Galatia
(
Γαλατία). A country of Asia Minor, composed of parts of
Phrygia and Cappadocia, and bounded on the west, south, and southeast by those countries, and
on the northeast, north, and northwest by Pontus, Paphlagonia, and Bithynia. It derived its
name from its inhabitants, who were Gauls that had invaded and settled in Asia Minor at
various periods during the third century B.C. They speedily overran all Asia Minor within the
Taurus, and exacted tribute from its various princes; but Attalus I. gained a complete victory
over them (B.C. 230), and compelled them to settle down within the limits of the country
thenceforth called Galatia, and also, on account of the mixture of Greeks with the Celtic
inhabitants which speedily took place, GraecoGalatia and Gallograecia. The people of Galatia
adopted to a great extent Greek habits and manners and religious observances, but preserved
their own language, so that even in the fourth century A.D. Jerome says that the speech of the
Galatians resembles the local dialect of the Treviri in Gaul. They retained also their
political divisions and forms of government. They consisted of three great tribes —
the Tolistobogi, the Trocmi, and the Tectosages—each subdivided into four parts,
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Coin of Galatia, with the head of Roman emperor.
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called by the Greeks
τετραρχίαι. At the head of
each of these twelve tetrarchies was a chief or tetrarch. At length one of the tetrarchs,
Deiotarus, was rewarded for his services to the Romans in the Mithridatic war by the title of
king, together with a grant of Pontus and Armenia Minor; and after the death of his successor,
Amyntas, Galatia was made by Augustus a Roman province (B.C. 25). Its only
important cities were: in the southwest, Pessinus, the capital of the Tolistobogi; in the
centre, Ancyra, the capital of the Tectosages; and in the northeast, Tavium, the capital of
the Trocmi. From the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians, we learn that the Christian
churches in Galatia consisted in great part of Jewish converts. See Thierry,
Hist. des
Gaulois.