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Studies in the Roman Province Galatia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

William Mitchell Ramsay
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A. Nature of the Roman Administration: 25 B.C. to A.D. 65—The province Galatia is a singularly obscure subject. Marquardt's chapter contains little information, because little was known; but what he states is correct, and he makes few, if any, unfounded or dangerous assertions. He knows and mentions the senatorial governor (praetorius leg. Aug. pr. pr.), the equestrian proc. Galatiae, and about the name of the province he expresses no hesitation: as a province of the Empire it was simply Galatia. Inherited by Augustus from Amyntas, the last king, it bore as the realm of a king the unifying name Galatia; no other name was possible, and this name was continued by the policy of Augustus. A friend points out to me that the idea of inheritance of the realm Galatia was only a sort of political or legal fiction; and that the relation of the Emperor to such client-kings as Amyntas was one of absolute power on his side and of absolute servitude on the other. That is true. Augustus bestowed authority and title on those pseudo-kings; he could at any moment resume what he had bestowed; and on the death of any of them the complete and absolute authority reverted to him. The question, however, is under what forms Augustus chose to clothe his absolute lordship. He was a master of the art of disguising hard unlimited despotism under legal or religious forms, and in this case the form was that of Will or Testament, as Strabo mentions. Augustus claimed to have inherited the realm of Amyntas in virtue of the latter's Will, and acted, after the latter's death, 25 B.C., as his heir (κληρονόος, heres). The Emperor must have accepted the inheritance formally within the legal interval, and treated his inheritance according to law as including the debts as well as the property of the deceased. It was not hereditas sine sacris. Augustus was bound to pay all obligations; and he paid in full.

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Research Article
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The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 12 , November 1922 , pp. 147 - 186
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Copyright © William Mitchell Ramsay1922. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 147 note 1 This article ought, in proper course, to have contained the text of the dedicatory inscriptions at the Hieron above Colonia Antiochea; but I found myself remote from books at Biskra in Jan. 1923, and could not write except what was clear in memory. I have added the references more exactly and the text of parts 1 and 3 of Domaszewski's inscription under Part IV : also Part V. I had hoped that the text of the dedicatory inscriptions would have been published long ago by Professor Calder; but his other duties have left him no leisure.

page 147 note 2 Needless difficulty has been caused to some recent scholars by the fact that Amyntas was appointed king of Pisidia along with Phrygia-towards-Pisidia (the names are often loosely used by Roman authorities), and afterwards succeeded Deiotarus or Castor in Galatia. As he is not expressly called ‘king of Galatia’ when this transference is described, some have thought that his first kingdom (if it was ‘kingdom’) determined his title and dignity, Strabo, however, unmistakably regards and describes him in his proper place as last king of Galatia. The fact that in a similar way Polemon I was made king or dynast of Cilicia Tracheiotis (Kietis, etc.), did not prevent him from ranking as king of Pontus and Bosporus on his later promotion to the rule of those greater lands. In fact, however, the idea of ‘king of a country’ is rather a modern intrusion. Those rulers were granted the dignity of ‘king,’ but not ‘king of a certain country.’ They were βασιλεῖς. They often proceeded to enlarge their realm of war; but their kingdom was simply the land where they exercised their despotic or royal authority.

page 148 note 1 While this was a form or fiction, it regulated procedure, and can rightly be used as determining time and order of events: i.e. it affords a basis for chronology.

page 148 note 2 Some detachments might be spared for a temporary purpose. Even the Syrian army could not be employed completely in the war; the peace of the province depended upon the presence of sufficient troops there always.

page 149 note 1 The relation was inconsistent with the spirit and the growth of Roman law; but Rome never sacrificed practical facts to logical consistency. Rome, in governing the East, governed according to Eastern nature, and did not pretend that Asiatics must be transformed into Occidentals by maintaining the dangerous sham that they must as soon as possible be made to live according to Western ideas and to exercise liberty and self-government, which they hated. ‘Liberty’ was dying in the West.

page 149 note 2 The first attempt to collect the evidence about the Orondian Estates near Sizma (Zizyma) was in C. R. 1905, p. 368 f. A.M.E.F. means Asia Minor Exploration Fund.

page 150 note 1 There is the most marked distinction in this respect between Narbonensis and the Tres Galliae. Even England was more thoroughly romanized than the three Gauls. The results are patent at the present day. Narbonensis, especially Provence, is ‘Latin.’ The ‘Tres Galliae’ are not ‘Latin,’ and dislike to be classed as ‘Latin.’ In the North and the West lies the strength of France.

page 150 note 2 Rostoffzeff interprets the ἔθνη) in the comprehensive early formula summing up the population of Asia provincia as the peoples still imperfectly hellenized; but among them there was no stubborn tribal feeling (Stud. z. Gesch. d. r. Kolonats p. 262).

page 150 note 3 The Gallic religion of Druidism was the only religion (except Christianity) which was proscribed by the Imperial policy. Claudius recognized the hostility and acted accordingly. All other religions enjoyed complete freedom under the Empire, which turned this freedom to its own uses. But the Gallic aristocracy learned early to adapt themselves to the native Anatolian religion and to govern under the guise of priesthood, and afterwards to accommodate themselves to the Imperial cult. A Gallic god in the third century A.D. (Anderson, J.H.S. 1910, p. 164) was called Zeus Boussourigios.

page 151 note 1 Isaurica, the land of the two large and strong townships (in Anatolian usage still only κῶμαι), must with Strabo be classed to Lycaonia, and distinguished from the later term Isauria (which Strabo does not use). In Cicero's time and use the Isaurican conventus had Iconium as its centre, while the Lycaonian conventus looked to Philomelion as its meeting-place. The editors of Cicero's letters mis-state the facts and misrepresent history in respect of those two conventus. Similarly Polybius and Diodorus (i.e. Hieronymus of Cardia) use only ‘Pisidike,’ not Pisidia.

page 153 note 1 Lycaonia was usually omitted and Galatic Phrygia subsumed under Pisidia.

page 153 note 2 An inscription of Pednelissos, found by an Italian expedition in 1919 or 1920, speaks of πόλις τῶν Γαλατῶν, a city of the Galatai, i.e. people of the province. Apollonia was a town of the Γαλάται Examples occur in Tacitus. The point need not be laboured.

page 154 note 1 This characteristic has been too little observed. It was not without reason that even the Lycaones are described as a warlike and intractable race. They include, it is true, the people of Isaurica, a hilly or even mountainous region; but the plains of Lycaonia and the Isaurican hills nourished what we must understand from Strabo as a racially identical people. In Lystra, a town of the hills, Lycaonian was spoken (Act. Apost. xiv).

page 155 note 1 It has been recognized and emphasized by Mommsen in respect of a Coan inscription that this intermediation of the governor's judgment was required before an appeal ‘to Caesar’ could go forward. Paton-Hicks Cos, no. 26: Mommsen, , Staatsr., ed. ii, vol. ii, pp. 258, 931Google Scholar.

page 155 note 2 Huebner, Hermes, vol. vii (I think).

page 155 note 3 He spoke of the corresponding officers of the province Asia, Asiarch and Highpriest of Asia. This identity has always seemed to me indubitable and inevitable. I corresponded with Lightfoot on this matter, revised his proofs, and learned much from him on this subject as on all others that he wrote about (Cumont, Rev. Ét. Gr. 1901, p. 138 f.).

page 156 note 1 Among the cities of the eastern provinces there was much competition for the title ‘First,’ but not every city could claim to be first. Magnesia was content to style itself ‘Seventh of Asia’; but Ephesos, Smyrna, Pergamos, all arrogated the title ‘First.’ So Nicomedia and Nicaea in Bithynia, Tarsus and Anazarbos in Cilicia, Amphipolis and Philippi in their region of Macedonia (Act. Apost. xvi. 12). Such titles were granted by the Emperor on the recommendation of his legatus. A rescript of Pius forbade unauthorized arrogation of the titles by the cities. Whether more than one person could be styled First of Galatia, on the analogy of city rivalry, is uncertain.

page 157 note 1 I may venture to quote J. -G. C. Anderson's approval of my statement of this principle of policy, on the margin of a proof of the inscription, when about to be published, J.H.S. 1918, pp. 140 and 144. The name of the governor is lost; but he clearly was acting immediately after ‘the king,’ i.e. Amyntas, had sought to conciliate the unruly Pisidian peoples by assigning certain disputed territories on the frontier of Phrygia and Pisidia to Pisidia. Roman policy restored these to the Greek city of Apollonia. The decision in each case was due to policy, not to considerations of antiquarian or historical right.

page 157 note 2 A coin of Ancyra Metropolis under Nero (Vaillant and Mionnet) cannot be authentic: it was probably misread by Vaillant.

page 157 note 3 I accept the usual opinion. Evidence is lacking; but the fact is probable, and the style of the communal coins favours it. I would, however, gladly find evidence for occasional meetings of the Koinon elsewhere; and, in fact, I.G.R.R. iii, 223 would be most naturally restored as the record of such a meeting at Pessinus; but the restoration is not inevitable, for the inscription is a mere fragment (well treated by Perrot).

page 158 note 1 No. 6592 in the Waddington collection (ed. Babelon) is attributed to Galatia, i.e. Ancyra, as we think rightly. Imhoof even attributes to Ancyra a coin of Galba, bearing the Emperor's name also on reverse [Kleinas. Mükzen, p. 495).

page 158 note 2 This is as incorrect as lex Iuliana for lex Iulia.

page 158 note 3 Mionnet gives a coin of Tiberius with the name of the governor Bassus. It is misread; probably Nerva is the emperor.

page 159 note 1 By error of Hamilton no. 442 or of the engraver the cognomen appears as Africanus. Hamilton is not likely to have made the error of adding a syllable; but he may have formed a theory, and unconsciously transformed Afri-nus into the familiar Afri-ca-nus.

page 159 note 2 Pessinus was more early hellenized than Ancyra. It long held its independence, and five of the ten priests in the governing collegium were of the old families and five were Gauls, according to the compromise agreed on during the second century B.C.

page 159 note 3 The epithet is a recognition of loyalty in the past and an anticipation of similar conduct in the future. One understands how much meaning lies in such an epithet when one thinks what a difference there would have been in Irish history, if Dublin had at any time during the reign of Queen Victoria been willing to accept the title ‘Victorian Dublin, or if there had ever been any such offer of recognition. The imperial policy was constructive.

page 160 note 1 This applies to the hellenized cities, but not to the peasantry, whose development was very different: We must await Rostoffzeff's promised Roman Imperial History before touching that side. The Empire rested on the cities, and was broken as they were broken. In the East it re-created itself.

page 160 note 2 Bardakome, revealed by an inscription of Dedeler, NE. from the railway station of Serai-iñi, was evidently the centre of the property of the great family that bore the name Bardas. It is still a common Anatolian custom to name a village after the owner of the property, and this name supplies the old local name. The older often returned and the new vanished as conditions changed.

page 162 note 1 ‘The Turkish Peasant of Anatolia,’ Quart. Review, 1918, p. 49.

page 162 note 2 Mionnet in one case adds ΔΑ (Dacicus) to the titles of Trajan, but his authority on a matter of reading is insufficient. This title would imply a later date.

page 162 note 3 Hadrian remodelled the Oecumenical Union of Dionysiac artists, with a religious, service (of course imperial religion), and held a meeting at Ancyra (A.E.M.O. 1885, p. 130, from a very incomplete copy).

page 162 note 4 About this time the great cities of the province named the governor on their coins: Tyana, Ancyra and Caesarea honoured Pomponius, Cybistra honoured Ruso, Caesarea and Ancyra honoured Neratius Pansa and Caesennius Callus (79–81). The only earlier case was Annius Afrinus at Iconium and Pessinus.

page 163 note 1 See A.E.M.O. 1885, p. 130 (I.G.R.R. iii, no. 210, cp. 202, 211) from a very incomplete copy. Ulpius Aelius Pompeianus was of South Galatia, and his father made a dedication at the Sanctuary of Mên Askaênos, at Antioch Pisid.

page 164 note 1 κληρονομία according to Strabo, xii, 8, 14, p. 577.

page 164 note 2 I.G R R. iii, 208.

page 164 note 3 I may venture to quote from myself 27 years ago, Hist. Comm. on Ep. to Galatians, p. 113.

page 165 note 1 I can only briefly refer to a great fact of imperial communication, and must omit quotation of ancient authorities.

page 165 note 2 Probably the Koinon always met in Ancyra, capital of the province; see note p. 157.

page 166 note 1 The two large groups of the Tekmoreian and Killanian inscriptions are good examples of the unification of groups of imperial Galatic estates in a religious Association : the Tekmoreian in Studies in the History of the Eastern Roman Provinces, pp. 319 ff, completed in J.H.S., 1912, p. 151 ff, and Annual of the British School of Athens, 1911-12, pp. 54-76; The Killanian inscriptions in Sterrett, E.J. nos. 38-78, and Ramsay, , C.B.Phr. i, pp. 280–315Google Scholar.

page 166 note 2 Domaszewski did not see the stone, but used an impression which was brought to him. I am indebted to Dr. Keil's courtesy for sending me the impression, preserved at Vienna.

page 166 note 3 The date is treated at a later point. It would, however, be immaterial so far as the character of the inscription and the opening formula are concerned whether the date is 101 or 145–161. Tha lettering I place unhesitatingly much earlier than 145 A.D.

page 167 note 1 If we may judge from names, there were some interesting relations between one or more great families at Thyatira and Pergamos and Akmonia and Ancyra, see e.g. Revue des Univ. du Midi, 1901,p. 277. The name Servenius is found at Akmonia, and at Apollonia Pisid. Phr. and Ancyra. Cornutus was derived from the governor of Galatia about 6 B.C., Cornutus Arruntius Aquila.

page 168 note 1 If the individual had been named P. Aelius Scapula, this would have been an almost certain proof that the family was enfranchised under Hadrian as Emperor and C. Julius Scapula governor (see also p. 181); but Ti. Claudius Scapula permits no such inference.

page 168 note 2 His learning and high position as a scholar have made the world accept hit suggestion in the restored text.

page 168 note 3 It is impossible to take the long list of signatures as the subject to άνίθηκαν, for the names are the principal part of the dedication and are recorded as proof of the loyalty of the whole province, which they represent. The members assembled (ίϵρουργοί) are the servants of the Emperor gathered in religious assembly to perform the ίϵρά: the Emperor is their lord and god and master (κύριος).

page 169 note 1 Compare (1) the numerous records in the Killanian plain on the Killanian or Hadrianian estates. The worshippers are the body of coloni, uniting in prayer for the Salvation of their Lord (and Lady) as a collegium (μύσται Διὸς Σαουαζίου). These were found by MM. Duchesne and Collignon. The publication, however, in B.C.H. 1878, pp. 246 ff, was unsuccessful, because their nature was not properly recognized at that time. Sterrett has a better edition from independent copies, E.J. pp. 39 ff. Their nature was recognized and many improvements made in C.B. Phr. i, ch. viii. (2) The great Tekmoreian inscription was unintelligible, until it was recognized as a dedication for the Imperial Salvation (J.H.S. 1883, p. 23 and Sterrett, W.E. p. 227). The beginning of an explanation of it was made in Studies in Eastern Roman Provinces (last paper) and continued in J.H.S. 1912, p. 151 ff. Comparison of these long, some almost perfect, lists, as records of Assemblies of Servants of the Emperor making vows on his behalf, is instructive. Others are found in Asia, viz. small assemblies of the Emperor's ‘servants’ on estates.

page 169 note 2 ἀρχιϵρϵὑς τοὑ Κοινοὑ τῶν Γαλατῶν, I.G.R.R. iii, 204, 205.

page 170 note 1 There can be no doubt, after what has been proved in I.G.R.R. loc. cit. and Mommsen, Berl. Akad. Sitz. 1901, p. 28, that this title implies that she was wife of a (past or present) high-priest of the province or Galatarch, i.e. first of the Hellenes (of Galatia: see above, p. 155).

page 170 note 2 The sole authority for extending Pomponius's government to 102 is a coin on which Mionnet reads the title ΔΑκικός of Trajan; but readings vouched for by Mionnet alone are dubious (cf. supra, p. 162, note 2).

page 171 note 1 Annual B.S.A. 1911–12, p. 63.

page 171 note 2 One may perhaps be earlier than A.D. 200. Its early date is marked by the fact that the name Xenoi Tekmoreioi had not come into use. That name, applied to a much older religious association inscripof cultivators of the Emperor's estates, was intended to emphasize the loyal and antichristian character.

page 171 note 3 E.g. a coin of Poppaea is quoted by Mionnet (a rather doubtful authority) with Κοινὸν Γαλατίας, while coins of Nero have Γαλατῶν.

page 171 note 4 It is different in C.I.G. 4039, Γαλατῶν τὸ κοινὸν ίϵρασάμϵνον θϵᾧ σϵβαστῶ: the Koinon as a body acts as priest to Augustus. In our inscription each delegate is thought of as joining in the dedication and signing his name in the list.

page 172 note 1 This is evident from the number of Cives Romani.

page 172 note 2 In no case is the full Roman name, with filiation in the Roman style, given.

page 173 note 1 Revue Numism. 1894, p. 164 ff. I cannot accept the criticism and divergent opinion of Kubitschek. Ninika was named Claudiopolis by Antiochus IV, and re-founded as a colony by Domitian.

page 173 note 2 The probable formula Σαβϵῖνος Καρισταίου τρὶς Γαίου (restored by conjecture) recalls the name Γὰιος Καρισρισταὰνιος Φρόντων γ restored by Cheesman in an inscription of Antioch, , J.R.S. iii, p. 262Google Scholar. They are eqyally bad renderings of the Latin form C. Caristanius C. F. C. N.

page 174 note 1 Parts of Pamphylia and Pisidia, incorporated in the province Lycia-Pamphylia, A.D. 74, ceased then to belong to the Koinon of Galatia.

page 174 note 2 Galatian names are ΒΟΙΟΡΙΓΟС (Dom. has ΒΟΙΘΗΓΟС); and a genitive is needed).

page 175 note 1 See a paper in Aberystwyth Studies, Vol. iv, p. 1.

page 175 note 2 Singular number, as in I.G.R.R. 209 ad fin.

page 175 note 3 See p. 177 f.

page 175 note 4 It is called on the coins indifferntly КОІΝΟΝ-ΓΑΑΑΤΙΑΣ and ΚΟΙΝΟΝ-ΓΑΑΑΤΩΝ, showing that the term ‘Galatai’ was understood naturally and popularly as the people of Galatia, which is exactly what was to be expected. It seems needless to insist on this elementary principle of Augustan provincial policy.

page 176 note 1 It is impossible to take γραφαί as the recording of the names on the stele; that record is summed up in τὴν στήλην καὶ τὸν τίτλον: something different is added in σὺν ταῖς γραφαῖς.

page 176 note 2 This phrase has been quoted from my Church in the Roman Empire, p. 324, by Mommsen; and may be assumed as a starting point of all reasoning on the subject.

page 178 note 1 The face with protruding tongue, as Professor Sayce tells me, is often mentioned in the Hittite documents as the source of prophecy. A representation of this head with open mouth and protruding tongue was found at Emir Ghazi (Khasbia, Hittite Khasimiya) and purchased by Lady Ramsay and myself in 1911. I wrongly took it as a lion's head; but it is human. Professor Sayce, to whom we showed it, recognized its character as early Anatolian.

page 178 note 2 I take the vineyard in paragraph 3 as indicating one outstanding kind of planting, used by synecdoche for agriculture and horticulture generally.

page 178 note 3 Karbis = total, karbessar = totality, karbi-yanwar = to form a totality or community. Karbis = πολίτϵυμα, (a word confined to Southern Asia Minor and St. Paul, means in Lycian Greek inscriptions, the ‘State,’ or body of πολῖαι: St. Paul uses it = behaviour as a citizen).

page 179 note 1 This Council consisted, obviously, of the Gaulish conquerors, while the conquered old population was excluded.

page 179 note 2 There is much probability (as the present writer has often shown) that the widening of the tribal Assembly was accomplished by a legal fiction, that favourite Roman device; the southern non-Gallic and hellenized cities of Galatic Phrygia and Galatic Lycaonia were taken into one (or all) of the tribes. Apollonia of Phrygia called its people Trocmi; Antioch, the Phrygian city ‘towards Pisidia,’ was a ‘sister’ of Tavium, the chief city of the Trocmi; Pednelissos on the extreme southern frontier of Pisidia near the low ground of Pamphylia regarded itself as a ‘city of the Galatai,’ as did Apollonia.

page 181 note 1 No example is known, but one may be discovered.

page 182 note 1 It can only be through ignorance of the progress of the study of Roman imperial law that commentators on St. Paul continue to expound him as referring to purely Roman law, as if it were the law administered in the eastern provinces.

page 183 note 1 Studia Biblica, iv, p. 53 f. Sagaris was caught by the famine in Asia, and succeeded in bringing his cattle into Galatia Province; at his home Apollonia he dedicated as a thankoffering two oxen carved in Dokimian marble a few years after the escape from the Asian famine; dedications were not always erected the day or month after the god had earned them: the pietv was sometimes later than the occasion, when a call was made by the god, and tiie language of the dedication clearly suggests that some interval of prosperity elapsed. This dedication was much misunderstood by Waddington and others; Sagaris is not a Galatian name (as they assume), but old Anatolian, and is found widely. The dedicator Sagaris made his monument in his own patris, Apollonia, when he returned from travel during the great famine under Claudius: apparently he was on business on this journey. Professor Sayce points out that the word Sagaris is old Anatolian: it meant a cutting instrument with a single edge, a ploughshare or an axe with one edge, or an oriental curved sword (see Hesychius, and Xenophon heard the word among the Mossynoeci in the remote north-east on the outer side of the Anatolian land). Hence the river Sangarios (with nasalization, as common in Anatolia, and a Greek ending) derived its name : it is the ‘cutter,’ which cleaves its way through a cañon beginning some hours below Alikel. There is, of course, a deeper and longer cañon in the mountain-rim of the plateau; but the one below Alikel near the head, Sakaria-Suyunun-Bashi, is more likely to suggest that the river cuts through the rock. The personal name Sagaris has nothing to do with Galatia as a Gaulish country, but only with the Anatolian land and language.

page 183 note 2 See J.H.S, 1918 p. 170 f. J.R.S 1913, p, 262, and Bearing of Recent Research p. 154 for other examples of this square lettering.

page 183 note 3 Luke speaks only of τὴν οἰκουμένην, the organized world of the Roman Empire; the ‘poet’ Sagaris in this metrical inscription makes the famine extend to the whole inhabited world. Probably the famine afflicted different parts of the world in different years. That many parts of the entire Empire suffered from famine under Claudius is attested by numerous authorities, Tac., Suet., Euseb. Chron. etc., as well as by this contemporary document on the Apollonian stone.

page 184 note 1 Had the day of celebration been the birthday, it would have been mentioned in this document, a legal διαθήκη, of which a copy on paper was kept in the ἀρχϵῖα. As the death-day was still unknown it could not be specified at the time of registration.

page 184 note 2 See Anderson in J.H.S. 1898, pp. 96 f. The Thracian (Tralleis) were Seleucid (see at the end of this section).

page 184 note 3 The idea is certain, and the word is restored by Anderson.

page 185 note 1 See J.H.S. 1918, p. 144 ff. Lykiokome may have been at Genj-Ali, on the lake where the road going eastwards first touches the lake (an ancient site with milestones, etc.).

page 185 note 2 Mommsen in his great chapter on the provinces of Asia Minor described this quaint feature of Hellenistic municipal life. It is not an Anatolian characteristic.

page 186 note 1 See J.H.S. 1920, p. 89 f.

page 186 note 2 Θρᾳκῶν ὧν ἄν ϵἵη (τὸ μνημϵῖον) δικαίως.