R. A. BOEHM Alexander, “Whose Courage Was Great ”: Cult, Power, and Commemoration in Classical and Hellenistic Thessaly An epitaph dating to ca. 217 BCE for Antigenes, a fallen soldier from Demetrias, refers to the tomb of Alexander, “whose courage was great.” This article first provides a reading of the epi- gram as a document that reflects a compressed civic and cultic map of a recent Hellenistic city foundation and grounds Antigenes’ heroic death in the wider ritual landscape of his patris. It then argues for the identification of one point of reference, the tomb of Alexander, with the infa- mous tyrant of Thessaly, Alexander of Pherai, and for the continued presence of a heroic cult of Alexander in the “new” polis of Demetrias. The commemorative dynamic at work in the epitaph provides insight into contemporary views of fourth-century tyranny, calling the traditional por- trait of Alexander into question, and helps to reconstruct the Hellenistic reception of the recent past among civic bodies and individuals operating under dramatically changed political circumstances. In 1906, Apostolos Arvanitopoulos excavated a series of towers belonging to the fortification circuit of Demetrias. From five, Arvanitopoulos recovered a total of 349 painted grave stelai built into the rubble core of the towers. 1 Among these was the stele of Antigenes, the son of Sotimos, a citizen of Demetrias. A trumpeter for a company of hoplites, Antigenes fell in battle before the walls of Phthiotic Thebes, probably in 217 at the close of the Social War, an otherwise unknown casu- alty of one of the great conflicts of the Hellenistic age. In twelve lines of elegiac cou- plets, colored with the language of epic, the poet relates a synoptic biography of the I am indebted to Michael Brumbaugh, Jason Harris, and Noah Kaye for their feedback and advice. I would also like to thank the journal’ s anonymous reviewers and editors for their valuable suggestions. All translations are my own. 1. For a description of the excavations, see Arvanitopoulos 1909: 65–96, plan p. 64; see also Arvanitopoulos 1928. It is unclear from which of the five “stele towers” the Antigenes stele originated but most were found in tower Α. Classical Antiquity, Vol. 34, Issue 2, pp. 209–251. ISSN: 0278-6656(p); 1067-8344(e) Copyright © 2015 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/ca.2015.34.2.209