I want to suggest a project: Nostos 2024. ‘Nostos’ is the ancient Greek word for a voyage home, and the project I suggest is that the Parthenon marbles, removed from the Athenian Acropolis by agents of Lord Elgin in the early nineteenth century and currently housed in the British Museum in London, should complete their long-delayed voyage home to Athens before the end of the year 2024.

Why should the marbles go home? This hardly needs asking. Elgin took them without clear permission from the Ottoman Empire, which then ruled Greek lands, and certainly without permission from the subject Greek people. Even at the time, their removal was controversial, and the Greek state has been campaigning for their return since its foundation in 1832.

Today, their retention in London is indefensible, morally and aesthetically, if not legally. They were designed to be part of the Acropolis complex and belong with the other remaining Parthenon sculptures in the Acropolis Museum, which has been specially designed to exhibit them. Many organizations campaign for the return, working under the aegis of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, and UNESCO has recently called on Britain to hand them back.

Why 2024? Because it’s the bicentenary of the death of Lord Byron. Byron was a passionate philehellene who sold his estate in England to fund the cause of Greek independence and travelled to Greece to help lead the fight. It was there that he died on 19 April 1824.

Byron had condemned Elgin’s removal of the marbles in his poems ‘The Curse of Minerva’ and ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’, writing this of Elgin and his men:

Curst be the hour when their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatched thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorrd!
–Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto II, Stanza XV

The British will want to celebrate the bicentenary of the death of one of their greatest poets, and I can think of no finer or more appropriate tribute than the righting of this wrong done by his countrymen to a country he loved. If we could ask him what memorial he would like, I have no doubt he would choose this one.

It would be a generous, noble gesture, befitting Byron, and it would reaffirm the long-standing bonds of friendship between Britain and Greece.

I know it’s presumptuous of me to ‘suggest’ this, as if no one else had thought of it. There are many people working hard for the return of the marbles, and doubtless others have made the connection with Byron’s bicentenary. But I wanted to add my voice and propose Nostos 2024 as a watchword.

Where to find the best mutton soup, mascarpone torte and anise-flavoured spirit in Crete.

Children, education, and open doors: Some Ancient Greek proverbs.

‘My father always hoped that Gerry and I would marry.’

3,000-year-old Olive tree on the island of crete still produces olives today.

Greek center shelters orphaned bear cubs.

Greece allows gay couples to foster children.

Ashes from Santorini’s Minoan eruption found in Smyrna excavation.

The 28th of October is a public holiday in Greece, known as Ochi Day. It commemorates the day in 1940 when  Mussolini’s ambassador gave an ultimatum to Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas: allow Italian troops to occupy regions of Greece or face war. The reply was, “Alors, c’est la guerre” or, in the popular version, “Ochi” (No) — a reply which brought Greece into the Second World War on the side of the Allies.

The following Greco-Italian war lasted five months and did not go as Mussolini planned. The Hellenic Army repelled the invasion and went on the offensive, occupying large areas of Albania (then under Italian control) and tying down hundreds of thousands of Italian troops. The stalemate forced Hitler to intervene, diverting large numbers of troops to the invasion of Greece. British troops came to Greece’s aid, but the Allied forces were massively outnumbered and outgunned, and mainland Greece fell in late April 1941, starting a long and painful occupation.

Greeks are proud of their role in resisting the Axis forces. Their initial victory over the Italians was the first successful Allied campaign of the war, and it is arguable that the subsequent diversion of German troops to the Battle of Greece significantly altered the course of the war, delaying the start of Hitler’s Russian offensive and thus contributing to the German defeat at the Battle of Moscow.

Since 1942 Ochi day has been celebrated by Greeks with parades and displays of national pride. With the current crisis, the day has also become a focus for protests against the austerity measures imposed by Greece’s EU partners and the IMF. This year the mood seemed more subdued, or perhaps dejected. We spent the day with friends at a local children’s playground. The lines below reflect my own mood that day.

It’s easy to self-dramatize
Living in country that’s so tried of saying no
It’s started saying yes
To hopelessness and hate.
But right now I’m aware of nothing but
A headache,
Children’s happy shouts,
And sunlight through small green leaves.

In a piece in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper Jon Henley reports on how cutbacks to Greek health services have led to a sharp rise in communicable diseases in the country. It’s a sobering piece, and I recommend all philhellenes to read it and to consider donating to Médecins sans Frontières Greece or other medical agencies working here. However, I also want to add a word of reassurance for those considering visiting Greece this year. The article says that malaria has become endemic in Greece — which seems pretty frightening. But, while true, the claim isn’t as scary as it sounds. ‘Endemic’ simply means that cases of the disease have been contracted in the country, rather than carried in from abroad; it doesn’t mean that the disease is running riot. In fact, there have been very few cases of malaria in Greece, and most of them have been confined to a farming region in the south of the Peloponnese, where conditions particularly favour the disease. (The phrase ‘south of the country’, used in the article, means ‘south of the mainland’, not the southern islands, such as Crete.) For more details, see this article in the journal Eurosurveillance. There is some information on action being taken to combat the outbreak in this report by the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Google translation here).

Of course, one should not be complacent, and all visitors should check the latest travel advice issued by their government. Moreover, we should all heed Jon Henley’s warnings about effects of cutbacks in the Greek health services. But as a Greek resident with a young family, I am not worried about malaria, and I continue to encourage my family and friends to visit this beautiful country.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Finisterre67.