Give them back their marbles
Christopher Hitchens
Shortly before the last war, Nicos Kazant- zakis visited England to write one of his best (and least read) travel books. It is pro- bably the most Anglophile account of the country written by a foreigner in this cen- tury. On the eve of a conflict in which, at its lowest point, Britain and Greece were to be the only democratic allies against Hitler, Kazantzakis found the heart and stomach of the English to be in good repair. The Cretan radical even praised the public school system for its cultivation of gentlemanly virtues, which he listed, along with Shakespeare and the idea of liberty, as one of the three distinctive English con- tributions to civilisation. Shortly before the last war, Nicos Kazant- zakis visited England to write one of his best (and least read) travel books. It is pro- bably the most Anglophile account of the country written by a foreigner in this cen- tury. On the eve of a conflict in which, at its lowest point, Britain and Greece were to be the only democratic allies against Hitler, Kazantzakis found the heart and stomach of the English to be in good repair. The Cretan radical even praised the public school system for its cultivation of gentlemanly virtues, which he listed, along with Shakespeare and the idea of liberty, as one of the three distinctive English con- tributions to civilisation.
On his visit to the British Museum, however, his tone underwent a subtle alteration. Confronted with the Parthenon Marbles, filched from Athens by the (ad- mittedly Scottish) seventh Earl of Elgin, Kazantzakis wrote: 'in her sooty vitals, London stores these marble monuments of the gods, just as some unsmiling puritan might store in the depths of his memory some past erotic moment, blissful and ecstatic sin.'
Several years later, in a biting attack on the British Museum for its retention of the Marbles, the late English essayist Colin Maclnnes described the purloined exhibit as being hung on a meat hook, incongruously out of context. Today, the Greek govern- ment is once again demanding what it has never ceased to request — the return of the Parthenon Marbles to their rightful place on the Acropolis.
The fact that Melina Mercouri is now the Greek Cultural Minister has given many English people the impression that the Greek government is simply playing to the gallery. Nothing could be more self- deluding. The briefest of conversations with a Greek will show that feeling about the friezes runs very deep. Their presence in London is felt as a crude amputation of the country's greatest shrine. What are the arguments with which we convince ourselves that we are right in giving such of- fence to another nation? First, Lord Elgin bought the marbles; second, his removal of them to London saved them from looting or desecration; third, if all countries demanded the recall of their treasures, museum culture would become barren.
None of these arguments will bear much scrutiny. The first is easy: Lord Elgin bought the marbles all right (he also sold them for £35,000 to the British Museum in 1816), but he bought them from the Turkish regime of occupation. He seems to have cheated even them, having in his
capacity as British Ambassador to Turkey secured a laconic permission to take casts of, and even remove, 'any pieces of stone with old inscriptions or figures thereon'. Not the best blanket descriptions of the works of Phidias. Clearly, no deal struck between Lord Elgin and the representative of a usurping foreign power is binding on the Greeks.
It is true that brigandage and vandalism might have overtaken the Marbles in the period before Greece became independent in 1821. It is also true that Lord Elgin lost a large consignment of the treasures at sea in the course of moving them. If the argument is for preservation, why did Lord Elgin not build his enclosure in Athens? In any case, Athens is now a perfectly safe and reputable place for the study of classical Greek art, and to suggest that the Greeks cannot be trusted with their own patrimony is (one hopes unintentionally) a great insult.
The third argument — what if everybody wanted his stuff back? — is the old last- ditch standby of the bureaucrat. It is the authentic voice of the nanny and the pen- pusher. Either an action is right or it isn't. The droning about 'setting a precedent' is always an attempt to send the argument down a side-track. Nevertheless, the case for returning the Parthenon Marbles easily rises above this comforting obfuscation. In the first place, the Parthenon Marbles are unique: they are an integral part of a surviv- ing and extant monument, which is the chief symbol of continuity and of antiquity to a living people. The same cannot be said of the vast hoard of Pharaonic relics: they have no heirs to claim them and they exist in such profusion that many museums wouldn't mind returning a few.
But there is only one Parthenon frieze. And its actual home, the building with which it was designed to harmonise, is still standing. One does not have to be an expert on Greek sculpture to know that its essence is balance and symmetry. Deprived of their setting, the Marbles were at one stage very important in concentrating European scholarship on the study of Greek sculpture. That usefulness, which was large- ly incidental, has now been outlived. The Marbles would look much better in the building for which they were intended which is now itself undergoing a very dedicated work of protection and conserva- tion. Against this case, what has the British government to say? We can't set a precedent. Who are they afraid of, the Babylonians?
Some years ago, the Lane collection was returned to Dublin. Sir Hugh Lane had always intended to bequeath the paintings there, but it took a long time for his wishes to be respected. When they were, the deci- sion took the form of a 'permanent loan'. The very least the British government could do would be to 'lend' the Greeks back their rightful property. And we could stop call- ing the loot after Lord Elgin. The Greeks cannot be expected to believe that, on top of everything else, we are doing them a favour. Beware of the British when they come bearing gifts.
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