[stelliosk]

The lion may be Chinese but the four horses in St Mark's Basilica are Greek looted from Constantinople during the fourth crusade (1204).

Perhaps the lion was also looted and brought to Constantinople originally which would fit with pre Marco Polo's travels.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_of_Saint_Mark

[tsimionescu]

If they were made in Constantinople, they're Byzantine(as we tend to call the empire) or Roman(as they would have called themselves), not really Greek, right? Just because they spoke Greek doesn't make them Greeks. Or had they been taken from Greece to Constantinopole before being looted in the crusades?

[kitten_mittens_]

At the time, Romans would have said they spoke Roman (Romaic[1])--not Greek.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Greek

[stelliosk]

Not made in Constantinople, made in ancient Greece by Lysippos.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysippos

[noncoml]

> Or had they been taken from Greece to Constantinopole before being looted in the crusades?

There is no such thing as Greece before 1821. So they would have to travel back in time.

[digging]

If they're Byzantine, calling them "Greek" is not wrong.

Byzantine = specific, inaccurate. Romans = accurate, nonspecific. Greek = a bit of both

[rsynnott]

> If they were made in Constantinople, they're Byzantine(as we tend to call the empire) or Roman(as they would have called themselves), not really Greek, right?

I mean, define 'Greek'. Byzantium was a Greek city before the Romans got there, Greek was always its major language, and so on. It's not within modern Greece, granted, but nor are a lot of classical Greek cities.

[sbdhzjd]

Looting a collapsing empire just across the Mediterranean is easy.

Looting an empire halls way across the world is a tad harder.

[rsynnott]

I think their theory is that the lion was brought to Constantinople by legitimate means, then looted _from_ there by Venice.