The museums at Athens were a sore temptation to collectors, when I first went there more than forty years ago. There were a dozen of these museums scattered about the town: some of them mere sheds, and hardly any with glass cases for the smaller things, but only wire netting. And there were such beautiful little things that would so easily come through the mesh and go into a collector’s pocket; and they could not possibly be reclaimed, as they were not marked or numbered, and the inventories were vague. In my innocence I bought a vase from a distinguished man (a Greek) and paid him rather a high price for it, forgetting that he probably had stolen it, and I might just as well have stolen it myself. A very curious vase was discovered in Ægina and placed in one of these museums, a shed on the Acropolis. The vase had a globular body and a griffin’s neck and head above, with the griffin’s beak as spout. A long time afterwards the British Museum bought a vase exactly like it, discovered (it was said) in Thera. As there was one vase of this kind, there might very well be others; but the vase from Ægina was no longer to be found in any museum at Athens. There was a good collection of ancient coins in one of these museums, and on the night of 10/11 November 1887 the best part of the collection disappeared. It was stolen by a well-known resident at Athens, Dr Pericles Raphtopoulos, who was afterwards unwise enough to go to Paris and steal a collection there, not realising that the French police-force was more efficient than the Greek. But the facts had not come out when I reached Athens in the early spring (1888) and everybody told me that the Keeper had been selling the finest specimens, one by one, and replacing them by imitations, until at last he saw the game was up, and sold off all the fine coins that remained. (In reality, the imitations had been bought to illustrate some lectures.) There is much public spirit in Greece; and many people were giving their private collections to the nation, to make good the loss. I fancied that the next Keeper might sell all these as well; but the answer was, “Oh, no, we will not have a Greek again,” and they appointed Dr Pick. Accidents will happen in the very best museums. In 1845 the Portland vase was smashed in the British Museum, and in 1900 the François vase was smashed in the Museo Archeologico at Florence. The damage in London was done by an outsider: not so at Florence, if what I heard was true. I was told (at the time) that the Keeper was reprimanding a mutinous subordinate: the vase was on its pedestal in the centre of the room: the insubordinate person threw a heavy stool at his superior’s head, but unfortunately missed him and hit the vase instead. The bits were put together so very skilfully that, when I saw the vase again, I hardly noticed the repairs.