GUARDS (EUZONES)

 

ach Sunday at 11 a.m., tourists gather in front of the Parliament building on the Constitution or Syntagma Square (Plateia Syntagmatos) to watch the ceremonial changing of the guard in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  On that special occasion, the guards wear their traditional white and black kilts, red and black caps and red clogs with pom-poms (ill. 3-6), perhaps as a tribute to their patron saint, George the Younger, the last of the neo-martyrs, executed for apostasy in Ioannina in 1838.   On every other day, the euzones wear regular khaki uniforms with skirts (ill. 1).  The sculpture on the Tomb shows a  Greek soldier, while the inscriptions scattered around the tomb quote fragments from Pericles' Funeral Oration of 430 B.C., delivered after the first year of the Peloponnesian War to honor the fallen Athenians.  The monument and the building of the Parliament (Vouli) were dedicated in 1932 on the National Independence Day, March 25.

 

Acropolis	Acropolis Museum	Byzantine Museum	Lykavittos Hill
Kapnikarea	Guards (Euzones)	Ancient Agora	Roman Agora
Plaka and Monastiraki	Academy of Athens	Churches in Athens	Iconographer's Studio

( home)