Chapter 8　Plaster Casts

When I was a boy I used go to a museum that had copies of all the great Greek sculptures made out of plaster-plaster casts, they are called. The statues I liked best of all, I learned afterward, were not considered as good as those I've told you about in the last chapter.That seems to be the way with children.They like certain things when they are young and different things when they grow up.My favorite was a statue with a label that read The Dying Gladiator.

“What is a gladiator?”I asked.

A gladiator, I was told, was a swordsman, and gladiators were prisoners or slaves who were made to fight each other or a wild animal until one or the other died. This was done just for the amusement of a crowd of people who gathered in a field surrounded with seats, like a stadium, to watch the sport.

I didn't learn until later that the label on the statue was wrong. It should have read The Dying Gaul and not The Dying Gladiator.The Gauls were a barbaric and uncivilized people who lived in the country that is now France.The Gauls fought the Greeks and this Gaul was killed in battle.He wore a twisted collar or chain called a torque around his neck.That's how we know he was a Gaul, for Gauls wore this particular kind of collar.

垂死的高卢人，古罗马雕塑复制品，现存于罗马的卡匹托利欧博物馆（由缅因州桑福德的大学印刷协会提供）