What do you think?
Rate this book
The Elgin Affair: The Abduction of Antiquity's Greatest Treasures and the Passions it Aroused
Recounts the nineteenth-century abduction of the Elgin Marbles, ancient Greek statues that now reside in the British Museum, in a story that features Napoleon, Lady Hamilton, Lord Byron, Keats, and other famous figures.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published July 30, 1997
33 people are currently reading
168 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
October 15, 2021
I found this book a very light review of Elgin, the marbles and the politics of the time. It was full of lengthy quotes and letters detailing with minutiae rather than hard facts. Elgin became a bankrupt, lost most of his nose and lost his wife to Robert Fergusson.
March 5, 2011
I had to give up on this book. There are just too many good books out there waiting to be read. And, actually, I got to the point that I would rather read the Wikipedia article about the Elgin marbles than continue reading this book any longer.
This should be a fascinating, engrossing story. There is international intrigue, political backstabbing, Istanbul, beautiful women disguised as men, and at least two scandalous adulterous affairs. And Vrettos manages to make it so dull I didn't even want to continue reading.
Not all historians are cut out to write popular history books. However, this also fails as an example of a straight history (of the non-popular variety) due to its efforts to make itself popular. These take the form, mainly, of painful and embarrassing attempts at flowery writing. Most notably, this included the description of grass as "frolicking" along a riverbank, but the final straw was his description of the rosy fingers of dawn grasping at the eastern horizon. I just could't stomach it anymore.
Also, I was completely flummoxed as to why a color portrait of Emma Hamilton took up the majority of the cover. Yes, she's in the book, but it's not like she plays a vital role. She met the Elgins and entertained them at her home, but it sounds like she entertained most of the gentry who traveled the continent during this period. Her portrait completely overshadows the grainy, black-and-white (and smaller) photo of the marbles themselves. Did Vrettos (or whoever was designing the cover) have such a shortage of imagination and cover options that he couldn't find a fascinating image (recent photograph or period painting) of the marbles themselves?
I really wanted to learn more about the Elgin marbles, and I was ready to be charmed with this book. When it became obvious that "charmed" was out of the question, I was more than willing to be patient with the book. Unfortunately, it wore out even that patience and I did not finish the book.
This should be a fascinating, engrossing story. There is international intrigue, political backstabbing, Istanbul, beautiful women disguised as men, and at least two scandalous adulterous affairs. And Vrettos manages to make it so dull I didn't even want to continue reading.
Not all historians are cut out to write popular history books. However, this also fails as an example of a straight history (of the non-popular variety) due to its efforts to make itself popular. These take the form, mainly, of painful and embarrassing attempts at flowery writing. Most notably, this included the description of grass as "frolicking" along a riverbank, but the final straw was his description of the rosy fingers of dawn grasping at the eastern horizon. I just could't stomach it anymore.
Also, I was completely flummoxed as to why a color portrait of Emma Hamilton took up the majority of the cover. Yes, she's in the book, but it's not like she plays a vital role. She met the Elgins and entertained them at her home, but it sounds like she entertained most of the gentry who traveled the continent during this period. Her portrait completely overshadows the grainy, black-and-white (and smaller) photo of the marbles themselves. Did Vrettos (or whoever was designing the cover) have such a shortage of imagination and cover options that he couldn't find a fascinating image (recent photograph or period painting) of the marbles themselves?
I really wanted to learn more about the Elgin marbles, and I was ready to be charmed with this book. When it became obvious that "charmed" was out of the question, I was more than willing to be patient with the book. Unfortunately, it wore out even that patience and I did not finish the book.
January 26, 2021
To any lover of history and art, the story of how one man, driven by greed and arrogance, singlehandedly arranged to deface, dismantle and loot some of the most precious, incomparable antiquities in the world is one that is both interesting and deeply appalling. (This should tell you everything you need to know about where I stand on the question of whether these priceless treasures should be returned to Greece.) However, the theft of what has become known as the Elgin marbles isn't actually what the main part of this book is about - instead, the author spends an inordinate amount of time with the minutiae of the Elgins' marriage, which is for the most part dreadfully tedious.
October 27, 2018
As an account of the theft of some of the greatest antiquities in the world, this book is horrifying and upsetting. As an early 19th century travelogue of life in Greece, Turkey and the Mediterranean, this is downright fascinating. Vrettos draws upon voluminous primary resources (almost like a student whose entire essay is quotes) to reconstruct the lives of Lord and Lady Elgin, who through sheer drive and single-mindedness, stripped the Parthenon and Acropolis of their treasures, citing erosion, theft, and the fact that Greeks are no longer a great people, and hence, do not deserve them any longer, as his reasons for doing so. They basically bullied, bribed (I'll give you this telescope for your ancient works), and charmed (Lady Elgin worked her feminine wiles) to get the marbles. They were successful and now you can go see the marbles for free at the British Museum and you can go to the Parthenon and see what is left. We can only imagine what it would have looked like. Two hundred years later debate still rages about who should have the marbles-- England or Greece?
Since Vrettos lets the Elgins and their contemporaries speak for themselves in their documents, there is a curious lack of context and continuity in the narrative about the broader picture of what was going on during this time period, which would have been helpful and make the story more engaging. It is very choppy and jumps from Lord to Lady Elgin, and is mostly a story of their marriage as it is a story of theft. There is perhaps more time spent on Lady Elgin's experience and trial for adultery (and who can blame her; her husband's nose decomposed and he was a pill) than there is on Elgin's work to obtain the marbles.
Unless you are interested in art history and this time period, I suggest finding other books about the Elgin Marbles.
Since Vrettos lets the Elgins and their contemporaries speak for themselves in their documents, there is a curious lack of context and continuity in the narrative about the broader picture of what was going on during this time period, which would have been helpful and make the story more engaging. It is very choppy and jumps from Lord to Lady Elgin, and is mostly a story of their marriage as it is a story of theft. There is perhaps more time spent on Lady Elgin's experience and trial for adultery (and who can blame her; her husband's nose decomposed and he was a pill) than there is on Elgin's work to obtain the marbles.
Unless you are interested in art history and this time period, I suggest finding other books about the Elgin Marbles.
November 4, 2022
Losing Their Marbles
Did Lord Elgin plunder or protect the great sculptures of the Parthenon?
By Nigel Nicolson for the New York Times.
Two summers ago, I joined a group of tourists on the Acropolis at Athens and listened to the Greek guide's lecture to us on the glories of the Parthenon. She tactfully avoided comment on the removal of its sculptures by Lord Elgin in 1800-3, apart from appealing to her audience (mainly British) to call them the ''Parthenon marbles,'' not the ''Elgin marbles.'' ''That's not your only complaint,'' one of us generously said: ''You want them back.'' ''Yes, we want them back!'' she cried, her discretion abandoned, the wrath of Athena flashing from her lovely eyes.
The arguments for returning the sculptures from London to Athens have many times been rehearsed, and never better than in ''The Elgin Affair,'' by Theodore Vrettos. Lord Byron led the way in his poem ''Childe Harold,'' followed by the eloquent Melina Mercouri when she was Greek Minister of Culture in the 1980's. Both accused Elgin of vandalism -- but wrongly, for vandalism implies destruction, and the sculptures have been better protected against neglect and weather than they would have been if they had remained high up on the Parthenon's walls.
The Turks, who then occupied Greece, cared little about its past. They deliberately destroyed the little temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis to make room for their artillery; they used the Parthenon as an ammunition dump, which exploded, doing irreparable damage; and they allowed tourists to take their pick of the remains. It was from further destruction and pillage that Lord Elgin, the British Ambassador in Constantinople, was determined to save them. Even the Greeks, he said, could not be trusted with their heritage: they ''have looked upon the superb works of Pheidias with ingratitude and indifference. They do not deserve them!''
For ''vandalism,'' then, let us substitute the word ''theft.'' But even this is disputable, for Lord Elgin obtained from the Turks three official permits (firmans) to sketch, remove and export the marbles, and he paid Turkish officials handsomely in bribes. He did so at his own expense, and although he eventually sold the marbles to the British Government, it was for half what they had cost him, and he died in abject poverty. The British Museum, which acquired them, has never felt guilty about the transaction. Nor have successive Governments when importuned by the Greeks for their return. In 1941 the head of the Foreign Office minuted, ''They were actually acquired in a manner no more disreputable then many of the contents of European and American museums.'' If there is a hint of remorse in that remark, it was echoed in the 1980's by the Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, who said that if he became Prime Minister, he would return the marbles to Greece. His successor as head of Labor, Prime Minister Tony Blair, has not underwritten that promise.
Vrettos, in the subtitle to his excellent book, uses the word ''abduction,'' which at first suggested to me that he considered that the marbles had been removed by dishonest means or stealth, but in fact his narrative is free from prejudice and remarkably sympathetic to Lord Elgin. He quotes at length the arguments for and against restitution but does not come down firmly on either side. In fact, there is rather too little about plans the Greeks have made to receive the marbles if they are restored to them, and about the excellent conditions in which they are displayed in London. Nor does he discuss the precedent such restoration would set: every nation would lay claim to its ''abducted'' treasures. The Metropolitan and the British Museum would be stripped.
Vrettos, an American writer, is an excellent anecdotist. He quotes enough from original documents to confirm their authenticity and paraphrases the rest, scintillatingly. He gives us a detailed account of the dismantling and transport of the sculptures, but the main narrative concerns Elgin himself, his embassy to Constantinople, his happy (later disastrous) marriage and his struggles to win acceptance and financial compensation for his loot.
He is fortunate in his sources. Lady Elgin's letters are graphic and often funny (''Talleyrand's fragile body was held together only by his tight-fitting clothes''); the official dispatches were written with a freedom and elegance rare in modern times; and Byron's poems denouncing Elgin and his descendants are mercilessly bitter:
First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light -- on him and all his seed;
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire!
At the end of the book Vrettos finds room for the transcript of the trial in Edinburgh of one of Elgin's secretaries, charged with committing adultery with Lady Elgin. You may call this irrelevant, but it adds sparkle to an enthralling story.
Let us remember that Elgin was not alone in what he did. Napoleon sent agents to Athens to acquire vases, statues and bas-reliefs from every part of the city, including the Acropolis. I have in my own garden five marble altars an ancestor pinched from Delos in 1820. And Elgin's motive was a genuine love of antiquity. He not only wished to save the marbles but to exhibit them as an inspiration to the British. Keats, for example, visited them again and again; his friend the artist Joseph Severn said he would sit beside them an hour or more, ''rapt in revery.''
Elgin's reward for his trouble? It is disheartening to read of the sadness the affair caused him. His adjutants let him down badly, but not without cause, for he failed to pay their salaries. The Turks reneged on promises to leave him a free hand. One of his ships sank in midpassage (but the marbles were saved). He was constantly ridiculed for the enterprise that benefited his country so greatly. During his journey home he was taken prisoner in France, on Napoleon's orders. His wife deserted him. His nose was eaten away by an infection, leaving an ugly smear. His pitiable condition -- which disfigured him more than time and accident had done to many of his statues -- may have been one cause of his wife's infidelities, but it can also stand as a symbol of his blighted career. The current Lord Elgin has said he dares not visit Greece under his real name, and he is sorry his great-great-grandfather ever saw those ''bloody stones.'' Vrettos's verdict is more generous, and truer.
Did Lord Elgin plunder or protect the great sculptures of the Parthenon?
By Nigel Nicolson for the New York Times.
Two summers ago, I joined a group of tourists on the Acropolis at Athens and listened to the Greek guide's lecture to us on the glories of the Parthenon. She tactfully avoided comment on the removal of its sculptures by Lord Elgin in 1800-3, apart from appealing to her audience (mainly British) to call them the ''Parthenon marbles,'' not the ''Elgin marbles.'' ''That's not your only complaint,'' one of us generously said: ''You want them back.'' ''Yes, we want them back!'' she cried, her discretion abandoned, the wrath of Athena flashing from her lovely eyes.
The arguments for returning the sculptures from London to Athens have many times been rehearsed, and never better than in ''The Elgin Affair,'' by Theodore Vrettos. Lord Byron led the way in his poem ''Childe Harold,'' followed by the eloquent Melina Mercouri when she was Greek Minister of Culture in the 1980's. Both accused Elgin of vandalism -- but wrongly, for vandalism implies destruction, and the sculptures have been better protected against neglect and weather than they would have been if they had remained high up on the Parthenon's walls.
The Turks, who then occupied Greece, cared little about its past. They deliberately destroyed the little temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis to make room for their artillery; they used the Parthenon as an ammunition dump, which exploded, doing irreparable damage; and they allowed tourists to take their pick of the remains. It was from further destruction and pillage that Lord Elgin, the British Ambassador in Constantinople, was determined to save them. Even the Greeks, he said, could not be trusted with their heritage: they ''have looked upon the superb works of Pheidias with ingratitude and indifference. They do not deserve them!''
For ''vandalism,'' then, let us substitute the word ''theft.'' But even this is disputable, for Lord Elgin obtained from the Turks three official permits (firmans) to sketch, remove and export the marbles, and he paid Turkish officials handsomely in bribes. He did so at his own expense, and although he eventually sold the marbles to the British Government, it was for half what they had cost him, and he died in abject poverty. The British Museum, which acquired them, has never felt guilty about the transaction. Nor have successive Governments when importuned by the Greeks for their return. In 1941 the head of the Foreign Office minuted, ''They were actually acquired in a manner no more disreputable then many of the contents of European and American museums.'' If there is a hint of remorse in that remark, it was echoed in the 1980's by the Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, who said that if he became Prime Minister, he would return the marbles to Greece. His successor as head of Labor, Prime Minister Tony Blair, has not underwritten that promise.
Vrettos, in the subtitle to his excellent book, uses the word ''abduction,'' which at first suggested to me that he considered that the marbles had been removed by dishonest means or stealth, but in fact his narrative is free from prejudice and remarkably sympathetic to Lord Elgin. He quotes at length the arguments for and against restitution but does not come down firmly on either side. In fact, there is rather too little about plans the Greeks have made to receive the marbles if they are restored to them, and about the excellent conditions in which they are displayed in London. Nor does he discuss the precedent such restoration would set: every nation would lay claim to its ''abducted'' treasures. The Metropolitan and the British Museum would be stripped.
Vrettos, an American writer, is an excellent anecdotist. He quotes enough from original documents to confirm their authenticity and paraphrases the rest, scintillatingly. He gives us a detailed account of the dismantling and transport of the sculptures, but the main narrative concerns Elgin himself, his embassy to Constantinople, his happy (later disastrous) marriage and his struggles to win acceptance and financial compensation for his loot.
He is fortunate in his sources. Lady Elgin's letters are graphic and often funny (''Talleyrand's fragile body was held together only by his tight-fitting clothes''); the official dispatches were written with a freedom and elegance rare in modern times; and Byron's poems denouncing Elgin and his descendants are mercilessly bitter:
First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light -- on him and all his seed;
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire!
At the end of the book Vrettos finds room for the transcript of the trial in Edinburgh of one of Elgin's secretaries, charged with committing adultery with Lady Elgin. You may call this irrelevant, but it adds sparkle to an enthralling story.
Let us remember that Elgin was not alone in what he did. Napoleon sent agents to Athens to acquire vases, statues and bas-reliefs from every part of the city, including the Acropolis. I have in my own garden five marble altars an ancestor pinched from Delos in 1820. And Elgin's motive was a genuine love of antiquity. He not only wished to save the marbles but to exhibit them as an inspiration to the British. Keats, for example, visited them again and again; his friend the artist Joseph Severn said he would sit beside them an hour or more, ''rapt in revery.''
Elgin's reward for his trouble? It is disheartening to read of the sadness the affair caused him. His adjutants let him down badly, but not without cause, for he failed to pay their salaries. The Turks reneged on promises to leave him a free hand. One of his ships sank in midpassage (but the marbles were saved). He was constantly ridiculed for the enterprise that benefited his country so greatly. During his journey home he was taken prisoner in France, on Napoleon's orders. His wife deserted him. His nose was eaten away by an infection, leaving an ugly smear. His pitiable condition -- which disfigured him more than time and accident had done to many of his statues -- may have been one cause of his wife's infidelities, but it can also stand as a symbol of his blighted career. The current Lord Elgin has said he dares not visit Greece under his real name, and he is sorry his great-great-grandfather ever saw those ''bloody stones.'' Vrettos's verdict is more generous, and truer.
March 16, 2022
I understand why some reviewers were not happy with the book-- as the focus was definitely on the biography of this Lord Elgin and his wife. The book was not as good on art history, Greek nationalism and international affairs or in post-colonial thinking. The subtitle was the problem since readers approached the book with different expectations. That said, I thought it was a fantastic read! I really felt the story of the man and his wife could not have been better told. From his financial difficulties, to the war and being imprisoned by Napoleon to his wife's affair and the media surrounding their divorce to --yes-- the loss of his nose and disfigurement. Highly recommend as biography. The writing was excellent--kept me engaged and turning the pages!
September 8, 2008
Very readable, sometimes quite gossipy, story of Lord Elgin, British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. A lover of classical art, Elgin financed the removal of the Parthenon reliefs for the British Museum -- in part because Napoleonic France also wanted them for the Louvre. Very quick read. The author clearly is looking forward to the return of these to Greece.
February 26, 2014
A clear and thorough account of how Lord Elgin acquired the marbles and what happened next. My only criticism is that Vrettos tends to dwell on those aspects of the story for which he has written sources - there was no need for a full transcript of the divorce trial, for instance - and skate over other aspects. But well worth a read.
March 30, 2014
Did Elgin steal the marbles? Or did he save them? No idea.
September 17, 2023
A bit boring with way too many long quotations. I could have done with way less of the testimony about his wife's infidelity. I don't think the author presented a compelling case that Elgin stole the marbles from Greece. Would the Turks and Greeks in Athens been so willing to help him had he not had permission? If anything, I ended up feeling bad for Lord Elgin. He ended up broke, disfigured, and disgraced by his wife. When he tried to sell the marbles, the authorities even declared they were copies made in the time of Hadrian and not the original carvings. I'm fairly certain that argument was made just to avoid paying Elgin a fair amount.
As for the marbles themselves, I'm still not convinced of either Greece or Britain's claims to them. Had Elgin not taken them, the French would have tried or they'd have been stolen piecemeal by souvenir hunters. We now have laser scanning and 3d printing that can achieve near identical replicas. They could make a deal where each country gets to display half the originals and half copies, but neither side wants to budge on having them all.
As for the marbles themselves, I'm still not convinced of either Greece or Britain's claims to them. Had Elgin not taken them, the French would have tried or they'd have been stolen piecemeal by souvenir hunters. We now have laser scanning and 3d printing that can achieve near identical replicas. They could make a deal where each country gets to display half the originals and half copies, but neither side wants to budge on having them all.
December 2, 2022
Complicated! Were they saved by being sent to England? I think so. Was this an egregious exploitation of his reported permits? Yes. Would they still be there today? No. At the time, the Turks controlled Athens and didn’t care about Greek heritage. They would have sold off every bit to the highest bribe. The Parthenon was used to store gunpowder in the 1700s and it exploded, destroying parts of the Parthenon — so it clearly was not being valued. Good news they are safe for now - the issue is, where should they reside?
March 22, 2021
Too much about personal life and sort of passed over what should have been explained in detail about the treasures. The story of the lord, his marriage, his divorce. And I still don't know if he stole antiquities or if he saved them.
August 18, 2023
It as close as possible to being a time traveller. The reader is transported through time to witness this horrible act of thievery, as if with your own eyes. Read this book and the visit the London Museum. I did and I am outraged.
January 10, 2025
Good information but the author has a clear bias that makes it hard to take his evidence seriously. I also did not need the entire ending of the book dedicated to details on his wife’s infidelity and the scandalous trial that followed.
August 18, 2018
A great story that was presented in a rather mediocre fashion. More of a cursory overview than the riveting account it could have been.
December 5, 2020
Abandoned on page 19 of 212. Dull and didn’t quite explain things adequately.
May 7, 2021
Well researched and presented in an organized manner with a minimum of conjecture, just as it should be
August 18, 2021
What an interesting book! Excellent!
February 13, 2022
I think the Cedar Rapids Art Museum book club isn't for me. The 2 books I tried were dry and just didn't grab my attention.
August 4, 2022
I kept wondering whose side the author is actually taking in the whole affair, and the only conclusion I can come up with is that he has a rather embarrasing crush on Elgin's wife.
December 22, 2022
An interesting look at the history of some of the most famous marbles in the world! Disappointing that they haven’t returned to their original locale, and hope this is rectified.
March 13, 2023
This book is really a biography of Elgin.
November 21, 2023
While this is a straight-up non-fiction history based on primary and secondary resources, it reads like a clunky historical fictional. Couldn't make it past the first chapter.
March 31, 2025
The story behind the Elgin Marbles
Having visited Athens, and stood in the fabulous new Acropolis Museum, with the space created for and waiting the return of the so-called Elgin Marbles (the marble friezes stolen from the Acropolis by Elgin), I was always curious to know the full story. This book provides that story: who Elgin was, how he came to be in Greece, how he got ‘permission’ to remove the friezes, the mammoth task of shipping them to England, and how they ended up in the British museum. It’s quite revealing- almost as revealing as the tales of his marriage and scandalous divorce that much of the book focuses on. As his wife was involved with the marbles, it does fit together. Highly recommended.
Having visited Athens, and stood in the fabulous new Acropolis Museum, with the space created for and waiting the return of the so-called Elgin Marbles (the marble friezes stolen from the Acropolis by Elgin), I was always curious to know the full story. This book provides that story: who Elgin was, how he came to be in Greece, how he got ‘permission’ to remove the friezes, the mammoth task of shipping them to England, and how they ended up in the British museum. It’s quite revealing- almost as revealing as the tales of his marriage and scandalous divorce that much of the book focuses on. As his wife was involved with the marbles, it does fit together. Highly recommended.
November 10, 2012
Interesting book about an unknown fact (well for me at least), the pillage of the Acropolis from a Scottish Lord who happened to be Ambassador for Britain in Turkey. Most of the book seems to be based on correspondences from Lady Elgin, the diplomat's wife, who in turn was not exactly devoid of hidden secrets. Enjoyed reading it, not mind blowingly so, but pleasant read.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews