Foreign spies and diplomats

The Napoleonic Wars increased the interest in the Adriatic. Napoleon’s brief occupation of the Ionian Islands in 1797 led to the despatch of François Pouqueville as French consul to the court of the influential Ottoman governor Ali Pasha of Tepelena. Not to be outdone – and to prevent the French obtaining allies – the British sent their own agents, most notably William Martin Leake.

Both of these men were at Butrint in 1805. Though undoubtedly there to record the city’s strategic value, both made copious notes on antiquities. These detailed accounts were later published and include descriptions of the country, its manners and customs, as well as its ruins and archaeology.

Leake, in particular, was a fine antiquarian, though, it seems, rather unimpressed with the topography of Butrint, tartly observing that ‘Virgil had a most imperfect idea of the place, when he applied the epithet of lofty, and its resemblance to Troy is very like that of Monmouth to Macedon.’