Purview: Her View

This highly informative and entertaining work of historical fiction focuses on the life and times of the Karyatis (Caryatid) statue, presently in the British Museum and of her longing to return home to the Acropolis. Presented in a series of vignettes spanning 2,400 years of Hellenic history, the story of the Karyatis makes for fascinating reading, beginning with the age when twelve Gods ruled the world from on top of Mount Olympus, to the day in 1802 when the statue was removed from her temple by Lord Elgin's crew and was shipped to London. In the intervening years, the Karyatis was eyewitness to some of the proudest but also darkest moments of Hellenic history, as a series of great empires -- Athenian, Macedonian, Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman -- rose and fell. The story opens in the British Museum, where the Karyatis bemoans the start of yet another day in captivity. She longs to return home to the Acropolis in Athens hence she was forcibly removed. In the Museum we also meet Sophia, an artist living in London and an admirer of the Karyatis whose painting she is working on. Eventually, Sophia and the Karyatis "connect" and a lively "dialogue" ensues between the two.....