Often, we think of the Acropolis in Athens as though it had always been the way it is now, or rather as if losing something of its original splendour had been a slow process, just the result of time passing. In the face of recurring claims by Greek governments for the return of the marbles that Lord Elgin took from the Parthenon to London (now in the British Museum) there are many who think that this was the only – or the most significant – sudden diminution of the perfect beauty of the Acropolis that Pericles built. This is not so. Throughout the centuries, the Acropolis has been assembled and disassembled like a cat’s cradle. It was Christianity that changed its appearance radically, turning the Parthenon into a church and installing the bishop in the Propylaea. The Parthenon was then much modified: the imposing ivory and gold statue of Athena was removed, the eastern main entrance was closed up and another one opened on the opposite side; an apse was constructed inside the cella and a wall was built to connect the external columns (something similar can still be seen today in Syracuse Cathedral, a temple contemporaneous with the Parthenon).