The ancient Greek goddess of persuasion, Peitho, once helped seducers to get their way. Now, she may help play her part in helping Greece to nudge Great Britain into surrendering the Parthenon Marbles.

In what could be a precedent-setting step, Italian president Carlo Ciampi may give a marble foot and lower leg fragment, snapped from a sculpture of Peitho centuries ago, back to Greece on 99-year loan.

In exchange for the Parthenon piece housed in a Palermo museum, Greece would lend ancient artwork to Italy. The trade could take place on November 6, when Ciampi visits Athens, says the Italian president's office.

The swap could boost efforts to get those surviving Parthenon frieze parts and statues housed in the British Museum, known internationally as the Elgin Marbles, returned to Athens in time for the 2004 Olympics.

Long-term work

The Greek culture ministry says it's been working with the Italians on the Peitho trade "for a long time." Culture minister Evangelos Venizelos says Greece would also welcome the return of the Marbles from Britain on the basis of a long-term exchange, rather than as a permanent transfer.

Venizelos says he's optimistic the treasures will be home soon, partly because of the momentum the approaching Olympiad is lending to the Greek campaign.

"We all know how responsible and moderate the Greek position is," he told reporters in mid-October. "We are not at odds with Britain, but we can approach this global monument together and show our respect for it. We must restore the mutilated monument."

British public opinion could be another cause for optimism. Venizelos cited a recent poll conducted for a British-based group that lobbies for the Marbles' return (6), which shows that 40 percent of Britons believe the sculptures should be sent back to Athens.

Public support

Sixteen percent of the 2,000 respondents say they should stay in Britain. But, asked who should have the Marbles if Greece met even one of five conditions, like taking them back on a long-term loan basis, rather than permanently, just seven percent of those polled say the sculptures should stay in Britain.

British officials who fear that giving up the Marbles would trigger a run on the British Museum have yet to be persuaded. Venizelos says even though the decision to give back the sculptures that once crowned Athens would be politically difficult, "it would improve the international image and stature of Britain."

Greece says the exchange for Peitho's toga-draped foot would be covered under the new antiquities law. It allows Greek museums to exchange artefacts for those in foreign museums, as long as the pieces in Greek possession are unimportant to Greece's cultural heritage, and those held by the foreign museum are.

Cultural exchange

But embedding returns in the relative cultural significance of items to different countries may not stop the tremors along the archaeological fault-line that runs through the restitution issue.

Agata Villa, head of the classical archaeology department at the Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Sicily, says surrendering the Peitho piece would "impoverish" the museum.

Sicily's assessor of culture, Fabio Granata, says he not only hopes Greece will return Italian artefacts in Greece in exchange for the Peitho fragment. He would, he adds, also like to see the return of a 5th-century statue stolen from Sicily in 1988 and bought by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Lord Elgin's troops carted off many of the Parthenon Marbles at the turn of the 19th century and shipped them to England. But small parts of the 160- metre-long frieze depicting deities are scattered across Europe.

The 34x35-centimetre foot from the frieze sculpture of Peitho was acquired by Robert Fagan, British consul in Sicily. No one knows how. When he died in 1816, his wife inherited his debt-ridden estate and sold the fragment to Palermo University. Two centuries later, the piece of Peitho that has walked in relative obscurity may be called on to live up to its namesake, and bring Britain round.