Art as Plunder

Margaret M. Miles, an archaeologist and historian, is Professor of Art History and Classics at the University of California, Irvine. She has held fellowships at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the American Academy in Rome. She has excavated at Corinth and Athens and did architectural fieldwork at Rhamnous in Greece and at Selinunte and Agrigento in Sicily. Her earlier publications include a study of the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous (Hesperia, 1989) and a volume in the Agora excavation series on the City Eleusinion, the downtown Athenian branch of the Eleusinian Mysteries (The Athenian Agora, Volume 31: The City Eleusinion, 1998).

• Introduction; 1. Art as Roman plunder; 2. The Roman context of Cicero's prosecution of Verres; 3. Cicero's views on the social place of art; 4. Roman display of art: from Lucullus to Lausos; 5. Art as European plunder; Epilogue: the continuing plunder of art.

'Margaret Miles deals with the sadly timely issue of art as plunder levelly and with sensitivity. Her study is not only well researched and sound, but also a very good read and as such easily accessible not only to scholars, but equally to undergraduates and a wider interested public. Broaching much wider issues than the historical extortion of Verres, the reception of concepts of art as cultural property and the ways of dealing with plundered art across the centuries are today highly pertinent and make this a very important book.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review