• Date of Birth: May 17, 1880
  • Born City: Menominee
  • Born State/Country: MI
  • Parents: William Henry & Stella Maria Sexmith C.
  • Date of Death: March 20, 1954
  • Death City: Havertown
  • Death State/Country: PA
  • Married: Olive Williams, 3 July 1910.
  • Education:

    B.A. U. Texas, 1901; M.A., 1902; A.M. Harvard, 1903; Ph.D., 1905.

  • Dissertation:

    “De Comicorum Graecorum temporibus quaeritur” (Harvard, 1905).

  • Professional Experience:

    Instr. Gk. U. Pennsylvania, 1905-6; asst. prof. Gk. U. Missouri, 1906-9; praeceptor class. Princeton, 1909-10, asst. prof, to prof, class. U. Pennsylvania, 1910-50; dir. summ. sch., 1919-25; dean grad. sch., 1928-38, arm. prof. ASCSA, 1926-7; dir., 1938-9; vis. prof. Gk. Bryn Mawr, 1951-4; Commander of Order of George the First (Greece) 1947.

  • Publications:

    “In the Land of Pelops,” U. Pennsylvania Lectures 2 (1915) 521-43; “The Quest of Health in Ancient Greece,” U. Pennsylvania Lectures 4 (1917) 309-27; An Introduction to Greek with John Nevin Schaeffer (Boston & New York, 1928, 1947); “Athenian History and the Athenian Public,” Studies Capps, 72-85; Dio Chrysostom (trans.), LCL, vol. 3 (with J. W. Cohoon), vols. 4 & 5, (London & New York, 1940-51); Thomas of Bradwardine, His Tractatus de proportionibus: Its Significance for the Development of Mathematics and Physics (Madison, WI, 1955).

  • Notes:

    Lamar Crosby is remembered by classicists for his role in getting the excavation of the Athenian Agora under way. As annual professor and particularly as a member of the Managing Committee of the ASCSA he helped organize the dig and secure the permission of the Greek government. When all the arrangements had been made, Crosby was obliged to return home to assume his decanal duties, which kept him stateside for the next decade. When he returned to Greece in 1938 as director of the School, he was given the Order of George the First by the King of Greece for his efforts. He is remembered on the Penn campus as an administrator who exercised his responsibilities with personal charm and genial authority.

  • Sources:

    Stephen B. Luce, AJA 58 (1954) 243-4; NYTimes (21 Mar. 1954) 88; Wilson Library Bulletin 28 (May 1954) 732.

  • Author: Ward W. Briggs, Jr.