It was on board the tantalisingly named Hercules that Byron left Italy and sailed for Greece to join the fight for independence. Britain had responded to the war back in the February of 1823 by creating the London Greek Committee in order to help the cause of Greek Independence from the Ottomans. However, Byron had been thinking about Greece not only since the war began in 1821, whilst writing the latest Cantos of Don Juan, but in the much earlier writings of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimages Cantos I-II published in 1812 which was to grant Byron fame and infamy.
Byron’s outspokenness against Britain is evident from his first speech in the House of Lords in December 1812 which described the Tory government as ‘full of ‘bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony.’[1] Such less than subtle attacks are applied to Britain in order contrast with the idealised demi-paradise of Ancient Greece, especially Athens, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimages Cantos I-II:
‘[s]on of the morning, rise! approach you here! / […] [l]ook on this spot-a nation’s sepulchre! [a]bode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn / Even gods must yield.’[2]
From the sunrise a new beginning for Greece and Europe is offered. However, the narrator reminds the reader of the Ottoman occupation of Greece through the description of the Parthenon where at its
‘proud pillars […] the Moslem sits’ (89-90).
Byron’s reimagination of ancient Greece invites the classically educated nineteenth-century reader to consider the immoral nature of such an ancient culture being occupied by non-Christians. But more than this, Byron creates parallels between the Imperialist tendencies of Britain and the ancient city state of Athens which would enforce its will over other Greek allies until the surrender of Athens to Sparta during the Peloponnesian Wars in 404 BC.[3]The classically educated reader identifies anxieties between Britain’s increasing domination of Europe, even before Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815, and Athens’ domination of the other city states in Greece. This discomfort is amplified through an evocation of Britain’s removal of artefacts from the Parthenon that even the Ottoman Turks had saved:
‘modern Pict’s ignoble boast, / to rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared’ (100-101).
The controversy surrounding Lord Elgin’s acquisition of the marbles from the Parthenon in Athens between 1803 and 1812, a highly publicised act, is discussed through the historical tribe of the Picts who were present in Scotland and Ireland during Roman occupation of Britain.[4]
History becomes a device through which the narrator creates parallels and criticism of British foreign policy. Byron’s abandoned home of Britain becomes the Imperialist dominator of Greece:
‘[w]hat! shall it e’er be said by British tongue, / Albion was happy in Athena’s tears? […] [t]he ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears / The last poor plunder from a bleeding land’ (109-114).
Britain becomes identified though its Imperialist acquisition of the marbles from the Parthenon. The passing on of Greek artefacts to Britain creates significant parallels between Imperialist Britain’s treatment of modern Greece through its acquisition of the marbles and ancient Athens’ treatment of its Greek allies. The Parthenon’s construction began in 447 BC, the same year that saw the transformation of the Delian league of Greek allies into the beginning of the Athenian Empire under the supervision of Pericles.[5] An educated reader would draw comparisons between the beginning of the Athenian empire and Britain’s potential for Imperialist domination in Europe. Out of this parallel, nineteenth-century Athens is only seen through
‘Athena’s poor remains’ (105)
This negative image of what little remains creates a theme of impermanence towards the Athenian empire which allows the reader to reflect on how early nineteenth-century empires, including the British, can be imagined to fall.
Byron himself would not live to see the independence of Greece in 1830, but his insight into the fall of Imperialism, whether Ancient Athens or Britain, is amongst his most brilliant observations. Such insights may have been overlooked in favour of the more flamboyant and intriguing dalliances of Byron’s life and writing, but the impermanence of empires seems all the more relevant in a post-Imperialist Britain inundated with the need for foodbanks.
Matt Jones
Matt Jones is an MA student at Cardiff University interested in the political radicalism of first and second-generation Romantic writers and their portrayals of Britain and Europe. On completion of his MA, Matt hopes to go on to a PhD that will explore these interests further.
[1] Lord Byron, ‘Frame Work Bill’, Hansard (1812) <https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1812/feb/27/frame-work-bill#S1V0021P0_18120227_HOL_4> [accessed 28th March 2023].
[2] Lord Byron, ‘Canto II’ in Byron’s poetry and prose ed. by Alice Levine and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Byron’s poetry and prose (London: Norton, 2000), pp.55-83; further references to this poem are included in the body of the essay, giving the relevant line numbers in brackets.
[3] Oxford University Press, ‘Athenian Empire’, A Dictionary of World History (2015) <https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199685691.001.0001/acref-9780199685691-e-257> [accessed 16th March 2023].
[4] Lee Taylor, ‘Elgin Marbles’, An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age (2009)
ed. by Iain McCalman, Jon Mee, Gillian Russell, Clara Tuite, Kate Fullagar, and Patsy Hardy <https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199245437.001.0001/acref-9780199245437-e-214?rskey=XPFv5x&result=1> [accessed 14th March 2022].
[5] Russell Meiggs and Simon Hornblower, ‘Delian League’, The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization (2014) <https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198706779.001.0001/acref-9780198706779-e-198?rskey=83gYGT&result=3> [accessed 14th April 2022].