Human of Hero? A Reused Warrior Relief of the 4th Cent. B.C. from Tegea

Abstract

A relief showing a charging warrior which is dated to the 4th cent. B.C. and kept in the Archaeological Museum of Tegea, shows various signs of reuse. Particularly conspicuous is a new inscription bearing the name »Echemos« and presumably added in the imperial period. Re-examination of the piece focuses firstly on the relief's original function, a matter of controversy among researchers. The piece, interpreted here as a stele, may have stood in the context of public commemoration of the fallen in Tegea. Secondly, regarding the more recent phase of reuse, it turns out that the piece's occasional identification with a sculpted work of the Tegeatic hero of that name, which Pausanias saw on his visit to the city, needs to be revised. With the proposed interpretation of the relief as a grave stone or, perhaps more likely, as an ornamental furnishing in a private or sacred space, discourses on the culture of remembrance in Roman imperial Greece are also addressed.