As English Lords go, Thomas Bruce, the Seventh Earl of Elgin was in bad shape in 1798. His health was poor, he was a bachelor and he was broke. He was however well educated and had risen through the ranks of the military to become a lieutenant-colonel at the age of twenty-nine and had raised and commanded his own regiment, the Elgin Highland Fencibles and had established a respectable diplomatic reputation acting as special envoy in Vienna and Brussels as well as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Prussia. When he discovered that the British government was planning to send an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople he asked for the job and got it. The warm weather would perhaps cure his ailments and it would certainly be interesting work. He then courted and married Mary Nisbet of Earlton, a wealthy heiress and suddenly things were looking up for Lord Elgin.
It was known that the best models for Classical architecture were in Athens and not in Rome and Elgin's plan was to visit the ancient Greek capital with a few artists who would sketch and do paintings of the monuments, statues and buildings, make molds and bring these back to England. This was a time when educated people believed that Ancient Greek Art and Architecture was the highest expression of civilization and by bringing these sketches and copies back to England they could be used as a model for inspiration to the British architects and artists. It was also believed that by gazing upon great works of art a person could become somewhat enlightened by being infected by the spirit of the piece and of the artist. Lord Elgin's goal was to inject Britain with what was left of the culture of the ancient Greeks and raise the standards of his society. Clearly his purpose was a noble one and he would have been unhappy had he known that he would be regarded in the future as the perpetrator of one of the biggest heists in history. But he may have also had an ulterior motive. He was building a rather large country house and his architect Thomas Harrison, encouraged him to bring back drawings and plaster casts of surviving objects of the classical period to assist him with the design.
