Blucium and Peium: The Galatian Forts of King Deiotarus

Abstract

The topography and historical geography of Galatia, the area of central Anatolia which extended roughly from the modern Sivrihissar to Yozgat and which was occupied from the 3rd century B.C. by three Celtic tribes, is a subject which has remained obstinately obscure, despite its interest to Classical archaeologists and historians and to Celtic scholars. Progress in fixing the topography of the region after it became a Roman province in 25 B.C. has been made more readily, mainly thanks to two factors: first, the existence of an elaborate and important road system whose remains can still be traced on the ground, and second, the occasional find of inscriptions containing place names by which sites can be identified. No such assistance is available for the pre-Roman period, and, until comparatively recently, only three names could be placed on the map of independent Galatia without an accompanying question mark, Ancyra, Pessinus and Tavium which, under the Roman domination, became the capitals of the three Celtic tribes, the Tectosages, the Tolistobogii and the Trocmi. It was impossible to identify the other Galatian strongholds, which had disappeared from history after the organisation of the Roman province, with places named in the literary sources, even when their traces could be identified on the ground.