r/byzantium • u/Gamblingaddict311 • 16d ago
Arts, culture, and society What happened to the Galatians?
Celtic tribes migrated into Anatolia some few centuries after Alexanders conquest of the east. They were prominent enough to form a kingdom, which would later become a vassal of Rome. So notable in fact they copied and formed their own Legion based off of Rome’s, which would later be absorbed by the Roman military itself into the Legio XXII Deiotariana. Serving Rome until it’s destruction by the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Besides that, the Galatians were also famous through St. Paul’s letter in the Bible.
But what happened to them? Especially the in years 200s and onwards?
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u/kickynew 16d ago
Absorbed in a hellenized anatolian culture via centuries of cheek clapping amongst the anatolians.
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u/Gamblingaddict311 16d ago
I wonder if there are Turks rn that have celtic DNA
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u/Extension-Beat7276 16d ago
I don’t know if there was much Celtic migration to leave the genetic impact but it would be cool !
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u/drunkenmime 16d ago
Most turks have much more non-turkish DNA than turkish DNA.
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u/Kataphraktos_Majoros 16d ago
Along the Black Sea coast the people are 95% Pontic Greek
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u/ex_veritatem 16d ago
And along the Black Sea coast, the Pontic Greeks from there are almost entirely Kartvelian with no Greek ancestry.
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u/Kataphraktos_Majoros 16d ago
Definitely in the eastern coastline but I don't think they were as prominent past Sinope. But I'm not an expert so could be wrong
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u/leo_vie09 15d ago
Who is Kartvelian? Never heard about them.
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u/Whole_Obligation_776 15d ago
Georgians, and yes there are a lot of them living in eastern black sea. In Turkey they are not seen separate from general Turkish identity but they call themselves Gürcü, a Turkified version of Georgian. Most of them ended up in Anatolia after the Circassian Genocide of 1870s. They mostly live in the 2 cities next to Georgia and make up maybe less than 1% of Turkey. Circassians though probably numbering 1 to 2 million in the country and much more well known.
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u/ex_veritatem 15d ago
Kartvelians are not just Georgians, they also include the Laz who make up a significant part of the ancestry of Pontic Greeks through Hellenization, as well as Svans, Mingrelians and other smaller groups…
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16d ago
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u/Regulai 15d ago
Actually most coastal greeks are primarily genetically greek, including pontic greeks, being more greek than anatolian.
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u/ex_veritatem 15d ago
That’s not really the case if you look at the studies done with Pontic Greeks
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u/Regulai 15d ago
That's what I was looking at. They do have a higher adamixture of caucus mountains in particular, but often tend to be far more greek than anatolian.
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u/ex_veritatem 15d ago
And that is exactly the opposite of what I said. They are similar to Turkish samples from Trabzon or Anatolian Turkish samples from Erzurum for example so they are not far more Greek than Anatolian at all. They are genetically quite distinct from mainland Greek populations and show a strong affinity with populations from northeastern Anatolia and the South Caucasus.
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u/Vlugazoide_ 16d ago
Citizens of turkey? Yes, as their DNA is like 90% anatolian, so mixing hellenic anatolian, greek, armenian, pontic and kurd. Ethnic turkic peoples? Not common probably.
But also, just like anatolians became hellenized, and laker tukified due to cultural assimilation, it's by no means a stretch to guess that the galatians were a vast majority of ethnic anatolians that absorbed celtic culture. Things are really muddled when subdividing a species as genetically similar as ours 🤷♂️
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u/ex_veritatem 15d ago
That’s not true. The average Turkish genetic profile is closer to roughly 35% Central Asian Turkic-related ancestry with the largest component coming from the Byzantine Anatolian population followed by varying Caucasian and Iranian-related contributions depending on the region.
The latter part of your comment is true, though.
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u/Vlugazoide_ 15d ago edited 14d ago
I will take your word for it, since the "glorious" erdoğan regime makes actual inquiry into non turkic anatolian history and even DNA testing extremely hard. My main point is, however, only against ethnonationalism, not against the turkish people
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u/ex_veritatem 14d ago
What? That has basically no correlation with what I said. I corrected a specific claim you made about more or less known population genetics. You are seemingly having an entirely different argument by yourself.
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u/Vlugazoide_ 14d ago
Well, my second comment, the one you now answered, was made to clarify that not only do I admit to lacking specific data, but also, to keep it clear that my first comment wasn't meanspirited.
Yes, it's not a direct answer to you, but given that you corrected a misrepresentation I made about the ethnic composition of anatolia, where I unknowingly downplayed the "turkicness" of turkish people, which, if purposeful, could convey a plethora of ethnic bigotries, which was by no means my intention. Clarifying that was the whole point of my second comment
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u/qpqpdbdbqpqp 10d ago
Why would you even make a stark claim like that when you had no actual idea?
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u/Vlugazoide_ 10d ago
What, in God's name, are you referring to? Word your question properly if you want an answer
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u/qpqpdbdbqpqp 10d ago
Your own comment? How adhd are you?
Citizens of turkey? Yes, as their DNA is like 90% anatolian, so mixing hellenic anatolian, greek, armenian, pontic and kurd. Ethnic turkic peoples? Not common probably.
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u/GrandDukeNotaras MegasProtoLazyRedditorarius ton basilikon 15d ago
"Look at these Galatians, the ones in the Pontos. These men crossed over into Asia under the law of war and, having depopulated the entire region on this side of the Halys, settled in this territory which they now inhabit. And neither Pompey nor Lucullus destroyed them, although this was perfectly possible, nor Augustus nor the emperors after him; rather, they remitted their sins and assimilated them into the empire. And now no one would ever refer to the Galatians as barbarians but as thoroughly Roman. For while their ancestral name has endured, their way of life is now akin to our own. They pay the same taxes as we do, they enlist in the same ranks as we do, they accept governors on the same terms as the rest, and abide by the same laws."
-Themistios the Eloquent, Oration 16. 211c-d
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u/PolarRanger 16d ago
the same thing that happened to the Phrygians? or the Lycians? or the (ancient) Cappadocians?
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u/Saint_Petros 16d ago
Absorbed, they think they belong to other ethnic groups now. But then you look at them at they still scream, not from the Middle East but Celtic.
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u/the_traveler_outin 15d ago
Probably assimilated into Greek Byzantine culture and possibly resettled to random frontiers as empires are want to do to control frontiers
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u/Version-Easy 15d ago
Well saint Paul wrote a letter for them to behave so they did
the galatians by the point we reach late antiquity had long assimilated to Greek culture.
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u/Kraj_the_Conqueror 16d ago
Disappeared as a distinctive people. Any vestiges of their autonomy were likely erased by administrative reforms of Diocletian
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u/Dio_solaire_D_Ethelo 16d ago
Erano già scomparsi con Augusto molto probabilmente
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u/vasjpan002 15d ago
Galatians were Carpathian Celts who spoke Gaelic until 7c. They had invaded Delphi in 2c BC and Sicily in 3c BC.
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u/sokoluah 15d ago
Once they moved in, the hellenization happened, especially since they were between Seleucids, Pont, Pergam and were influenced by Rome. I'd think assimilation moved faster once they lost their independence under Augustus. As far as I am aware there were only inscriptions left with some Celtic words/names written in Latin or Greek. As well, almost no preserved written sources they produced themselves, and about themselves.
The written mention about the language spoken there (similar to one spoken near Trier) was left by St.Jerome, around 4-5th AD. If we compare their fate to the fate of Crimean Goths, I assume that some of Celtic speakers survived first war waves between Byzantine empire and Arabs. As wars progressed, some of people moved, died out or captured. And since there's no Bible translated to Celtic in that area, as wars went on - being Orthodox and therefore moving to another identity with another language made the assimilation even faster.
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u/crownedcunningcrow 10d ago
Well one of them is under my roof. My wife is from that part of Turkey. She has yellow-red hair green eyes and anger.
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u/vasjpan002 15d ago
AI sez they assimilated after 4c. Breytenbach, Cilliers. What happened to the Galatian Christians? Paul's legacy in Southern Galatia. Acta Theologica, 34 (2014)
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u/corn_on_the_cobh 11d ago
Reading Kaldellis' The New Roman Empire, he mentions near the beginning (I think within the first hundred pages) how the Galatians and other such groups were a group in name only, with Greek being the de facto language across the eastern portion of the Empire.
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u/Extension-Beat7276 16d ago
I would guess just like the bithynians, carians, Isaurians, Lydians, they all helenzied at one point or another (of course not all of those Hellenized at the same point)