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GALATIA
GALATIA
Minor by Pompey in 64 B.C., Galatia was made a Roman client-State. Three chiefs (tetrarchs) were appointed, one for each tribe, of whom the ablest and most ambitious, Ueiotarus, the friend of Cicero {ad Fam. viii. 10, ix. 12, xv. 1, 2, 4), contrived to seize tiie territories of tlie others, and, in spite of the hostility of Julius Ciesar, ultimately got him- self recognized as king of all Galatia. He died in 40 B.C., and four years later his dominions were bestowed by Mark Antony on Amyntas, the Roman client-king of Pisidia, who had formerly been the secretary of Deiotarus. This brave and sagacious Gaul, ' whose career was in many points parallel to that of Herod in Palestine' (H. von Soden, Hist, of Early Christian Lit., Eng. tr., 1906, p. 59 f.), transferred his allegiance from Antony to Augustus after Actium, and became the chief instrument in establishing the Pax Romana in southern Asia Minor. Having overthrown Antipater the robber- chief, he added Derbe and Laranda to his do- minions, but lost his life in an attempt to subdue tiie Homanades of Isauria. Galatia then ceased to be a sovereign State, and was incorporated in the Roman Empire (in 25 B.C.).
Ca>sar {Bell. Gall. vi. 16) says of the Western Gauls, ' Natio est omnis Gallorum admodum dedita religionibus.' But the faith which the invaders of Asia brought with them did not live long in the new environment. The un warlike Phrygians whom they subdued were in one respect inflexible, and, as in so many instances, ' victi victoribus leges dederunt.' If the Phr^-gian religion, with its frenzy of devotion, its weird music, its orgiastic dances, its sensuous rites, made a profound impres- sion even upon the cultured Greeks, one need not wonder that the simple Gallic bai'barians were fascinated by the cult of Cybele, and that their chiefs were soon found by the side of the native rulei-s in the great temple of Pessinus. There ' the priests were a sort of sovereigns and derived a large revenue from their otiice' (Strabo, Xll. v. 3). When the old warlike spirit of the Gauls languished, as it naturally did after the establishment of a peaceful provincial government, the two races gradually approximated in other things than re- ligion, but a long time was needed for their com- plete amalgamation. ' In spite of their sojourn of several hundred years in Asia Minor, a deep gulf still separated these Occidentals from the Asiatics' (Mommsen, op. cit. i. 338). Even in the 4tli cent, the far-travelled Jerome found at Ancyra, along- side of Greek, a Celtic dialect differing little from what he had heard in Treves (Preface to Comment- ary on Galatians).
The province Galatia included the greater part of the wide territory once ruled by Amyntas, viz. Galatia proper (the country of the three Galatian tribes), part of Phrygia (including Antioch and Iconium), Pisidia, Isauria, and part of Lycaonia (with Lystra and Derbe). For nearly a century Galatia was the eastern frontier province, and every fresh annexation to it marked the progress of the Empire in that direction.
Paphlagonia was added in 5 B.C., Auiasia and Gazeloiiitis in 2 B.C., Komana Pontina (forming with Amasia the district of Pontus Galaticus [Ptolemy, v. vi. 3]) in a.d. 34, and Pontus Polemoniacus (the Ititigdom of Polemon ii. [Ptolemy, v. vi. 4]) in A.D. 63. The south-eastern part of the province was somewhat contracted in A.D. 41 by the ^ift of a slice of Lycaonia, including Laranda, to Antiochus of Commagene (called after him Lycaonia Antiochiana), so that Derbe became the frontier town and customs' station. Ptolemy defines the province in his Geug. V. 4, and Pliny in his UN v. 140, 147.
Antioch and Lystra {qq.v.) were made Roman colonies by Augustus ; Iconinm and Derbe (<75'.i;.) were remodelled in Roman style by Claudius, and named Claud-Iconium and Claudio-Derbe. In these cities, planted in the most civilized and ))ro- gressive part of central Asia Minor— the region
traversed by the great route of traffic and inter- course between Ephesus and Syrian Antioch — many Greeks, Romans, and Jews swelled the native Phrygian and Lyc.aonian populace.
The meaning of ' Galatia ' is one of the questiones vcxata: of NT exegesis. Are ' the churches of Galatia' (Gal 1- ; cf. I Co 16^) to be sought in the comparatively small district occupied by tlie Gauls, about Ancyra, Pessinus, and Tavium, or in the great Roman province of Galatia, which included Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe? In the absence of definite information, we have to make probability our guide, and to the present writer the balance of evidence appears to favour the South Galatian hypothesis. The chief difficulty is created by the simultaneous use of a Roman and a non- Roman nomenclature. It was the policy of the Imperial government to stamp an artificial unity upon all tiie diverse parts of a province, often with but little regard to historical traditions and local sentiments. The old territorial designations were of course still popularly used, but among all mIio looked at things from the Imperial standpoint — e.g. the Roman governor, the coloni of cities founded by the Romans, the incolce of semi- Roman towns, and tlie Roman historians — such terms as Galatia and Galatoe, Asia and Asiani, Africa and Afri, denoted the province and the people of the province.