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PARTHENON MARBLES: A PRESENT DAY ANSWER TO A PRESENT DAY QUESTION

The battle of the Parthenon Marbles is still unresolved. Legal and legalistic arguments are pitted against historical and ethical ones. That does not bring the parties any closer together. The British say the 5th century BC sculptures by Phidias were legally obtained from the ruling Ottomans who couldn't care less about Greek heritage. Or that the sculptures were taken into protective custody. Which is an argument as well for the return of the marbles to Athens, since the threat has been removed since, give or take, the last two hundred years! The Greeks counter with a fine tuned appeal to the integrity of the art work and that the newly built Acropolis Museum provides all the safety the sculptures will ever need, thank you very much! 


Nov. 20, 2025 Documentary: Legacy of the Empire: From Slaves to Bond: The Rise of the British Empire – Episode I. 

Some have tried to find a solution proposing to divide the treasure, a idea that satisfies no one. Copies would be great, but that merely replaces the question of ownership, with the query who gets the original and who gets the copies?

The latest proposal from the British side adds insult to injury. 


There is of course another side to this. When Elgin made his deal with the Ottomans, Turkish rule was already on the decline. Its middle name at the time was, 'the sick man of Europe'. Not long after Elgin had his way with the marbles, the Greek Revolution of 1821 got under way. 

The great powers of the time, Great Britain, France and Russia took their time deciding if they would support the various resistance movements against Ottoman rule, the Europeans scheming for fear that Russia would benefit from the collapse. 


Note: I've just seen the Kapodistrias movie. It's great, but totally unsuitable for Western audiences. I will write a review in the coming days to explain. 

In the end the British and the French decided in favor of supporting the Greek Revolution, details of which are discussed in our series on the nature of various Enlightenment Revolutions (versus Wars of Independence, which are decidedly two entirely different animals, though they are generally grouped together) (link).

Young, liberal European firebrands called Philhellenes like Lord Byron, physically joined the war effort with romantic, neo pagan notions of Classical Greece, ignoring the fact that the Greeks sat first row when Christianity spread across the continent from the 1st century onwards. 

But that's another story altogether. Back to the question at hand: one way of answering the question of the Parthenon Marbles would be, not to query who has the legal or moral right to the sculptures, but rather asking what would be appropriate from a practical perspective?


My problem with the captioned video on top coming to us with a hat tip to The Mythologist (link) is that I do not believe in judging historical events with the moral righteousness of today. This approach should be avoided at all cost in my humble opinion. 

Whatever the motivations of Lord Elgin may have been, common greed or the elevation of his compatriots' taste in art, they are not relevant to the present stalemate. Nor does the moral condemnation of British colonialism contribute to a solution. 

Even more useless is pitting the motivations of the 19th century colonial Brits against those of 5th century BC colonial Athenians. Supposing that a comparison between the two is even valid, which I don't believe for a moment! 

But, while we should not judge the motivations of the past with the ethics of today, there is no such problem judging a present day question by present day moral standards.

Contemporary ethics would side with the Greeks, for the full hundred percent. Of that there is no question. 

Sure, the British will have to deal with their historical unresolved trauma of having lost the empire. But that is a reality for every lost imperial power, be it Western Rome, Eastern Rome, Spain about the loss its feudal possessions or Napoleon's territorial demise across Europe.


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