Stealing Athena

by Karen Essex

Lands that contain the monuments of Eld,

  Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quell’d.

  Of the thousands of readers who eagerly consumed Byron’s poem, none questioned to whom those barbarous hands belonged. For long stanzas, Byron bemoaned the fate of the Golden Age of Athens, reviling those British hands that had desecrated the monuments. Many had taken up Byron’s point of view, making a demon of Elgin for what he’d done. Parliament had put Elgin through excruciating hearings to determine whether he had procured the marbles legally, and then paid him a fraction of what they had cost Elgin—and Mary—to collect. Mary had also heard that Elgin’s appearance had grown so horrible that he lived a life of seclusion—and a bitter one too, she guessed. Let no one say that Mary Ferguson did not have presentiments, she thought. Nemesis’ curse upon Elgin had proved to be more than fantasy.

  But here she was, thirty-eight years old, married to her heart’s companion, in control of her lands and her money, considered still very beautiful, and beloved by many for both her skill in entertaining and her acts of philanthropy. She pined for her children every day, but the grief was somewhat palliated by her loving relationship with Robert’s son, Henry, by his former mistress. She and Robert had decided that Henry would not be hidden away like some embarrassment, but brought fully into their lives. He was a delightful boy, and a great comfort to a mother who’d lost her own dear ones.

  Mary made her way to the room that housed the marbles. She thought that she would be able to see them on her own—somehow, she wanted privacy with them, these statues that had made such an impact on her life—but several young artists were there with sketchbooks, transfixed before the great statues, drawing furiously.

  The statues were scattered about, with the two pediment configurations loosely pieced together as they might have appeared on the Parthenon. The frieze was partially reconstructed, though not in the order in which Mary had seen it before it was taken down, and the metopes had been hung on the walls, propped on heavy wooden stands. She walked up to the statue of the reclining Dionysus and touched it.

  “Strange how and where we have all ended our days,” she said aloud, touching the cool, gray marble.

  “Excuse me?” One of the young men sketching had apparently thought that Mary was speaking to him.

  She looked down at his sketchbook. He had been standing in front of the great headless female figure with drapery clinging to her lovely form, sketchbook in hand. “May I ask what you are doing?” she said.

  “I am trying to learn from the techniques of Pheidias,” he said. “Though with mixed results. I cannot capture the way in which he was able to demonstrate the subtleties of the female form beneath her drapery, and in stone, no less. I cannot do it with charcoal.”

  “Don’t be discouraged,” Mary said. “You are very young. An artist needs time to develop. I am sure that Pheidias required some time too. I believe these sculptures were made in the prime of his life, after he had created many opulent things.”

  “Thank you, madam. I shall think of your encouraging words when I return to my studio to try to improve this rendering of his Athena.”

  “Oh no, that is not Athena. That is undoubtedly the messenger goddess Iris, announcing Athena’s birth from the head of her father. That was the subject of the eastern pediment of the Parthenon, from which this particular statue came.”

  “Madam, you are familiar with the pieces?”

  “Oh yes, I saw them in their place of origin. I must say that they look lonely and out of place here in this dark, musty room rather than under the splendid Greek sunlight. Though they do retain their grandeur. I suppose nothing can ultimately diminish them.”

  “We are privileged to be in their company,” the artist said. “Though Lord Elgin, who is responsible for their appearance on these shores, has been much criticized for his actions. Lord Byron has done him great harm.”

  “Yes, he has, and it is not entirely just,” she said, amazed to find herself all these years later jumping to Elgin’s defense. But she had played her own part in the story, and she was defending herself too, though the young man would never know that. “Perhaps Socrates was correct in his assessment of the poets—that they are verbose flatterers who move only women, children, and slaves. In any case, we should not wholly take the word of a drunken, opium-smoking poet as the ultimate truth.”

  “I, for one, though it may seem selfish, am delighted to be able to sit before these masterpieces,” he said.

  He spoke with the reverence and earnestness of youth. Mary longed for the days when she too had had such leanings.

  “Lord Elgin is criticized, but I assure you that if he had not rescued them, they would by now be ground to bits for ammunition by the Turkish soldiers occupying the Acropolis, or hacked off and sold in pieces to travelers with money to spend. Or used to build newer, rude housing. I saw those degradations with my own eyes.” Mary saw that she was growing in the young man’s esteem.

  “I hear the Scottish lilt in your voice,” he said. “Are you acquainted with Lord Elgin?”

  “No, just a once-curious traveler with a taste for history. I’ll tell you something. If Lord Elgin had not salvaged these treasures, Napoleon might have gotten them, and Lord Byron might be writing accusatory poems about the French!”

  “I am John Fitzwilliam, madam. It has been a privilege to make your acquaintance, Mrs….” The young man leaned forward, waiting for Mary to introduce herself.

  “It has been lovely to talk to you,” she said. “My sincerest wishes for the success of your artistic endeavors.” And she walked away.

  Better to remain anonymous, she thought. After her brush with infamy, she was happy to have retired into a quieter life. Perhaps Pericles had been correct in the end, advising the women of Athens to live in a manner that guaranteed anonymity. Though she had played a crucial role in helping her husband remove these ancient treasures, she had never sought any credit for what she had done, or any of the glory that Elgin had futilely chased for his contribution to the British arts. And thanks to that, no one was writing nasty poems indicting her.

  Yet the marbles were not only a touchstone to a glorious past, they were also a touchstone to her personal past. She was indelibly a part of their history now, though she would be just as happy if no recognition for her deeds ever came her way. In years to come, after she was gone and all those who knew her had also ceased to exist, would anyone think to wonder what had become of her? It was highly unlikely. Perhaps she, like Pericles’ mistress, Aspasia, who had not heeded his advice to the women of Athens, would simply disappear from the record.

  She laughed at her morose thoughts. Was it any use pondering those who were long dead? Or even what would become of her own reputation after she was gone? How it could suffer more than when she was alive, she did not know.

  The still air in the room had become oppressive. It was unseasonably warm for a September day, and Mary longed to get back out into the fresh air. Enough truck with the past. What was it that her old nanny used to say? Life is fer tha living. She took one last look at the marbles, those symbols of the world upon which her own world had been built. The reclining nude seemed to be saying goodbye to her. Was it the god Dionysus? Or the personification of a river? She could not remember, though she would never forget the marbles themselves. She straightened her hat, nodded again to the young artist who was still staring at her, and went outside to find her waiting coach.

  THE FATES OF OUR CHARACTERS

  Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin, married Robert Ferguson in 1808. They inherited enormous estates and turned Raith House into one of the great salons of the day, entertaining scientists, artists, aristocrats, and other luminaries. Mary’s children grew up despising her, but after fourteen years she reunited with Lord Bruce, who was in terrible health, suffering from epilepsy and other illnesses. He died in 1840. Mary’s daughters did not see her for thirty years, but managed to reconcile with her in 1835. Robert continued as a respected scie
ntist and a reformer, discovering a mineral that was named for him, fergusonite. He died in 1840 at the age of seventy-one. Mary retained her high spirits all of her life. She hosted a huge party on June 30, 1855, and died nine days later at the age of seventy-seven. Still embarrassed by the charges of adultery against their mother, Mary’s heirs buried her in an unmarked grave, anonymous until a sympathetic descendant inscribed it in 1916.

  In 1810, Lord Elgin married Elizabeth Oswald, a young woman half his age, who bore him eight more children. His debts continued to mount, and he and Elizabeth fled to France to avoid the creditors. His children by Mary remained in the care of his mother. Elgin died in Paris in 1841, leaving his family encumbered with his debts, which they were not able to pay in full for another thirty-four years. Despite his miserable health, he lived to be seventy-five years old.

  Emma Hamilton never recovered from Lord Nelson’s death. Nelson’s legal wife outwitted Emma for his fortune, and Emma bankrupted herself trying to maintain the home she and Nelson had shared. William Hamilton’s male relations inherited his money, and Emma, accustomed to the high life, overspent until she had to flee to France to avoid her creditors. She died in Calais of cirrhosis of the liver in 1815.

  Within one year of delivering his famous funeral oration, Pericles died in a plague that swept through Athens. Before he died, he legitimized his son by Aspasia, known as Pericles the Younger, who rose to the rank of general but was executed in 406 BCE, along with six other generals, for his part in the loss of twenty-five Athenian ships to Sparta.

  After Pericles died, Aspasia was said to have married or taken up with the shepherd Lysicles. The comic poets continued to abuse her as a prostitute and a dog-eyed whore for many decades to follow. Yet, according to Plutarch, under her wise counsel Lysicles became one of the first men of Athens. Though after this she drops from the historical record, we must wonder, along with Plutarch, “What art or charming faculty had she that enabled her to captivate the most powerful men of the state and gave philosophers occasion to speak of her at length and in terms that were exalted?”

  According to Pausanias (Description of Greece 1.22.8), Socrates, the renowned philosopher, sculpted the figures of the Graces at the entrance to the Acropolis, following in the footsteps of his father, a stonemason. Later in life, Socrates was tried, like Aspasia, for impiety. The charges included ruining the morals of the young and believing in gods of his own making—his daimon—rather than state-ordained gods. He was convicted, and subsequently executed by willingly drinking hemlock. He died in 399 BCE, shy of his seventieth birthday.

  Alcibiades, I should note, is not the handsome character of Plato’s dialogues, but that figure’s grandfather. Our Alcibiades was ostracized from Athens in 460 BCE. On the basis of a newly discovered tomb inscription, Peter J. Bicknell has plausibly theorized that Alcibiades spent his exile in Miletus and returned to Athens with his bride, who was Aspasia’s sister, and his sister-in-law in tow.

  Our most prominent characters, The Elgin Marbles, or The Parthenon Sculptures, reside in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum. The marbles remain at the center of an international controversy, argued freshly every year as the debate over who owns the world’s ancient treasures rages on.

  The Greek government has built a new Acropolis Museum, scheduled to open in 2008, with the express purpose of housing the marbles, should Greece succeed in recovering them.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I have tried to remain as true to the historical facts as possible. Small variations were introduced in order to serve the narrative; for instance, though the other incidents of Lady Elgin’s Greek tours are true, she was not actually present when the great cornice fell from the Parthenon, though fall it did. Otherwise, I have tried to place the characters in this book are, in fact, where the historical sources, or their own personal letters, declare them to have been.

  Some ancient sources assert that Hermippus prosecuted Aspasia for impiety and procurement, and only Pericles’ tears saved her. Contemporary scholars have argued over whether she was brought to trial or merely prosecuted in his plays. Pheidias, however, was accused of painting the faces of himself and Pericles into the shield of Athena, and of embezzling. Some sources say that he was acquitted, and some that he was convicted and died in prison. This is unlikely because he went on from Athens to sculpt the colossal statue of Zeus at Olympia. The idea that Aspasia posed for the face of Athena is my own invention.

  As far as the spelling of names and places is concerned, I chose to use the more authentic Greek spellings of certain names when the story shifts to ancient times, and the Latinized spellings in the more recent story.

  My apologies to the spirit of Aristophanes, master of Old Comedy, for adapting his play The Acharnians, in which he lampooned Aspasia, to suit my own purposes.

  Thanks to my beloved stepfather, Clarence Machado, for his motto that life is for the living, and for his unyielding support.

  I would like to acknowledge herewith the unprecedented research into Mary’s life and her role in the story of the marbles presented by Susan Nagel in her beautifully written book, Mistress of the Elgin Marbles: A Biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin.

  Suggestions for further reading and an extensive bibliography can be found at my Web site: www.karenessex.com.

  ALSO BY KAREN ESSEX

  Leonardo’s Swans

  Kleopatra

  Pharaoh

  Copyright © 2008 by Karen Essex

  All Rights Reserved

  Published in the United States by Doubleday, an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.doubleday.com

  DOUBLEDAY is a registered trademark and the DD colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Essex, Karen.

  Stealing Athena: a novel/by Karen Essex.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Ferguson, Mary Nisbet, 1777–1855—Fiction. 2. Hamilton, Emma, Lady, 1761?–1815—Fiction. 3. Aspasia—Fiction. 4. Elgin marbles—Fiction. 5. Greece—History—Athenian supremacy, 479–431 B.C.—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3555.S682S74 2008

  813'.54—dc22

  2007043859

  eISBN: 978-0-385-52670-8

  v3.0