Byron’s last hundred days: a trial by fire

On the bicentenary of Byron’s death, the Greeks are undecided about whether they’ve vindicated his sacrifice

Byron in the arms of Hellas - one of only three statues of a revolutionary hero in central Athens, and the only one of a non-native Greek

To the Greeks, the Romantic poet George Gordon Byron, or Lord Byron, was, from the moment he arrived in Greece for the third and last time on Christmas Eve 1823, a singular Philhellene and a Greek national hero.

His death, a mere hundred days after his arrival and on the eve of Easter, muted celebrations of the resurrection. His statue, depicting him dying in the arms of a personified Hellas, is one of only three monuments prominently depicting revolutionary heroes in central Athens – the other two being the Greek captains Theodore Kolokotronis and George Karaiskakis.

Why did Byron so ardently support the Greek cause, and why has he alone among Philhellenes come so close to sainthood?

There were plenty of reasons why neither should have happened – why Byron should, like many Philhellenes before and after him – have left Greece in disgust. He was approached repeatedly for money, initially to finance a Greek merchant navy that refused to fight unless indemnified in advance. Byron put up a loan of 4,000 pounds, the equivalent of $500,000 today. Eight ships from Hydra and six from Spetses set sail for the besieged Mesolonghi, a free town in western Greece fighting an Ottoman siege and naval blockade. The Hydriot ships chanced upon an Ottoman brig carrying months’ worth of arrears for the garrison in nearby Patra – about $1.5mn in today’s money. The Hydriots seized it and rather than surrender this sum for the national cause, bid the cause farewell. By beaching the brig on the island of Zakynthos, then a British colony, they also offended the neutrality of Britain, to the potential detriment of the cause.