that he perhaps made an alliance with them, which would explain their silence in the sources during the king’s reign.
Antiochos III made it a regular practice in his wars to contact an enemy of his enemy first, preferably in that enemy’s rear. In 216 he made contact with Attalos when preparing for his war with Akhaios;9 a similar contact with the Galatians would also make sense, since their position would be on his right flank as his forces advanced westwards from Syria towards Akhaios’ power base in Lydia. This would isolate Akhaios, surrounding him with neutrals or enemies, and it might suggest that Antiochos had learned a lesson from the wars of his father Seleukos II, who ended his life during fighting his own Asia Minor coalition of enemies, and was defeated. The fact that Antiochos’ brother was assassinated by a Galatian during a war against Attalos will also have bothered the Galatians, and they were no doubt anxious to ensure that they as a state were not involved; a neutrality agreement will have suited both. These are speculative notions, of course, but they arise from the general geopolitical situation within Asia Minor.
The one exception to the statement that Galatians were not involved in the wars and campaigns in Asia Minor after 235 was when Attalos, under pressure from Akhaios in 218, brought over a new Galatian nation, the Aigosages, from Europe. In return for a promise that they would be settled somewhere, they were to serve as mercenaries in Attalos’ army, an adaptation of the old agreement between Nikomedes and the first Galatians to come into Asia. This, of course, was well before Attalos’ self-promotion as the champion of Hellenism against barbarism, which is signalled in his later celebrations.10 The Aigosages arrived, it seems, from Europe, though their more distant origin is not known, but they could have come all the way from the northern Balkans, or possibly from Thrace, where the Tylis kingdom still existed, though it was to collapse about the same time – they may have been refugees from that collapse. They could also have been domiciled for some time independently in Thrace, but Macedon, under its new King Philip V, was once more looking to expand, and the area might have been less than comfortable for a Galatian warband; we must suppose that they arrived in Asia by Attalos’ invitation, not spontaneously.
The Aigosages were used in Attalos’ campaign through Aiolis and Ionia during 218; the local cities were surely reminded all too clearly of the Tolistobogii’s campaign sixty years before. In a passage showing blatant signs of Attalid propaganda, Polybios claims that a string of cities were ‘visited’, and ‘joined him willingly and gladly’. Force was, it is admitted, required at times, but in fact force, or at least the threat of force, is constantly implied throughout the campaign. Then Attalos turned his horde north into Mysia and drove out the governor appointed by Akhaios. The campaign ended with the Galatians facing (and presumably threatening) another group of cities along the Hellespont; with these cities Attalos then ‘entered into friendly relations’, presumably after calling off his Galatians.11 That is, in sum, Attalos brought a horde of Galatians into Asia, a horde which was admittedly largely out of his control at times, and sent them through western Asia Minor to overtly threaten any city they could reach. Many of these cities had bad memories of the Galatian raids half a century before, and in the end, when the Galatians took advantage of an eclipse of the sun to stage a panic, Attalos in effect decided that they were too much trouble. When Attalos claimed that the Galatians were barbarians, he will have had the Aigosages in mind.
Attalos then had the gall to claim that the horde had ‘rendered no service of vital importance’ – other than establishing his authority over a large section of northwest Asia Minor, that is. He then, having conducted them to the Hellespont area, allowed them to settle there. That is, having used them, he abandoned them. It was a prime example of the unscrupulousness and faithlessness of which Hellenistic kings were capable – the sort of behaviour the Galatians are repeatedly claimed to have displayed, but rarely, if ever, did. To claim later that he was the champion of Hellenism against barbarism must have left a sour taste in the mouths of the cities he had subdued, and even more for those he had abandoned to the mercy of the Aigosages.
The settlement of this group of Galatians is at times claimed to be a ‘military colony’,12 as a sort of Galatian version of a Hellenistic city foundation. Yet there is no evidence for this. Attalos had certainly agreed to provide land for them, which he did, but then he had no more to do with them. He promised to attend to any of their ‘reasonable requests’, but this was never fulfilled; further, he made no attempt to defend the local cities – with which he had just established friendly relations – against them when they broke out of their camp.
The Aigosages, now unrestrained, it seems, by any treaty or contract, began to expand the territory they had been allotted, first by attacking Ilion, laying siege to the town (which therefore must have been fortified since the place was seized by the first Galatians in the area). If they had any agreement with Attalos about their conduct, Attalos did not record it. The citizen levy of Alexandria Troas came out, relieved the siege, and then drove the Aigosages away. They camped again, this time at Arisbe, a little further along the coast of the Hellespont, in the territory of Abydos. The threat they posed was clearly hardly serious. Alexandria had fielded an army of 4000 men, and had succeeded without difficulty, and apparently without fighting, in moving the Aigosages on. But they were a potential source of mercenary manpower for Attalos, or for Akhaios, or for anybody who might choose to hire them, and so to the other kings they would be an obvious threat, quite apart from their propensity to attack the local cities, at least the small ones. Prusias I of Bithynia brought his army to Arisbe and destroyed them in their camp, supposedly killing all the men and many of the women and children (and survivors were no doubt enslaved). As a reward the Bithynian soldiers were allowed to loot the Aigosages’ baggage.13
Attalos’ behaviour in this affair was thoroughly inconsistent with his Hellenic pretensions. He claimed in his propaganda that he was a saviour of Hellenism against the barbarians of Galatia, adopting the surname ‘Soter’, producing the great altar in Pergamon to celebrate his achievement and other grandiose sculptures, and probably texts also, which became the basis for the pro-Attalid interpretation of the events visible in later histories, including that relating to the Aigosages. But in his relations with those Galatians he displayed all the elements of the carelessness of others, bad faith, and self-centredness which are attributed to the ‘barbarians’.
This is the only notice of any Galatian activity in Asia Minor between Attalos I’s victories and the arrival of Antiochos III in his campaigns, first to suppress Akhaios, and then to curb the ambitions of Attalos. By 212 Akhaios and his independent Asia Minor were no more and Attalos had been successfully confined to Pergamon and its vicinity once more – though he had gained some territory, including access to the sea at Elaia, in the most recent conflicts. Having achieved the pacification of Asia Minor and the restoration of Seleukid authority in the west, Antiochos turned to the east to aim for the same success. In his absence Asia Minor had a modicum of peace.
Not so Greece, where warfare broke out repeatedly from 217 onwards. Attalos briefly intervened in the fighting there in 208, but this left his kingdom open to attack by Prusias I. It is not clear how this brief war connected with the defeat of the Aigosages by Prusias nine or ten years before, if it did, but the conflicts were waged in the same territory, and were probably latterly about control of that territory; this was, of course, the region through which Attalos had campaigned with the Aigosages in 217. Attalos had intervened in Greece on the Roman side in their Macedonian War, and against Philip V of Macedon; since Philip was Prusias’ brother-in-law, suspicions must exist that Philip had instigated Prusias to the attack, but they are not supported by any firm evidence.14
The Galatians of Asia Minor came into contact, indirectly, with the Romans for the first time shortly afterwards, in 205, when a Roman delegation came to Pessinos on a religious mission in aid of their war against Carthage. Pessinos was the city of the temple of Kybele, but it was also part of, or attached to, the territory of the Tolistobogii.
The Romans had called in at Pergamon first, where Attalos was regarded as a friend and ally. They acquired assistance from him, who sent them onward to Pessinos with a favourable message for the priests there. At Pessinos the message and the request were powerful enough for the priest there (or priests) to permit the delegation to remove the holy basalt stone of Magna Mater (the Roman name for the goddess Kybele) – or what was said to be that stone – and carry it back to Rome to be installed in her temple there.15 Attalos was no doubt pleased to imply to the Romans that he had authority in Pessinos, but this was many miles outside his borders. This, of course, was the traditional method for any king to extend his influence, though Attalos was probably moving on Pessinos for the first time. It seems likely that the Tolistobogii were displeased at his intrusion into their area. This is, again, the first time one of the Galatians had contact with the Pergamene king – so far as we know, at least.
The Romans went home with their prize. The priests were no doubt taking the long view, fully appreciating that their gesture gained them friends at both Pergamon and Rome – and this had been Attalos’ motive also, and it was no doubt yet more of the active propagandizing which lies behind the story in Livy. A branch of Kybele’s temple in the great city of the west was a valuable addition to the priests’ own influence. All, except the Tolistobogii, could be pleased with their work, and the Roman delegation will have gained some information about conditions in Asia Minor, while those in Asia Minor began to understand the sheer power being wielded by the republic.
The Tolistobogii had included Pessinos in their territory when they settled in their new homeland, and it counted as the main urban centre for the Tolistobogii in their early years, but they do not appear in the story of the black stone; later, however, there is strong evidence of Galatian influence in the temple administration. The temple was thus in all likelihood not a completely independent entity; it was geographically within the region called Galatia, and Galatians were actively involved in it. The absence of any reference to these Galatian in Livy’s account was thus presumably the result of their absence from his source; it would be most likely that this source, given the manifestly pro-Attalid cast of the story, was Attalos and his propaganda. The Romans had sent the delegation as a result of an interpretation of one of the Sibylline Books which claimed that moving the stone of the Magna Mater to Rome would bring victory over Hannibal. It was more a tribute to Roman anxiety and superstition than anything else – though Hannibal did evacuate his forces from Italy in the next year.
Antiochos returned to work in Asia Minor in the 190s, after his victory in Syria in the latest Ptolemaic war (the ‘Fifth Syrian War’), to enforce his control in the neglected areas. The war had allowed him to mop up the Ptolemaic coastal cities in Asia Minor taken by Ptolemy III fifty years before, in a leisurely but careful double naval and military campaign during 197. A naval expedition from Syria sailed round to the Aegean to Ephesos, collecting the surrenders of cities, and an army marched from Syria to Sardis. And still the Galatian states remained neutral, though now heavily overshadowed by the enclosing power of Antiochos. On the other hand, Antiochos went on to repeat his grandfather’s expedition into Thrace in a series of campaigns beginning in 196 which confirmed his authority there; he clearly had no fear of being attacked while away, in the 190s any more than earlier.16
Antiochos’ success was resented in some of the cities he claimed. At Lampsakos on the Hellespont, for instance, a complaint went to Rome over Antiochos’ threat to its independence. (This is in the very area where Attalos, Prusias, and the Aigosages had contested for power earlier; before then it had been under Ptolemaic influence, now Seleukid.) The city took advantage of contacts with the Asian Galatians and through them with the Gauls in Gaul, by sending their envoy, Hegesias, to Massalia. There he contacted the local Gallic tribe, which gave him a letter to be delivered to the Tolistobogii; the exact relationship of the two groups of Kelts and how this will have helped this city is not known, but Hegesias and the city seem to have felt it was helpful. Perhaps the Kelts in Gaul were one of the parent tribes of the Asians, but the episode argues for continuing contacts between the Kelts in East and West. The connection between Lampsakos and Massalia was similarly indirect: both cities were colonies of Phokaia several centuries earlier. From Massalia Hegesias contacted that city’s ally Rome, voicing his complaints.17 He could point to support at home from one Galatian state, and perhaps Attalos.
It was an opportune moment, for Rome was beginning to become seriously worried by the growth of Antiochos’ power. The Thracian expedition had shifted Antiochos’ power decisively westwards into Europe; his territory probably now bordered on that of Macedon, with whom Rome had just fought a difficult war and which was hardly a Roman friend. Antiochos claimed to be the heir of the conquests and claims of his ancestor Seleukos I and his grandfather Antiochos II, and when these claims were examined they included Macedon. In addition, the Antigonid and Seleukid kings had frequently intermarried and had stood together more than once against Ptolemaic power. It may be also that Antiochos had contacted the Scordiscian state in the Balkans, which was in turn in contact with the Italian Gauls in northern Italy, another recent Roman enemy and in a restless subject area. Antiochos generally, having defeated Ptolemaic Egypt and greatly increased his territories and his naval power, appeared to some Romans to be becoming too menacingly powerful. Complaints of oppression by Antiochos of supposedly free cities, such as Lampsakos, were very much grist to the mill of the Roman anti-Antiochene policy as it was developing.
Also it may be noted that the Keltic diaspora which stretched from Gaul to Asia were apparently in contact with each other and with the original Keltic homeland, just as had been the case back in the days of the first invasions of Asia, and just as the Greek cities and their colonial offshoots were.
In Thrace Antiochos came into contact with a Galatian people, from whom he recruited some troops.18 He also contacted the cities along the coast of the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea from Lysimacheia in the Chersonese to Odessos and Kallatis on the Black Sea, establishing his suzerainty over them, and supplying political and economic support. These included the cities recently freed from the Tylis kingdom’s oppressions. It would seem that, as suspected in the case of Attalos I’s Aigosages, and those hired by Antiochos, there were still Galatian warbands based in Thrace two decades after the end of the Tylis kingdom – or perhaps they were survivors of that kingdom’s destruction. Alternatively the Galatians he recruited came from the Scordisci state, and action which will certainly have alerted Rome to his political range of action, and which will have certainly been interpreted as a menace.19
The result of the mission of Hegesias to Gaul was a letter of recommendation to the Tolistobogii in Asia. This is the first indication for forty years that the Asian Galatians were being drawn into wider affairs. For that proved they had been the most peaceable of Asian states. More important in the wider scheme of things, this was a straw in the wind which would within a few years bring Antiochos into a disastrous war with Rome, and the Galatians in Asia likewise, but separately. This was Antiochos’ doing; there is no real indication that Rome wanted a war, though it was certainly becoming apprehensive about his power, but Antiochos intervened in Greece in 192 to overthrow the political settlement which Rome had imposed at the end of its latest Macedonian War (in 196). In retaliation Rome took the part of the three cities on the Asian coast, including Lampsakos, which had objected vocally to being under Antiochos’ authority.
For the decisive campaign Antiochos brought up an army which was much smaller than he was able to produce for his wars against Ptolemy; why he so limited his force is difficult to understand; it may have been that he underestimated Rome’s military, or that the conflict was taking place on the very far western border of his empire, or that he feared a renewed war with Ptolemy behind his back, though it may actually have been simple over-confidence. But he did reinforce his own army with 5500 Galatian mercenaries,20 recruited presumably from the Asian Galatians, though there is no evidence for their origin and some may have been those he had recruited while in Thrace or from the Scordisci. The cavalry Livy describes as ‘Gallo-Greek’, which means Asian Galatians; the infantry therefore may have been recruited in Thrace. (Gauls from Italy, who were being conquered by Rome at the time, would no doubt have been willing to serve.) In the crisis of the Roman invasion of Asia, the Galatian states took Antiochos’ side, as did Galatia’s eastern neighbour King Ariarathes IV of Kappadokia. No doubt the Asian Galatians knew perfectly well Roman attitudes to Gauls, and that this would surely transfer into a similar dislike of Galatians. There was one Galatian exception, a chief called Eposognatos, who was probably of the Tolistobogii tribe.21 His motive seems to have been to secure some sort of authority for himself over the tribe, using Roman help; in the event the ploy failed.
The assumption of Roman enmity was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The participation of the Galatians, either as mercenaries, or more likely officially as a state ally of Antiochos, certainly earned them the enmity of the Roman commander, the consul Cn. Manlius Vulso, who took over the legions in Asia after the defeat of Antiochos’ army at Magnesia. It seems probable, though Livy does not specifically state it, that the Gallo-Greek cavalry were an official force sent out by the Galatian states. There is some doubt because Livy does state clearly that the Kappadokian contingent had been sent by the king, and he seems to make that a contrast. Maybe the Gallo-Greeks were partly mercenary.
This was, in a sense, a personal expedition by Vulso, for he does not seem to have had any official authorization for it from Rome; on the other hand, a Galatian force had taken part in the war on Antiochos’ side, so they were Roman enemies. Vulso had arrived in Asia after the main fighting was over, and was therefore faced by a long wait in idleness while the peace agreement was discussed and ratified by the Roman Senate. Inactivity was anathema where glory and riches were possible. He persuaded the soldiers to accept the new campaign, no doubt after a preliminary campaign of persuasion amongst the officers. He held out the prospect of loot, and the traditional enmity of Rome for the wild Kelts was emphasized. Whatever doubts there may have been as to the official nature of the Galatians was ignored. The soldiers cheered him.22
The approach to Galatia was not easy, since the truce with Antiochos prohibited the Roman army from operating in some areas, and the king’s son Seleukos was watching carefully to detect any breach of the truce terms. They did, however, allow the army to march through other regions which had been neutral, or were Seleukid enemies. On the road Vulso extracted sums of money from a variety of cities, money clearly needed to purchase supplies for his forces; these contributions are classified as ‘bribes’ in the historians’ accounts, and the Roman army’s march must have seemed rather more like a campaign of extortion to the victims, the sort of predatory march traditionally attributed to Galatians, though the alternative might have been to sack the city.23
The Galatians themselves became Vulso’s victims in part because they had not been included in the truce between Rome and Antiochos, which was negotiated after the Battle of Magnesia. Why they (and the Kappadokians) were excluded we do not know. It may have been forgetfulness by Antiochos, though this is hardly likely; Vulso in his speech to the soldiers had pointed out that they had supplied ‘auxiliaries’ to Antiochos, and he claimed that the Galatians had been the king’s ally. Vulso appears therefore to have interpreted the Galatians in Antiochos’ force as troops supplied by the Galatian states, and so the Galatians were king’s allies, which was surely correct. (Kappadokia was also omitted from the truce; it seems unlikely that Antiochos should have deliberately ignored their participation on his side; it was thus presumably at Roman insistence that these were omitted, as allies of the king, no doubt this was done with a view to later extortion – Ariarathes was judged to owe 600 talents, though this was reduced later to 300.)
The campaign of Vulso sheds some light on the Galatian political system. It seems clear that the chief Eposognatos spoke for nobody but himself and his immediate entourage, which will make him the chief of only a section of the Tolistobogii. He contacted Vulso with a plan, but could not carry it out. He is said to have been in contact earlier with Eumenes II, the new king of Pergamon (a Roman ally). Eposognatos was seeking to profit in the peace, and had refused to help Antiochos, but he was the only chieftain to take that attitude.24 This makes it clear that the rest of the Galatians were unwilling to join with Eumenes or with Rome, and that they maintained the alliance with Antiochos. When the alliance had been agreed is not known, but there had been numerous occasions when negotiations could have happened during the previous thirty years, and being Antiochos’ ally can explain the long peace of Galatia over that time.
Whatever agreement existed between the Galatian states and the Attalid kingdom had expired when Attalos I died in 197, so what Livy was reporting was a refusal by the Galatian state to agree to a new treaty when Eumenes II became king. This may have been in part due to a Galatian pursuit of neutrality during the previous decades, but more likely it was because they had concluded a treaty with Antiochos earlier, perhaps in 216, when he moved directly against Attalos. In the circumstances this would preclude them agreeing one with Eumenes, since the two kings were at enmity. The Roman attack was resented by all three Galatian states, so probably all three had been allies of Antiochos.
Eposognatos claimed to be able to keep the Tolistobogii out of the war with Vulso, though he was wholly unsuccessful; he presumably approached that particular tribe because he was a member of it, but the result also means that the Galatian states as a whole were anti-Roman. He reported to Vulso that they were preparing to resist the Roman invasion of their lands. The fact that Eposognatos could contemplate such a scheme suggests again the looseness of the independent Galatian states, in which it was possible for a single chieftain to act on his own, and with some plausibility to claim that it was possible to detach one of the three tribes from the communal resolve. This of course implies that the states could act independently – though, of course, he actually failed to persuade the Tolistobogii to do so – which in turn implies an earlier discussion and decision that the three states would act together. The annual Council meeting would have been the place for such discussions.
On the other hand, there seems to have been something of a disagreement between the chiefs of the three tribes over the defensive strategy. The Tektosages, under the command of a chief called Komboiomaros, occupied Mount Magaba, ten miles to the east of Ankyra; the Tolistobogii (commander Ortiagon) and the Trokmoi (commander Gaulotos) occupied a mountain to the west of Ankyra, which Livy calls Mount Olympos. To both places they had removed their families and their goods for refuge. It is notable that the Tektosages stood out from the rest, as they had done at the time of settlement, and as they had been late in joining the crossing to Asia. Note that the Tolistobogii removed themselves from their own lands in order to join with the Trokmoi, and that both strongholds were in the Tektosages territory. Note also the failure of all the Galatian states to defend any of their towns. Whatever differences the three tribes had in earlier cases of foreign policy, they were cooperating on this occasion.
Their disagreements on strategy were thus not that serious, for the Trokmoi entrusted their families to the Tektosages, while some of their warriors joined the Tolistobogii.25 The three were obviously allied. This, in fact, might have been a disagreement, but it could also have been a generally agreed plan of defence. The idea was that the Roman forces would find it difficult to assault the mountainous positions, which were well prepared with fortifications and supplies. The Galatian force occupied the higher parts, and in a siege the Romans might run out of supplies before the Galatians did.
It may be noted that, despite the Galatians’ supposed reputation for raiding and informal warfare, they were acting in a rational and disciplined manner, with a clear military plan in mind, and their forces remained under the commanders’ control all the time. Consultations beforehand had clearly taken place. The one omission, as Livy noted, was that they relied almost entirely on a passive defence, and had not equipped themselves with missile weapons, which Vulso had in large quantities – consisting, Livy explains, of javelins, skirmishers’ spears, arrows, and balls and sling stones.26
On the other hand, the Galatians fielded a powerful cavalry force – no doubt survivors in many cases of the Battle of Magnesia – whose role should have been to harass the Roman besiegers. It made a first contact at the Roman camp called Caballum, where Vulso occupied an existing ‘Galatian stronghold’ – presumably an oppidum. He was not expecting an attack, and the ‘advanced guards’, outside the Roman camp, were driven back by the Galatian charge. From inside the camp the Roman cavalry came out and drove the Galatians away, supposedly in disorder. This would seem to have been a Galatian reconnaissance, partly to locate the Roman force, and partly to see if they were alert. The Roman cavalry was fairly small in numbers, as usual – there had been 3000 at Magnesia – and if it was able to drive the Galatians away easily, so therefore the Galatian force involved was also small. Livy’s account is very obviously doctored to imply a Roman victory, and disguises Vulso’s discomfiture and lack of ability.
The Roman forces were encouraged by the prayers of a squad of galli, from the Kybele temple at Pessinos, who were reprising their generosity over the holy black stone several years before. And yet the Roman soldiers were perhaps surprised by the complete absence of the inhabitants at Gordion as the army moved steadily forward. They had evacuated the town; the Roman soldiers sacked it nevertheless; the town, which had developed peacefully as a normal Hellenistic town over the last century and a half (since Alexander’s visit), was not reoccupied for the next century. The Roman forces were joined by Attalos, the younger brother of King Eumenes, who brought with him 400 Pergamene cavalry to reinforce the defeated Roman horse, and the whole force camped in front of Mount Olympos. Vulso’s first reconnaissance of the enemy’s position, protected only by his cavalry force, was interrupted by a sortie of the Galatian cavalry, who were twice the number of his guard; the Galatians trounced the Roman/Attalid force, and drove them and Vulso helter-skelter back to the camp. Three days later a new reconnaissance was undertaken, this time with the whole Roman force as Vulso’s guard. A feasible approach route towards the Galatian camp on the mountain was located, and preparations were made for the assault; the Galatians replied at once by posting an advanced force of their own to block the route of approach.
The Roman army had been fighting virtually continuously for the previous thirty years, and this army had recently won a major battle. It was a mixed force of legionaries, light-armed auxiliaries, and cavalry, so capturing a mountain stronghold constituted no real difficulty and was well within its collective capabilities, requiring little or no command decisions. By contrast, the Galatians’ experience of fighting in that time constituted no more than small groups employed as mercenaries by other armies and a force of cavalry at Magnesia; the Galatian states had not been involved in any full-scale fighting between the war with Attalos in the 230s and that in alliance with Antiochos – and had been on the losing side on both occasions; it was not a contest between equally skilled forces.
Vulso picked out his light-armed troops, mainly non-Italian auxiliaries – Thracians and Trallians are named – and with their missile weapons they drove the men of the Galatian advanced force, minus their casualties, back into the main camp. The legionaries, the heavy infantry, came along behind the lights, climbing the mountain side more slowly after them, and they all took a rest in front of the Galatian camp. The Galatians came out from their camp for the fight, forming up before the rampart and the gates, but were driven back into the camp once again by the Roman light forces and their missiles, and these then bombarded the camp interior. The legionaries at last came forward to the assault, but the Galatians broke before the threat could be really launched, and fled out of the camp. Many died by falling over cliffs in getting down the mountain, or were picked off by the Roman and Attalid cavalry which had been left in the lower land.27 Large numbers were taken prisoner, to be sold as slaves later.
Casualties on the Roman side were not recorded, but were certainly few, since the troops had mainly fought at a distance from the enemy – perhaps there were more among the cavalry than the infantry; it is noticeable that Vulso used allied forces rather than Roman citizens in the front line. The Galatians are said to have suffered 40,000 dead or captured, but even Livy, normally credulous over numbers, is sceptical of such a figure. The loot was very satisfying; Vulso restrained the men under his direct command and directed them to pursue the fleeing enemy, but a detachment arrived later and collected much of the booty from the Galatians’ camp.
Vulso moved the army forward to Ankyra. Negotiations began with the Tektosages on Mount Magaba, but failed to bring a peace agreement, and in the process of making contact Vulso nearly fell into an ambush; his cavalry escort was again scattered and driven back.28 The Galatians – Tektosages and Trokmoi, so Livy says, though he had earlier claimed that the Trokmoi warriors had gone to join the Tolistobogii – left their camp on Mount Magaba, since it was now clear that a mountain defence meant defeat, and formed a battle line (50,000 strong, so Livy says, presumably getting his figures from Vulso’s report). Contingents of Kappadokians under King Ariarathes and Paphlagonians under King Morzius were present; the Galatian cavalry was placed on the flank, but was being used as infantry.29 Vulso used the same tactics as before. The Galatian line was bombarded by missiles from the lights, and this so disordered the line that the whole broke up. It was not necessary to launch the legions into the attack, as before.30
It is evident that Galatian warfare was not of the type which required close hand-to-hand fighting, but was perhaps more of the gesturing and informal type, perhaps with champions fighting in front of the main line; probably the infantry was effectively untrained, conscripted peasants, and the cavalry was no doubt formed from the aristocracy. Many of those fleeing the field discarded their weapons, or perhaps never had any. Galatian military tactics were thus in effect non-existent, as they did not get an opportunity to make a great charge. Their excellent cavalry was dismounted and placed as infantry on one flank, a waste of a most useful force, which could well have broken into the legionary squares if it had taken them in flank – it had happened to a legion at the Battle of Magnesia.
The overall, long-term strategy of the Galatians, on the other hand, had nearly worked. After the second battle – at Mount Magaba – when the Galatian envoys asked for peace, Vulso demanded they meet him in Ephesos to receive his terms, since winter on the high plateau was approaching. Had the fighting, or the stand-off, lasted much longer, the Roman forces might have been trapped by the winter snows, so prefiguring what actually happened to Corbulo’s forces two and a half centuries later.
Vulso had been careful at the first battle to make a serious attempt to secure the booty from the Galatian camp, but failed; he was more successful in the second battle, since no fighting took place at the Galatians’ base. They had apparently gathered much of their treasure together into the camp, and Vulso greedily examined it. Livy claims, perhaps eventually from the words of the boastful Vulso, that it amounted to all the loot gathered by the Galatians in their raids, but Livy does not know a great deal about the Galatians, nor it seems did his main source, Polybios. His description of the booty simply claims it had been gathered over ‘many years’.31
The Galatians had displayed staggeringly inept military tactics in the fighting against Vulso’s army. Any group which had experience at raiding, which was necessarily a process demanding forethought, care, and a grasp of tactics, would never have allowed themselves to be locked up, separately, on a couple of mountains, when they had an effective cavalry arm, some of which were dismounted for the last battle – or to fail to supply themselves with the most obvious weapons; if they fought from behind ramparts, missile weapons, such as the Romans used, were the most obvious weapons of defence.32 It all is further evidence that the Galatian states had been peaceable and had renounced raiding.
In the event the peace treaty was delayed and was finally made at a meeting at Lampsakos, while Vulso, having discussed the matter with King Eumenes, was on his way back to Rome. This took place, therefore, after the wider peace settlement imposed at the meeting at Apameia which dealt with all Asia Minor except the Galatians, and was a separate agreement from it. The terms were actually a treaty between Eumenes and the chiefs of the ‘Gauls’, and consisted simply of an agreement to keep the peace.33 They included a curious clause that the Galatians should cease ‘wandering about with arms’, which is usually taken to mean that they should stop raiding, though it is hardly a good description of such mercenaries, but since they had not indulged in raiding for decades, it may actually have been an attempt to prevent them enlisting as mercenaries – a misunderstanding of recent history in Asia by the Romans seems also likely. It would seem to have been the practice, therefore, of the men seeking employment, to move from one potential employer to the next. Such a prohibition is unlikely to have succeeded, and the Romans will have made no attempt to enforce such terms.
The Roman involvement in the treaty was perfunctory at best; one has the impression that Vulso was primarily interested in the booty he could acquire. As a peace treaty it was careless and without effect. By the treaty Eumenes’ relations with Galatia were restored to the position which had obtained under Attalos I until 197. Eumenes, having acquired the former Seleukid lands in Asia Minor, succeeded to the position of Antiochos Hierax, Akhaios, and Antiochos III – and his predecessor’s (Attalos I) brief conquest in the 220s. After all this repeated change of rule it is not surprising to find that the Roman diktat at the peace treaty was disputed with vigour by all those except the Attalid king. It was a recipe for repeated warfare.