Classical Receptions Journal Vol 00. Iss. 0 (2021) pp. 1–28 Respice, Adspice, Prospice: The ‘Marathon Stone’, Lewisohn Stadium, and the changing reception Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/crj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/crj/claa031/6076703 by guest on 29 September 2021 of the classics at City College in the twentieth century Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis* and Matthew C. Reilly† Throughout its history, New York has received several archaeological objects as gifts, including a mid-fourth-century BCE Greek funerary stele. Dr John Huston Finley, the third president of City College, saw a stele when he was in Greece and asked the Greek Government to gift the stele to the college. The stele, dubbed the ‘Marathon Stone’ by Finley, was dedicated and proudly displayed at City College, now of the City University of New York. This article explores the gift’s context by drawing on contemporary newspaper reports, Finley’s tenuous association of the stele with the battle of Marathon, and the gifting of an archaeological object as a means for promoting ties between City College and Greece. The article then examines the context for the stele’s display, the Neo- Antique Lewisohn Stadium, and argues that the display of the stele and erection of Lewisohn Stadium both embodied Finley’s aspirations for City College to rival Columbia and New York Universities. The demise of the stadium in 1973 and the removal of the stele to a basement signaled a major shift in the significance of the classics, classical art, and Neo-Antique architecture at City College, as well as the changing priorities of the institution. Introduction In 1923, a mid-fourth-century BCE funerary stele, dubbed the ‘Marathon Stone’, was bestowed upon the City College of New York by the Greek government. The stele, dramatically draped in an American flag, was unveiled by Madame Constantine Xanthopoulos, the wife of the Greek Consul General at New York on November 23, accompanied by Adolph Lewisohn, who underwrote the cost of the stadium named in his honor and where the stele was displayed until 1973 (Fig. 1). * Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, MA Program in Liberal Studies, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA. emacaulay_ [email protected] † Matthew C. Reilly, Department of Anthropology, Gender Studies, and International Studies, City College of New York, 160 Convent Ave., 7/113A North Academic Center, New York, NY 10031, USA. [email protected] ß The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected] doi:10.1093/crj/claa031 ELIZABETH MACAULAY-LEWIS AND MATTHEW C. REILLY Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/crj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/crj/claa031/6076703 by guest on 29 September 2021 Fig. 1. Dedication of the ‘Marathon Stone’ on 23 November 1923 with Adolph Lewisohn (left) and Madame Constantine X. Xanthopoulos (right) at Lewisohn Stadium, City College of New York. Archives, The City College of New York, CUNY. Now on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (on a long-term loan), the stele is a rare example of a pre-World War II archaeological gift from Greece.1 This article argues that the archaeological gift of the ‘Marathon Stone’, as well as its dedication and display in Lewisohn Stadium, itself a Neo-Antique construction, reflect City College President John Huston Finley’s appropriation of classical civil- ization, art, and architecture to position City College as the equal of Columbia and New York Universities, its better funded and more prestigious private rivals. First, the stele is briefly discussed as an archaeological object; Finley’s chance encoun- ter with the stele and the conditions of its export are also examined. Secondly, drawing on classical reception studies and postcolonial archaeological theory, the article argues Finley and City College appropriated the stele, an archaeological object, and Lewisohn Stadium — to connect City College to the classical world and to affirm its place as an important institute of higher education in New York City. In closing, we consider the decisions to remove the stele and to demolish 1 See the important, unpublished research of Nassos Papalexandrou on the gifts of arch- aeological objects made to US Presidents by successive Greek governments after World War II (Wong 2016). 2 RESPICE, ADSPICE, PROSPICE Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/crj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/crj/claa031/6076703 by guest on 29 September 2021 Fig. 2. The ‘Marathon Stone’, Marble, H. 1.36 m, W. 0.725–0.75 m. The City College of New York, CUNY. On display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, L.1994.82 (E. Macaulay-Lewis). Lewisohn Stadium in the wake of the 1969 protests surrounding racial inequities on campus and in the curriculum. History of the stele, Finley’s ‘discovery’, and its export The so-called ‘Marathon Stone’ has been well documented and studied.2 Details of the stele were first published in 1879;itisincludedintheInscriptiones Graecae as I.G. II2 7292, and it was found near the church of Saints Constantine and Helen at the north end of Nea Makri, a village then called Xyloklerisa, at the south end of the plain of Marathon, south of the Brexisa Marsh in Greece.3 The stone (H. 1.36 m, W. 0.725–0.75 m) is, in fact, the upper part of a large, partially preserved Attic funerary stele, hewn from Pentelic marble (Fig. 2). The stele’s back side is roughly carved. It also had a simple molding, which is now mostly missing along the front, and a dowel 2 Camp (1996: 5–10). 3 Camp (1996: 5). 3 ELIZABETH MACAULAY-LEWIS AND MATTHEW C. REILLY hole on its top, which would have likely supported a floral acroterion.4 Although the lower portion of the stone’s body and floral acroterion that would have topped the stele are no longer extant, reducing the overall stature of the marker, it is still an impressive example of a Hellenistic grave stele, several meters tall. Its most salient decorative features are rosettes located on the top of the stele (two on the front and Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/crj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/crj/claa031/6076703 by guest on 29 September 2021 one on each side) and an inscription in Greek, which gave the names of two men: Elpines, son of Elpinikos, of Probalinthos and his brother, Eunikos.5 Probalinthos was a deme of ancient Athens and part of the Attic Tetrapolis (along with Marathon, Oenoe, and Tricorythus) in the plain of Marathon. The same Elpines may be men- tioned in a list of names in another inscription, and he was probably a magistrate from Eleusis.6 On the basis of the stone’s appearance and the letter forms, Camp dated the stele to the mid-fourth century BCE,7 approximately 140 years after the famous Battle of Marathon in 490 to which President Finley had linked the stele. While Camp noted the placement of the stele in the landscape and its possible ties to Marathon, he rightly concludes that a connection to the actual battle of Marathon ‘proves somewhat tenuous’.8 Then how was this very large, but otherwise unexceptional, stele recast as the ‘Marathon Stone’? The story lies in the peripatetic inclinations of John Finley, the third President of the City College of New York from 1903 to 1913 and a trained clas- sicist. In July 1923,9 Finley was visiting Greece in his capacity as the Vice Chairman of Near East Relief, an organization which helped support Armenian, Assyrian, Greek, and other refugees and orphans who had been displaced due to World War I, and was preparing to deliver the keynote address at the Fourth of July Dinner in Athens. Finley, an avid walker and the President of the International Pedestrians’ League, who by this time served as the editor-in-chief of the New York Times, saw the stone while walking in Greece between Marathon and Athens, retracing the fam- ous, approximately twenty-six-mile run from Marathon to Athens undertaken by a messenger to announce the Greeks’ victory over the Persians at Marathon in 490 BCE. Having recounted his tale, the intrepid messenger promptly died.10 Herodotus gives a different account, stating that a man named Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta, about 150 miles, to share this news.11 These two stories have become con- flated, and now Pheidippides is often associated with the Marathon run.12 Regardless of which account of the run is accurate, Finley associated the stele that he had chanced upon with the battle of Marathon due to its proximity to the plain of 4 cf. Camp (1996: 7, figs. 3, 7, 9). 5 Camp (1996: 8). 6 I.G. II2 1702; Camp (1996: 8). 7 Camp (1996: 8). 8 Camp (1996: 10). 9 ‘Would Preserve Marathon Mound’ (1923). 10 Plut., Mor., 347c. 11 Hdt. 4.105–106. 12 Camp (1996: 5); ‘A Stele for Pheidippides’ (1989: 12–13). 4 RESPICE, ADSPICE, PROSPICE Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/crj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/crj/claa031/6076703 by guest on 29 September 2021 Fig. 3. Finley looking at the ‘Marathon Stone’ Archives, The City College of New York, CUNY. the battlefield and the runner’s supposed route. Finley was clearly inspired by the stone, as a photograph shows him gazing in deep concentration, while appearing to take notes (Fig. 3). He was even moved to poetry by Marathon’s blue flowers, com- posing a few lines of verse to remember the fallen dead, whose bodies had not given rise to the normal red flowers (here associated with Caesar, but also with poppies of 5 ELIZABETH MACAULAY-LEWIS AND MATTHEW C.