Xenia

Xenia, often translated as "hospitality" or "guest-friendship," was one of the most important aspects of Greek culture. It referred simultaneously to basic hospitality to strangers and to the formation of long-lasting, reciprocating friendships formed through the exchange of gifts and goodwill. Xenia made it possible for a lone person traveling through Greece to proceed safely, while also creating a means by which the highly competitive and belligerent Greeks might form alliances and build camaraderie. Xenia could occur between individuals, between individuals and communities, and between communities (Thorburn 2001, 775).

Although there is no direct evidence for it from the Bronze Age, the importance of xenia in Homer's poetry is so strong that we might suggest that the concept was important from the Mycenaean period at least. The Trojan War was blamed on a breach of xenia, whereby Paris, after enjoying the guest-friendship of Menelaus, responded by stealing his host's wife and her posses-

Sions. This infuriated Zeus Xenios, god of guest-friendships, and Menelaus came under a religious obligation to punish the xenia-violator.

All classes of Greeks could, and were required to, show hospitality to strangers. This is revealed in the ultimate tale of xenia—the Odyssey. At the highest level of the practice, royal families and communities showed xenia to destitute strangers, as did the Phaiakians to the unknown Odysseus (7, 155-166). Entering the palace of Alkinoos and Arete, Odysseus found the Phai-akian nobility dining in the megaron. Odysseus went to the queen, clasped her knees, and implored her to receive him and help him on his journey home. Then he went to sit in the hearth ashes, a suppliant's position. At first there was shocked silence in the halls (the Phaiakians did not get many visitors). Then:

At length the elder hero Ekhenos replied, who indeed was oldest of the Phaiakian men and excelled in words, very old in countenance.

He thinking well addressed them and replied:

"Alkincocos, this is neither fair nor seemly,

That a guest [xenos] sit on the ground among the ashes.

These others hold back waiting for you.

But come, have the guest get up and sit on a silver-studded throne, and you bid the heralds to mix wine, so that we might pour libations to Zeus Delighting-in-Thunder, who accompanies reverend suppliants.

Let the housekeeper give dinner to the guest from her stores.”

The Phaiakians gave the stranger a royal welcome, not only feeding and clothing him, but promising to return him home, celebrating a festival for him, and giving him countless treasures. All before they even asked his name!

At the other end of the social register, even the humblest slave recognized his duties as host. When Odysseus returned to Ithaca in disguise, he was taken in by his own slave, the swineherd Eumaios. The poor man welcomed the stranger into his squalid hut and there prepared a small feast of pork, bread, and wine for the visitor. When it came time to sleep, Eumaios found whatever bed coverings were available and set them on Odysseus to protect him from the cold. He apologized for the scant resources he could offer the stranger, but assured him that Telemachus the prince would give him fine clothing and send him wherever he needed to go.

Those who failed to show xenia were punished. Paris's breach of xenia caused his community to be destroyed in the Trojan War; Polyphemos, a Cyclops who chose to eat rather than feed his guests, was blinded; and the highly uncivil suitors of Penelope were slaughtered one and all.

The end results of xenia relationships were considerable, played out both in literature and in life. A good example of the former occurs in Book 6 of the Iliad (6, 215 ff.), when the enemies Diomedes (Greek) and Glaukos (a Trojan ally) meet in battle. They stop briefly to identify themselves to each other, each giving his lineage up through the times of his grandfathers. It turns out that

Glaukos's grandfather Bellerophontes was once a xenos-guest to Diomedes's grandfather Oineus. A xenia relationship had been established that lasted generations, bonding the two heroes in a friendship that outweighed their allegiances to their own armies. The following description expresses not only the endurance of such unions, but also the gift-giving and continued hospitality that were seen as an essential aspect of the formation of the xenia relationship:

See now, you are my xenos from the days of our fathers.

For godly Oineus once received noble Bellerophontes in our halls, keeping him for 20 days.

They offered each other fine friendship gifts:

Oineus gave a shining purple belt,

And Bellerophontes a two-handled golden cup

Which I left in my house, coming here.

So now I am your dear friend in the midst of Argos, and you in Lykia, when I should come to that land.

Let us avoid each other's spears even in the throng.

Let us exchange armor with each other, so that others

Might know that we swear to be friends from the days of our fathers.

A real-life example of the power and endurance of xenia appears in Book 2 of Thucydides. At the inception of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles (see chapter 4) convinced the Attic populace to abandon their farms and seek refuge within the city walls of Athens. The Spartans were excellent in land battles, but seldom had the patience for long sieges, so Pericles's idea was that the Spartans would come in and devastate the farms and countryside, but the people would survive intact. His major concern was that, while the people's farms would all be destroyed, his own would be spared due to his guest-friendship with Archidamas, the Spartan general. So as not to provoke the ill will of the Attic people, Pericles promised that if his lands were spared through his friendship with Archidamas, he would donate those lands to the state when the war was over.

A historic example of xenia between a person and an entire city is recounted by Herodotus, when the Lydian (western Turkey) king Croesus established a xenia relationship with Sparta. In Book 1, §69 of his Histories, Herodotus relates that Croesus sent messengers with gifts to Sparta, asking for xenia with the Greeks as per the dictates of an oracle, probably of Apollo. The king specifically went to Sparta, having heard that the Spartans were the most eminent of their people. The Spartans, having heard tell of the same oracle, and having once received a favor at Croesus's hands (he gave them a golden statue of Apollo), agreed to the union.