War on marble Alex Athan Kof

Alex Athan Kof

War on Marble

See this Doric column?

It was ordered by an ambitious politician, dedicated to a wise goddess, designed by a skilled architect, built by a punctual slave, butchered by a hate-filled Christian, stolen by a prolific art smuggler, displayed in a showcase, innit?

‘Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are cross’d See here what Elgin won, and what he lost! Another name with his pollutes my shrine’ 1 .

________________________________ 1 Lord Byron, ‘The Curse of Minerva’, in Lord Elgin and the Marbles, by William St. Clair (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 261.