This statue is from Pergamum (Pergamon), the royal capital of the Attalids on the coast of present-day Turkey. In 278 BC, migrating Celtic tribes from Gaul crossed the Hellespont and settled in Galatia to the east. In a series of campaigns fought some fifty years later, they were defeated by Attalus I in defense of the Greek cities of the region. The statue is a later Roman copy of a third-century BC bronze commemorating that victory. It has been associated with the sculptor Epigonus, to whom Pliny attributes the "Trumpeter" (a curved Celtic trumpet rests at the feet of the dying warrior) and whose name is inscribed on the base of one of the great victory monuments erected on the acropolis at Pergamum around 220 BC.
Another statue, probably from that same monument, is the Ludovisi Group, which shows a Gallic chieftan, who already has slain his wife and now, rather than be captured, defiantly turns his sword upon himself. The respect of the Greeks for their defeated foe is evident in these heroic representations, as is the implicit prowess of the victors over them.
