Dying Gaul
The Dying Gaul is a copy of the Roman marble statue now held in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. Likewise, this statue in Rome is a copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture that is thought to have been executed in bronze. The Hellenistic original is estimated to have been commissioned between 230 BC and 220 BC by Attalos I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Celtic Galatians in Anatolia. The original sculptor is believed to have been Epigonus, a court sculptor of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon.
The statue serves both as a reminder of the Celts’ defeat, thus demonstrating the might of the people who defeated them, and a memorial to their bravery as worthy adversaries.
