Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low—
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,[1]
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now[2]
The arena swims around him—he is gone,[3]
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
CXLI.
He heard it, but he heeded not—his eyes
Were with his heart—and that was far away;
- ↑ From the red gash fall bigly——.—[MS. M.]
- ↑ Like the last of a thunder-shower——.—[MS. M.]
- ↑ The earth swims round him——.—[MS. M. erased.]
was of bronze. The Gladiator was once in the Villa Ludovisi, and was bought by Clement XII. The right arm is an entire restoration of Michael Angelo.
[There is no doubt that the statue of the "Dying Gladiator" represents a dying Gaul. It is to be compared with the once-named "Arria and Pætus" of the Villa Ludovisi, and with other sculptures in the museums of Venice, Naples, and Rome, representing "Gauls and Amazons lying fatally wounded, or still in the attitude of defending life to the last," which belong to the Pergamene school of the second century B.C. M. Collignon hazards a suggestion that the "Dying Gaul" is the trumpet-sounder of Epigonos, in which, says Pliny (Hist. Nat., xxxiv. 88), the sculptor surpassed all his previous works ("omnia fere prædicta imitatus præcessit in tubicine"); while Dr. H. S. Urlichs (see The Elder Pliny's Chapters on the History of Art, translated by K. Jex-Blake, with Commentary and Historical Illustrations, by E. Sellers, 1896, p. 74, note) falls back on Winckelmann's theory that the "statue ... may have been simply the votive-portrait of the winner in the contest of heralds, such as that of Archias of Hybla in Delphoi." (See, too, Helbig's Guide to the Collection of Public Antiquities in Rome, Engl, transl., 1895, i. 399; History of Greek Sculpture, by A. S. Murray, LL.D., F.S.A., 1890, ii. 381-383.)]
↑ a. Either Polyphontes, herald of Laïus, killed by Œdipus; or Kopreas, herald of Eurystheus, killed by the Athenians when he endeavoured to drag the Heraclidæ from the altar of mercy, and in whose honour they instituted annual games, continued to the time of Hadrian; or Anthemocritus, the Athenian herald, killed by the Megarenses, who never recovered the impiety. [See Hist. of Ancient Art, translated by G. H. Lodge, 1881, ii. 207.]
