The impoverishment of the past: the case of classical Greece

Abstract

‘Dear dead women, with such hair, too – what's become of all the gold’? ROBERT BROWNING, ‘A toccata of Galuppi's’ What became of most of the Classical gold and silver, argues Michael Vickers, is that it went into the melting pot, with exceptions like the Sevso treasure recently brought to public spectacle. Classical ceramics, more commonplace and with nil potential for recycling, have been luckier in their survival. Those accidents of later history need to be remembered as Classical Greece is envisaged; and it is perhaps even more important to bear in mind the reasons why many students of antiquity have until recently chosen to downplay the rôle of precious metal