Greek media are reporting that sculptor Yiannis Pappas was commissioned to make a 3.5 meters high monument of Alexander the Great which would be placed in Athens.

The report comes after an alleged proposal to make a monumental swap – the large Macedonian statue of Alexander the Great which adorns the center of Skopje for the Athenian modernist Runner.

Athens doesn’t have a statue of Alexander, who famously defeated the Athenian army in the battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C. and was considered a foreign, even barbarian conqueror by the Athenians. But, as part of the name issue with Macedonia, Greece has adopted Alexander as its own and now insists on his Greek origin. A smaller statue of Alexander is placed in the Solun/Thessaloniki harbor.

Greece reacted virulently when Macedonia erected the statue of Alexander. Under the imposed Prespa treaty, the statue would have to be marked with a plaque “explaining” how Alexander is part of the Greek, not Macedonian heritage.