by Nikos Gavrilakis, President of the Hellenic Presidential Guard’s Evzones’ Society
Our tourist is still standing on the sun-scorched pavement opposite the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Athens. He has learned something about the two men standing motionless before him. Yet a question remains: why are they here? What exactly are they guarding?
Nearby, a young boy turns to his father and asks, fortunately in English:
“Dad… Is this where the heroes stand?”
“Those standing here are the Evzones,” his father replies. “The heroes are lying behind them.”
Our tourist looks again. What lies behind the Evzones? And yet… what he sees between the two Evzones does indeed resemble a tomb.
The Great War
To understand what he is looking at, we must travel back more than a century.
The First World War brought unprecedented destruction to Europe and much of the world. Millions lost their lives, while countless families never received the remains of their loved ones. Many were reported missing, others were buried far from home, and countless more could never be identified.
Known to its contemporaries as the Great War, and described by some as the war to end all wars, the conflict created an extraordinary need for collective remembrance.
How could a nation honour those who never returned, when so many did not even have a known grave?
Across Europe’s former battlefields, countless headstones would bear the words “Known Unto God”—a solemn reminder that even when a soldier’s identity was lost to history, their sacrifice was not forgotten.
Across the world, the idea of a national Tomb of the Unknown Soldier gained momentum. One unidentified serviceman could represent all those who had fallen, regardless of name, rank, social standing, or financial background. In the early 1920s, Britain, France, the United States, Portugal, and others laid unidentified soldiers to rest in monuments that became places of national remembrance.
Greece followed this international movement but gave it a distinctive form. Rather than merely adopting a foreign model, Greece drew upon a tradition deeply rooted in its own history.
The decision to erect a national memorial came during the interwar years, and the monument was completed during Eleftherios Venizelos’s premiership. It was unveiled on a particularly symbolic date: 25 March 1932, the anniversary of the Greek War of Independence.
Every Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has its own history and symbolism. The Greek monument, however, has one defining characteristic: it was conceived from the outset as a cenotaph.
A tomb without a body.
Unlike certain other national memorials, no unidentified soldier lies buried beneath it. The tomb is symbolic. It belongs to no single fallen soldier. Yet it honours them all.
And this is where history takes us much further back in time.
An Empty Bier
In ancient Greece, people erected cenotaphs to commemorate those whose bodies could not be recovered or brought home for burial. Particularly in the case of warriors killed far from their cities, the absence of a body did not mean the absence of honour.
In ancient Athens, public funerals for the war dead included an empty funeral bier for those whose remains had not been found. The historian Thucydides recorded this practice in the fifth century BC.
His words are still inscribed on the monument in Athens:
ΜΙΑ ΚΛΙΝΗ ΚΕΝΗ ΦΕΡΕΤΑΙ ΕΣΤΡΩΜΕΝΗ ΤΩΝ ΑΦΑΝΩΝ
“An empty bier is carried, laid out for those whose bodies were not found.”
Thus, while the Great War of 1914–1918 helped establish the modern tradition of national memorials to unknown soldiers, the Greek cenotaph draws upon a much older tradition of honouring the absent dead.
Back in Syntagma Square, our tourist may now understand that the Evzones are not guarding a tomb or a dead hero in the literal sense. They are paying tribute to something far greater than any single individual: the collective memory of the fallen.
And just as the monument makes no distinction between the dead according to rank, background or socioeconomic standing, neither does its ceremonial guard recognise hours of greater or lesser importance.
Every hour, every day, every month of the year, the Evzones of the Presidential Guard stand there.
There is no hour when the honours they render are worth more than at any other. No day allows remembrance to fade. For the Evzones, “Lest We Forget” is not merely a phrase spoken on commemorative occasions. It is a duty fulfilled every hour of every day.
For those they honour sacrificed their present for our future. People with families, dreams, fears and hopes. People who, whatever life lay ahead, gave it for their country.
And perhaps our tourist now understands the father’s answer to his son.
Because, as any veteran will tell you, the heroes are the ones who never came home.
Written by Nikos Gavrilakis, President of the Hellenic Presidential Guard’s Evzones’ Society.
All photos are copyrighted by Nick Bourdaniotis for Greek City Times
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