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While everything was going on in Italy with the sacking of Rome, and the complex power plays in that land, it was certainly not the only direction in which the Senogalatîs were going. From their ancient homeland in west central Europe they set their sights to the east. In this place too, the Senogalatîs would find themselves in the middle of struggles between powers in this direction. They went east for the same reason they went to Italy: land to hold their rapidly growing populations. In the late second century AAC, early fourth century BCE, the Senogalatîs made their move.
There were already Senogalatîs living in southern Germany. One of the peoples there, the Bouioi (Boii) are from whom Bavaria and Bohemia are named. The Bouioi held the eastern zone of Laticos (LaTène) power and influence. When the migrations both south and east started, a menagerie of people from many different nations came along. This is part of why there was a sharp reduction in high end burials in the homelands of the Senogalatîs. This was to be expected in a culture that raised so many warriors. To prevent the kind of collapse that in essence ended the last age, Isarnoberios (Hallstatt), it was necessary to give young warriors and their entourages something to do. Going out to find new lands was generally seen as the best option. This both preserved order in the homelands – less competition for current land – and increased prestige in new lands, opening up opportunities for glory and trade.
The eastern expansion began along the Danube. Some of the first eastern stops were where Slovakia and Hungary are today. These places weren’t far from Scythian lands, and moreover they set the stage for the next areas of expansion: the Carpathian Basin and later, the Balkans. Much of the settlements were in the western part of the Carpathian Basin. This is at the least where the most finds related to the Senogalatîs occur in eastern Europe. Their expansion and settlement there mostly escaped mention in Mediterranean records. Presumably because they weren’t fighting with Greeks or Romans at this point. So we rely mostly on archaeological records to prove or disprove their presence there.
A story that survives is that of one group of east moving migrants led by Onomaris. Like what originally set most Senogalatîs looking for land to the east was scarcity in the homeland. The problem was that when looking for someone to lead them, no one stepped up. Including the warriors, who were normally men. Onomaris however, stepped up. The people followed her lead. First of which was to redistribute the wealth of the group, this ensured everyone had the ability to trade for things they would need along the way. She led her people through forests and swamps, as well as into battle. Eventually, they were able to find good land on which to settle. There aren’t very many details known of the events. We don’t know exactly what nation she was from or where they ended up. But what we can see here is the kind of determination and decision making skills a leader of such migrant bands needed to have.
Though caution has to be taken when speaking of at least some of the eastern migrations because movement of materials and changes in material culture don’t always mean movement of people. Even when it does, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were the dominant or most numerous people in the area. Local, indigenous acculturation could easily still have made up the bulk of the population in the Carpathian region. All said, this doesn’t rule out large-scale migration either. From this point, expansion into the western Carpathian Basin, moving southward, the Senogalatîs without a doubt came into contact with several groups. The Getae, the Dacians, Illyrians, and Thracians to name a few.
The Senogalatîs took advantage of the lack of cohesion among the Illyrian nations and their battles against the Greeks to settle in among their lands, defeating some Illyrian groups. An example of this follows in Athenaeus’s ‘The Depinosophists’ (10.443):
“In his second book of his History of Philip, Theopompus says that the Illyrians dine and drink seated, and even bring their wives to parties […] The people of Ardia [in what is now Montenegro] own 300,000 bondsmen whose status is between freemen and slaves. They get drunk every day and have parties, and are too uncontrolled in their addiction to eating and drinking. Hence the Celts, when they made war on them, knowing the lack of self-control of the Ardiaeans, ordered their troops to prepare a dinner in their tents with the utmost possible splendour, but to put into the food a certain poisonous herb which irritates the bowels and causes them to empty themselves. When this was done, some of the Ardiaeans were overcome and killed by the Celts, and others threw themselves into the rivers, being unable to bear the pain in their intestines.”
Athenaeus’s ‘The Depinosophists’ 10.443
Mainly in Pannonia did the Senogalatîs spread their influence. In effect, this led to Gallicisation of some of the Pannonian population. At this stage of expansion, they mainly focused on Illyria. They were however coming into more contact with Thracians and Macedonians. An envoy of Senogalatîs even met the Macedonian leader Alexander the Great. Flavius Arrianus mentions the encounter in his ‘Discourses of Epictetus’, (chapter 4):
“There ambassadors came to him from Syrmus, king of the Triballians, and from the other independent nations dwelling near the Ister. Some even arrived from the Celts who dwelt near the Ionian gulf. These people are of great stature, and of a haughty disposition. All the envoys said that they had come to seek Alexander’s friendship. To all of them he gave pledges of amity, and received pledges from them in return. He then asked the Celts what thing in the world caused them special alarm, expecting that his own great fame had reached the Celts and had penetrated still further, and that they would say that they feared him most of all things.
Flavius Arrianus, ‘Discourses of Epictetus’, chapter 4
But the answer of the Celts turned out quite contrary to his expectation; for, as they dwelt so far away from Alexander, inhabiting districts difficult of access, and as they saw he was about to set out in another direction, they said they were afraid that the sky would some time or other fall down upon them. These men also he sent back, calling them friends, and ranking them as allies, only adding the remark that the Celts were braggarts.”
Also mentioned in Strabo’s ‘Geography’ (7.3.8):
“Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, says that during this campaign some Celts living near the Adriatic arrived seeking goodwill and friendship. Alexander received them warmly and while they were sharing a drink asked them what they feared the most, thinking they would say him. They answered that they feared nothing except that the sky might fall down on them, but that they honoured the friendship of a man like him more than anything”
Strabo’s ‘Geography’ 7.3.8
The assumption of Arrianus is certainly uncharitable. Bold indeed to assume that the Senogalatîs would have spoken differently in any other situation. The point that can be made is that while the Senogalatîs were smart enough to sort of scope out the power of the Macedonians, and were able to recognise the successes of Alexander’s exploits, they still did not show fear. They knew well how to speak kindly to their host without compromising their sense of virtue and courage. Even under the spell of their wine!
Regardless, based on that respect, or if Arrianus was correct, being aware of an enemy they perhaps couldn’t beat (hard to imagine from the people who would later fight the Greeks) they did refrain from expanding into Macedonia during Alexander’s lifetime. However, this wouldn’t last forever. They soon set their eyes on Macedonia.
It was a group of Senogalatis fighters that turned their sights on that land. But not before waging war on the Dardanians. The Senogalatîs were riding a hot winning streak against the Illyrians, but the Dardanians and Triballi did defeat them, giving Illyrian nations a respite from previous defeats. Another defeat was handed to our ancestors by the Macedonian general Cassander as the Senogalatîs attempted a grab at Macedonia and Thrace. However, this battle proved useful because another Senogalatis leader, Cambaulos, marched on Thrace victoriously, capturing a good portion of land. It is in fact the Serdoi (Serdi) people, who were Senogalatîs, whose name was given to the city of Serdica which is today Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.
Sometime after the death of Alexander, a young king Ptolemy Keraunos of Macedonia had a visit from raiding Senogalatîs – attested to in Marcus Junianus Justinus’ ‘Epitome of the Phillipic History of Pompeius Trogus’ (24.4-5):
“The Gauls, when the land that had produced them was unable, from their excessive increase of population, to contain them, sent out three hundred thousand men, as a sacred spring, to seek new settlements. Of these adventurers part settled in Italy, and took and burnt the city of Rome; and part penetrated into the remotest parts of Illyricum under the direction of a flight of birds (for the Gauls are skilled in augury beyond other nations) making their way amidst great slaughter of the barbarous tribes, and fixed their abode in Pannonia. They were a savage, bold, and warlike nation, and were the first after Hercules (to whom that undertaking procured great admiration for his valour, and a belief in his immortality), to pass the unconquered heights of the Alps, and places uninhabitable from excess of cold. After having subdued the Pannonians, they carried on various wars with their neighbours for many years. Success encouraging them, they betook themselves, in separate bands, some to Greece, and some to Macedonia, laying waste all before them with the sword. Such indeed was the terror of the Gallic name, that even kings, before they were attacked, purchased peace from them with large sums of money. Ptolemy alone, the king of Macedonia, heard of the approach of the Gauls without alarm, and, hurried on by the madness that distracted him for his unnatural crimes, went out to meet them with a few undisciplined troops, as if wars could be dispatched with as little difficulty as murders. An embassy from the Dardanians, offering him twenty thousand armed men, for his assistance, he spurned, adding insulting language, and saying that “the Macedonians were in a sad condition if, after having subdued the whole east without assistance, they now required aid from the Dardanians to defend their country; and that he had for soldiers the sons of those who had served under Alexander the Great, and had been victorious throughout the world.” This answer being repeated to the Dardanian prince, he observed that “the famous kingdom of Macedonia would soon fall a sacrifice to the rashness of a raw youth.”
Marcus Junianus Justinus’ ‘Epitome of the Phillipic History of Pompeius Trogus’ 24.4-5
He met them blustering and swaggering and his head ended up on a pike. Following this, they raided Macedonia. They won some victories there other than a defeat from the general Sosthenes. Another Senogalatis leader, Brennos (not to be confused with the one who led the sack of Rome about a century earlier) decided it was time to make a raid on Greece. Brennos and Acicoros, as it was in 304 AAC, 279 BCE, made their move.
Staging their raid from Macedonia, they moved south to Greece. It was in particular the treasures of the temple at Delphi that they sought. Their first move was through Thermopylae, taking a route similar to that the Persians had in the more well known battle referring to that place. Pausanias recounts the more pedestrian and less mythologically loaded of the events that occured during this raid in his book ‘Description of Greece’ (1.4.2-4):
“But the Athenians, although they were more exhausted than any of the Greeks by the long Macedonian war, and had been generally unsuccessful in their battles, nevertheless set forth to Thermopylae with such Greeks as joined them, having made the Callippus I mentioned their general. Occupying the pass where it was narrowest, they tried to keep the foreigners from entering Greece; but the Galatai, having discovered the path by which Ephialtes of Trachis once led the Persians, overwhelmed the Phocians stationed there and crossed Oeta unnoticed by the Greeks.
Pausanias, Description of Greece’ 1.4.2-4
Then it was that the Athenians put the Greeks under the greatest obligation, and although outflanked offered resistance to the foreigners on two sides. But the Athenians on the fleet suffered most, for the Lamian gulf is a swamp near Thermopylae—the reason being, I think, the hot water that here runs into the sea. These then were more distressed; for taking the Greeks on board they were forced to sail through the mud weighted as they were by arms and men.
So they tried to save Greece in the way described, but the Galatai, now south of the Gates, cared not at all to capture the other towns, but were very eager to sack Delphi and the treasures of the god. They were opposed by the Delphians themselves and the Phocians of the cities around Parnassus; a force of Aetolians also joined the defenders, for the Aetolians at this time were pre-eminent for their vigorous activity. When the forces engaged, not only were thunderbolts and rocks broken off from Parnassus hurled against the Gauls, but terrible shapes as armed warriors haunted the foreigners. They say that two of them, Hyperochus and Amadocus, came from the Hyperboreans, and that the third was Pyrrhus son of Achilles. Because of this help in battle the Delphians sacrifice to Pyrrhus as to a hero, although formerly they held even his tomb in dishonor, as being that of an enemy.”
After a victory against the Greeks at Thermopylae, the combined forces of several Greek peoples succeeded in holding the Senogalatîs off at Delphi. Brennos, who led the expedition took his own life after a combination of being wounded and the major defeat. Some accounts say that all of the raiding Senogalatîs were wiped out. After the defeat, they were harassed until they gave up on raiding Greece. This much is believable.
It is more likely that some did survive, however, and would have likely either returned home, or continued east to a place where many of their fellows were going – Galatia. One such group of survivors of the battle are mentioned by Polybius in his historical commentary (4.46):
“These Gauls left their country with Brennus. Having survived the battle at Delphi they made their way to the Hellespont, instead of crossing to Asia, and were captivated by the beauty of the district around Byzantium, so they settled there…”
Polybius, Histories, 4.46
Galatia itself is a word that’s hard to understand if you aren’t used to discerning Greek sources. Historical Gaul was also called Galatia as it basically means “land of the Gauls”, in Greek. The Senogalatîs were normally called Galatai (formerly they were called Keltoi by them). In this case, we refer to the later understanding which was the lands in what is now central Turkey in which the Senogalatîs settled. They indeed came as raiders at first. As newcomers in ancient times often did. While living in this far flung land, they were raiders, settlers, and as was often the case – mercenaries.
The beginning of their time in Anatolia stemmed from the splitting off of some of the troops of Brennos who instead of going on the ill-fated raid on Delphi moved east through Thrace. Some did stay in Thrace, founding a kingdom that lasted for about a century or so. The bulk of them, under Lutarios and Leonorios made their way across into Anatolia. Here, they would raid and sometimes occupy various places along the coast. This didn’t sit well with the Greek city-states of the area. They attempted to keep the Senogalatîs out, but as was often the case the Greek city-states were constantly struggling against each other. It didn’t take long for some of them to start hiring Senogalatîs for their battles.
It was this that allowed them to cross the Hellespont into what is now Turkey. Specifically a power struggle between Nicomedes of Bythinia and his brother Zipotes. Hiring around 20,000 Senogalatis mercenaries, Nicomedes let in the first wave of Senogalatîs that would come to call the region home. When they weren’t fighting battles on behalf of this or that power in the region, they were conducting their own raids. It took a battle on the plains of Sardis where the commander used elephants in the battle to get the Senogalatîs to settle in the region that became known as Galatia, in what is now north central Turkey. From there it was an easy base for conducting raids and for contact with other groups who would either trade with them or solicit their services for wars. The main three were the Tolistobogioi, Trocmioi, and the Textosagioi (in sources Tolistobogii, Trocmii, and Tectosages).
Those who went to the Anatolian Highlands were different from those who went with Brennos to Delphi. A large number of them weren’t warriors, but immigrants. While mercenary work got their foot in the door so to speak, many of them were primarily looking for a new place to settle. This line of work saw them serving all over the region, as well as in Egypt. Thus Senogalatis mercenaries even saw the pyramids at the time. As newcomers, they were considered an unruly bunch. Though it should be known that the Greeks conquered several areas in Anatolia, and it was a frequent battleground for other powers in the area such as the Pergamenes and eventually the Romans as well started raiding and grabbing land through involvement in political struggles in the region.
Combinations of these other powers were eventually able to confine the three Senogalatis nations to the north central highlands. Here they remained for several centuries, in some ways assimilating to the Greek, Roman, and Anatolian neighbours that they had, but also preserving enough of their own identity that they maintained their tongue for over 600 years.
Bessus Nouiogalation 