324 THE GALATIANS AND CABYLE A FRAGMENTARY INSCRIPTION AND ITS CONTEXT JULIJ EMILOV The battle of Couropedion in 281 BC and the end of Lysimachus’ rule in Thrace, Macedonia and Asia Minor followed by the Galatian cam- paigns in the Balkans and Anatolia in the begin- ning of the 70ties of the third century BC marked a period of significant political transformations in the Hellenistic world. Antigonos Gonatas was recognized as a king of the Macedons af- ter his sound victory over a Galatian band near Lysimachia in the late summer of 277 BC and managed to establish the house of Antigonids as a ruling family in Macedonia until the Roman in- volvement in the region (Gruen 1984: 429–436; Green 1990: 134). A victory over the Galatians appeared to be the best and quickest way to win solid international prestige. The theme was suc- cessfully employed by the Aitolians expanding immensely the political influence and the mili- tary force of their koinon in Continental Greece after the Galatian campaign to Delphi (Scholten 2000: 30). A slogan of saving the Hellenic world from the destructive barbarian forces was also introduced in Anatolia and both the Seleucids followed more successfully by the Attalids of Pergamon proclaimed their victories against the barbarians on inscriptions and architectural monuments (Worrle 1975; Marszal 2000; Gruen 2000: 17 ff). The actual role of the Galatians in the affairs of the Hellenistic world was certainly not among the leading ones. Political importance of the military accomplishments against their tribal groups in Anatolia was beyond doubt a matter of exaggeration as illustrated by contem- porary Pergamene art and "Kulturpolitik" (Allen 1983: 73; Schales 1985; Gruen 2000: 20 ff). * The European Galatians or more precisely the ones which remained in ancient Thrace near the enigmatic Tylis did not had the historical chance of their Anatolian kinsmen to become a subject of artistic representations as the famous statuary groups presumably Pergamene in origin known by Roman replica (Steward 2000 with op. cit). The history of their kingdom of Tylis, its ter- ritory, political weight and relations to the other centers of power in Thrace is rather problematic (cf. recent studies on the history of the period in Thrace: Delev 2003 with op. cit;  2004: 282). The Galatian invasions and settlement in the Thracian plain certainly have changed the po- litical landscape but it is hard to assess if these events had such a devastating effect on the de- velopment of the local communities as suggested (B 1955; Mihailov 1961). Taking in consideration the paucity of written sources and archaeological discoveries relevant to the turbu- lent times in Thrace of the second quarter and the second half of the 3 rd century BC it is question- able whether the crisis caused by the Galatians * The idea of this article was born during my research in the library of EFA. I take the occasion to express my grati- tude to the institution for the support. STUDIA ARCHAEOLOGICA UNIVERSITATIS SERDICENSIS Supplementum IV (2005) Stephanos Archaeologicos in honorem Professoris Ludmili Getov _____________________