When Athens won the right to host this year's Olympics, Greece promised to bring culture back to the Games by creating a Cultural Olympiad, a four-year sequence of arts events to rival the sports contests for prestige.
But even in the cradle of western civilization progress on the artistic venture has been dogged by the same delays and infighting that have cast a shadow over preparations for August's sporting extravaganza.
After three years and three leaders, the cultural Olympics remain largely unknown outside Greece and synonymous with controversy at home.
Initially envisaged as a revival of the Cultural Games -- poetry, music and dance competitions -- that ran alongside sports events from 1912 to 1948, the idea was a key element of the winning bid.
"At the end of each year in this four-year cultural Olympiad, an international committee will award prizes of worldwide prestige to the best creative products," the bidding file said.
Greece's Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos promised the fine arts cycle would not be "just another festival." But it took organizers two years to unveil an emblem and critics accused the project of lacking identity and direction.
Cypriot film director Michael Cacoyannis, famous for Zorba the Greek, was among the first casualties. He quit his post as president after only three months, citing budget cutbacks and stifling bureaucracy.
"My involvement was short-lived and I resigned after three months. I'm not the kind of person to sign blind for anything," Cacoyannis said.
CENTRAL PROBLEM
His replacement, the poet Titos Patrikios, survived less than a year before resigning to concentrate full time on his writing.
Patrikios insisted on toning down the competitive element and called for a focus on promoting culture. He appeared to have won the argument when Venizelos told reporters: "Artistic creation cannot be subjugated to the terms of a sports-style competition. There are no heights, lengths or speeds to measure here."
But within months organizers performed a U-turn and announced the Kotinos (olive wreath) awards, offering cash prizes in nine categories including performing arts, literature and philosophy.
Cultural events in the run-up to the Games have been marred by fall-outs among Greece's most prominent artists.
The 2001 staging of Vangelis's Mythodea concert, which was linked with NASA's Mars mission and released on CD by Sony, was attacked as a waste of public money by fellow composer Mikis Theodorakis.
The production the following year of Theodorakis's own opera based on Aristophanes's anti-war comedy Lysistrata won international plaudits but proved to be his final Olympic contribution. Theodorakis responded to criticism of the opera's cost by withdrawing his works from Olympic-related events.
ART CONTROVERSY
With Greece's cultural leaders at odds, Venizelos admitted that the Olympiad was struggling to make its mark. "Some events didn't have the coverage we would have liked but we haven't exhausted our potential yet," he said.
In December the headlines arrived but for all the wrong reasons. Organizers' hopes that the biggest modern art show the country had seen would buck the negative trend disappeared in the time it took a populist politician to visit the exhibition.
George Karadzaferis, leader of the extreme right LAOS party, raised a storm after seeing Belgian artist Thierry de Cordier's Asperges Me (Dry Sin) and demanded its removal. The canvas featured an erect penis and a crucifix with what appeared to be semen dripping from it.
RSS