{"id":40,"date":"2019-02-05T14:46:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T14:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/?page_id=40"},"modified":"2020-06-08T10:41:19","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T10:41:19","slug":"the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise and Fall: The Suicide Gauls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who Were the Gauls?<\/h1>\r\n

The Gauls were, generally speaking, the ancient Scottish. They were not Asterix and Obelisk, and they were not French, although they occupied the area for a while. They fought their way to Rome in 390BC and burned it to the ground. After several months of playfully (in their minds) terrorising the Romans, the Gauls left with a bucket of gold the Romans gave them. They also left with the promise to settle above the Po river \u2013 and no farther south.<\/p>\r\n

The Romans were afraid of them, because the Gauls fought nude in the winter time. Mediterranean countries don\u2019t fight in the winter \u2013 let alone, nude. In fact, in the Hebrew\/Christian scriptures it states, “…in the spring, when men go to war …” (2 Sam. 11:1).<\/p>\r\n

\"Etruscan_GaulGod\"<\/a>Etruscan Interpretation of a Gaul.<\/p>\r\n

Oh, and they painted their faces blue and dyed their hair white and let it grow long \u2013 they were so impressive (i.e.,\u00a0terrifying<\/em>), the Etruscans actually changed their idea of what gods were like \u2013 from happy, benevolent ones, they added an evil god with wife. Their names? Mantus and\u00a0Mania<\/em>\u00a0\u2026 of course \u2026<\/p>\r\n

The Gauls and Alexander the Great<\/h2>\r\n

Later on, the Gauls began to hear of a great conqueror over in the East \u2013 Alexander the Great. The Gauls were impressed with the rumours, and decided that they needed to see who was this great conquering guy, so they floated and cavorted down the Danube, and eventually found him.<\/p>\r\n

Then, they started laughing \u2013 at how short Alexander was \u2013 in comparison to themselves.<\/p>\r\n

Alexander invited them to leave, and the Gauls instead founded a colony in the centre of his real estate \u2013 Galatia \u2013 pretty much the centre of Turkey.<\/p>\r\n

Over in this new world they continued their game of terrorising anyone within their reach, while beginning to acclimate \u2013 they gradually lost the blue dye and hair colouring tricks. It wasn\u2019t until Attalus of Pergamum in 238BC that the Gauls were subjugated.<\/p>\r\n

The Fall of the Gauls<\/h2>\r\n

Attalus had won a tremendous victory, and sought to commemorate it with a series of bronze statues in Pergamum. His monument originally had 6 bronze figures \u2013 Gauls dying in one way or another. The centre statue was the Suicide Gaul with wife, that we see depicted in the video.<\/p>\r\n

\"DyingGaulCapitol\"<\/a>Dying Gaul at the Capitoline Museums<\/p>\r\n

The type of marble used for this statue was very special. It is called Docimian marble, and the quarry is located in Turkey, close by the Phrygian (pavonazzetto) quarry. This has led historians to conclude that this statue was made while the bronze originals still existed. The Dying Gaul at the Capitoline Museum is made of the same marble. This theory is possible, as Ancient Romans preferred Pentelic or Parian marble for their sculptures.<\/p>\r\n

\nhttps:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SuicideGaul-1.m4v<\/a><\/video><\/div>\r\n

Video of Dying Gaul at Palazzo Altemps, in Rome.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This statue group is named after the Ludovisi family because it suddenly showed up in their inventory list in the 1623. Presumably found on their property, the real estate had been the villa of Roman historian Sallust in the 1st century BC. The Dying Gaul was also found there.<\/p>\r\n

One can still see traces of colour in their hair and clothing. These 2 figures have also been heavily restored. The shafts that you see extending out from the buttox of the male figure are support beams \u2013 marble is actually very fragile. Normally, those beams are removed once the statue is put in place, but in this case it was considered a better choice to have them remain.<\/p>\r\n

By the way, let me politely add that when viewing the specifically ‘male’ part of the marble body, may I suggest to not saying anything like, “oh, that’s big”, or “oh, that’s small”. The ‘male’ aspect of the sculpture is not intended to be ‘big’ or ‘small’ – it is just representative. Just as you won’t see any incredibly busty women statues in Ancient Rome, you won’t find anything extraordinary on the male statues – they have it, they sculpt it.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who Were the Gauls? The Gauls were, generally speaking, the ancient Scottish. They were not Asterix and Obelisk, and they were not French, although they occupied the area for a while. They fought their way…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[16,6,15,14,13],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SuicideGaulFeat-Blog.jpg?fit=1290%2C540&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Rise and Fall: The Suicide Gauls - Things That Need to be Said<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Gauls were, generally speaking, the ancient Scottish. They were not Asterix and Obelisk, and they were not French, although they occupied the area for a while. They fought their way to Rome in 390BC and burned it to the ground.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Rise and Fall: The Suicide Gauls - Things That Need to be Said\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Gauls were, generally speaking, the ancient Scottish. They were not Asterix and Obelisk, and they were not French, although they occupied the area for a while. They fought their way to Rome in 390BC and burned it to the ground.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Things That Need to be Said\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-02-05T14:46:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-06-08T10:41:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SuicideGaulFeat-Blog.jpg?fit=1290%2C540&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1290\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"540\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SarahGildea1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@SarahGildea1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Things That Need to be Said\",\"description\":\"Blog\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5797a9adb824a3dda6fe8f98212ee2c4\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/SuicideGaulFeat-Blog.jpg?fit=1290%2C540&ssl=1\",\"width\":1290,\"height\":540,\"caption\":\"Dying Gauls\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/\",\"name\":\"The Rise and Fall: The Suicide Gauls - Things That Need to be Said\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-02-05T14:46:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-06-08T10:41:19+00:00\",\"description\":\"The Gauls were, generally speaking, the ancient Scottish. They were not Asterix and Obelisk, and they were not French, although they occupied the area for a while. They fought their way to Rome in 390BC and burned it to the ground.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/#webpage\"},\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5797a9adb824a3dda6fe8f98212ee2c4\"},\"headline\":\"The Rise and Fall: The Suicide Gauls\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-02-05T14:46:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-06-08T10:41:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/#webpage\"},\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5797a9adb824a3dda6fe8f98212ee2c4\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/#primaryimage\"},\"keywords\":\"Altemps,Ancient Rome,Capitoline,etruscan,Gaul\",\"articleSection\":\"Ancient Rome\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-rise-and-fall-suicide-gauls\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5797a9adb824a3dda6fe8f98212ee2c4\",\"name\":\"sicarri\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d074ae50f1be3cfd3d31c2b8256d5e48?s=96&d=mm&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"sicarri\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/#personlogo\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGAzD-E","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":258,"url":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/roman-architectural-column-for-temples\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":0},"title":"Roman Architectural Columns","date":"February 9, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In the West, the design of temples and their impressive, decorative columns goes back to the ancient Egyptians. The technique will be codified by the Ancient Greeks. Vitruvius however, will get credit later on, as his book is the only surviving major work on the subject. The Egyptians used sandstone,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ancient Rome"","img":{"alt_text":"Classical Columns, Temple to Hadrian","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/hadtemp1.jpg?fit=800%2C598&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":287,"url":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/incorrupt-saint-in-rome\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":1},"title":"Incorrupt Saint! Rafaela de Porras in Rome","date":"February 9, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Before we get to this incorrupt saint in Rome, I must say that I had decided, no more articles on churches for a while. A good blog has variety. Then, I stumbled upon this body that has been laying around for about 90 years not decomposing \u2026 So, I investigated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Catholic Things"","img":{"alt_text":"The Face of Incorrupt St. Rafaela de Porras","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/RafaelaFace.jpg?fit=400%2C334&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25,"url":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/the-pantheon-an-uncommon-temple-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":2},"title":"The Pantheon in Rome, An Uncommon Temple \"To the Gods\"","date":"February 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Pantheon is believed to be built between the years 118 and 125, and has architectural features that wouldn't be attempted today. Learn what the architect accomplished 1900 years ago. Many architects have written their masters thesis on it, giving their account of how they believe it was built. Unfortunately,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ancient Rome"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/PantheonFeatured-Blog.jpg?fit=255%2C300&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":130,"url":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/freemasonic-symbols-in-the-churches-of-rome\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":3},"title":"Freemasonic Symbols Hidden in the Churches of Rome","date":"February 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Transept Altar, Church of the Ges\u00f9 Baroque was the dominant style in and much of Europe in the 1600's. Wild and colourful, creative, surprising \u2013 theatrical \u2013 all these terms explain the style well. It was also a response to the Protestant Reformation, and part of the Catholic Renewal. A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Catholic Things"","img":{"alt_text":"Altar in the Chapel of the Knights of Malta Palace","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/MaltaAltar-1.jpg?fit=500%2C740&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16,"url":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/michelangelo-how-understood-then-and-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":4},"title":"Michelangelo, Then and Now","date":"February 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"There is only a few specialists in Renaissance studies today take seriously the theology of the Renaissance or the work of Michelangelo. Most writers want you to believe their fairy tail \u2018pagan\u2019 Renaissance, but this is merely a\u00a0creation\u00a0of 18th century historians. Why should we care?\u00a0If we want to understand what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art History"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Michelelangeloblog.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":34,"url":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/bernini-st-teresa-davila-and-bl-ludovica\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":5},"title":"Bernini, St. Teresa d\u2019Avila and Bl. Ludovica","date":"February 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"People often confuse the statue of St. Teresa of Avila with that of Bl. Ludovica Albertone, especially when they see the statue of Ludovica first. After all \u2013 who do you see in this picture? Blessed Ludovica Albertone If you see St. Teresa \u2013 that\u2019s fantastic . . . keep\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahgildea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}