36
commemorate the 1843 revolution which lead to the birth of the Greek constitution), and
Leoforos Agiou Konstantinou (Saint Constantine Avenue). These are all major arteries -
symbolizing an assemblage of important national narratives - that spill thousands of cars
into and out of the Square day and night. Add to this the hordes of pedestrians brought in
by the large Metro station which links several major public transportation routes and
Omonia seems to fulfill the vision of a city center set out for it so long ago. More than a
meeting place of roads, symbols, and routs, Omonia felt to me like a place that draws
people to it. Standing there I thought that if Jigo was not instructed to go there from
Mytilene that he would certainly have made his way to Omonia anyway. I eventually
made my way from the Metro station to a nearby sidewalk and began to think, in a
moment of bohemian idealism, it was wonderful that the city’s morphology established
long ago achieves true cosmopolitanism today, one of Classical Hellenism’s central
♦ 34
preoccupations .
Yet, as I stood and watched the foot traffic from a comer, trying to get my
bearings, another aspect of the square began to show itself. There were shadowy figures
huddled in semi-secluded places, poor women were begging aggressively, a group of
drunk men were cavorting on the stoop of a nearby building, a disheveled girl was
convulsing in tears on the pavement some distance from me over the loss of her
boyfriend, a mentally unwell elderly man was disappearing into an alley offering his
body to the highest bidder wearing nothing but what appeared to be a loin cloth, and a
small group of men smoking a cigarette laced with hashish were looking me up and down
with what I interpreted to be mal-intentions. The tone of Omonia changed for me in an
34 Cosmopolitanism in its traditional sense is arguably not an aspiration of contemporary Greek society
(Faubion 1993:75-76).