The Dying Gaul statue

Some insight about the Hellenistic perception of and attitude to "Barbarians" can be taken from the "Dying Gaul", a statue commissioned by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Celtic Galatians in Anatolia (the bronze original is lost, but a Roman marble copy was found in the 17th Century[13]). The statue depicts with remarkable realism a dying Gallic warrior with a typically Gallic hairstyle and moustache. He lies on his fallen shield while sword and other objects lie beside him. He appears to be fighting against death, refusing to accept his fate.

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. The message conveyed by the sculpture, as H. W. Janson comments, is that "they knew how to die, barbarians that they were."

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