Geography

​To the south of the Paphlagonians, therefore, are the Galatians; of these there are three tribes, two named after their leaders, the Trocmi and the Tolistobogii, and the third, the Tectosages, after the tribe in Celtica. The Galatians occupied this country after wandering for a long time and overrunning the territory under the Attalic kings and the Bithynians, until they received by voluntary concession the land now called Galatia and Gallograecia. Leonnorius is thought to have been the chief leader of their crossing into Asia. Although there were three tribes speaking the same language and differing in no other respect, they divided each of them into four portions and called each portion a tetrarchy, which had its own tetrarch, and one judge and one military commander (stratophylax) appointed under the tetrarch, and two assistant commanders (hypostratophylaces). The council of the twelve tetrarchs consisted of three hundred men, and they used to assemble at the place called Drynemetum. Now the council judged cases of murder, while the tetrarchs and the judges decided the other matters. In ancient times, then, such was their arrangement, but in our time the sovereignty came down to three, then to two rulers, and then to one, namely Deiotarus, and then Amyntas succeeded him; and now the Romans possess both this territory and all that which was under Amyntas, having united them into a single province.

​The Trocmi possess the parts near the Pontus and Cappadocia; these are the best lands that the Galatians occupy. They have three fortified strongholds, Tavium, the trading center of the people in those parts, where there is a bronze colossal statue of Zeus and his sacred precinct, which is a place of asylum; and Mithridatium, which Pompey gave to Bogodiatarus, having separated it from the Pontic kingdom; and thirdly, so to speak, Danala, where Pompey and Lucullus held their meeting, the one coming to succeed to the command of the war, and the other handing over his authority and departing for his triumph. The Trocmi indeed possess these parts, but the Tectosages possess the parts near Greater Phrygia in the direction of Pessinus and Orcaorci; their stronghold was Ancyra, which bears the same name as the Phrygian town near Lydia in the region of Blaus. The Tolistobogii are contiguous to the Bithynians and to the Phrygia called Epictetus; their strongholds are Blucium and Peium, of which the former was the royal residence of Deiotarus, and the latter his treasury.

​Pessinus is the greatest trading center in these parts, containing a temple of the Mother of the Gods which receives great veneration; they call her Agdistis. In ancient times the priests were indeed certain potentates, enjoying a great priesthood, but now their honors have been much diminished, though the trading center still endures. The sacred precinct has been constructed in a temple-befitting manner by the Attalic kings with a temple and porticoes of white stone; and the Romans made the temple famous, having sent for the statue of the goddess from here in accordance with the Sibylline oracles, just as they did also for that of Asclepius at Epidaurus. There is also a mountain lying above the city, Dindymum, from which the goddess is called Dindymene, just as she is called Cybele from Cybela. Nearby also the river Sangarius makes its course; and on this are the ancient habitations of the Phrygians, of Midas and even earlier of Gordius and some others, which do not preserve even the traces of cities, but are villages slightly larger than the rest, such as Gordium and Gorbeus, the royal residence of Castor the son of Saocondarus, in which Deiotarus slew this man, who was his son-in-law, and also his own daughter; and he razed the fortress and ruined most of the settlement.

​After Galatia, to the south, lies Lake Tatta, adjacent to Greater Cappadocia in the region of the Morimeni, and being a part of Greater Phrygia, and also the country contiguous to this extending as far as the Taurus, of which Amyntas held the greatest part. Lake Tatta is a natural salt-pan, and its water so easily congeals around everything that is dipped into it, that when they let down a circle of rope, they draw up crowns of salt; and the birds that touch the water with their wings are caught, falling immediately on account of the congealing of the salt.