An excerpt from a nice little essay/reviewish sort of thing on the whole ‘plundering antiquities for museums’ issue:
For as long as these questions have been debated, it’s unlikely we’ll find an answer any time soon. In 70 B.C., Cicero condemned Gaius Verres, the Roman governor of Sicily, for his voracious appetite for artwork and precious metals. Verres plundered far and wide and horded his stash in his private home. He stole from his guests, he stole from his hosts, he stole from religious shrines. Cicero wasn’t rankled simply by the theft (nor by Verres’ habit of beheading people who could possibly report on his crimes and mistakes). It was, as Miles puts it, that “an elaborate bejeweled lamp-stand, previously dedicated to Jupiter, should not be used to illuminate Verres’s dinner parties… [Verres’s theft was] compounded by its indecorous use.” While private ownership of art didn’t really begin until the second century B.C., removing important works of art from the public view to decorate your own home was considered not simply in poor taste, but actually immoral. The sentiment continues today, whether we’re talking about the black market sale of Baghdad’s artifacts, or the auction of a Picasso that will be locked away in a private home.
rogueclassicism 