After joining Nicomedes in a brief struggle against the expansionist Seleucids, they settled the area that would eventually become known as Galatia. Moving first through Thrace, they crossed the Bosporus into Asia Minor as allies of Nicomedes of Bithynia, in exchange for defeating his brother in their dynastic quarrel. It was 300 Galatian warriors that Julius Caesar gifted Cleopatra in 48 BCE as her bodyguard, such was their fearsome reputation.Ĭomprised of three tribes, the Tectosages, Tolistobogii, and Trocmi, the Galatians splintered off from Brennus’ Gauls during their invasion of Macedon and Greece in 279 BCE. Proud warriors, famed for their skill, loyalty, and ferocity in battle, they were highly prized as mercenaries throughout the Hellenistic world. Celts of Gallic descent, the Galatians came to settle in and dominate areas of central Anatolia and Phrygia.
