A Finley Chronology, 1912–1954, with Plates

1912, May 20	Birth in New York City.
1923–27	B.A., Syracuse University (Plate 1a).
1927–29	M.A., Columbia University, New York. Thesis: Justice Harlan on Personal Rights with Special Attention to Due Process of Law.
1929–30	Full-time work in the legal department of General Motors, Detroit, Michigan.
1930–33	Part-time fact-checker for the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Franz Boas is among its authors.
1932	Matriculation at Columbia University in the History Dept. Ph.D. program.
1933–34	Part-time research assistant in Roman law at Columbia.
1934–35	Finley’s only articles before 1953: “Mandata Principum.” Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 13 (1934):150–69; and “Ἔμπορος, Ναύκληρος, and Κάπελος: A Prolegomena to the Study of Athenian Trade.” CP 30 (1935):320–36.
1935–37	Ten reviews in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung: Cambridge Ancient History, Vols. I–X, ed. J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook, F. E. Adcock, M. P. Charlesworth, in four (1935):289–90. V. Ehrenberg, Ost und West; F. Taeger, Orient und Occident in der Antike; W. Westermann, Sklaverei; F. Altheim, Epochen der römischen Geschichte, in five (1936):439–43. A. Menzel, Griechische Soziologie; J. O. Hertzler, The Social Thought of the Ancient Civilizations; J. Brake, Wirtschaften und Charakter in der antiken Bildung; A. O. Lovejoy and G. Boas, A Documentary History of Primitivism and Related Ideas, Vol. 1; J. Haussleiter, Der Vegetarismus in der Antike, in six (1937):437–38, 440–41.
1934–41	Part-time instructor in history at City College of New York (Plate 4a).
1934–36, 38–46	Intermittent, part-time work at the Institute for Social Research; the work of Max Horkheimer here (Plate 2a) was to be a notable influence.
1936–38	Full-time translator and editor at the Institute for Social Research.
1937	Rev. E. Ciccotti, La civiltà del mondo antico, in The American Historical Review 42:277–79.
1938–42	Part-time work for Franz Boas on the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom.
1939	Rev. The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. XI: The Imperial Peace A.D. 70–192, ed. S. A. Cook, F. E. Adcock, M. P. Charlesworth, in Political Science Quarterly 54:609–11.
1941	Rev. B. Farrington, Science and Politics in the Ancient World; M. Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion; H. W. Parke, A History of the Delphic Oracle, in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 9:502–10. Rev. W. Durant, The Life of Greece, in Political Science Quarterly 56:127–29.
1941, April	Appearance before the Rapp-Coudert Committee of the New York State Legislature.
1941, June	City College contract not renewed.
1942 to spring 1946	Full-time work for Russian War Relief (Plates 1b, 3a), including the Jewish Council for Russian War Relief and its chairman Louis Levine (Plate 2b).
1946, autumn	Change of name from Finkelstein to Finley.
1946, September to 1947, March	Full-time work for the American Russian Institute (Plate 3b).
1948–52	Full-time lecturer and assistant professor at Rutgers University.
1951	Ph.D. diss., Columbia: Studies in Land and Credit in Ancient Athens, 500–200 B.C., W. Westermann, director.
1952	Publication of Studies in Land and Credit in Ancient Athens: The Horos Inscriptions (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press).
1952, March	Appearance before the McCarran U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security.
1952, October	Dismissed by Rutgers.
1953	Two articles: “Land, Debt, and the Man of Property in Classical Athens,” Political Science Quarterly 68:249–68; and “Multiple Charges on Real Property in Athenian Law: New Evidence from an Agora Inscription,” in Studi in onore di Vicenzo Arangio-Ruiz (Naples: Jovene):473–91.
1953	Geoffrey de Ste. Croix makes contact with Finley from England (the first scholar outside the U.S.A. to do so).
1954	Publication of The World of Odysseus (New York: Viking Press); departure to England (Plate 4b).

Plate 1a.

Newspaper photograph of Moses Israel Finkelstein at age 11, when he matriculated at Syracuse University in 1923. He in fact completed his B.A. there in four years, rather than two, as he planned on entry. Reports of Finley’s matriculation at Syracuse appeared...