President Donald Trump has a historic opportunity to cement his legacy for thousands of years — and Greek officials want him to seize it.
The ask: help broker an agreement with the British government to return the so-called “Parthenon Marbles” — pieces of the world-famous Parthenon atop the Acropolis in Athens that British Lord Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, took when the Ottoman Empire occupied Greece.
Adonis Georgiadis, Greece’s governing party vice president and Health Minister, told Breitbart News that Trump could “stay in history for thousands of years” if he pressures the British to finally return the sculptures.
“I’m totally sure that President Trump, as the natural leader of the Western world, realizes that representing the spirit of the American grandfathers of your democracy, which all of them were very well educated — they had a huge respect about ancient Greece and ancient Rome, which they originally took their values and built the American democracy, the American Republic. I’m sure he could press the British government to make the right move.”
The Parthenon Marbles — Greeks refuse to call them the “Elgin Marbles” because they consider Lord Elgin a thief — are several different sculptures from the Parthenon first created thousands of years ago in Ancient Greece. The circumstances under which Elgin took them are particularly questionable.
Georgiadis, who is also a historian, said the matter is as much a fight for national pride as defending the national anthem is in the United States. Even remnants of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey support the Greek effort to restore the sculptures to Greece.
The British have run out of excuses.
“Not even one educated person in the world doesn’t realize why the marbles shouldn’t come back,” Georgiadis said. “Even the British don’t say no. The British aren’t like, ‘We’ll never give them back.’ They just say, ‘Well, let us see if it’s the right time.’ A real argument that ‘we have them legitimately’ is not even raised from their side.”
Konstantinos Kyranakis, an elected member of the Greek Parliament and Secretary General of the governing New Democracy party, said Trump’s legacy would endure for “centuries” if he made it happen.
“If President Trump were to help make that happen, his contribution would extend far beyond diplomacy,” Kyranakis said. “It would represent one of those rare moments when political leadership serves civilization itself. The reunification of the Parthenon Marbles would not rewrite history. It would complete it. We believe President Trump, as the true leader of the West, has the opportunity to leave a legacy that endures across centuries.”
Endy Zemenides, executive director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC) representing millions in the Greek-American community, told Breitbart News that British excuses are running thin.
“It’s time to reverse history’s biggest theft and the British excuses for why they can’t give the Parthenon sculptures back don’t hold water anymore. These sculptures can now be housed in one of the great museums of the world overlooking the Parthenon. If President Trump can make this happen, it will be an unprecedented contribution to the cultural heritage of democracy.”
The story of how the British got the marbles is filled with deception. Athenians built the Parthenon in the fifth century BC — the biggest symbol of their era and democracy, Georgiadis said. The Parthenon stood for nearly two thousand years “almost intact” through many civilizations because all respected it.
But in the early 19th century, Lord Elgin went to the Ottoman Sultan and got a document signed so he could come to Athens and study the Parthenon.
Instead of just studying it, Lord Elgin cut pieces of the Parthenon off — various sculptures — and took them back to the United Kingdom to display in his garden.
“What he did is he cut the marbles, and he stole the marbles,” Georgiadis said. “He put them in ships, and he went to the United Kingdom. One of the ships was sunk and some of the marbles are in the bottom of the sea.”
Even the Ottoman Empire never recognized it as legitimate.
“Even in the Ottoman period, the Ottoman authorities said he didn’t have the license to get the marbles,” Georgiadis told Breitbart News. “He had the license only to study the marbles. But he had already gone to the United Kingdom when the Greek Revolution started.”
In the period of chaos during which the Greeks fought for and won their independence from the Ottoman Empire — a revolution inspired by the American Revolution — the British solidified their control of the marbles.
Georgiadis told Breitbart News a story of just how culturally significant the Parthenon is to Greeks. During Greece’s war for independence, Turkish soldiers holed up in the Parthenon began running out of bullets. So the Turks began ripping apart columns from the Parthenon to use the metal inside to make new bullets.
“So when the Greeks at that time saw that and learned that they will do something like that, they stopped the war with a white flag,” Georgiadis said. “They went up to the hill. They gave them bullets and said: ‘You will get from us as many bullets you want. Just don’t touch the Parthenon.’ This was the level of how much they — they were uneducated people and they knew nothing about history, they didn’t know how even to write their name — but they had the sense that this is the spirit of Greece in a way that yeah, this is the Greek identity.”
Since the Greeks won their independence, there have been countless attempts to secure the return of the marbles. British officials have come up with excuse after excuse, including arguing that Athens was unsuitable to house them. So the Greeks built a magnificent museum that could display the marbles.
British officials have also argued that giving these back to Greece would set off a fire sale worldwide where other civilizations would demand the return of artifacts. Georgiadis said this is false because the way Elgin took them was deceitful, unlike other artifacts on display at British museums.
Georgiadis noted that many famous British figures and other celebrities like actors Liam Neeson and George Clooney have supported returning the marbles to Greece.
Georgiadis was wearing Trump cufflinks during the interview. He said he is a huge fan of Trump.
“I usually put them on because when I see communists, I always do something like that to protect myself,” Georgiadis said. “I always believe that the president of the United States of America is the leader of all the West.”
There is perhaps no better time than now — given the historic weakness of the British government with the downfall of Keir Starmer as Prime Minister and now the rise of Andy Burnham as his replacement as well as a very strong American president in Trump — to get them back and right this historic wrong.
“The leader that will make this happen will be a part of the Parthenon’s story, and as you realize the Parthenon has been here for 2,500 years and will be here after another 2,500 years,” Georgiadis said. “I’m not exaggerating.”
