William Martin Leake

Detailed historical and archaeological accounts of Butrint were, in many ways, a fortunate by-product of greater international affairs. In 1805, with Napoleon’s ascendancy in Europe at it zenith, the British used every stratagem to prevent the French gaining assistance or allies. Colonel William Martin Leake was dispatched as a plenipotentiary to the court of Ali Pasha of Tepelena – then the most powerful force in what had been Epirus.

Leake was an artillery officer seconded to the Ottoman army to train its gunners, who had accompanied the Turkish army to Egypt as they confronted Napoleon. For the British government this made him an excellent candidate for its military mission to Epirus. For Leake the mission provided an undoubtedly welcome opportunity to further his interests in the study of the ancient world.

From Epirus, Leake would dispatch regular reports on all aspects of his work: his meetings with Ali Pasha, and his clever subterfuges to outwit the French – and on antiquities. He later published detailed accounts describing the country – including Butrint – its manners and customs, and its archaeology. Instructed, no doubt, to record its strategic value, he was at Butrint in 1805. He described his arrival at Butrint by boat from Saranda thus:

We row three or four miles up the river, through a plain once perhaps the property of Atticus, a friend of Cicero, and now peopled with horses from the neighbouring village. We then arrived at the Vivàri; that is to say the principal fishery, which is on the side of the river nearly opposite to the peninsula that was anciently occupied by Buthrotum. The only buildings at the Vivàri are a ruined house of Venetian construction and near it an old triangular castle, occupied by a dirty bilibàsh of the vezir and 15 or 20 soldiers.

While in Epirus he also formed a valuable collection of antiquities of coins and inscriptions, many of which are now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Britain.