GALAZIA. – Region inhabited by the Galatians. From G. properly so called, the name passed to the Roman province established upon the death of Aminta, the last king of the Galatians (36–25 B.C.). G. properly so called was bounded by Bithynia and Paphlagonia to the north, Pontus and Cappadocia to the east, Lycaonia to the south, and Phrygia to the west. As a Roman province it also included part of Phrygia, Lycaonia, Pisidia, and Isauria, with the exception of certain areas annexed to Cappadocia and Pamphylia.
G. owes its name (Γαλατία) to those Celtic tribes (κελταί & κελταί, Γαλάται) who, in the 3rd century B.C., advanced into the heart of Asia Minor, causing considerable trouble to the indigenous peoples. The tribe of the Troemi gathered around Tavium, on the frontier of Cappadocia and Pontus; the Tolistobogi at Pessinus in Phrygia; the Tectosages at Ancyra. In 189 B.C. they were defeated by the consul Manlius Vulso, then by Eumenes II around 183 and in 168. Because of the loyalty they had shown toward Rome in the third war against Mithridates (74–64 B.C.), Pompey gave them their own king in the person of Deiotarus (64–40 B.C.), tetrarch of the Tolistobogi; indeed, especially under Aminta, they were able to extend their dominion over a considerable part of those southern territories which were subsequently incorporated into the imperial province of G.
The distinction between the territory occupied by the Galatians (τὸ καινὸν τῶν Γαλάτων) and the Roman province of G. is important for the disputed question of the recipients of the Epistle to the Galatians (v.).
Profane writers sometimes use the name G. to designate the entire Roman province. More often, however, they distinguish between the province and the territory occupied by the true Galatians. The same is true of the inscriptions that have so far come to light, with the exception of one discovered at Iconium (Corp. Inser. Graec., 3991). The inscription from Antioch of Pisidia (CIL. II, 291; Suppl., 6818) speaks of the “Legatus provinciae Galatiae, Pisidiae, Phrygiæ, Lycaoniae, Isauriae, Paphlagoniae, Ponti Galatici, Ponti Polemoniani, Armeniæ”. On a milestone discovered in 1861, an official document from the time of Diocletian, one reads: “Caesenius Gallia, legatus pro praetora... visa provinciarum Galatiae, Cappadociae, Ponti, Pisidiae, Paphlagoniae, Lycaoniae, Armeniæ minoris...” (cf. G. Perrot, p. 101 ff.). Other inscriptions are found 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, it can scarcely be doubted that G. means the territory inhabited by the Galatians, rather than the Roman province. In Acts 16:6 and 18:23, the Galatian territory (Γαλατίαν χόρα) is placed alongside that of Phrygia, and is therefore distinguished from it, although part of Phrygia was included in the Roman province of G. In Acts 16:6, Paul and his companions, including Timothy, recently taken on at Lystra (Acts 16:2 ff.), are in the southern territory of the Roman province of G.; and having them pass into the Phrygian and Galatian region means speaking in an ethnographical rather than an administrative sense. Elsewhere too Acts follows this usage when speaking of Pamphylia (13:13), Pisidia (13:14), and Lycaonia (14:6).
For St Paul the matter is less clear; hence the question of the destination of the Epistle to the Galatians remains under debate.
G. is also mentioned in I Macc. 8:2 and in II Tim. 4:10; but, since the Greeks translated the Latin Gallia also as Γαλατία, both passages may concern Gaul; and the peoples conquered by the Romans according to I Macc. 8:2 may have been the inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul, subjugated in 183 B.C.
Tendorico da Castel San Pietro