For much of the world’s media, the collapsing ruins of an ancient temple have become an all too convenient metaphor for the crumbling state of the Greek economy. In the International Press, political cartooning and media imagery have evoked diverse representations of Greek antiquity and mythology: the Acropolis teeters on the edge of collapse; Hercules fails in his thirteenth labour, unable to rid Greece of debt.  These images stand in stark contrast to those of the Greek domestic media; it paints an altogether different picture employing other visual metaphors from different periods of history. Using these images from media sources as a point of departure, this lecture will bring to light some of the controversies, criticisms and debates that have emerged regarding the role and representation of Greek antiquity and culture during the crisis.

Anna Tsalapatanis is a thrid-year Doctoral Candidate inthe School of Sociology at the Australian National University