Death of Lord Byron

When the Greeks began their great and final war for independence it truly seemed like the battle between David and Goliath. The Ottoman Empire had been the feared and great power for centuries. Lord Byron, the great poet of the Romantic School joined the Greeks and later died in that war.

“I cannot calculate,” he said to Gamba, during one of their latest rides together, “to what a height Greece may rise. Hitherto it has been a subject for the hymns and elegies of fanatics and enthusiasts; but now it will draw the attention of the politician. At present there is little difference, in many respects, between Greeks and Turks, nor could there be; but the latter must, in the common course of events, decline in power; and the former must as inevitably become better. The English Government deceived itself at first in thinking it possible to maintain the Turkish empire in its integrity; but it cannot be done — that unwieldy mass is al ready putrefied and must dissolve. If anything like an equilibrium is to be upheld, Greece must be supported.”

From Lord Byron and the Greek War of Independence, http://dld.bz/heAPy