* * * Click on above image for a quick slide show * * *
Who
Were the Galatians?
by Jeff Jonas 10/2018
"The
Galatians, under the command of Bolgius, sent deputies to Ptolemy
(Keraunos) to sound the disposition of the Macedonians, offering him
peace if he liked to purchase it; but Ptolemy boasted to his
courtiers that the Galatians sued for peace from fear of war. Nor
was his manner less vaunting before the ambassadors than before his
own adherents, saying that “he would grant peace only on condition
that they would give their chiefs as hostages, and deliver up their
arms; for he would put no trust in them until they were disarmed.”
The deputies bringing back this answer, the Galatians laughed, and
exclaimed throughout their camp, that “he would soon see whether
they had offered peace from regard for themselves or for him.” Some
days after a battle was fought, and the Macedonians were defeated
and cut to pieces. Ptolemy, after receiving several wounds, was
taken, and his head, cut off and stuck on a lance, was carried round
the whole army to strike terror into the enemy. Flight saved a few
of the Macedonians; the rest were either taken or slain."
Justin- Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus
The
Gallic Wars are well known in the western half of the Mediterranean.
Marauding Gauls notoriously sacked Rome in 390BC. In the east, the
Celtic invaders were called Galatians and their origin is more obscure.
The burly warriors from the north that sowed fear and a path of
destruction in Macedonia, Greece, and then crossed to Asia deserve more
than passing attention from miniature games enthusiasts.
The Hellenistic World in Chaos 279BC
-
As the wars of the initial
Successors of Alexander the Great wore down after forty years of
internal struggles, the rest of the world started to catch up and
began to chip away at the edges of the empires that were forming.
Forty years of conflict had resulted in the genesis of dynasties.
The old generals of Alexander had died off, or were killed in
battle. The sons of the conquerors were now in charge.
- Some of these youthful
“inheritors” were competent, some were frivolous, some were just
crazy.
One of these new young men to rise was Ptolemy Keraunos (the
Thunderbolt). He was the exiled son of Ptolemy 1st the recently
deceased King of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. Keraunos had
ensconced himself on the Macedonian throne after a series of vicious
“Game of Thrones” style moves.
He
murdered his benefactor Seleucus I Nicator as the septuagenarian was
marching to Macedonia to claim the throne and undisputed unity of
Alexander the Great’s fragmented empire.
The
Macedonian phalanx marches into place as their commanders and cavalry
move froward
(Aventine and Old Glory figures)
- Keraunos spent his days as the newest
and most unlikely king of Macedonia defeating other rivals to the
throne such as Antigonus Gonatas, and sending troops to Pyrrhus of
Epirus to aid in his campaign against the Romans across the Adriatic.
Meanwhile on the northern frontiers, forces witnessed this chaos and
were ready to pounce as the Macedonian mad king was dallying with his
half sister, and murdering her children, since they might become his
future rivals.
Ptolemy
Keraunos Macedonian King and the Galatian Warlord Bolgius (Aventine
and Relic and Old Glory figures)
-
These northern enemies were old foes such as the Thracians and
Dardanians who often invaded Macedonian turf in times of weakness.
Now a new horde of tribal people, much more capable and numerous,
were rolling into the passes. These people were the Galatians,
tribes of Celtic origin who spread eastward from the area later
known as Pannonia, and down to the Danube. They came in large
numbers, whole tribes, families, livestock, many horses, and were
similar to the mass migrations of
Macedonian elephants do not scare the Galatians at this battle (Old
Essex elephant and Foundry and Old Glory figures)
- Gallic people that had invaded Italy and
sacked Rome around 390 BC. The Galatian tribes origins are shrouded in
legend, and it is difficult to pinpoint just how close they were
related to the western tribes. The similarities are clear in that they
were unusual and frightening to the Greeks. They were tall and white
skinned, and had a high percentage of blond haired folks. The Greeks
labeled them “barbarians”, but modern studies blur that ancient
stereotype. However, one thing for sure, the tribal warriors were
fierce and their actions barbarous in the extreme to anyone’s notion
of civilization.
"We
only fear that the sky shall fall on our heads."
- The Galatians respond to Alexander the Great
- Before Alexander the Great left
on his invasion of Persia he had met with a band of Galatians on the
Danube. They responded to his comments with boasting and haughtiness,
but their numbers in 334BC were not that big a threat. By 280BC they
were pushing hard into the Dardanian and Thracian territories,
crushing resistance wherever they went. The frontier passes were held
by Macedonian mercenaries that kept the growing surging masses of
Galatians out of the northern lands. But as the chaos in the dynasties
persisted, the frontier security eroded. By 279BC large groups of
Galatian war parties burst into Thrace and were pouring towards the
passes that covered the northern entrance to Macedonia and Greece.
Some of these groups went towards the Paeonian lands, some went
towards the east and Byzantium.
Macedonian
Cavalry attack the Galatian warriors (Aventine,
Newline Designs, Essex elephant and Old Glory figures)
- One group under the command
of a warlord called Bolgius extolled the masses of his plunder seeking
warriors to strike at Macedonia itself. A massive storm from the north
was indeed coming. Oddly enough the name Bolgius may have also meant
“Thunderbolt of the Belgae,” The mad king Keraunos was made aware of
the barbarian threat as the Dardanians and Thracians rushed to his
court, seeking to ally with him against the invasion. He rashly
laughed them off, claiming he had a
- real army
containing men who had conquered the world, no rabble of tribesmen
would make him lose
The
Galatians close in (Newline Designs, Old Glory, new Relic figures)
- a night’s sleep over such a trifle.
Thunderbolt’s disdain forced the Dardanians, and Thracians to flee or
help the enemy, which many did. Thunderbolt then cobbled together what
forces were at hand and sped off to the frontier to make short work of
this fake threat to his dominion. He would attack with his small force
of elephants and crush the warriors, quite literally under foot, as
the master plan played out in his head.Meanwhile Bolgius marshaled his
invasion column.
- Sources
tell us all sorts of fantastic numbers for his army’s size. This is
typical of historians ratcheting up the drama, still it is obvious
that the Galatian invasion was huge. Some accounts say the Galatians
could muster 152,000 warriors and 20,000 plus cavalry. Whether true
or not, the percentages are interesting and reveal a 7:1 ratio of
horsemen to foot. Even if the horde was half that size, it was still
a massive army. Of course, with those kinds of numbers and with the
women, children, and old folks trailing behind in wagon trains,
supplies become the driving force of of the invaders. The army had
to keep moving to subsist as the land would be stripped clean of all
provisions. This meant that the Galatians moved fast, they would be
the lightning to the mad king’s thunder.
“They
rushed at their adversaries like wild beasts, full of rage and
temperament.”
- Pausanias
- The Galatian army itself was very
“early Gallic” in style. The masses of warriors were mostly unarmored
swordsmen. When some are described in armor, they are said to have
bronze chest armor, this may allude to the older style of Celtic bell
cuirasses of the La Tene culture folks back near the Alps. A large
number of Galatians swore oaths before battle and stripped naked,
fighting furiously till spent, pulling spears out of their wounds and
hurling them back at the enemy. They covered their hair in lime and
pulled it back to look extra scary, as if being 6” taller, and beefier
wasn’t intimidating enough, they made themselves look like animals. In
this they are very similar to western Celts that followed the cult of
the “horned Man” Cernunnos.
- Archaeologists in modern Turkey
are uncovering many similar ritual practices between the Galatians
that ultimately settled in Anatolia and those of the west.Galatian
cavalry forces were numerous and supported by grooms that brought up
new horses and even replaced fallen warriors, this practice may be why
the cavalry numbers are always inflated by sources. Because the
Galatians seemed to stay more in the retro Celtic spirit, they still
used chariots when most other Gauls had long abandoned them.
An
overview of a game in progress
The Galatian Army
- We can only speculate as the
division of troops or social levels, but it is highly likely that
Nobles in chariots would be the most elite and able to afford top
notch armor, and their tactics were probably heroic style like
chariots facing later Roman armies.The cavalry and chariots were often
held in reserve behind the main line which would part creating lanes
for these shock troops to charge out. Galatians had few skirmishers in
their army, and the few young men that used javelins would screen the
cavalry, and join the fight if the cavalry got into a prolonged
fur-ball. The lack of armor and inability to respond to missiles would
be a Galatian weakness. Their strength was in massed rushes forward
with the warriors leaping and dashing on the enemy line each
attempting to heroically breakthrough. Holding their initial charge,
and not fleeing immediately was the main test for their foes. If the
armored and disciplined Greek or Macedonian phalanx held firm, they
could stand their ground.
“Ptolemy
alone, the king of Macedonia, heard of the approach of the Gauls
without alarm, and, hurried on by the madness that distracted him for
his unnatural crimes, went out to meet them with a few undisciplined
troops, as if wars could be dispatched with as little difficulty as
murders.”
- Justin
The last stand of the "Thunderbolt"
- Ptolemy Thunderbolt rushed his
hastily formed and undisciplined army to the frontiers. As the army
approached the passes they found that fast moving Galatians forces
under Bolgius had already blown through the defenses and were pouring
through the passes in the hills. Thunderbolt decided with Custer-like
bravado to press on, instead of retreating back to where
reinforcements were gathering. He must have convinced himself that his
small force of professional soldiers would overturn any threat of mere
barbarians. The Galatians struck so fast that Thunderbolt had
difficulty deploying his forces. Some units crumbled under the speed
and ferociousness of the warrior’s assault. No plan could be
formulated in the fast developing emergency. Macedonian units were
interpenetrated, and their pikes useless at close quarters, once the
phalanx was penetrated.
- As
the crisis unfolded, Thunderbolt mounted the back of an elephant to
possibly get a better view of the surrounding enemy attack, or he
might have just attempted to bull rush out of the combat zone and
high tail it back to Macedonia. Seeing their new king possibly
aiming to run from the fight, the Macedonians lost their nerve and
broke and fled. Galatians pursued and cut them down. Thunderbolt and
his elephant, suffered wounds as Galatian light spears found their
mark, eventually he was thrown from his elephant. The Galatian
warriors slew him and lopped off his head. They then turned to
looting and despoiling the dead, and drinking and shouting and
making up new songs of victory in front of the Thunderbolt’s
shocked expression frozen in terror as it was stuck on a pike as a
Galatian trophy.
The
Macedonians deploy to face the ambushing Galatians pouring through the
passes.
- Later the Galatians drove
through Macedonia into Greece, and fought a tough battle with the
Greeks at Thermopylae. After they broke through, they sacked the
temple of Delphi. There they were turned back by storms and forces of
peltasts that harassed their retreat. Many of them were defeated by
the future Macedonian King Antigonos Gonatos, securing him the throne
and a new dynasty.
Other Galatian tribes found their way to Asia Minor where they
were in constant conflict with Seleucid Empire and new kingdoms such
as the rising city state of Pergamum. Eventually the Galatians were
forced into the highlands of central Anatolia where they established
their own Galatian kingdom. Galatian mercenaries were hired by every
Successor Empire, and even Romans. Eventually the Galatians were
assimilated by Rome.
Gaming the last stand WSS Issue #98
- In
the recent WSS Issue 80 Nathan Ward offered us a very nice ancient
variant for the Osprey Published Lion Rampant rules by Daniel
Mercer. I have integrated some of his ideas into a very basic
scenario. Lion Rampant offers a game style that lends itself to
skirmish actions and seems a great way to represent the un-named
battle between the Macedonians and Galatians. It is also a good
scenario since we know next to nothing about the actual orders of
battle, so generalization makes sense. Some of the troops have been
shoe horned to fit the basic statistics, and some of Nathan Ward’s
ideas have been weaved in to keep things simple as possible, and not
stomp too much on the speedy to play Lion Rampant mechanics.
The Lion Rampant scenario can be found in this issue of Wargames
Soldiers and Strategy Magazine:
This page is based on my article in Wargames
Soldiers and Strategy Magazine issue #98:
https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/wss-issue-98.html
Future Galatian topics:
Galatian
Miniatures and Armies in 28mm (In Progress)
Brennus and the attack on Delphi (In
Progress)
The
elephant Victory of Antiochus I (In Progress)
The
noble cavalry wait in reserve to rush out and exploit a break in the
enemy line (Old Glory and Relic figures)
Links to other
online Galatian articles:
Two part online article with many illustrations from magazines:
http://turningpointsoftheancientworld.com/index.php/2018/02/28/celtic-invasion-macedonia/
http://turningpointsoftheancientworld.com/index.php/2018/05/19/celtic-invasion-thermopylae/
Justin Histories: http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/justin/english/trans24.html
Livius Invasion
of the Gauls:
http://www.livius.org/sources/content/pausanias-guide-to-greece/the-invasion-of-the-gauls/
The Ethnic
Identity and Redefinition of the Galatians in the Hellenistic World:
Qizhen Xie:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2df2/389669998b7463b3e6f4a309b0cb50820dae.pdf
Galatians in
Macedonia (280–277 BC): Invasion or Invitation? Fernando
López Sánchez:
http://www.academia.edu/18109000/Galatians_in_Macedonia_280-277_BC_invasion_or_invitation
Miniatures in this article:
A second war chief, Brennus, later leads the
Galatians forward to Delphi.
Questions or Comments
Email:
jjonasartist@sbcglobal.net
All
content Copyright 2018 Jeff Jonas
