The Pacification of the Taurus

Abstract

Abstract Rome’s new Anatolian possessions, the province of Galatia, required military intervention from the outset. The final subjugation of the intransigent tribal peoples of the Taurus—Cilicians, isaurians, and Pisidians—remained incomplete and, formidable as the achievements of Amyntas had already been, a generation was to pass before their mountainous homelands were finally subdued and secured. These were among the unsung wars of the Augustan age. No narrative account survives from any ancient source, and the course of the campaigns has to be recovered from hints in the ancient writers, inferences deduced from the careers of the Roman commanders who conducted them, and epigraphical evidence for the disposition of military units and veteran settlements through the area in the early principate.