The koinon galaton (Ancient Greek: κοινόν Γαλατῶν; English: Galatian League or the Commonwealth of Galatians) was the koinon, a form of tribal assembly, of the Galatians. It has been described as a form of senate.[1]
Strabo, writing in the age of Augustus, describes the Galatian League as retaining its tribal constitution under Roman rule, such as division into three tribes each governed by four tetrarchs.[2] Peter Berresford Ellis has described the Galatian League as having parallels with the assembly of Gallic Celts in Lugdunum, and writes that the election system prevented despots from emerging, noting how no names for overall leaders emerges for a long time.[3] Strabo reports that it was once governed by an assembly of 300 elected representatives of clans (or sub-clans) who met at a place called Drunemeton, but had since been reduced to the leadership of first Deiotarus, then Amyntas.[4]
Tom Holland writes that the koinon galaton embraced the title of sebastenos – "favored by Augustus", and that the cult of the Caesars took firm roots in Galatia; some years after Augustus' death, he writes that the fact that the Res Gestae Divi Augusti has been found throughout Galatia, but nowhere else, strongly suggests the koinon decreed that it be reproduced and displayed across the region.[5]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Canestrelli, Gioal (2022). Celtic Warfare: From the Fifth Century BC to the First Century AD. Pen and Sword Military. p. 52. ISBN 9781399070201. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ Cooper, Basil Henry (1852). The Free Church of Ancient Christendom, and Its Subjugation Under Constantine. Albert Cockshaw. p. 28. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ Munro, Robert John; Klieforth, Alexander Leslie (2004). The Scottish Invention of America, Democracy and Human Rights: A History of Liberty and Freedom from the Ancient Celts to the New Millennium. University Press of America. p. 208. ISBN 9780761827917. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ Strabo. Geography, Book XII, Chapter 5. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
- ^ Holland, Tom (2019). Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. Hachette UK. ISBN 9781408706978. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
External links
edit
Media related to Galatia at Wikimedia Commons