in the spelling of George Washington's last name, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph. The carver followed the spacing and lettering of the Greek faculty text except in the placing of the phrase "From the Parthenon" in a less emphatic position near the bottom (a change that caused one official to conclude that the stone was signed). 12 Even the iota-adscripts are copied carefully so that the iota of "Hero" in line two is elongated like the iota of Washington's name, unlike the practice of making those letters minuscule after vowels in other words. This distinction may indicate that the iota of "Hero" was pronounced separately, whereas in the other words it was silent. The only letter that is shaped differently from the same letter in the faculty text is the theta ("th" in English), which the carver made by placing a dot in the middle of the circle rather than a cross-stroke. (See the word eleutherias in line 2 or Themistokleous in line 3.)

To summarize briefly, it is clear now that this stone, a small fragment of the Parthenon located at the 190-foot level of the Washington Monument, was carved in October or November 1855, while it was still awaiting shipment from the Piraeus in Greece. For this "titulus honorarius," we have to thank King Otho and the Greek government as well as the industrious American evangelist and consul Jonas King, who was instrumental in carrying out the necessary negotiations and having the inscription carved on the stone. If in recent years few people have been aware of its existence, that may soon change. According to the National Park Service, interest in these dedicatory stones is growing, as seen from the frequent requests for tours of the inside of the monument, where they are located. Much research still needs to be done for many of them.

NOTES

'Stephen A. Larrabee alludes to this stone and its location in Hellas Observed: The American Experience of Greece (1957), pp. 204-205.

2This phrase occurs in the petition from the citizens of Newark, NJ, to the directors of the Washington Monument Association (submitted in the summer of 1852). They claimed "that the inscription, 'ROME TO AMERICA' engraved upon it, bears a significance beyond its natural meaning; that the contribution is an artful stratagem, calculated to divert the attention of the American people for the present from his [the Pope's] animosity to republican institutions." Box 441 in the J. M. Toner Collection (Rare Book Room, Library of Congress, Washington, DC) contains a book of memorandums relative to the Pope's Stone.

See C. D. Gedney, Sketches of Tablets Contributed to the Washington National Monument (Feb. 17, 1880), Rare Book Room, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

4In 1879, when Marsh was in Rome as the U.S. minister to Italy (1861-1882) and had come to be considered an authority on the Egyptian obelisks in that city, he expressed his interest in the various plans to complete the Washington Monument. He noted that the height of a true obelisk was ten times the width of its base. This ratio was used for the completed Washington Monument (just over 555 feet by 55 feet). See Marsh's letter to Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont, dated February 9, 1879, in Frederick L. Harvey, History of the Washington National Monument (1903), p. 120.

5See the Cyclopedia of American Biography (Appleton's Revised, 1915), vol. 3; and F.E.H. Haines, Jonas King: Missionary (1879). Stephen Larrabee, Hellas Observed, also devotes a long section to King.

"Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Athens, Greece, 18371906, National Archives Microfilm Publication T362, General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, National Archives, Washington DC (hereinafter cited as T362, RG 59, NA). Roll 3 contains the despatches from U.S. consuls in Athens for 1853-1866, and King's communications are numbers 40, 45, 48, 52, and

59.

"Communication number 40, T362, roll 3, RG 59, NA. Communication number 45, T362, roll 3, RG 59, NA. "Communication numbers 48, 52, and 59, all in T362, roll 3, RG 59, NA.

10 Of the two spelling errors, the one in Washington's name can be seen more easily, by comparing the word as it was written in the Greek faculty text (eleven letters) with the name on the inscription in the monument (ten letters). The second mistake is more difficult to see in a photograph, but it was plainly visible when I examined the stone on December 13, 1989, in the company of a National Park Service ranger and Constantinos Seferlis, a Greek sculptor who has worked on restoring some of the dedicatory stones in the monument. The word appears in lines two and four. The Greek carver, perhaps influenced by the three alphas that he had just inscribed in the preceding word on line four, wrote another alpha instead of a lambda, making a nonsense word. Someone subsequently attempted to correct this error by removing from the cross-stroke the gold-dust filling that highlights all the other letters. Epigraphers and paleographers call such mistakes errors of omission (omitting the gamma)

The Parthenon Stone is located at the 190-foot level on the east side of the Washington Monument. Above and to the left is the Turkish contribution.

and errors of addition (adding something not in the original). According to Stephen V. Tracy's study of one Athenian mason, "Errors of omission occur about two and a half times as often as errors of addition"apparently due to haste. The Lettering of an Athenian Mason (1979), p. 114.

"Gedney gives the dimensions of the Parthenon Stone as "49 × 34 in." The size of the stones was limited by the Monument Commission to four feet long, two feet high, and twelve to eighteen inches in thickness.

12In the information sheet for the Parthenon Stone, someone typed in the space next to "Carver": "It appears to be signed in the lower right corner." This sheet also gives an incorrect translation of the inscription, apparently taken from the faculty text since it omits the word that King (?) added, but it also contains some other inaccuracies. See National Park Service, National Capitol Region, Washington Monument, Information Sheet for Memorial Stone No. 85. The same version of the trans

lation appears in Harvey, History of the Monument, p. 128.

s part of the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of American participation in World War II, the National Archives has mounted two exhibitions on combat art, curated by Dennis Medina of the Eisenhower Library. A single-site exhibition, "WW II: View from the Front," was on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art from December 7, 1991, to April 5, 1992. Both "View from the Front" and "WW II: The Artist's View," a traveling exhibit, feature artworks on loan from the permanent collections of the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; the Marine. Corps; and the Coast Guard. While all selected works are properly designated art, none was selected for inclusion principally on the basis of artistic merit. The exhibitions are not about art per se but rather the drive that has led humankind to create art. With one of the oldest and most universal forms of expression, the combat artists captured the vast spectrum of experiences and emotions produced by one of humanity's greatest tragedies-war.

American artists have recorded every U.S. military operation since the Revolutionary War. However, it was not until the War Department authorized the selection of combat artists during World War I that the relationship between art and the military was formalized. This first program allowed eight soldier-artists, chosen by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, to travel with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. After the war's conclusion, the U.S. Army gave the artworks to the Smithsonian Institution.

By late 1942 the United States was deeply engaged in the Second World War. Assistant Secretary of War John H. McCloy and Gen. Brehon Somervell successfully lobbied for the establishment of a War Art Unit to be administered by the Corps of Engineers. Recruitment was the responsibility of the Associated American Artists. In the following year, the War De

partment organized the Art Advisory Committee to assist Associated American Artists and to make final applicant selections. Both artists and military historians served as members of this committee, which was chaired by the prominent American painter and sculptor George Biddle. The committee began its work in March 1943. Within four months, twenty-three military and twenty civilian artists had reached their assigned theaters of operation.

In a letter informing Gen. Dwight Eisenhower that combat artists, including Biddle, would join his forces in North Africa by the middle of April 1943, Gen. George C. Marshall explained that the artists' function was "to obtain an historical record of the war in the form of drawings, paintings, and other graphic media.” Such images could greatly enhance a pictorial record of the war, for the camera had severe limitations in battle conditions. While an event, once past, was forever lost to the photographer, it could be captured days, even months, later in pencil or paint.

The costs of the war were mounting, though, and after six months, Congress could no longer justify the expense. Funds for the project's continuation and expansion were deleted from the Army Appropriate Bill for 1943-1944, and the civilian artists were sent home. Despite the relatively short period in which these artists worked, they produced two thousand paintings and drawings. The advisory committee chose fifteen hundred to augment the army's collection.

Daniel Longwell, the editor of Life, offered to pick up the contracts of several of the civilian artists on the condition that the military continue to transport, house, and equip them.

Opposite: William Goadby Lawrence painted Funeral Pyres for the U.S. Coast Guard Art Program.