Was Pednelissos a “Galatian Polis”? A Note on SEG II 710 and the Debate on the Location of Paul’s Galatians

Abstract

Scholarship is divided whether Paul’s Letter to the Galatians addresses ethnic Galatians in or around Ankyra (North Galatian hypothesis) or other inhabitants in the south of the Roman province (South Galatian hypothesis). The South Galatian hypothesis, so it is argued, should no longer draw on a lex sacra from Pisidian Pednelissos, which was traditionally dated to the 1st century (BC or AD), though should rather be considered early-Hellenistic. In this, citizens allegedly self-identify as πόλις Γαλατῶν (SEG II 710, l. 9). Γαλατῶν is neither an ethnic nor a compliment of πόλις, but defines the ten candidates that the community is to preselect from among the sanctuary’s neokoroi (Γαλατῶν δε[κ]άδ[ος συναχθείσης]). A lot was then to decide which of them would be the next Galato, the most prominent sacred official of Pednelissos, probably the priestess of the (Eleusinian) triad Pluto(s), Kore and Demeter.