GALATIA. - Region inhabited by the Galatians. From Galatia properly so called the name passed to the Roman province established at the death of Amyntas, last king of the Galatians (36-25 B.C.). Galatia properly so called was bounded by Bithynia and Paphlagonia to the north, by Pontus and Cappadocia to the east, by Lycaonia to the south and by Phrygia to the west. As a Roman province it further comprised part of Phrygia, Lycaonia, Pisidia and Isauria, with the exception of some stretches annexed to Cappadocia and Pamphylia.
Galatia owes its name (Γαλατία) to those Celtic tribes (κελταί & κελταί, Γαλάται) which, in the 3rd century B.C., pushed into the heart of Asia Minor, bringing considerable trouble to the native peoples. The tribe of the Trocmi gathered around Tavium, on the frontier of Cappadocia and Pontus, the Tolistobogii at Pessinus in Phrygia, the Tectosages at Ancyra. In 189 B.C. they were defeated by the consul Manlius Vulso, then by Eumenes II in about 183 and in 168. For the loyalty shown toward Rome in the third war against Mithridates (74-64 B.C.) they received from Pompey a king of their own in the person of Deiotarus (64-40 B.C.), tetrarch of the Tolistobogii; indeed they were able, particularly under Amyntas, to extend their dominion over a good part of those southern territories, which were later incorporated into the imperial province of Galatia.
The distinction between the territory occupied by the Galatians (τὸ καινὸν τῶν Γαλάτων) and the Roman province of Galatia is important for the much-debated question of the recipients of the Epistle to the Galatians (v.).
Profane writers sometimes use the name of Galatia to indicate the whole Roman province. More often, however, they distinguish between the province and the territory occupied by the true Galatians. So too do the inscriptions that have come to light thus far, with the exception of one found at Iconium (Corp. Inscr. Graec., 3991). The inscription of Antioch of Pisidia (CIL. II, 291; Suppl., 6818) speaks of the « Legatus provinciae Galatiae, Pisidiae, Phrygiae, Lycaoniae, Isauriae, Paphlagoniae, Ponti Galatici, Ponti Polemoniani, Armeniae ». On a milestone discovered in 1861, an official document of the times of Diocletian, one reads: « Caesenius Gallia, legatus pro praetore... visa provinciarum Galatiae, Cappadociae, Ponti, Pisidiae, Paphlagoniae, Lycaoniae, Armeniae minoris... » (cf. G. Perrot, p. 101 ff.). Other inscriptions in F. W. K. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci inscriptiones selectae, II, Leipzig 1905, no. 535; E. Michon, in Revue biblique, 14 (1917), pp. 208-17.
From the texts of Acts one can scarcely doubt that by Galatia is meant the territory inhabited by the Galatians, rather than the Roman province. In Acts 16:6 and 18:23 the Galatian territory (Γαλατίαν χώρα) is placed alongside the Phrygian, and therefore distinguished from it, which was in part included in the Roman province of Galatia. In Acts 16:6 Paul and his companions, among whom was Timothy, recently taken on at Lystra (Acts 16:2 ff.), find themselves in the southern territory of the Roman province of Galatia; and to have them pass into the Phrygian and Galatian one means speaking in an ethnographic rather than an administrative sense. Elsewhere too Acts follows this rule in speaking of Pamphylia (13:13), of Pisidia (13:14) and of Lycaonia (14:6).
For St. Paul the matter is less clear; hence the question of the destination of the Epistle to the Galatians is still debated.
Galatia is also mentioned in 1 Macc. 8:2 and in 2 Tim. 4:10; but, since the Greeks translated the Latin Gallia also with Γαλατία, in both texts it could be a question of Gaul; and the peoples conquered by the Romans according to 1 Macc. 8:2 could be the inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul, subjugated in 183 B.C.
Bibliography6 works
Tendorico da Castel San Pietro