Slain. His own sword on the ground beside him, he leans on one arm as the blood pours from a fatal wound on his torso. The naked man lies in the dust – defeated, but unconquerable. Resolve remains on his pain-stricken face. The thousands-year-old marble has preserved his misery, his defiance, and the bitter moments before his certain end.
Here lies the “Dying Gaul.”
The statue depicts a Gallic warrior, a barbarian, dying at the hands of the Greeks. What was once a bronze statue was remade by the Romans. Nearly as old as Christendom, the first or second century A.D. figure likely adorned the temple of Athena, supplemented the grandeur of Nero’s Rome, was captured by Napoleon, displayed in the Louvre, and at last travelled the ocean to the National Museum of Art.
His American resting place lies among towering granite pillars and a lofted rotunda on the second floor of the museum. He joins us here as part of “The Dream of Rome and 2013 – The Year of Italian Culture,” organized by the President of the Italian Republic and the Embassy of Italy in Washington along with the Ministero per I Beni e le Attivita Culturali.
“A universally recognized masterpiece,” museum information reads, “the ‘Dying Gaul’ is a deeply moving celebration of human spirit.”
The dark stone around the statue causes his white form to glow, a visible image of what the Romans considered the conquering of barbarianism by the excellence of civilization. The Greeks themselves considered Gallic warriors intensely brave and ferocious.
“Wearing nothing but their weapons,” Polybius, a second century historian, writes, “very terrifying too were the appearance and gestures of the naked warriors…all in the prime of life, and finely built men.”
This warrior never got the chance to die. Art students have replicated his form countless times, and even Thomas Jefferson desired to acquire him. When young men set off on their Grand Tour, they were all sent to capture a glimpse of his last breath. Now thousands of Washington, D.C., visitors gather around him daily, forever capturing him in timeless photographs.
Yet the warrior is not the only one of his kind. Another sculpture uncovered in Rome at the same time depicts a Gaul stabbing his own chest as his wife falls dead as his feet. The “Gaul Committing Suicide with his Wife” remains as yet another visage of Greek domination. The man and his wife reveal the darker side of conquest: for every vehement warrior there are the weaker ones, more content to end their own lives than to fall by the swords of their enemies.
The statue will remain on American soil until March 16, when it will be carefully transported back to its home in Rome. The Gaul invokes our pity and our questions. Despite his fallen position, were the Greeks enamored by his strength or pleased to mock their vanquished enemy? His muscular body and nude form hearkens back to Greco-Roman praise of strength and humanity.
One thing remains certain, the fine warrior will likely never die – not as long as his marble form remains visible to public honor and appreciation.
