Mentior at si quid, merdis caput inquiner albis corvorum, atque in me veniat mictum atque cacatum Iulius et fragilis Pediatia furque Voranus.
Horace, Satires I, viii, 37–9.
The years following the liberation of Greece from Turkish rule in 1833 witnessed what was perhaps the greatest display of industry on the Athenian Acropolis since the Periclean building programme. In 1837 the Greek Archaeological Society was founded for the purpose of carrying out a systematic if unscientific excavation of the Acropolis down to the classical level. The excavators sought first to clear the area of the Turkish buildings and accumulated débris which cluttered the surface, and then to work on the partial restoration of the ancient buildings: the Parthenon, the Propylaea and the Erechtheum.