Donald Nicol

Today a ‘beautiful but broken shell’, the Parthenon has housed three very different cults – those of Athena, Allah and the Blessed Virgin – since it was first constructed in the fifth century BC. It was a Christian soldier, in the siege of 1687, who did most to destroy the sanctuary. 

One of the most discreditable episodes in the history of the West is the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, writes Donald Nicol, when the leaders of the Fourth Crusade inflicted a savage punishment upon their Eastern brethren.