GALATIA, ga-lfilshl-a. (Lat., from Gk. raXa Tla). The ancient name of a portion of Asia Minor ; so called from the Gauls (Gk. rcadraL) who set tled there. Early in the third century n.c. Celtic armies appeared in the Balkan Peninsula, and though driven from Greece by their defeat at Delphi, about n.c. 278, continued to terrify Thrace. About B.C. 277 the first bands entered Asia Minor on the invitation of Nicomedes, King of Bithynia, whose service they at first entered. They were from three tribes—Tolisto bogi, Tectosages, and Trocmi. Of these, the first invaded iEolia and Ionia; the Tectosages, the interior; and the Trocmi, the coast lands of the Hellespont. Northern Phrygia and the border regions of Cappadocia were later conquered as a permanent home. Each of the three tribes was divided into four tetrarchies, and the twelve tetrarchs formed the supreme government, with a council of 400 as advisers. The Gauls did not settle in the cities, where the native population continued with but little' change, and serving as mercenaries in the armies of the Greek kings of the East, also made' the neighboring territories pay tribute to escape their ravages. A succes sion of defeats at the hands of Attalus I. of Pergamum, about B.C. 235, seems to have checked their incursions and confined them to their later boundaries between Bithynia and Paphlagonia on the north, Pontus on the east, Cappadocia, Ly caonia on the south, and Phrygia on the west. Having sided with Antiochus against the Ro mans, the Galatians were severely punished by the Consul Manlius, B.C. 189. They sided with Pompeius against Mithridates, and the Romans gave one of the tetrarchs, Del'otarus, the title of king. After the' death of his successor, Amyn tas, Augustus made the country a Roman prov ince, divided under Theodosius into Galatia prima, with the capital Ancyra, and Galatia se cunda, with the capital Pessinus. The majority
of the Gauls of Galatia—probably those of the country districts—retained their old Celtic lan guage as late as the time of Jerome (fourth cen tury), who says that they spoke the same dia lect as the people about Treves; it is certain, however, that the ruling classes, like the original inhabitants, used Greek. Galatia was twice visit ed by the Apostle Paul (Acts xvi. 6; xviii. 23). Just what part of the province was visited is not clear. In the latter passage what is meant is evidently the Lycaonian part of the Roman province Galatia, in which were the cities Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium, and also, probably, the Pisidian part, in which Antioch belonged. In xvi. 6 the meaning is more uncertain, since we do not know just where the missionaries turned northward; but here also it is impossible that old Galatia proper is meant. Probably the churches of Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, founded by Paul on his first mission ary tour (Acts xiii. - xiv.), were among the churches to which the Epistle to the Galatians was addressed. In so addressing his letter, Paul evidently had in mind the relation of his readers to the Empire, not their various ethnic affinities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Droysen, Geschichte des HetBibliography. Droysen, Geschichte des Het- lenis;mus, vol. iii. (Gotha, 1877) ; Van Gelder, Galatarum Res in Grcecia et Asia Gestw (Am sterdam, 1888) ; Sthhelin, Geschichte der klein asiatischen Galater (Basel, 1897) • Holm, His tory of Greece, vol. iv. (London, 1898) ; Perrot, Exploration archeologique de la Galatie et de la Bithynie (Paris, 1863-72) ; Ramsay, Historical Geography of Asia Minor (London, 1890) ; Church, in The Roman Empire (London, 1893) ; Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire (New York, 1887) ; Hermann and Puchstein, Reisen in Klcinasien (Berlin, 1893) ; Texier, Asie Mineure (Paris, 1835).