Question about Attalus

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Ave

Livy writes in Book XXIII of Ab Urbe Condita that the king Attalus had "vanquished the Gauls in a single battle" but gives no further details.

I'm curious - what battle would that be and has anyone recorded details of that battle?

Thanks for any input.

[Paralus]

That would be Attalus I Soter near about 238. He succeeded Eumenes I to the throne of the "upstart" kingdom of Pergamum. Having thus defeated the Galatians he styled himself "saviour" of the Greeks. There are paltry details at Polyaenus 4.20.1; Strabo 13.20.2; Paus.1.4.5-6 and Polybios 18.41.7.

[Epictetus]

Here is a bit of interpretation.

The wars with the Gauls, then, must be seen as part of a wider pattern, Attalus’ attempt to carve out a strong and independent kingdom for himself at the expense, chiefly, of the Seleucids. The Galatians took part in two battles; one involved the Tolistoagii, the Tectosages, and Antiochus Hierax (their ally from the ‘Brothers’ war’) in a defeat at the temple of Aphrodite which lay close to Pergamum itself; the other was the defeat of the Tolistoagii alone at the sources of the Caicus. There is no certainty either about the dates of the battles or even of the order in which they were fought. According to Polybius, Attalus received the title of ‘king’ only after his Galatian victory, and when he died in 197 he had reigned for forty-four years. This should place the victory in 241/0, and we could take this to have been a battle against the Tolistoagii on their own, before the ‘Brothers’ war’ and the Galatian alliance with Antiochus Hierax. But doubts arise since the victory could have been that over the combined forces of Antiochus and the Galatians at the temple of Aphrodite, with the latter emphasized on the victory propaganda. Furthermore, Polybius’ forty-four years might refer to the whole period of Attanlus’ hegemony, not simply to the period when he had the title of king. Other sources help little. Eusebius dates the victory over Antiochus at Coloe in Lydia to 229/8, followed within a year by Antiochus’ death in Thrace. So his battle with Galatian allies belongs to an earlier date, sometime in the 230s when he was still on the offensive against Pergamum.

Uncertainty then persists about the sequence of events in the first war between Pergamum and the Gauls, but not about its cause, Attalus’ decision to refuse to pay their stipendion, or about its result, a victory as decisive as Antiochus I’s in the battle of the elephants. It brought a Galatian agreement not to attack the Pergamene kingdom, and relative peace for a generation. But it would be a mistake to over-emphasise the importance of these victories. Attalus secured his kingdom but offered less reassurance to the rest of Anatolia. The Galatians had been defeated on campaign but their territory remained intact; they were forced to relinquish none of the spoils they had accumulated over the previous two generations, and the terror they inspired remained unalloyed until the expedition of Manlius Vulso in 189.

Mitchell, Anatolia