Greeks Bearing Gifts: The Marathon Stone, Casts, and Presidential Gifts

This chapter examines the second archaeological gift to New York City: the so-called Marathon Stone. Dr. John Huston Finley, the third president of New York’s City College, spotted a funerary stele while walking in Greece and asked the Greek government to give this mid-fourth-century BCE grave marker to City College in 1923. The stele, which Finley christened the Marathon Stone, was dedicated and proudly displayed in Lewisohn Stadium in City College, now of the City University of New York. Based on contemporary newspaper reports and archival material, the chapter argues that Finley associated the stele with the battle of Marathon to promote ties between City College and Greece and to elevate the status of City College and its students. The grave marker was dedicated and then displayed in City College’s Neo-Antique Lewisohn Stadium, where many New Yorkers enjoyed affordable concerts. The display of the stele in Lewisohn Stadium reflected Finley’s aspirations for City College to rival Columbia and New York Universities. It was also Finley’s attempt to lay claim to a cultural inheritance from ancient Greece. The gift of the Marathon Stone was not an isolated example of an archaeological gift from Greece to the United States. The Greek government gave casts to San Francisco in 1915 in connection to the city’s World’s Fair (and later sold casts from the Greek Pavilion at the 1939–1940 New York Fair). The post–World War II Greek practice of gifting archaeological artifacts to US presidents is also touched upon. Lewisohn Stadium was demolished in 1972, and the stele was put in storage. In 1994, the Marathon Stone was placed on long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.