The cradle of democracy

[marthe]

But what if the price has gone up in the meanwhile? I know Elgin was rich, but this is stratospheric...

I believe it was Lord Elgin's wife, Mary Hamilton Nisbet, Lady Elgin, who had all the money. He used her fortune to send the marbles to England, even retrieve some of them from the sea floor after the ship carrying them went down in a storm off the English (or Irish?) coast.

[amateur51]

Mind you, given the probable value of the marbles now, with the income from them the Greeks could pay off their debts & cary a tidy amount over.

And given the investment that Melina Mercouri & her chums have persuaded the Greek government to make in building a museum espacially for their return