the upper valley of Sangarios (Sakarya), in which the famous city of Gordium (now Polatli) stood; the Tectosages settled around Tavium and eastwards. The Trocmi settled along the banks of the River Halys (Kizirmak), with Ancyra (Ankara) as their chief settlement. Strabo records that each tribe had four septs, making twelve septs altogether, all of whom sent a total of 300 elected representatives to an assembly at Drunemeton. Elsewhere it is recorded that Pessinus was their chief city, in the territory of the Tolistoboii, so perhaps this was the same as Drunemeton (“the sanctuary of oaks”). The Galatian Celts issued their own coinage. Galatia remained independent for 250 years until on the defeat of Deiotaros II, the last king, Galatia became a Roman province (25 b.c.). Paul of Tarsus made Galatia famous in Christian terms by visiting the land of the Tolistoboii and staying in Pessinus between a.d. 40 and 50. He later wrote his famous “Epistle to Galatians.” St. Jerome, staying in Ancyra (Ankara) in the early fifth century, reported that the Galatians still spoke a Celtic language that was similar to that spoken in Gaul, with which he was familiar. At what period the Celtic language of Galatia, its culture, customs, and historical traditions ceased to exist is difficult to estimate. The language was probably dead by the eighth century, when the earliest records of modern Turkish are to be found. There seems, within Turkish culture and the surrounding Greek culture, to be little trace of the seven centuries of Celtic occupation in the area.

Galicia

Northwest Spain. During the fifth and sixth centuries a.d., as the Anglo-Saxons began to push into Britain to carve England out of the former Celtic territory, British tribes began to migrate. The major migrations were to the Armorican peninsula—Brittany. Others settled in Celtic pockets elsewhere, such as Brittenberg on the Rhine, while more groups went to Ireland. Other tribal groups arrived on the northern seaboard of Spain, in Galicia and Asturias, settling among a Latin-speaking population.

The settlers were recognised at the Council of Lugo in a.d. 567 as constituting the Christian episcopal See of Bretoña, whose bishop, Mahiloc, signed the acta of the Second Council of Braga in a.d. 572. The settlers have a Celtic name for the area—Galicia—argued to be the same root as Galatia. But these Brythonic Celtic–speaking settlements in Galicia and Asturias were quickly absorbed