The Dying Gaul
Capitoline Museum, Rome
The Kingdom of Pergamus (283 b.c. To 133 b.c.)
But it was otherwise in the second great centre of Greek influence in Asia Minor—the kingdom of Pergamus. The course of Pergamene history led to one of those emotional outbursts which always find an outlet in national action and often in art. In consequence, evidence remains of a far greater body of sculptural achievement in Pergamus than we find in the Empire of the Seleucidæ. Indeed, the force and originality of Pergamene sculpture raises it far above any artistic effort of its age. This will be granted directly we recall that “The Dying Gaul,” of the Vatican, is a work in the finest Pergamene style. When Byron wrote the two cantos in “Childe Harold” the statue was known as the “Dying Gladiator.”
“I see before me the gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop’d head sinks gradually low—
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow.
He reck’d not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother—he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday.”
We now know that the Pergamene sculptor sought to show one of his country’s Gaulish enemies in the agony of death. The barbarian sinks back on to the narrow shield of his race. At his side is his battle-horn. Round his neck the Gallic torques. The shaggy eyebrows and the matted hair all identify the figure with one of the rude savages whom the Latin and Greek historians describe as fighting naked and ignorant of the elements of military science.
Another work that undoubtedly belongs to the school of Pergamus is the well-known group in the Villa Ludovisi, often called “Paetus and Arria.” A more correct title is “The Gaul killing his Wife.” The warrior realizes his defeat and has just plunged his sword into his breast. He still supports the woman who sinks in death at his side. The matted hair of the wife and the dress edged with fur are sufficient proof of her race. But there is other evidence that “The Dying Gaul” and the “Gaul killing his Wife” have a similar origin. Both appear together in an inventory of Cardinal Ludovisi, dated 1633. Both are made from a marble found on the island of Furni near Samos. It is evident that the two sculptures are copies of Pergamene bronzes which stood in the open square surrounding the temple of Athena Polias on the Acropolis of Pergamus.
The two works represent a large number of similar marbles after Pergamene originals scattered through the galleries of Europe. They lead us at once to inquire into the historical events they clearly incarnate.
The story of the foundation of Pergamus is full of interest. During the years following Alexander’s death, Lysimachus had accumulated a vast treasure in the impregnable Acropolis of Pergamus. He placed his lieutenant Philetairus in charge, occupying himself with schemes of conquest. But Lysimachus was human and late in life took to himself a young wife. To humour her he assented to the murder of a son by a former marriage. The atrocity finally alienated Philetairus. He headed a rebellion, seized the treasure under his charge and founded the kingdom of Pergamus in 283 b.c.
The dynasty founded in this dramatic fashion was destined to a stormy history. As early as 280 b.c. fresh danger threatened from the hordes of Gauls, who began to pour across the passes of the Balkans. Some of these barbarians marched upon Greece. Others crossed the Bosphorus at Byzantium, and eventually founded the Gallo-Greek kingdom of Galatia in the heart of Phrygia. But the king of Pergamus felt that his safety depended upon checking the victorious career of the Gauls. Allying himself with the ruling Seleucus, Attalus I. of Pergamus inflicted a signal defeat. This was about 241 b.c. The victory was not the only one gained by the kingdom of Pergamus. Early in the second century, Eumenes II. (197 b.c.-159 b.c.) gained fresh laurels for his countrymen.
The effect of these brilliant victories upon the imagination of the people of Pergamus can only be realized by comparing it with that of Marathon and Salamis upon the fifth-century Athenians. All around them the Pergamenes saw civilized communities acknowledging defeat at the hands of the Gauls. As the Athenians stemmed the tide of Persian invasion at Marathon, so the Princes of Pergamus saved the Greeks in Asia Minor from the barbarian Gauls who seemed destined to sweep away the newly planted Hellenic civilization. The victories made Pergamus the rival of Alexandria and Antioch. As had been the case after Salamis, a long series of public buildings and temples were erected, until the Acropolis at Pergamus threatened to outshine even that at Athens. Among the statues, as we have said, was the bronze original of “The Dying Gaul.”
It was the second defeat of the Gauls, at the hands of Eumenes II., which led to the building of the great altar of Zeus on the Acropolis of Pergamus. It is worth while to reconstruct a picture of the huge edifice with the aid of our memory of the sister Acropolis at Athens. The Altar stood a little below the Temple of Athena, on the south-west terrace, and was surmounted by an Ionic colonnade, which enclosed the actual place of sacrifice. The worshippers approached by a broad staircase cut from the west side of the great pile. Around the whole structure ran the frieze, with its multitude of figures in the highest relief—the carvings, of course, being interrupted by the staircase. The whole work serves to carry the history of Pergamene sculpture beyond the stage when such a statue as “The Dying Gaul” was produced.
The great frieze was discovered by a young German engineer named Carl Humann. During a business visit to Pergamus, Humann noticed the native workmen breaking up large fragments of sculptured marble, burning them in lime kilns and building them into walls. The exhibition of specimens in Berlin led to systematic excavations in 1879. All that remains of the great work is now exhibited in a specially designed gallery in Berlin, where the frieze can be seen in something approaching its original setting.
No single slab can convey an impression of the bewildering power of the carvings as a whole. The best known is that called “The Triumph of Athena.” The colossal figures (the frieze is almost nine feet high) show the goddess seizing a young giant by the hair, while the serpent of Athena bites at her enemy’s breast. Nike bears a laurel crown in token of Athena’s victory. In the lower part of the slab, the Earth Mother of the giants is seen in anguish. “The Triumph of Athena” was the central group on the Eastern side, and, therefore, faced the square in which the people of Pergamus met. It was balanced by another mighty group, representing Zeus in conflict with three giants. Either affords a fine example of the theatrical style into which the later Pergamene sculpture degenerated. The artist is clearly more interested in the attempt to express excited action than in the more subtle phases of emotion. Nevertheless, mutilated as it is, a fragment like “The Triumph of Athena” testifies to an extraordinary level of technical skill and a magnificent vigour of imagination, even if it also proves an absence of the earlier emotional balance which gave “The Dying Gaul” a deeper beauty.