Inv. Scu 747

The Dying Gaul is one of the most celebrated and much admired works of the Musei Capitolini .
The figure, identified as a Galatian by the twisted neck ring (torques), a typical ornament of Celtic warriors, has a wound on the chest dripping blood and is leaning downwards on his shield, with his face contracted in pain. Hairstyle and moustaches are also typical elements of barbarian iconography, the former reproducing the matted hair (originally longer) and dreadlocks warriors used to wear before a battle.

The statue is a marble copy of a bronze memorial monument, built in the 3rd Century BC as a votive offering (donarium ) with multiple figures (among them also the Ludovisi Gaul, the warrior killing himself and his wife, now in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps) standing in the area of the temple of Athena Nikephoros in Pergamon. The memorial commemorated the victories of King Attalus I over the Galatians, a Celtic population that had invaded the kingdom of Pergamon from the North.

The work was probably found by the Ludovisi family in the fields surrounding their villa , where in late Republican patrician houses once stood (Caesar’s gardens and partially Sallusts gardens). The work was acquired in 1734 along with other statues from the Ludovisi Collection.

This copy has been variously dated, to the mid 1st Century BC and consequently be consistent with a collocation in the Horti Caesaris , or later. It was seized by the French after the Treaty of Tolentino and restored to the Capitoline collections in 1816 .