National Museum [antikvár]

The Greek Museums would contain only fragments of ancient marbles and other works, were it not for the fact that the Greek soil never tires of yielding up its gifts. Divine figures, carved by important artists, are continually coming to the light of day, vases are continually being discovered buried in tombs, and splendid bronzé statuettes are revealed from time to time by the discovery of an ancient shrine or sanctuary. The organised plundering of ancient works would be the main reason so many of them are now lost. It began in the second century B.C., with the relentless sacking of the ancient cities on the orders of the Román generals, and it has never stopped throughout the following centuries, though now it is less systematic. The mania has revived in modern times, though from different motives. European lovers of antiquity, collectors and merchants, somé of them moved by the spirit of the Renaissance and the esteem in which it held the ancient world, others driven by a passión for profit, hastened to the enslaved