Dying Gaul

The Dying Gaul, also called The Dying Galatian (Italian: Galata morente) or The Dying Gladiator, is an ancient Roman marble semi-recumbent statue now in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. It is a copy of a now lost Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic period (323–31 BC) thought to have been made in bronze. The original may have been commissioned at some time between 230 and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatians, the Celtic or Gaulish people of parts of Anatolia. The original sculptor is believed to have been Epigonus, a court sculptor of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon.

Until the 20th century, the marble statue was usually known as The Dying Gladiator, on the assumption that it depicted a wounded gladiator in a Roman amphitheatre. It was first identified as a "barbarian" by Ennio Quirino Visconti based on the figure's neck torc, matted hair, bushy moustache, distinctive eyebrows, and wide nose. In the mid-19th century it was identified as a Gaul or Galatian and the present name "Dying Gaul" gradually achieved popular acceptance.

History

The Dying Gaul was first recorded in a 1623 inventory of the collections of the Ludovisi family. The 16th-century Ludovisi inventories do not mention the so-called Ludovisi barbarians, thus it is likely that the Ludovisi acquired them early in the 17th century, during excavations for the building of the Villa Ludovisi commissioned by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi on the site of the Roman Gardens of Sallust (Latin: Horti Sallustiani). It is very likely that the barbarian figures came from these gardens.