Review of 'Galatian Victories and Other Studies into the Agency and Identity of the Galatians in the Hellenistic and Early Roman Period', ed. Altay Coşkun, (Peeters, Leuven 2022) (original) (raw)
2024, Studia Celtica Fennica 22
This eagerly awaited volume, edited by one of the greatest authorities on ancient Anatolian Galatae, brings together a well-thought-through and thematically varied selection of chapters originally stemming from workshops and collaborations taking place in the 2010s. It is difficult to envision anybody better qualified to edit such a collection than Altay Coşkun, who in addition to his meticulous and tremendously valuable Introduction contributes to the book two chapters on different aspects of Galatian studies. This just underlines the breadth and quality of Coşkun's own research record: complementing his narrower specialisation in Galatian matters is his position as one of the leading scholars on Seleucid history. The need to cast new light into the study of Galatia has been fairly pressing for some time. The studies of Karl Strobel in the 1990s and the early 2000s, as well as Stephen Mitchell's numerous contributions over much of the same time period, laid a very solid basis for the better understanding of this still rather understudied Anatolian region and its history. 1 Mitchell's Anatolia: Land, Men and Gods in Asia Minor (1993; see pp. 8-9 in Coşkun's introductory chapter in this volume) remained for many decades the definitive work on Anatolian history from the Hellenistic to the Early Byzantine period. Generally, Mitchell -who sadly died in January 2024 -sought to foreground local agency in the processes of Romanization and cultural integration in the Galatian area; in so doing, he paid close attention to local inscriptions and settlements, though he may have occasionally overstated the 'Celtic' character of some local artefact assemblages and material evidence. Strobel's work, on the other hand, leaned rather heavily in terms of the identity and ethnicity of the Galatians on the 'ethnogenesis' framework (especially in Strobel 1991(especially in Strobel , 1994(especially in Strobel and 1996)), preferring to see an overarching ethnic identity coalescing around a combined nucleus of Celtic elements and local Anatolian traditions from rather early on in the Hellenistic era. Strobel also very valuably drew the attention to the preconceived, rhetorical and stereotype-laden way in which the ancient sources wrote about Galatians, and the influence that the broader Hellenistic polities had on the Galatian groups. To a degree, neither of these great scholars put much emphasis on the agency of the Galatians themselves.
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Imafronte, 2024
The Gallic invasion of Greece in 280/279 BC left a deep mark in the collective memory of the Greeks. From then on, they represented the Celts as the stereotypical 'barbarians'-primitive, wild, violent and without any culture of their own. As the newcomers had established permanent kingdoms in Thrace and Phrygia, however, both sides had to learn how to deal with each other. The paper asks how the rulers of the Galatians on both sides of the Bosporus handled this challenge and how this influenced their own identity. To go beyond existing research, the analysis draws both on the literary Greek sources and the coinage which the Eastern Celts started to produce in the 3 rd century BC. It will be shown that the Galatian elites quickly adapted to the political practices of the Hellenistic world and confidently asserted their own place within it, mixing their own customs with Greek and local (Thracian, Anatolian) elements to create a unique blend of identity.
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2017
This thesis explores Greek and Roman representations of the Hellenistic Galatians with a focus on how the concepts of the ‘barbarian’ and ‘Hellenisation’ influenced the creation, development and persistence of perceptions. Evidence for self-portrayals among the Galatian elite, and how an active approach to Hellenisation enabled greater integration into the political and cultural spheres of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, are also addressed. Part One treats the place of the Galatians in previous scholarship and elucidates terminological issues related to their study. Part Two focuses on stereotypical responses to the Galatians in Greek and Roman sources and explores how the concept of the barbarian influenced the relationship between the Galatians and those behind the sources. Part Three explores evidence for more nuanced and less stereotypical perceptions of the Galatians in the sources and highlights the importance of the Hellenised Galatian elite in influencing these responses. Part Four puts the arguments and findings of the previous sections into practice to show how modern scholarship can be adversely affected when it fails to appreciate the intricacies behind the Galatians’ image. Underpinning each of these four sections is the argument that a new picture of the Galatians emerges from the sources when stereotypes are rejected and the complexity of Greek and Roman responses is acknowledged. Chapter 1 addresses the difficult question of ‘what is a Galatian?’ as well as other terminological issues. It provides a brief overview of the Celtic debate and locates the Galatians within this controversy. Chapter 2 explores the concepts of Hellenisation and ethnic identity and how these concepts will be employed throughout this present thesis. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the image of barbarian that comes through in epigraphic and sculptural materials from the third century BC, while chapter 5 looks at how the Galatians have been presented in a stereotypical manner in textual sources from the first century BC onwards. Chapter 6 explores epigraphic, sculptural and textual sources that present a more complex view of the Galatians in a similar context to those sources discussed in Part Two. Chapters 7 and 8 then explore the characters of Deiotarus and Ortiagon; reveal how active Hellenisation enabled the Galatians to become more culturally and politically integrated into the Hellenistic and Roman worlds; and illustrate how the sources could be sensitive to such endeavours. Chapter 9 presents a case study which elucidates the issues discussed throughout this thesis. In modern scholarship, the Galatians have often been described as a nation of mercenaries due to a reliance on more stereotypical portrayals in select sources. Chapter 9 shows that when they are viewed as people with more agency, their activities can instead be interpreted as those of allies. It also addresses how approaches like this fit into current trends in ancient history, especially efforts to see peripheral and marginalised groups in a more sympathetic way.
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This dissertation attempts to answer the research question: who were the Galatians? It focuses on their identity over the period when they are known to history, from about 279 BCE to the sixth or eighth century CE. Chapter 1 presents the research question and the four subsidiary questions, which mirror the order and structure of the following four chapters. This is followed by a brief historiography of the Galatians, and justification for the dissertation. The concept of identity is then discussed, and a model that recognises identity as containing both sameness and difference or otherness is adopted for the study. The varying uses of the word ‘Celt’ are discussed. The Celtic invasions of Greece are then described as a prelude to their entry to Asia Minor as mercenaries. Chapter 2 concerns the arrival of the Galatians in Asia Minor, their settlements, socio-political organisation, religion, and relations with the Romans. Contemporary sources are plentiful, supplemented by modern arc...
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2002
Bu makalenin amacı, GalatlaRINn Hellenistik çağ Küçük Asya'sında oynadıklaRI tarihi rolün ortaya konulması ve konuya ilişkin antik kaynaklarla: modern literatürde bulunan karmaşık bilgilerin sistemleştirilerek anlaşılır bir hale getirilebilmesidir. Çalışma zaman bakımından, Galatların İÖ. 280 yılında Hellas'ı istilasıyla İÖ. 25 yılında Roma Galatia Eyaleti'nin kuruluşu arasında geçen süreyle sınırlanmıştır. Bu zamansal sınırlamanın nedeni ise, İÖ. 25 yılında Galatia Bölgesi'nin ve Galatların siyasal bağımsızlığının son bulması ve bundan sonra bölgeye ve kavme ilişkin gelişmelerin Roma eyaletler tarihi çerçevesinde incelenmesi zorunluluğudur. Mekan açısından ise, Galatların Küçük Asya'daki işleri ağırlıklı olmakla birlikte, konuyla ilgili genel bir perspektif sunularak, Galat tarih ve kültürünün temel noktalarının kavranmasını sağlayabilmek için herhangi bir sınırlama yapılmamıştır. Böylelikle okuyucuya Anadolu Tarihi'nde önemli bir fonksiyona sahip olan Galat kavimleri hakkında genel bir bakış açısı sunulmaya ve Galatlar hakkında şimdiye kadar bilinenler -antik kaynaklar, epigrafik, arkeolojik, nümismatik ve modern literatür bilgileri ışığında sistematik olarak bir araya getirilmeye çalışılmıştır.
The impact of the Galatians in Asia Minor
In order to understand Asia Minor and the consequences of the Galatian settlement in this area we need to look at various aspects and regions within what is now modern Turkey. We also need to look at the Galatians as a group and their arrival to Greece and Asia Minor...
Imbued with Greek tradition, exposed to the influence of the Ionian culture of Asia Minor, and occupying a strategic position, the city of Halikarnassos was chosen by Maussollos as the new capital of the Satrapy of Caria and is often regarded as the core center of the satrap’s Hellenizing policy. Looking at the city’s institutions and at its 4th-century artistic and architectural achievements, studies have emphasized Halikarnassos’s progression towards complete Hellenization and challenged the claim that the Hekatomnids aimed at promoting a shared feeling of Carian identity. Yet some aspects of the city’s social and cultural history suggest that the distinction between “Greek” and “Carian” was in fact extremely nuanced and oscillating: not only was Halikarnassos characterized by a vivid ethnic and cultural mixture, but, as the epigraphic and literary tradition reveals, it is the civic community that ultimately chose whether to present itself as “Carian” or “Greek” or the both together, according to contingent political and cultural factors.
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