I Galati in Macedonia. Storia di una razzia

Starting in 280 BC, the life of people settled in the southern part of the Balkan peninsula was disrupted by the invasion of Celtic bands (the Galatians of the Greek sources), who destroyed everything they found. The main source for these events is Justin’s Epitome of the Philippic Histories, together with some fragments of Diodorus’ book XXII, a digression on the history of Byzantium in Polybius’ book IV and a narrative excursus in Pausanias’ book X. In general, modern scholars have focused on Galatians’ attack against Delphi and overlooked Macedonian events, that we therefore aim to analyze. Galatians’ arrival in Macedonia was favoured by the fact that the country had fallen into a deep crisis after Lysimachus’ death in battle in February 281 BC. At that time, he was the ruler of a kingdom straddling Europe and Asia; the winner, Seleucus I, was killed in September of the same year by Ptolemy Ceraunus, who proclaimed himself king of Macedonia. The latter was defeated and killed by the Galatians in February 279 BC and in the next two years the Macedonians were at the mercy of appalling raids. In 277 BC however, quite unexpectedly, the Galatians were defeated by Demetrius Poliorcetes’ son, Antigonus Gonatas, a landless king who for ten years has been trying to become master of any kind of country in the Aegean area. Thanks to this victory, Antigonus Gonatas became king of Macedonia and remained on the throne until his death in 239 BC. The story of this sovereign is narrated in particular by Justin, who preserves the ‘Antigonid’ version of Galatians’ defeat. In my opinion, this version, totally obscured by the rest of the ancient tradition, has, as its primary source, the Histories of Hieronymus of Cardia, Gonatas’ official historian.