Between the Gauls from the Lesser Attalid Dedication and the epic battle displayed on the Gigantomachy, we might appear to have a bit of a dissonance between the two. The Gaul statuary relies on the heightened emotional and artistic representations, as well as the emphasis on the vanquished, in order to draw empathy from the viewer while still promoting the pride of victory. The Gigantomachy, on the other hand, shows us a battle of good versus evil where the side of good is obviously strong even in the midst of ongoing strife. We have two different displays of power and the enemy here, but they play on the strength of the victors and the theatricality of heroic struggles.

In many ways, these statues and the Altar of Zeus play strongly into theatricality and therefore mythology and religion. Greek theatres at Pergamon became heavily associated with Dionysian rituals and therefore the gods themselves, and I think this is ultimately the goal of the Gaul statues and Altar of Zeus: to emphasize this celestial connection. The gods don’t just appear on the Altar of Zeus, they dramatically wage war against the chaotic Titans/Giants, all the while maintaining their stoic expressions even when they appear to be evenly matched.

With the Gauls, the victors are not shown alongside the victims; Pollitt also notes that even if they originally were, they were probably not nearly so empathetically shown. This display of pathos and use of theatricality makes their anguish so much more tangible, connecting these chaotic forces with the order of the Olympians. I think this might answer the question of why the Gauls were shown so sympathetically even though they were the enemy; other than the fact that their anguish means Greek victory and that their own strength magnifies the accomplishments of the Greeks, I think this heightened display of emotions and evocation of empathy reminds the viewer of the balance of the world as a whole.