II : X - XV The Lost Treasures of Greece

About the disappearance of the statue of Zeus at the Temple of Zeus of Olympia, there are many stories, some fantastical. Some said that Roman emperor Caligula wanted to take the statue from Athens so he could remove its head and put his own on it. There's tale of the statue letting out laughters as it was being removed and transported to Rome, foretelling the approaching assassination of Caligula.

6th Son of Cronos (Saturn in Stanza X), Zeus became the king of gods, fulfilling the oracle and his father's biggest fear, thanks to his mother's protection from the envious and murderous Cronos. Here's how Homer described Zeus in Iliad. Indeed the big boss of the Olympia, Zeus had been feared and revered by gods and men alike, maybe save Hera, his deservingly jealous wife.

ἦ καὶ κυανέῃσιν ἐπ' ὀφρύσι νεῦσε Κρονίωνἀμβρόσιαι δ' ἄρα χαῖται ἐπερρώσαντο ἄνακτοςκρατὸς ἀπ' ἀθανάτοιο μέγαν δ' ἐλέλιξεν Ὄλυμπον. 

He spoke, the son of Cronos, and nodded his head with the dark brows,and the immortally anointed hair of the great godswept from his divine head, and all Olympos was shaken.                                                                                    

---- Iliad Homer

Now, Iliad (read it, seriously, it's one of my all time favourite books), is about two plundering forces collide: the Aegean and the Trojan fought to their last drop, losing the lives of most magnificent heros: Hector, Patroclus, Achilles, Ajax...just to name a few. Byron paid a visit to Patroclus' tomb himself. He amongst all would be moved by the friendship between Achille and Patroclus. It's a war without a righteous side, partially caused by the Priam's no-good-son Paris yielding to his desire (the golden apple was merely a bait as far as I'm concerned), leading to the Aegean's' despicable deeds, blood-washing a city that used to be glorious and peaceful.

  

Achilles and Patroclus

I don't think Byron was on the Aegean's side completely, but he idolized Achilles. Proof? He designed his own armour and helmet according to the one Athena bestowed to Achilles! Hobhouse thought the plumes were way overly fancy, and Byron didn't end up wearing it either because he died before confronting the enemies...but that's another story.

It's hard to imagine the span of time when the poet includes the history of thousands of years within one stanza. Mycenaean Greece, or better known as the Bronze Age, marked a series of conflicts and at the same time, artistic development. The construction of many beautiful temples in Athens with Doric order had been taken place during that time, as well as many Homeric epics. And then Virgil depicted Aeneas' journey out of Troy and thus the beginning of Ancient Roman Civilization which lasted until the year of 480. I always thought it's quite proper that Aeneas is Venus' son, and a civilization was born out of Love after a lifetime of suffering and loss.

Venus and Aeneas

The Elgin Marbles somehow survived all the rise and fall of empires, until in the beginning of 19th Century, Britain started to transport all the remaining sculptures from Parthenon and other temples across the ocean. Byron was obviously unhappy about it, scathing the fact that the British is finally taking away Greece's last bits of wealth and memory of their bountiful history. One can argue that to this point, the remnants of ancient Greek have become heritage of the entire human race, and it's understandable to take those sculptures to better care, such as in a museum, it's still robbery by all means.

After the war, treasures of the defeated side usually end up getting ripped off, for they're trophies for the victors.

There are five rivers in the realm of Hades, Styx, the river of Hate, being one of them. It was the very river Achilles had been dipped in to be made invincible by his mother when he was merely an infant. We all know what happened afterwards: the mother missed one spot, which let to the son's fateful downfall. Achilles didn't enjoy his afterlife. In Homer's Odyssey, Achille's soul said to Odysseus: "I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another man, one with no land allotted to him and not much to live on, than be a king over all the perished dead". And a much more serious problem is: the Greek hero can no longer protect his beloved land, lest she's lost to the foreign robbers.

There's always a conflict of interests when it comes to deciding what to do with ancient cultural heritages. There's nothing the Greek can do in the beginning of 19th century. They were week, wounded and seemed unrecoverable. The Britannica had been on the rise, conquering the ocean with flying colours. Is it moral to transport the Elgin Marbles from a country that wasn't able to say no, even with the best intentions? You can only have an attitude towards this kind of things, but not a sound explanations.

History can always be examined, studied, evaluated, with which we predict the future, for it is based on human nature. Yet even if we see through it in all clarity, it's still impossible for us to offer an explanation to the tendency towards conflicts and destruction throughout our history. It takes a lot of precaution and willpower to protect a legacy, which is all so easy to lose.