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Wanderlust: Bettany Hughes on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were daring and dazzling constructions that have burned bright in the human imagination right up to the modern day. Bettany Hughes follows in the footsteps of the ancients to tell their remarkable stories
Crawling underneath Egypt’s Great Pyramid, 70 metres down, is an unforgettable experience. On hands and knees in the sand, as the descending tunnel gets narrower and deeper, the bedrock of the Giza Plateau presses in so close you can actually taste it. The rock is salty, because 50 million years ago this was all sea. I am not the first to have had this visceral, time-travelling experience. As well as the Greek and Roman tourists who left graffiti here, this subterranean tunnel, and the chamber which it led to, was described by the ‘father of history’ Herodotus, and some 2,300 years later was explored by the Italian tomb-raider Giovanni Battista Caviglia. Other passages in the Great Pyramid – a huge burial place for Egypt’s King Khufu – were charted by medieval Arabic scientists and desecrated by off-duty Napoleonic soldiers. Built more than 45 centuries ago, this pyramid, the oldest of the famous Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, has always been a catalyst for awe. And it is not alone. Across time, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – the Pyramids at Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria – have really mattered. They mattered so much that, in the epoch after Alexander the Great’s death, a bespoke catalogue, the Laterculi Alexandrini, was generated to group them together. Written in papyrus about 150 BC, it is our oldest extant evidence for a catalogue. We are not sure who created the list, but we do know that it was copied and shared, and that it has inspired poetry, prose and works of art for millennia. Don't miss... Bettany's new three-part docuseries Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is airing on Channel 5 from Saturday 2 August 2025 The precise entries vary a little: in some versions, the walls or an obelisk of Babylon are included; later, the Colosseum is mentioned; the Lighthouse has sometimes been left out. The Laterculi Alexandrini also lists the seven greatest rivers, the seven best mountains, the seven finest artists and the seven best lakes. The fact the Wonders deserved to be listed in a group of seven proved that not only were these exemplars of their age, projects of pioneering ambition that made extraordinary incursions into the landscape, but that they each encapsulated something special and important about the human experience. Marvellous news The word wonder (from the Old German wuntar) means ‘something marvellous’. Originally in the Greek, these attractions were described as thaumata – works that needed to be seen. Crucially, and this is a fact that is too often overlooked, all seven were connected. In some cases, the same artists worked on them. They also reference one another’s designs. Some of antiquity’s greatest names, including Alexander the Great, visited many of the sites. Ahead of writing my new book on the Seven Wonders, I set myself the task of travelling to the location where each once stood. This, I reasoned, was the best way to get a feel for what these creations meant to the women and men of antiquity who designed them, built them, worshipped in them, fought over them, wrote about them, maintained, cherished, loved and looted them, and made perilous journeys to visit and to tick them off their bucket lists. Following in their footsteps took me on a journey through both ancient and modern landscapes. 1. The Great Pyramid at Giza Egypt’s giant resurrection machine Built at least 4,500 years ago, the Great Pyramid is the oldest of all the Wonders, and yet still stands today almost intact. And it could be even older than previously thought: the 2013 discovery of 1,000 fragmented papyri documents on the Red Sea coast potentially pushes its date back a further 100 years. The pyramid was built over a span of 20–23 years as a giant resurrection machine for Khufu, the king of a united Egypt, helping to transport him to the afterlife. As such, it was conceived as a means for the ancient Egyptians to try to understand the place of humans in the cosmos and the possibilities of both mortality and immortality. Read more | Were the pyramids built by aliens? The real history that debunks the conspiracy The pyramid’s mathematical precision is astonishing (it is close to geometrically perfect – just 2cm out in some places). Constructed of 2.3 million limestone blocks, rising 146.6 metres high, it was originally cased in gleaming, polished, white Tura stone. A few slabs still remain on the Giza plateau, surveyed by bored camels waiting for their tourist burdens. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/02/BAL611268web-203f90e.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A 20th-century drawing of the construction of the pyramid. The enormous tomb took more than 20 years to build. (Image from Bridgeman)" title="A 20th-century drawing of the construction of the pyramid. The enormous tomb took more than 20 years to build. (Image from Bridgeman)" /> As the site of the pyramid was originally lapped by the Nile for 6–8 weeks of the year during the time of inundation, we now think that ancient Egyptian builders may have used the river’s rise and fall to move the pyramid’s stone building blocks into place. Listen | Ancient Egyptian pyramids: everything you wanted to know 2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon Botanical booty takes centre stage Created sometime between 691 and 550 BC, the Hanging Gardens are the most elusive of all the Wonders. No indisputable archaeological evidence for them exists, and we have filled this gap with our imaginations. Therefore, while the Hanging Gardens have left behind the least hard evidence in the ground, they are, ironically, the most famous, and the most commonly cited of all the ancient seven. Built either by King Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon or by the Assyrian king Sennacherib in Nineveh, they almost certainly employed ingenious watering schemes (including palm tree trunks lined with waterproof bitumen) running up a series of staggered planting ledges, all kept hydrated by machines that were an early version of Archimedes’s screw. Exotic plants and trees were showcased here – many seized as botanical booty on campaigns of expansion by either Assyrian or Babylonian monarchs. Read more | A guide to ancient gardening A venue for hosting visiting dignitaries, for displaying wealth, and possibly a location to sit and be healed by the night-time power of the stars, the gardens seem to be the ancient world’s attempt to replicate (and control) nature itself. Exploring the story of the Hanging Gardens is important because it reminds us to privilege eastern as well as western sources for the Wonder monuments. Crucially, we learn from Babylonian and Assyrian records that both the concept of ‘wonders’ and the symbolic power of seven stretches right back to the beginnings of history itself. Seven was a potent number because it connected the four elements of the Earth (earth, air, fire and water) with the three of the heavens (the sun, the moon and the stars). So we hear of seven heavens, seven hells and seven ages of man in Middle Eastern cultures. Grouping objects or ideas into lists of seven gives us meaning because they suggest human culture has a predictable pattern. Whereas the Great Pyramid was a gargantuan imposition on the landscape by a king and his people seeking to understand their connection to the chemistry of space and the cycle of life and death, the Hanging Gardens celebrated both the beauty of nature and the possibilities of humankind’s dominion over it. 3. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus A place of refuge... and murder This Wonder was subsidised in the sixth century BC by the famously rich King Croesus of Lydia. Yet the temple, sited near the western coast of modern-day Turkey, was accessible not just to kings but to commoners. And as well as honouring an eastern deity, Artemis – who protected animals and virgins alike – it was renowned as a place of sanctuary. Many sought refuge here, including Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoe (who was double-crossed and murdered on the temple’s steps). Recent archaeological excavations have shown the stalls where refuge-seekers slept. The temple was destroyed in the mid-fourth century BC (21 July 356BC) – before being rebuilt, in even grander form, in c340 BC (this later version would itself succumb to fire, earthquake and plunder). Gargantuan in scale, the temple’s double row of columns would become the model for Greek temples across three continents. In fact, a number of the artists employed on the later building would go on to work on other Wonders, such as the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. And a building inspired by the Temple of Artemis would house another of the Wonders: the Statue of Zeus... 4. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia Where man met the divine The imposing ivory and gold Statue of Zeus, seated in his temple home, overlooked the stadium of the sanctuary of Olympia in southern Greece. The statue was an incarnation not just of divine, but of human potential. Built around 430 BC, at a time in the classical world when pioneers like Socrates were declaring the power of philosophy, human agency and the human mind, this bearded, muscle-bound male god was built to celebrate the potency of agnostic competition, of striving and of winning. The ancients would have experienced this ferocious artwork, whose forehead was said to glower like a thunderstorm, after arriving at the site as religious pilgrims. I travelled to Olympia along the sacred route that connected it to the city of Elis, during lockdown. Without the mechanical sounds of the modern world around, Zeus’s sanctuary was thick with birdsong and with the rustle of sacred olive trees. The statue itself is now, however, long gone – it’s believed that it was taken to Constantinople in the early centuries AD, where it was probably lost in a fire. At the time Zeus’s sanctuary was built, it would also have resounded with the hum of 50,000–100,000 visitors – Greeks summoned from everywhere from the Black Sea to Byzantium to praise the king of the Olympian Gods with displays of athletic prowess. 5. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus A site of death and glory Standing at more than 45 metres high, this gigantic building gave its name to mausoleums all over the world and has been mimicked in the cenotaphs and tombs of everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Vladimir Lenin. The mausoleum (which was ultimately destroyed by war and earthquake) reveals much about the cosmopolitan nature of life around the Mediterranean 2,300 years ago. Built by the Karian ruler Mausolos with his wife (and sister), Artemisia, in c351 BC, its wonderful hybrid of styles included Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek and Karian. It would have exploded like a firework on the coast of what is now Bodrum. While researching the building techniques of the mausoleum, I was fortunate enough to be allowed 5 metres below ground into a grave commissioned by Mausolos for his father, Hekatomnos, in nearby Mylas. Hekatomnos’s sarcophagus demonstrates the exquisite nature of the stone-carving that would have decorated Mausolos’s own burial place. It was covered with scenes of Hekatomnos’s family, including portraits of Mausolos and Artemisia, and a lion hunt. Artemisia has become infamous through history thanks to an anecdote handed down from Roman times. According to the author Aulus Gellius, Artemisia missed her brother-husband so much that after his death she ground down his bones to drink them, together with the ash from his funeral, and then pined away. But there is a strong chance, given we know gladiators drank bone-meal for strength, that Artemisia actually sought to steal Mausolos’s power. Whatever her intentions, Artemisia completed this vast, richly painted grave after her husband’s death, and was buried in her own chamber in the mausoleum. Five centuries later, the essayist Lucian of Samosta imagined a dialogue between Diogenes the Cynic and Mausolos in the underworld. The king boasted that because he was tall, handsome and a superb warrior, he needed to be commemorated with the most splendid tomb in the world. Diogenes quietly pointed out that the ruler’s hairless, skinless, eyeless skull would now look the same as his own. In fact, Diogenes added, Mausolos would look worse, as Halicarnassus’s mausoleum was a dead weight bearing down on the king’s corpse. 6. The Colossus of Rhodes Greece’s second sun The colossus was a gargantuan celebration of a moment in history when conflict sharpened into diplomacy. Wipe from your minds the popular image of a massive, kitsch statue, legs akimbo, straddling two of Rhodes’s harbours. That would have been structurally impossible. In reality, Rhodes’s towering representation of the sun-god Helios (with a face reminiscent of Alexander the Great) was probably erected high on the island overlooking the sanctuary of Helios where the Helian games were held in the god’s honour. The colossus was built (in c302/292 BC) after a pitiless siege of Rhodes by the son of one of Alexander the Great’s generals, Demetrius the Besieger. Legend has it that much of the raw material to make the figure derived from the melted down weapons and siege engines used to break through heavy walls and gates, which were surrendered following a truce. Yet those raw materials also, it seems, came from below the ground. The author Philo of Byzantium wrote: “The artist used so much bronze for the work there was almost a shortage of metals, for all the Earth’s mines were exploited in carrying out the project... for in the world a second sun stood to face the first.” Indeed, ice cores from Greenland show pollution levels soaring in the Hellenistic and Roman ages, caused by the process of larger-than- life-size metal statues being produced to prove man’s dominion over cities and far-flung territories. All of the Seven Wonders prove the fevered possibilities of the human imagination – and the harsh demands of making our dreams flesh. By building a statue more than 30 metres tall honouring the sun, the Colossus of Rhodes’s creators set in train a history of humans plundering the Earth’s resources, and a heating of the planet, which now threatens us all. 7. The Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria History’s greatest warning beacon? The Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria guided sailors to safety along one of the most perilous coastlines of northern Egypt. Built in c297 BC, it also acted as a warning beacon in times of distress – and, with an articulated decoration on its summit, may have been the world’s first weathervane. It was also, clearly, beautiful. Standing at 120 metres tall (until its collapse, as a result of earthquakes, in the Middle Ages), the lighthouse played with a sequence of geometrical shapes: oblong, circular and square. It was decorated with the same pink granite that lined Khufu’s burial chamber in the Great Pyramid. Some of these blocks are still in situ, re-used as door frames and as thresholds in the fort of Qaitbey, which now swamps the lighthouse’s footprint. Lucian (one of my favourite authors of antiquity) was inspired by a hidden inscription on the Pharos Lighthouse, left by its architect, Sostratus of Knidos, as an allegory for the writing of history itself. The visible inscription praised the pharaohs who had commissioned the Pharos. But when the gypsum covering was washed away, we are told that underneath was a dedication commemorating Sostratus’s hope for the safety of sailors. As Lucian wrote: “History should be written in that spirit, with truthfulness and an eye to future expectations rather than with adulation and a view to the pleasure of present praise.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/02/GettyImages-89164073web-93219a5.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="This block from the lighthouse would originally have been decorated in a glowing pink colour. (Photo by DEA / C. SAPPA/De Agostini via Getty Images)" title="This block from the lighthouse would originally have been decorated in a glowing pink colour. (Photo by DEA / C. SAPPA/De Agostini via Getty Images)" /> In an 1,800-year-old work of science fiction (also written by Lucian), an ancient astronaut staring down from the Moon recognises Earth, thanks to a sighting of the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the Colossus of Rhodes. Today, courtesy of satellite imagery, we really can look down on Earth from space. But even though we’d only be able to see one of the Seven Ancient Wonders standing in situ, their power to fire our intellect and capture our imaginations still burns disproportionately bright. This article was first published in the February 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine. You can listen to Bettany Hughes explore the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World in a this podcast episode. Bettany is the presenter of a new three-part docuseries Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The first episode airs on Channel 5 at 6.30pm on 1 August 2025. The series will explore the history and significance of the ancient wonders, combining archaeological access, new research, and digital reconstructions.
When gods go to war: what was the Titanomachy of Greek mythology?
Before Zeus could rule as the king of the ancient Greek gods, he had to defeat his father and the Titans in a decade-long war. It was either that or be eaten as a baby
In ancient Greek mythology, before the more famous Olympian Greek gods (think Poseidon, Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes and, of course, Zeus) came another group of deities: the Titans. These were the children of the primordial deities Uranus (the personification of the sky) and Gaia (Earth) and were ruled by Cronus. According to Theogony, an epic poem by Hesiod from the eighth century BC, Cronus had overthrown his father, castrating him in the process, but was warned that he would befall the same fate. To defy this prophecy, he made the somewhat extreme decision to devour his children as soon as they were born. This is when things began to go wrong for the Titans. Read more | The gods and their whims: your guide to ancient Greek religion He ate the goddesses Demeter, Hestia and Hera, along with the gods Hades and Poseidon. But the last child, Zeus, was saved from becoming a meal by his mother, Rhea. She tricked Cronus into eating a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes instead, and hid Zeus on the island of Crete. Once fully grown, he returned to fulfil the prophecy, forcing his father to vomit up his siblings before overthrowing him. Thus began the Titanomachy, a war between the gods that lasted 10 years. The Titanomachy explained On one side of the Titanomachy were the Titans led by Cronus, and on the other was Zeus and his allies – who included more than his recently regurgitated brothers and sisters. One of Zeus’s most important tasks in this contest for the universe was to free the Cyclopes (three one-eyed giants) and the Hecatoncheires (three enormous creatures with one hundred hands and fifty heads) from the deepest abyss of the underworld in return for their support. Listen | Natalie Haynes tackles listener questions on Greek myths, from ancient origins to modern reinterpretations Skilled craftsmen, the Cyclopes forged the thunderbolts that Zeus wielded as weapons, as well as Poseidon’s trident and Hades’ helmet, which gave him the power of invisibility. The immensely strong Hecatoncheires could hold off the Titans by bombarding them with huge boulders. Several Titans joined Zeus’s ranks, too, including Themis, a goddess personifying justice, law and order, and her son Prometheus. He would become best known for stealing fire from the realm of the gods and gifting it to the first humans. His punishment was to be chained to a rock and have an eagle eat his liver, only for it to grow back the following day and be eaten again. How did the Titanomachy end? After a decade of war, Zeus emerged victorious from the last great battle of the Titanomachy and became king of the gods. Holding dominion over the sky, he divided the cosmos with his brothers; Poseidon became a water god who took control of the seas and Hades became the god of death and the underworld. Cronus and most of the Titans would be imprisoned in Tartarus, the abyss from which the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires had been freed, although some of Zeus’s enemies received unique punishments. Atlas, for example, was condemned to hold up the heavens on his shoulders for eternity. Read more | Zeus's children: who were the offspring of the god with a libido that couldn’t be contained The gods now resided on Mount Olympus, the highest peak in Greece, hence the name Olympians. But Zeus’s position was not yet safe: according to another Greek myth, the Titanomachy was followed by the Gigantomachy, a battle against the giants. More from us HistoryExtra members can explore more ancient Greek history with exclusive content from our archives Ancient Greek theatre and the Athenian identity Did any ancient Greeks visit Britain? Ancient Greek warrior women: the extraordinary female figures who shaped the Greco-Persian Wars Not a HistoryExtra member? Explore our latest membership offers
Zeus's children: who were the offspring of the god with a libido that couldn’t be contained
The king of the gods in the ancient Greek pantheon had a notorious reputation for sleeping around, so it should come as no surprise that Zeus fathered a lot of children. When you’re nearly counting your offspring in three figures, though, that really is a big family
The king of the Greek gods could control many things: the weather, as the sky and thunder god; order and justice; his enemies, thanks to his thunderbolts; and the other Olympians, most of the time. The thing that Zeus couldn’t control was his libido. His mythology is littered with sordid tales of seducing other goddesses or mortal women, all to the knowledge and chagrin of his long-suffering wife Hera. He forced himself on the subjects of his desire or tricked them into making love to him, even transforming himself into animals to get close to them. Zeus raped the mortal Spartan queen Leda in the form of a swan, a myth that became a source of inspiration for Renaissance art. And when he became besotted with a young prince of Troy, Ganymede, he abducted the boy as an eagle to serve as the cupbearer of the gods. From his dozens of lovers came many children, possibly nearing 100, giving new meaning to his status in ancient Greek religion as the father of all. Here are some of Zeus’s most notable offspring, from the divine to the demi-god. Ares <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/10/GettyImages-1691897505-4f03772-e1734349737360.jpg" width="620" height="414" alt="Ares, or Mars as he was called in Rome, in a 17th-century painting by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)" title="Ares, or Mars as he was called in Rome, in a 17th-century painting by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)" /> Ares was one of the few children that Zeus actually fathered with his queen, Hera, although that did not help his reputation. A war god, he was generally disliked by the Greeks for his associations with bloodlust, brutality and chaos, so was not widely worshipped. While Ares went into battle accompanied by his sons Phobos and Deimos (fear and terror), his half-sister Athena was the war god to go to for military strategy and leadership. That said, the warrior city state of Sparta did make human sacrifices to him. Apollo and Artemis <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/10/GettyImages-170520687-f4db317-e1734350066295.jpg" width="620" height="412" alt="Apollo and his sister Artemis in a frieze from the Parthenon, Athens (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" title="Apollo and his sister Artemis in a frieze from the Parthenon, Athens (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> These divine twins, and master archers, were among the most beloved of the Greek pantheon, in contrast to Ares. This was especially true of Apollo, although Artemis’s temple at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Apollo held myriad roles, including his associations with the Sun and light, archery and music, healing and prophecy, and, as a bringer of law and reason, divine retribution. The Romans liked him so much that they didn’t even change his name or mythology when they adopted the Greek gods as their own. Meanwhile, Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, wilderness and wild animals, but equally revered for helping with childbirth and the care of children. This went back to the myth of how she helped her mother deliver Apollo in the first place. Their mother was the Titan, Leto, who had been pursued by a jealous Hera when she heard of Zeus’s affair. A pregnant Leto eventually found refuge on the island of Delos. Hermes Hermes’ mother was Maia, one of the Pleiades (the seven sister nymphs who accompanied Artemis). With his winged sandals that allowed him to travel between the realms of the gods and mortals, he became the messenger of the gods and a guide for the souls of the dead to the underworld. As well as travel and trade, he was associated with luck, wealth and mischief. Hermes had only just been born when he stole a sacred herd of cattle. But on a more heroic note, he rescued one of Zeus’s lovers from the many-eyed monster, Argos, who had been sent by a jealous Hera. Heracles <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/10/GettyImages-463918655-6ec2cea-e1734350386258.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Heracles Delivering Hesione, an 18th-century painting by François Lemoyne (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)" title="Heracles Delivering Hesione, an 18th-century painting by François Lemoyne (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)" /> Of all the victims of Hera’s jealousy, the legendary hero Heracles suffered a great deal. The extraordinarily strong demi-god was the child of a mortal princess named Alcmene, who Zeus seduced while disguised as her husband. Hera did all she could to get revenge, initially sending two serpents to kill Heracles as a baby only for him to strangle them in his first feat of super-strength. When he was an adult, Hera induced Heracles into a fit of madness that led to him killing his wife and children. Yet after his death, and his famous Twelve Labours, Heracles was welcomed at Mount Olympus and made a god. Perseus <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/10/GettyImages-625436606-c4fff9e-e1734350597572.jpg" width="620" height="437" alt="Perseus Freeing Andromeda, a 17th-century painting by Peter Paul Rubens (Photo by PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" title="Perseus Freeing Andromeda, a 17th-century painting by Peter Paul Rubens (Photo by PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> Long before Heracles, Perseus proved himself a great hero by slaying Medusa, a Gorgon whose gaze turned people to stone, and rescuing Andromeda. The daughter of a king, she had been fastened to a rock on the shore to be sacrificed to a sea serpent, but Perseus killed the beast and freed her. His mother was Danae, a beautiful mortal princess trapped in her chamber by her father. He had been told that his grandson would kill him, so went to extreme lengths to keep his daughter a virgin. Zeus’s solution was to come to Danae in the form of golden rain. Persephone <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/12/GettyImages-959929188-473cf77-e1734350760225.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A 17th-century painting depicting the infamous Greek myth, the Rape of Persephone (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" title="A 17th-century painting depicting the infamous Greek myth, the Rape of Persephone (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" /> Persephone was the child of Zeus and the goddess of agriculture and harvest, Demeter. He had already proven with Hera that he had no qualms sleeping with his sister, after all. Persephone was best known for becoming the queen of the underworld as the (reluctant) wife of Hades. In the myth, known as the Rape of Persephone, the lord of the underworld was instantly besotted when he saw her gathering flowers and abducted her. A distraught Demeter searched far and wide, letting the crops fail, before Persephone was found. Zeus demanded she be released, but Hades tricked her into eating a few pomegranate seeds, meaning she had eaten food in the underworld and could not leave. A deal was struck so that Persephone spend a third of the year with Hades. Athena The goddess of wisdom, warfare and crafts had one of the more unconventional births, although Dionysus might have something to say about that. When Zeus heard that his first wife, a Titan named Metis, would give birth to a child who would overthrow him, he took a leaf out of his father’s book and swallowed Metis whole. That could not stop the child, Athena, who burst from his forehead fully grown. Despite the rough start, she became a favourite of Zeus’s. To this day, in the city of Athens, which was named after her, stands the ruins of the mighty Parthenon, dedicated to Athena. Read more | The history of Athens: exploring the birthplace of democracy and philosophy Dionysus <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/12/GettyImages-513668529-98f35ff-e1734351060145.jpg" width="620" height="414" alt="Dionysus, depicted in a third-century statue (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" title="Dionysus, depicted in a third-century statue (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> If you thought Athena’s birth was tricky, spare a thought for Dionysus. After his mother, the mortal Semele, was seduced by Zeus and impregnated, an enraged Hera came to her in disguise and contrived to have Semele look upon the true divine form of the king of the gods. No mortal could look upon a god, so Semele was destroyed. Zeus saved the unborn Dionysus, however, by sewing the child into his own thigh and carrying him until the real birth. Dionysus became a party god of wine, festivity and ecstasy, making him enormously popular to the Greeks. The Graces, Muses, Fates and Horae As proof of how many lovers Zeus had, and the large family he built, some of his children can be grouped. The Graces were at least three fertility goddesses while the Muses were nine goddesses of inspiration in the arts, science and literature, who Zeus fathered with the Titan deity associated with memory, Mnemosyne. The Fates and Horae were two sets of triplets, the former responsible for keeping track of everyone’s destiny and the latter being the personifications of the seasons. Both sets had the same mother, Themis, the Titan goddess of divine law and order. Minos When Zeus was struck by the beauty of a Phoenician princess, Europa, he transformed into a magnificent white bull and abducted her. He swam with Europa on his back to the island of Crete and seduced her. Their child was Minos, the legendary ruler of Crete. The Minoan civilisation that thrived there was named after him. In the mythology, he was famous for his regular sacrifices of seven boy and seven girls to the bull-headed creature, the Minotaur, which he kept in a labyrinth. Perhaps lesser known was how after his death, from having boiling water poured over him as he bathed, Minos became a judge in the underworld.
King of the gods and sex pest: the legend of Zeus and his thunderbolts
From narrowly avoiding being eaten by his father as a baby to seducing mortal women as a swan or a bull, there were some eye-catching myths about the thunderbolt-hurling god. Jonny Wilkes explores how Zeus came to top the Greek pantheon
Flowing hair and thick beard; heaving muscles that seem to fizz with electricity; and a thunderbolt clasped in one hand while he sits on a throne or stands on a mountaintop. That tends to be the archetypal depiction of Zeus. The king of the ancient Greek gods, and spiritual father of both deity and mortal, needed a powerful image. From Mount Olympus, he ruled over all as a protector and arbiter of justice, and as god of the sky and thunder the weather was his to command. Hence the lightning. What were the origins of Zeus? Zeus was the son of Cronus, leader of the Titans. They were a group of gods borne from a union of the Earth (personified as Gaia) and sky (Uranus) who existed before the more-famous Olympians. Upon hearing a warning that one of his offspring would overthrow him – much like he had done with his own father – Cronus made the extreme decision to devour all of his children after their birth. He swallowed three would-be goddesses, Hestia, Demeter and Hera, and two would-be gods, Hades and Poseidon, and would have had Zeus for dessert were it not for his wife’s quick thinking. Rhea managed to save the youngest of the children by tricking Cronus into eating a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. She then hid Zeus on the island of Crete, where he was nursed either by a nymph or a goat, depending on the version of the story, while warriors called Curetes clashed their weapons to make enough noise to drown out the baby’s crying. Zeus’s rise to power and the Titanomachy Once a man, which happened quickly for a Greek deity, Zeus made a triumphant return to take on his father. He forced Cronus to vomit up his five brothers and sisters, then, just had been foretold, set about overthrowing him. This began the Titanomachy, a ten-year war between with the Titans on one side and Zeus, the Olympian gods and their allies on the other. The powerful Zeus wielded the thunderbolt as a weapon and carried the aegis, a divine protective shield. As his mythology grew, so did his other important symbols: the eagle, bull and oak tree. Zeus eventually defeated the Titans, with the help of the Cyclopes (one-eyed giants, who forged his thunderbolts) and the hundred-handed, fifty-headed creatures called the Hecatoncheires. He had freed them from Tartarus, the deepest abyss of the underworld, which was where he imprisoned the defeated Titans. The victors then divided the cosmos between themselves. Hades became the god of the underworld and Poseidon the god of the sea, while Zeus held dominion over the sky. Read more | Water gods and sea goddesses: 17 water deities from world history What was Zeus the god of, and what powers did he have? Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek mythology, as well as the king of the Greek gods. From Mount Olympus, the highest peak in Greece, Zeus could oversee everything. He was a protector of cities and homes, but also people. Especially those on the fringes of society, namely strangers and beggars, were under his care. Zeus would dispense justice as he saw fit and was the guardian of oaths, which resulted in the Greeks turning to him to maintain order in the world. He also became associated with prophecy and fate. His oracle at Dodona in northern Greece interpreted the sounds of wind rustling through the sacred oak tree and the babbling water of the holy spring. As god of the sky and thunder, Zeus controlled the weather. He sent the rain and winds, which were so vital to the growing of crops, and whenever lightning struck it was regarded as a sign, for good or for ill, from the ruler of the gods. Zeus in ancient Greek mythology The most important source describing the origins, genealogy and mythology of the Greek gods is the Theogony, a poem composed in the eighth century BC by Hesiod. The mighty cosmological work charts the events that led to Zeus’s rise to power, including the Titanomachy. Following that victory, Zeus’s position was still not safe. The Olympians went on to defeat the giants in the Gigantomachy and Zeus put down a number of threats to his rule, including a rebellion led by his own wife Hera, brother Poseidon and daughter Athena. Listen | Natalie Haynes tackles listener questions on Greek myths, from ancient origins to modern reinterpretations Zeus could be ruthless to his defeated foes or those who angered him, as numerous myths demonstrate. There was Atlas, the Titan who was punished for his role in the Titanomachy by being made to hold up the heavens for eternity. Or Sisyphus, the tyrant king made to push a huge stone up a hill every day only to watch it roll down to the bottom before he ever reached the top. For gifting fire from Mount Olympus to mortals, Prometheus was bound to a rock and had his liver eaten by an eagle. It would grow back each time, allowing the eagle to return every day. Not done with that, Zeus also punished the mortals for Prometheus’s deed by sending them Pandora, the first woman, with a jar containing all the evils of the world inside. These were released, bringing death, disease and famine to the Earth. Who was Zeus’s wife? According to Hesiod, Zeus had a total of seven wives. The last of them was his sister, Hera, who he seduced by appearing to her in the form of a cuckoo and pretending to be cold so that she would take pity and let him into her room. He then turned back into himself and made love to her. Yet to say that Zeus could have been a better husband would be an understatement. Arguably, he was known more for his lust and promiscuity than his thunderbolts, taking dozens of lovers from both the realms of the gods and mortals. The long-suffering Hera was fully aware of his infidelities; in fact, many myths revolve around her jealousy or the acts of vengeance she metes out on Zeus’s lovers or offspring. As they are described in the mythology, however, many of Zeus’s sexual exploits amounted to assault and rape as he forced himself on the women he desired or tricked them. The cuckoo was not the only animal form he took to find his way into women’s beds. The ancient Greeks would have regarded the stories of Zeus’s ‘seductions’ as proof of his power and virility. How many children did Zeus have? By some interpretations of the mythology, Zeus may have had more than 90 children from his numerous lovers. Among his offspring were the gods and goddesses Ares, the twins Apollo and Artemis, and Athena (whose unconventional birth involved bursting out of Zeus’s forehead fully grown). Read more | Fierce and furious: who are the most powerful gods of war throughout world history? He tricked his way into fathering the legendary heroes Heracles – seducing the mortal Alcmene by disguising himself as her husband – and Perseus, whose mother, Danae, was impregnated by Zeus in the form of golden rain. His other transformations included a swan, which he used to rape Leda (mother of Helen, the renowned beauty who “launched a thousand ships”), and a white bull. In this form, he abducted Europa and fathered Minos, the king who built the labyrinth to house the dreaded Minotaur. A jealous Hera often treated Zeus’s mistresses or children badly. Hera convinced Zeus’s mortal – and pregnant – lover Semele to ask to look upon his true divine form, knowing that Zeus had to grant her wish; the sight made Semele burst into flames. The unborn son was sown into Zeus’s thigh until he was ready to be born, as the god Dionysus. How did the Greeks worship Zeus? Zeus’s status as the all-encompassing king of the gods meant that the Greeks did not always focus their worship on him, preferring a more specific god to meet a targeted need. That said, they would have statues of Zeus in the home, as well as build temples and hold festivals. The statue of Zeus at Olympia made of gold and ivory by the artist Phidias was so magnificent that it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, while the Olympic Games began in 776 BC to honour his name. Then when the Romans adopted the Greek pantheon wholesale, they turned Zeus into Jupiter. More from us HistoryExtra members can explore this topic further with exclusive content from our archives What did the ancient Greeks do for us? Ancient Greek theatre and the Athenian identity Ancient Greek warrior women: the extraordinary female figures who shaped the Greco-Persian Wars Quiz: how much do you know about ancient Greece? Not a HistoryExtra member? Explore our latest membership offers
Ancient Greek warrior women: the extraordinary female figures who shaped the Greco-Persian Wars
Daisy Dunn tells the story of the Greco-Persian Wars through the deeds of the extraordinary female figures who shaped them
Though I conquered you in battle while you still lived,” began Queen Tomyris of the Massagetae, a nomadic tribe that ranged the Eurasian steppe, “You have utterly destroyed me.” The man she addressed was Cyrus the Great, founding king of the first Persian ‘Achaemenid’ empire – or at least, he had been. Now, his severed head dangled from the queen’s hands in a blood-soaked bag. We can only imagine how deeply this episode haunted Cyrus’s daughter Atossa. It is hardly surprising that when her husband, Darius I of Persia, set out to invade the territory of an equally aggressive nomadic tribe 17 years later, in about 513 BC, she did her best to dissuade him. Darius hoped making war on the Scythians would strengthen his empire’s eastern border. Would it not be better, Atossa asked him, to confront the Greeks instead? Darius disregarded Atossa’s advice. Little did he know, however, that he would one day be forced to do precisely what she’d suggested. Following a revolt of city-states, the Persians went into battle with the Greeks, triggering the outbreak of the Greco-Persian Wars. Read more | Women in ancient Greece: what were their lives like? The wars between the two powers in the first half of the fifth century BC were some of the most destructive in classical history. Fought across land and sea, the Greco-Persian Wars changed the landscape of the two mighty empires. They resulted in victory for the Greek city-states, though at a considerable cost. While the historical narrative of these events is populated by the men who led the various battles, women played important roles, which have too often been overlooked. What follows is an account of the wars foregrounded, as far as is possible, by the women who were there. Power and persuasion The story of the Greco-Persian Wars through the eyes of women begins with Atossa. Like many eastern kings, her husband Darius was polygamous, but of the six principal women in his harem, Atossa was the most politically engaged. According to Herodotus, the premier historian of the wars and a citizen of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum in Turkey), Atossa had “the totality of power” at court. This might have been an exaggeration, but she was certainly involved in her husband’s political work and would credibly have offered him advice on foreign affairs. Atossa held additional authority as the daughter of the founding king of the first Persian empire, a leader who had conquered swathes of Asia Minor, including Media and Croesus’s famously wealthy kingdom of Lydia, and extended his reach from the Aegean coast to modern Afghanistan and Pakistan. His downfall was Queen Tomyris, to whom he had initially proposed marriage. Believing he wanted little more than her land, she turned him down. Cyrus responded to the rebuff by launching his invasion, engaging in what Herodotus described as “the hardest of all the battles ever fought by non-Greeks”. The mighty Massagetae massacred the Persian forces and Tomyris fulfilled her earlier threat to give Cyrus his fill of blood. It may certainly be argued that Cyrus’s tragedy shaped Atossa’s decision to discourage her husband from pursuing the nomads. Herodotus’s claim that her advice to Darius was prompted by her desire to add female slaves from Sparta, Corinth, Argos and Athens to her household could hardly have been her real motivation. As if the experience of her father was not deterrent enough, there was more to be gained from launching an expedition against the Greeks than from pursuing elusive tribesmen – and women – across an unforgiving landscape. Eventually, Atossa was able to persuade her husband to send a small detachment into Greek territory, but according to Herodotus, this was done on the initiative of her doctor. Atossa had summoned her medic to examine her after noticing an alarming swelling on her breast. The doctor said that he could cure her, but that he wanted something in return, namely to lead a command against the Greeks. Atossa had little choice but to speak to Darius on her doctor’s behalf in exchange for a prescription for an ointment. The ointment miraculously worked (she was perhaps suffering from inflammatory mastitis), Atossa recovered, and her doctor was permitted to lead a detachment of 15 Persians to reconnoitre Greek territory. Unfortunately for Atossa, whose own persuasions Herodotus dramatically underplayed in his account, the Greek enterprise proved unpromising, so Darius left, as planned, for the land of the Scythians. He would score merely a hollow victory over them. It is frequently forgotten that the case for invading Greek territory was first made by Atossa. This is largely because more than 20 years passed before she finally secured her Greek invasion. Rather than launch a pre-emptive strike, as he might have done earlier, Darius now had to begin on the back foot. The Persians were sucked into conflict with the Greeks as a result of the so-called Ionian Revolt. Its roots stretched back to when Cyrus the Great had forced the coastal cities of the Greek territory of Ionia to submit and pay tribute to Persia. Demoralised by their situation and the authority of their Persian satraps (governors), the people of Ionia had now begun to make a bid for freedom, which naturally threatened Darius’s authority. One of the most intriguing witnesses to these events was a princess of Sparta named Gorgo. She was only eight or nine years old, but she allegedly sat in on the negotiations held between her father, Cleomenes I of Sparta, and Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, and cautioned against Sparta’s involvement in the rebellion. Aristagoras prevailed upon Athens and Eretria for support instead and secured a number of ships. The Ionians were successful enough to infiltrate the Persian city of Sardis and burn down its hallowed temple of the mother goddess Cybele. Watershed moment Darius now focused on retaliating against the staunchest Ionian rebels. The Persians were successful in putting down the revolt. Encouraged, Darius dispatched a naval taskforce to put Eretria to flame before confronting the Athenians at Marathon, a wide plain near the coast of Euboea, in 490 BC. The battle of Marathon marked a watershed in east-west relations. The Athenians, bolstered by a powerful contingent from Plataea (a city lying south of Thebes in Boeotia), routed a considerably larger Persian force. Darius, shaken by the unexpected defeat, finally vowed to launch a fully-fledged expedition against the Greeks. In practice, it fell to his son Xerxes to carry out the campaign, for Darius died four years after Marathon. Darius had already had sons when he married Atossa, but chose to make Xerxes, the first of four sons she bore him, his heir. The women of Persia played some part in the war preparations. They would have been employed, for example, in weaving the colourful tapestries and garlands which adorned the Persian soldiers in a magnificent battle procession described by Herodotus. There were also female concubines, bakers and cooks in the Persian entourage. As the Persians progressed, bridging the Hellespont and subjugating peoples as far as their allies in Macedonia, news of the invasion travelled across the Greek mainland. The most well-documented recipient of the military intelligence was Gorgo, now a young woman. It was said that when some blank writing tablets arrived in Sparta, she alone knew how to interpret them. Writing tablets took the form of wooden supports covered in wax upon which a message could be inscribed. While the men shrugged their shoulders, Gorgo perceived that the tablets might not be blank after all. The wax was removed at her suggestion to reveal a secret message inscribed in the wood beneath. A defector from the Persians had written to inform the Spartans of Xerxes’ movements. Thanks to Gorgo, his information was passed on. Gorgo consequently earned the admiration of her people as the Spartans came together in an attempt to prevent the Persians from pouring into Greece via the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylae. The princess’s husband, her father’s half-brother Leonidas, led the famous crack force of 300 to defend the site in the summer of 480 BC. The Spartans had little hope of success against the Persian onslaught but put up a brave resistance over the course of three days. Leonidas took the lead in inspiring his men through his own courage. The 300 were mercilessly hacked down, but Gorgo was hailed the wife of a true hero. Sabotage at sea It now fell to another young woman to halt the Persian advance. This time the defence would need to be conducted on water, for while Xerxes’ land army stormed to triumph at Thermopylae, his naval forces were preparing to confront the Greeks off the coast of Artemisium in northern Euboea (a large island in Greece). Thanks to the support of the Phoenicians, who possessed the most powerful war vessels known at that time, the Persian navy was without equal. The Persians had every reason to anticipate success. Nothing, however, could have prepared them for the storms stirred up by the winds off Mount Pelion in Thessaly. It was while they were moored here, awaiting battle, that a girl named Hydna arrived on the scene. An accomplished swimmer from Scione, a port town on the north Aegean coast, Hydna was said to have swum towards the ships under cover of night with her father. On reaching the Persian ships, the pair surreptitiously began to cut the anchors and ropes beneath, causing the vessels to knock into each other and inflict further damage in the strong winds. An estimated 400 ships were destroyed in the course of the storm. Many had been carrying crucial food supplies. Hydna may in reality have given her fellow Greeks only a small advantage, but she would be remembered for centuries afterwards for her heroism, not least of all by Emperor Nero, who carried a statue of her erected at Delphi away to Rome. The Greek fleet at Artemisium, to which Corinth, Sparta, Eretria and Athens had contributed ships, was still far smaller than Xerxes’ offering. For three days, the Greeks did their best to resist the Persian onslaught, but their ships were soon so depleted that they had little option but to withdraw from battle. In so doing, they granted Persia a less than satisfying victory. The nameless women We must remember that the Greco-Persian Wars consisted of more than a series of battles and skirmishes. For many of the wom- en and children left behind, these years were characterised by deep uncertainty and terror. In the wake of Persia’s successes, many people fled Attica, the territory of which Athens formed a part, and sought refuge on the nearby island of Salamis. Others left Delphi in Phocis for the relative safety of Achaea, western Greece. But not everyone escaped in time. Many were intercepted on their way by Persians returning from the battle of Thermopylae. Herodotus’s Histories record the harrowing detail of women from Phocis being gang-raped to death. Historians have long celebrated the heroism of Leonidas and the 300. We should never forget the nameless women who fell in their shadow. Wisdom and honour Following their victory, the Persians were able to gain control of Attica and the surrounding areas after ravaging and plundering the Acropolis at Athens. Feeling that they had nothing to lose, the Athenians resolved to offer battle at sea once again, off the waters of Salamis. While the Persian military was eager to vanquish them once and for all, Xerxes hesitated, and with good reason. One of his key allies had cautioned against further engagement on water. Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus, had come to power following the death of her husband, and held the distinction of being the sole female commander on either side of the Greco-Persian Wars. She had lent Xerxes five superlative ships and now advised that he tread carefully. Spare the ships, she urged his deputy Mardonius, for “[the Greek] men are stronger than yours by sea just as men in general are stronger than women”. Herodotus, who was accustomed to inventing speeches for his characters, especially women, clearly recognised the wisdom of Artemisia’s advice. Xerxes, too, accepted that it was only too prudent. And yet, he felt fit to disregard it and chose instead to satisfy his men and send ships to Salamis. He quickly regretted this, for the Athenians, pretending to be intent on flight, deceived the Persians into approaching at night and then took them by surprise. Artemisia had joined the campaign she had advised against and experienced such chaos on the water that she had to sink an allied ship in order to free herself from danger. According to Herodotus, one of the Persians exclaimed to Xerxes: “Master, do you see Artemisia, how well she fights and has sunk an enemy ship?” It was in response to this that Xerxes was supposed to have uttered his immortal line: “My men have become women, and my women, men.” Although the Persians were worsted in the battle, the king proceeded to reward Artemisia with a set of Greek armour. The ship’s male captain, meanwhile, received a most insulting present of a woman’s distaff and spindle. The victorious Greeks put a bounty on taking Artemisia alive but found themselves thwarted. Xerxes was able to prevail upon the heroic queen for advice once again as he weighed up leading an attack on the Pelopon- nese or leaving his men to deliver the territory to him while he returned home. Artemisia favoured the latter course and, this time, Xerxes listened. As he prepared to make the journey home, he entrusted some of his illegitimate sons to Artemisia, bidding her to take them safely to Ephesus in western Asia Minor. To Xerxes’s enduring regret, the Greeks were able to secure a decisive victory over his remaining land forces at Plataea in 479 BC, and later that same year, in a final naval victory off the Asian coast at Mycale. The Greeks, after a difficult start, had emerged triumphant. They would now concentrate on strengthening their defence against future Persian hostilities by establishing the alliance known as the Delian League. Liberation and legacy The Greco-Persian Wars had seen man confront man on the battlefield and at sea. There had been, as ever, a scarcity of women on the frontline. And yet women had played their own part in the conflict, and Hydna and Gorgo are just two whose stories were considered significant enough in antiquity to be recorded. Artemisia was a rare example of a woman who was recognised for her role in confronting men in battle. A statue of her was put up like a trophy in a new marble portico at Sparta paid for out of war spoils. Her name ought to be as famous today as that of Xerxes, who returned to Persia a weakened king, destined to be killed by a member of his own guard. Many other women contributed to the liberation of the cities of Ionia from Persian control or paid for it with their lives. It is a failure of the historical sources that they remain nameless. The Greeks would enjoy supremacy until the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC pitched them against each other in the near-equivalent of a world war. Sparta and her allies would ultimately triumph over Athens and her allies after securing the support of Persia. The world map would once again be redrawn and, as before, women would play a considerable role in shaping it. Daisy Dunn is an author and classicist. Her new book, The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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Legend tells of a line of seven kings who if real would have ruled Athens from around 1500 BC to 1200 BC, the first of whom was Cecrops I. During his reign, the Olympian gods Athena and Poseidon vied to become the new city’s deity; having gifted its people the olive tree, Athena prevailed – and the city was named after her. So runs one foundational myth. Ancient Athens: what do we know? Evidence has been found of habitation as far back as about 9000 BC. And in the late Neolithic, around 4000 BC, people were living in caves on the north side of the Acropolis. The National Archaeological Museum displays wonderful examples of painted pottery from this period, as well as artefacts from the next era of Athens’ history. Around the time of the legendary Cecrops I – the late Bronze Age, from around 1500 BC – the region of Attica around Athens, and indeed much of mainland Greece and Crete, was inhabited by a civilisation now known as Mycenaean. These were the people (mainly from the Peloponnese, but also Thessaly and Boeotia and Crete as well as Athens) who, according to Homer in his Iliad, attacked Troy under the great King Agamemnon. Archaeological evidence shows that Athens was one of the great centres of late Bronze Age Mycenaean Greek civilisation and settlement. Such evidence includes the huge stones used to build walls on the Acropolis – limestone chunks so big that later Greeks thought they could only have been hefted by the one-eyed giants called Cyclopes. Also in this period, from about 1300 BC, Athenians began to be buried in the first cemetery, known as the Kerameikos or “potters’ quarter”, because it was sited where craftsman potters worked. Athens’ ‘dark age’ Around 1200 BC, major settlements across Greece suffered severe attacks and conflagrations – and it was in some of those fierce fires that clay tablets bearing the earliest-known Greek writing were inadvertently baked hard and preserved. These administrative tablets are inscribed with a syllabic script known as Linear B, revealing the nature of a Middle-Eastern kind of bureaucratic civilisation, based around palaces ruled by kings. We don’t know exactly what happened to spark this period of destruction, but it seems to have resulted in a kind of dark age, interspersed with shafts of light, lasting about four centuries. The population of Athens plummeted by perhaps 90 per cent between the 13th and 11th centuries BC, and the various centres of population became disconnected, with communications between them severed. Yet it was also during that period that the Homeric epics, which were orally transmitted, were developed by a series of illiterate poets during the 11th to eighth centuries. Greece experienced a renaissance from the later ninth century, with a gradual reopening of contact between different parts of the mainland, then between Greece and the Middle East. A key sign of this was the development of the ancient Greek alphabet which, unlike the Linear B syllabary, was a fully phonetic alphabetic script, based on signs borrowed from Phoenicia in what’s now Lebanon. Athens the ‘city-state’ From about the eighth century BC, an institution developed called the polis, sometimes translated as “city-state”. However, “citizen state” might be more accurate: never did the Greeks say “Athens did this”; rather, they said “the Athenians” – and by Athenians they meant the adult male citizens. By the seventh century, Athens was run by a narrow clique of what the Greeks called the eupatridae, literally “sons of good fathers”. Their council was known as the Areopagus, because it met on the pagos (hill) of the god of war, Ares. You can climb slippery steps west of the Acropolis to visit the bare, rocky mound where those ancient assemblies were held. Athens, from aristocracy to democracy By the start of the sixth century BC, though, Athens was in a bad state, both economically and politically. In 594 BC, the eupatrids appointed one of their number as archon, or “leader”, to repair the situation. That man, Solon, instituted a wide-ranging set of reforms addressing economic, political, legal, moral and social issues. That wasn’t the end of Athens’ troubles, but it seeded ideas that came to fruition towards the end of the sixth century. After the overthrow of the tyrant Hippias, another great statesman – the lawgiver Cleisthenes – introduced in 508 BC the framework of what we now called democracy, from the ancient Greek demos (the people) and kratos (power). Following Cleisthenes’ reforms, an area just to the north-west of the Acropolis, now known as the Ancient Agora, came to be the focus of both political assembly and commerce. You can still wander among remains of political, religious, social and commercial structures here. To the south of the Ancient Agora rises the Pnyx Hill, another important site where democracy was enacted in regular open-air assemblies. Athens and the Persian Empire As Athens established this more equitable political system, a threat was emerging to the east: the Achaemenid empire, founded by Cyrus the Great in Persia (now Iran) in the mid-sixth century. The empire rapidly expanded, stretching east as far as what’s now Afghanistan and Pakistan, south into Egypt, and through Anatolia to its western shore, which had been settled by Greeks. When those subjugated Asiatic Greeks rose up in 499 BC, the Athenians supported the revolt – which was finally crushed at sea off what’s now western Turkey, and which prompted Persian expeditions to mainland Greece. After the Athenians and their allies defeated Persian forces at the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, the invaders returned with a much bigger army under Xerxes I. His forces devastated Athens in 480–479 BC, destroying major public buildings, especially religious buildings – including temples on the Acropolis and in the Agora – as well as private houses, which they put to the torch. By the time Persia was decisively defeated, in 449 BC, Athenian coffers had been refilled and a major rebuilding programme was launched in the city under its great leader, Pericles. That included rebuilding the three big temples to Athena on the Acropolis: the Temple of Athena Polias (of the City), the Parthenon, and the Temple of Athena Nike (Victory). This period also witnessed an astonishing cultural flourishing, with the city’s burgeoning wealth fuelling endeavours such as theatre and philosophy. Great dramatists such as Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles and Aristophanes created enduring works. And Athens attracted minds from elsewhere, including the early philosophers Protagoras and Democritus, joining local Socrates. His student Plato founded the Academy, the remains of which you can still see today, along with sparse remnants of his pupil Aristotle’s Lyceum. Athens’ place in the wider world Perhaps 1,000 Greek cities were scattered around the Mediterranean and Black Sea at this time – and there was much rivalry, not least between Athenians and Spartans, who dominated the Peloponnese to the south. Sparta proved victorious in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), only to be overtaken in the following decades by Thebes, in central Greece. Then the Macedonians arrived from the north, first under Phillip II and then his son, Alexander III, later Alexander the Great. That marked another sea-change, beginning when Alexander spread Greek civilisation and ideas across his newly conquered lands – essentially, much the same territory that had been ruled by the Persians he defeated, from Greece to Pakistan and Egypt. Was Athens known to the Romans? Greek influence had also spread west, so Republican Rome (a name that, incidentally, means “strength” in Greek) was well aware of the civilisation across the Adriatic. From the later third century BC, the Romans pushed east until, with victory at the battle of Corinth in 146 BC, they took the Greek peninsula. Subsequently, Roman territory stretched right around the Mediterranean and beyond – including to Britain. Athens felt this change profoundly, and was largely transformed under two Roman emperors. The first, Augustus (reigned 27 BC to AD 14) – known in Greek as Sebastos – was less popular in Greece, largely because he defeated Mark Antony and the last Macedonian Greek ruler of Egypt, Cleopatra. A notable relic of his rule is the Pedestal of Agrippa, dedicated to Augustus’ son-in-law, which still stands on the Acropolis. The second was Hadrian, who reigned from AD 117 to 138, and who was a great philhellene – a lover of Greek culture. Indeed, he liked to be depicted as a Greek philosopher with a full beard like Socrates. He left his mark in the form of the great Arch of Hadrian, linking his new city with the ancient centre. It stands near the Temple of Olympian Zeus – the largest in Greece – begun in the sixth century BC but only completed under Hadrian in AD 131. You can also see the Roman Agora, Roman baths, a library founded by Hadrian, and a great theatre, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, built into the Acropolis, where open-air concerts are still staged. When the Roman empire split in the fourth century, Athens naturally fell within the territory of the eastern part ruled in the fourth century by Constantine, which became the Christian Byzantine empire. Athens and the Byzantine empire For some thousand years, from the fifth century AD to the 15th century, Athens was quite insignificant, and fell prey to attack by a succession of invaders. In the 13th century, it was crusaders from France; in the 14th century, Catalans; later that century and the next, it was Florentines. Orthodox Catholic Christianity was the official religion during this time, and many Byzantine churches were built. Most were destroyed – some as recently as the 1930s – but one important monument survives, the Church of the Holy Apostles in the Ancient Agora. It dates from the 10th century and gives a sense of what Byzantine Athens might have looked like. Athens and the Ottoman empire That era ended abruptly with the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, followed by Athens in 1456. The whole of Greece had become part of the Ottoman empire, and remained so for nearly four centuries. Their conqueror, Ottoman sultan Mehmet II, spoke Greek and purportedly revered Homer and other ancient Greek culture. During Ottoman rule, the Plaka district on the north-east slopes of the Acropolis was considered the Turkish quarter. Today you can find a few visible remains of that period here and elsewhere in Athens, in the form of the 17th-century Fethiye Mosque and nearby hamam (Turkish baths) by the Roman Agora. Athens’ place in modern Greece In 1821, Greeks launched a revolt against Ottoman rule, sparking a war of independence that led to the foundation of the modern Greek state in 1832. Yet in some ways it wasn’t true independence. Western powers installed a Bavarian prince, Otto, who ruled as Othon, establishing a German dynasty of Greek kings. Then, in 1863, a Danish dynasty took over – the line that led to the future Prince Philip, and which ruled (apart from an 11-year hiatus from 1924) till the monarchy was abolished in 1973. When Athens was named capital of the new Greek state in 1834, mainly for symbolic reasons, it was really just a village. So it was redeveloped, with the construction of great neoclassical buildings along Vasilissis Sofias Avenue and Panepistemiou Street (University Street). Into the 20th century, Greece, and Athens, remained preoccupied with Turkey. After the collapse of the Ottoman empire in 1918, Greece made the fateful decision to invade western Anatolia – at the cost of vast numbers of lives. Following defeat in the Greco-Turkish War in 1922, Athens received huge numbers of Greek-speaking exiles from Turkey. Today you can see the results in the names of districts of Athens: for example, Nea Smyrni, where people from that city (now Izmir) settled, and Nea Ionia, housing exiles from that wider region of western Anatolia. Nazi occupation during the Second World War was followed by a bitter civil war; even after peace returned, political faultlines endured and enabled a right-wing military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. Since then, Athens has developed into a big, modern city, boosted by moments such as the 2004 Summer Olympics. But visitors can still immerse themselves in the relics of more than two and a half millennia of turbulent and influential history. Professor Paul Cartledge was talking to Paul Bloomfield, travel journalist and host of our podcast series History's Greatest Cities. Listen to the companion podcast on Athens or explore the entire series
Dragons: from mythological beasts of history to the fire breathers of fantasy
It’s brought its own unique brand of magic to everything from Game of Thrones to Harry Potter, but how did the modern dragon come into being? Daniel Ogden traces the six stages of the creature’s evolution in the west – from ancient serpent to medieval fire breather...
Every small child of the modern west can describe a dragon: it is a broadly serpentine creature (colour of choice: green); it has an animalian head; between its longish neck and longish tail it has a fattish body; it has four legs; it has a pair of wings; it can be somewhat spiky. Adults might add the further observation that the dragon of this shape is a thing of beauty. The internet is awash with contemporary fantasy images of the creatures, lovingly tricked out in elaborate detail. And this points up a paradox: although the function of dragons is to be creatures of ultimate terror, we just love them. Who cares about St George and his damsel in distress? It’s the dragon that makes the legend. And are the dragons not the cherries in the cakes baked by JRR Tolkien, JK Rowling and George RR Martin? House of the Dragon: the real historical event behind the Game of Thrones prequel It might not seem like it, but HBO's House of the Dragon has its roots in a very real civil war in the early medieval period known as the Anarchy – though there wasn't a dragon in sight <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/08/emma-d-arcy-as-princess-rhaenyra-targaryen-matt-smith-as-prince-daemon-targaryen-c30677b-e1660835825342.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Emma D'Arcy as Princess Rhaeneyra Targaryen and Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen in House of the Dragon" title="Emma D'Arcy as Princess Rhaeneyra Targaryen and Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen in House of the Dragon (Photo by Ollie Upton/HBO)" /> But the universality of this dragon-shape across the west should not blind us to the fact that it is artificial, a random collection of body parts drawn from different creatures of the natural world. So where does this amalgamation come from? How did the dragon so familiar to modern fans of fantasy fiction come to be? Daniel Ogden gets up close to the six evolutionary stages of the dragon... The massive snake dragons of antiquity To start answering the question of where the ubiquitous image of the dragon came from, we must first return to classical Greece. The word “dragon” derives, via medieval French, from the Latin draco, which is itself a borrowing of the ancient Greek term drakōn. So what was a drakōn? Its basic form was that of a snake of enormous proportions, and it’s worth remembering that this is the creature that lies at the heart of all dragons. (The convention of referring to dragons as “serpents” helps us to bear this in mind.) There was one curious exception to their pure-snake form, however: they sported beards. These seem to have been markers not of their sex but of their supernatural nature (beards being attached to males and females alike). Already, like our modern dragons, they were fiery, this being an imaginative extrapolation of the burning sensation caused by viper venom. Read more | From dragons to unicorns: finding fantastic beasts in ancient history One such creature was the Dragon of Ares. When the hero Cadmus needed some pure water to make a sacrifice as he founded the city of Thebes, he sent his men to the spring of Dirce. But the spring was guarded by this terrible dragon, which destroyed them. It was now up to Cadmus to redress the situation. He took on the dragon himself and slew it – and then he hacked out the dragon’s teeth and sowed them. Soon, these teeth had seeded a race of armed warriors: they were known as the Spartoi, the “Sown Men” (nothing to do with Sparta!). These provided Cadmus with his first generation of Thebans. In a mysterious final twist, both Cadmus and his wife, Harmonia, were reputed to have been transformed into dragons at the end of their lives. Perhaps this was a divinely organised compensation for his killing of the Dragon of Ares. We find several similarly serpentine dragons elsewhere in Greek myth: Python, the Dragon of Delphi, slain by the god Apollo; the Dragon of Colchis, guardian of the golden fleece stolen by Jason; Ladon, the Dragon of the Hesperides; and the famous Hydra, slain by Heracles. She was of the same form as these other dragons, save that she was, of course, multi-headed – and multi-bearded! Read more | Giants, dragons and Middle Earth: the Anglo-Saxon fear of the past The great creature lurking beneath the waves In another myth from classical Greece, when the hero Perseus was flying home on his winged sandals after decapitating the Gorgon Medusa, and passed over Joppa (Jaffa), he saw a beautiful girl pinned out on a sea-cliff below. This was princess Andromeda. Andromeda’s mother, Cassiepeia, had boasted foolishly that she herself was more beautiful than the Nereids (the nymphs of the sea). In anger, they had prevailed upon the water god Poseidon to send a sea monster (kētos) to ravage Joppa in revenge. King Cepheus, Andromeda’s father, learned from the Oracle of Ammon that the only way to bring an end to the creature’s depredations was to sacrifice his daughter to it. On learning all this, Perseus struck a quick deal with Cepheus that, if he delivered Andromeda from the sea monster, he could take her in marriage. Perseus duly defeated the monster, either with his distinctive scythe-shaped sword, or with the super-weapon he had ready to hand, the head of Medusa, with which he was able to petrify it into a rock-formation. Q&A | Why does the Welsh flag feature a red dragon? The shape of this sea monster was similar to that of the sea-monster form familiar from ancient art. This was a massive, serpentine creature, but with a central body more bulbous than a snake’s; it had a rather dog- or horse-like head; it had a prominent pair of fore-flippers, which tended to mutate into clawed legs in the Roman era; it had a fish-tail; and it had spikes on its head and along the ridge of its back. The origin of this mysterious configuration is lost in the mists of time: it may have originated in part in a gargantuan inflation of the innocent seahorse. At any rate, it can be seen at once that the creatures that have enchanted readers of Harry Potter and The Hobbit resemble more closely the classical sea monster than the snake-like classical dragon. A locust-spewing beast becalmed by a Christian angel For much of the classical Greek era, the dragon and the sea monster were regarded as distinct creatures. But, by the second century AD, the two had begun to merge in the western mind. Evidence for this is provided by the Shepherd of Hermas, a Christian text (composed in c130–50 AD), in which Hermas reports a number of visions he has experienced. In one, he tells that, as he was walking down the road to Campania in southern Italy, he saw a dust-cloud approach. Out of this a terrible beast charged at him with such force that it could have destroyed a city. From its mouth poured a stream of fiery locusts. It made for a terrifying sight, but as the beast approached Hermas, it stretched itself out on the ground and let its tongue loll out. Hermas was then met by a lady in white, an embodiment of the church, who explained to him that, because of his faith, the Lord had sent the angel Thegri to bind (metaphorically) the beast’s mouth. On the podcast | From gallant knights to dragon-slaying damsels, Lydia Zeldenrust reveals why medieval readers couldn’t get enough of romance tales The description of the creature makes it clear that it is a dragon, as does the surrounding imagery: the church in the form of a lady and the binding angel are clear nods to the great dragon of the Book of Revelation, which attacks the church in the form of a parturient woman and is bound by the archangel Michael. However, Hermas does not call the creature a “dragon” (drakōn), but a “sea monster” (kētos). This merging of leviathan and land-lubbing beast explains why the modern dragon boasts an animalian head, a bulbous central body – and, of course, the spikiness of a sea monster. The dragon takes flight In the Acts of Philip (written in the late fourth century AD), the superhero apostle takes on a dizzying array of dragons in and around Ophiorhyme (“Snake Town”). This is a pagan city identified with Hierapolis, now in Turkey, presided over by the wicked Echidna or “Viper Goddess”. Philip has a team to help him that wouldn’t be out of place in a modern franchise like Guardians of the Galaxy. These include St Bartholomew, Mariamne the cross-dressing nun, and a leopard and a goat endowed with human speech. In one episode, Philip forces some problematic demons to come forth from the rocks beneath which they lurk. They initially manifest themselves in the form of 50 dragons, each 90 feet in length, and they are presided over by an even vaster dragon of 150 feet in length, covered in soot and belching forth fire and venom. Philip compels them to build a church for him. At his behest, they are transformed into the shape of winged humans (the familiar shape for a demon), and each flies off in this form to bring back a column for the building. Our anonymous author leaves it unclear whether the demons’ base-form is that of a dragon or that of a winged human. But it seems that for him the two entities belong fully together and are simply two faces of the same coin. So here we see a further step on the road to the development of the modern dragon: this is the source of the creature’s wings. The fire-starting, tail-swishing image is almost complete The next stage in our supernatural journey consists not of a tale, but rather of a vignette. The Gospels of Hincmar is a beautifully illustrated manuscript of the later ninth century AD, now in the Bibliothèque Municipale in Reims. The book opens with the so-called Eusebian canons, lists of the parallel episodes across the four gospels, laid out in fine, architectural tables surmounted by pediments. Read more | Medieval marginalia: exploring 'doodles' from the Middle Ages A range of playful serpents and dragons of different forms perch on and scamper over these pediments, but in among them are a pair of creatures of the following shape: an animalian head and bulbous body, with legs in the fore-flipper position (these courtesy of the sea monster); a pair of wings (these courtesy of humanoid, winged flying demons); and a coiling snake-tail (this, almost alone now, courtesy of the classical dragon). The pair reassure us of their fundamentally dragon nature by blowing out blasts of fire in the direction of a harmless bird perching on the apex of the pediment. These two creatures are fully formed modern dragons. Well, almost. All they’re missing are their back legs. Until then, they might be designated more particularly as “wyverns” – the technical term for a winged, two-legged dragon. Standing on its own legs: the dragon of today Between the wyvern and the more familiar form of the dragon we know today, there stands only the second pair of legs. Examples of four-legged dragons are found in illustrated manuscripts and paintings of the saints from at least the beginning of the 12th century, but it is difficult to demonstrate that these are significant for the future of the creature: artists often like to freestyle with the forms of their dragons. The real four-legged revolution falls at the turn of the 15th century. It is from c1400 that four-legged varieties come to predominate in representations of the Revelation dragon, confined to the abyss by St Michael. The same is true of images of the dragon of Lasia, slain by St George, and also of images of the dragon that swallows St Margaret of Antioch, only to have her burst forth from its belly (which permits this virgin martyr to become the patron saint of childbirth). Read more | Basilisks, manticores and more: medieval fantastic beasts (and where to find them) A good example is to be found in a fine Italian painting, now in New York’s Metropolitan Museum, dated to c1405. Here, the archangel Michael brandishes his sword over the supine body of the Revelation dragon: it has a coiling tail and a pair of wings, but is otherwise broadly crocodilian in configuration, not least in its four stumpy legs. It is those legs that propelled the dragon along the final steps of its journey – via flightless serpent, spiky sea monster and flying fire-breather – to the creature we know and love today. Daniel Ogden is professor of ancient history at the University of Exeter. His latest book is The Dragon in the West: From Ancient Myth to Modern Legend (Oxford University Press, 2021) This content first appeared in the September 2022 issue of BBC History Magazine
President Truman was willing to go to great lengths to halt the spread of communism – and in Greece and Turkey, he succeeded. But what was the Truman Doctrine and what was its significance?
While the Marshall Plan attempted to bolster the economies and domestic harmony of European countries after the Second World War, the Truman Doctrine was the United States foreign policy initiative aimed at keeping these states free from physical attacks by “armed minorities or by outside pressures”. No reading between the lines was necessary. This was the US’s clearly stated intention of ensuring that communist forces would not interfere with or undermine the sovereignty of its allies. This was unlikely to involve direct military action from the US, but instead would take the form of financial aid packages for countries attempting to withstand communist uprisings. President Harry S Truman announced the doctrine in a speech before a joint session of Congress on 12 March 1947, specifically asking for the two Houses to agree to support packages for Greece and Turkey, both of whom – with their funding from the UK government having dried up – were facing extraordinary pressure from communist influence. Greece was in the middle of a bitter civil war, waged by left-wing guerrillas against the government of King George II, while Turkey was bowing to pressure from the Soviet Union for shared control of the strategically important Dardanelles Straits. Truman emphasised how time was of the essence, and how relying on the still-new United Nations to collectively act and swiftly respond was unrealistic. The threat was spreading – and spreading quickly. “The Government of the United States has made frequent protests against coercion and intimidation, in violation of the Yalta agreement, in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. I must also state that, in a number of other countries, there have been similar developments.” It was, he stressed, time to act. Pledges of allegiance Explicitly framing his argument in terms of American interests (the third sentence of his speech had invoked “the national security of this country”), Truman managed to secure $400m in aid from Congress for Greece and Turkey – equivalent to more than $5bn today. This funding helped to successfully dissolve the communist threat in both cases. Indeed, five years later, Greece and Turkey both pledged their allegiance to the US by joining Nato. Having nullified unwanted influence in a vulnerable corner of Europe, Truman would certainly agree that that was money well spent. Read more | Is the future of Nato under threat? The success of the Truman Doctrine in southeast Europe led to its adoption by the US government beyond this particular continent. The world saw it as a commitment by Washington to intervene where it was believed free people were being subjugated – and without the turmoil that a heavy US military presence might bring to bear on a delicate situation. And the world knew what the doctrine fundamentally meant: it became shorthand for guaranteed American opposition to any spread, or any threatened spread, of communism, anywhere on the planet. By adopting this role as the ‘policeman’ of the free world, it was only a short step for the US to extend the policy and intervene militarily – as would soon be witnessed in Korea and Vietnam. Nige Tassell is a journalist specialising in history
The Elgin Marbles: what are they and where are they located?
The Elgin Marbles, a collection of stone sculptures and inscriptions more properly known as the Parthenon Sculptures, were acquired by Lord Elgin in Athens, Greece between 1801 and 1805 and today live in London's British Museum
Purchased by the British crown from Lord Elgin in 1816, the Parthenon Sculptures were presented by parliament to the British Museum, where they have remained ever since. Greece has disputed the British Museum’s ownership of the sculptures, maintaining that Lord Elgin removed them illegally while the country was under Turkish occupation as part of the Ottoman Empire. Lord Elgin was ambassador to the Ottoman court of the Sultan in Istanbul in the early 19th century. In 2022, the deputy director of the British Museum proposed a “Parthenon partnership” with Greece that could see the marbles returned to Athens after more than 200 years. In an interview with The Sunday Times Culture magazine, Jonathan Williams said that “the sculptures are an absolutely integral part of the British Museum,” but added “we want to change the temperature of the debate”. How much do you know about the Elgin Marbles? Here, we bring you the facts… What are the Elgin Marbles? The Elgin Marbles are sculptures from the Parthenon, a marble frieze temple (aka a Doric temple) on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, built in 447–432 BC and dedicated to the goddess Athena. The temple was “the centrepiece of an ambitious building programme on the Acropolis of Athens,” the British Museum explains. In 1687 the temple, which had stood for about 2,000 years, was largely destroyed during a war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, which was then occupying Greece. Why did Elgin remove the sculptures? According to the British Museum, Elgin was granted a firman (letter of instruction) granting him permission to take away the pieces “as a personal gesture after he encouraged the British forces in their fight to drive the French out of Egypt, which was then an Ottoman possession”. The legality of this document is today hotly debated. What is in the Elgin Marbles collection? The Elgin Marbles collection consists of roughly half of what now survives of the Parthenon. That is, 247 feet of the original 524 feet of frieze; 15 of 92 metopes; 17 figures from the pediments, and various other pieces of architecture, says the British Museum. It also includes objects from other buildings on the Acropolis: the Erechtheion, the Propylaia, and the Temple of Athena Nike. Read more | Giving back the the Parthenon Sculptures “is the right thing to do,” says Michael Wood The Elgin Marbles should, technically, be known as the Parthenon frieze From the beginning of 1817, the Elgin collection was first housed in a temporary gallery designed by Robert Smirke. "His permanent 'Elgin Room' (now Room 17) was completed on the west side of the Museum in 1832, and the collection remained there, and subsequently extended into adjacent galleries, until the Duveen Gallery was built in the 1930s," says the British Museum. Because the marble slabs are actually part of the frieze that ran around the whole of the Parthenon inside the peristyle, they should, technically, be known as the Parthenon frieze. What was Elgin's intention for the Parthenon frieze? Elgin had originally intended to donate his collection to the nation but his plan was scuppered when, on his return to England, he suffered financial problems. It is believed that many of the relics were for years stored in the grounds of Elgin’s Park Lane house while he tried to find a buyer. In 1810 Elgin began formal negotiations with the British Government for the sale of the objects. Elgin had hoped to raise £73,600, but agreed to accept the value determined by a select committee of the House of Commons, which held the collection to be worth £35,000. The collection was in 1816 vested in the trustees of the British Museum in perpetuity under the terms of the Local and Personal Acts 56 George III c.99. The Trustees now hold the Elgin collection under the terms of The British Museum Act (1963). Read more | 6 things you (probably) didn’t know about the ancient Greeks In 2004, art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon told the BBC: "I think it's important not to judge Elgin by the standards of the present" "You have to judge the man in the context of his own time.” The report says that while “plundering” artworks would spark outrage today, during Elgin's era “it was common for the wealthy to collect ancient treasures from around the world. Tourists to Greece regularly took souvenirs from the Parthenon site, and as a genuine lover of art now armed with apparent authority to take whatever he wished, Elgin began removing his share.” Who has called for the Parthenon Marbles to be returned? In 2012, Stephen Fry called for the Parthenon Marbles to be returned to Greece. In a debate hosted by Intelligence Squared in London, Fry said it would be a “classy” move to restore the sculptures. Opposing the motion, Tristram Hunt MP said he feared that restoring the Marbles could lead to a “purge” of museums in which “tit-for-tat recoveries” of objects by their countries of origin would lead to a "global loss of appreciation and understanding". Read more | The big question – should museums return their treasures? In 2014, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the Greek government had to date not asked to borrow the marbles, but that the museum was willing to lend anything in the collection provided it was fit for travel, and if it was going a place where it would be safe and from where it would be returned. When has mediation been proposed? In August 2013, at the request of the Greek Government, the Assistant Director-General for Culture at UNESCO wrote a letter to the Director of the British Museum (as well as the UK foreign secretary and the minister for culture, media and sport) proposing a process of mediation on the subject of the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum. But "the UK Government and the Trustees of the British Museum replied separately in 2015, each respectfully declining this proposal". Benin Bronzes: what are they and why are they important? Explore the significance of the controversial treasures To find out more about the Parthenon Sculptures, visit the British Museum website This article was originally published by HistoryExtra in 2015