I mercenari galati d'Egitto

During the Hellenistic period mercenary armies constituted by Galatian soldiers were present in a great number of states of the Eastern Mediterranean. For the case of Ptolemaic Egypt the first Galatian mercenaries arrived in the region at some point during the first part of the 3rd century BC at the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus' reign and they were present at the place until the Late Roman period. Although information about them is evident on the historical record there are aspects of their history which have not been studied extensively, such as their culture, their settlements and their position within the Egyptian society. At the same time mercenary armies of Galatians were units with a highly ideological value apart from the military one and usually there were many references to them within the propaganda of the different states, with the Ptolemaic kingdom being no exception. In fact, these propagandistic narratives that were related to the Celtic soldiers were not only present in Hellenistic Egypt but they had also acquired some unique local elements. As such, the purpose of this text is to study more extensively the history, culture and ideological importance of the Galatian minority in Egypt, along with the aspects which are often overlooked, by utilising the majority of the available evidence, which is constituted by both historiographical and epigraphical sources but also of archaeological material.