Length: 547 words (1.6 double-spaced pages)
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Hospitality in Homer's Odyssey

 

      Hospitality: Greek philoxenia; literally “love of strangers.”  Homer might have had such a definition in mind when he introduced the theme of hospitality to his epic poem the Odyssey.  A multitude of reasons for the prominent position this theme plays, both in the Odyssey and perhaps in Homer’s own society, are hinted at in the introductory books, often referred to as the Telemachy.  Just two of these, namely the hunger for news and the belief in divinity, are illustrated by the words and actions of the hosts Telemakhos and Nestor.

 

      The first words the reader hears from young Telemakhos are those of greeting to an unknown visitor.  Seating the stranger in an elaborate throne to one side, providing finely worked implements, and acquiring generous portions of food and drink, Telemakhos displays the very soul of hospitality.  Why?  The poet states in Book 1, line 167 “…he wished privacy to ask for news/about his father, gone for years.”  The island of Ithaka and indeed the whole of Greece were composed of isolated pockets of civilization.  Travel on the unpredictable sea and over the mainland’s mountainous terrain was no easy feat;  therefore news of the world by any means, even at the mouth of strangers, was welcomed and well-rewarded with hospitality.

 

      Nestor’s case is somewhat more entertaining.  Arriving amidst a sacrificial feast to the god Posidon, Telemakhos and Athena-as-Mentor are greeted by a crowd of celebrants and invited by one son of Nestor to recline in comfort close to the lord himself, honored further by being given the opportunity to make libations to the sea god from a precious golden cup.  Did Nestor believe these two were emissaries of or one even the great earth shaker himself?  Probably not, but one can never be too certain in a society in which Gods are purported to walk among men.  Greek culture of the time relied heavily on divination and searched constantly for omens as seen in the repeated motif of “bird signs.”  The auspicious arrival of the pair likely suggested something of importance to the aged lord.  As it happens, Poseidon was “far off among the sunburnt races” being “regaled by smoke of thighbones burning” at the moment and Nestor had to make due with a disguised, grey-eyed goddess of wisdom and war (Book 1, lines 36 and 39).  Perhaps such cases of visiting deities were not as common in Homer’s Ionian Asia-Monor;  however, there are numerous tales of prominent dignitaries, often viewed with god-like awe, traveling incognito.  In such cases it also pays to be careful.

 

      The words and actions of Telemakhos and Nestor as host to strangers contribute to the sense of importance with which hospitality was regarded in the ancient Greece of fact and legend and give clues as to why.  The thirst for communication from other lands and the deep, if not religious then politic or mystic, interest with which they viewed their world were conditions conducive to the practice of open hospitality.  However, there are by no means only two reasons for such social action.  As the reader explores the world Homer creates in the Odyssey, including facets of the poet’s own reality, many more causes for such a course become evident.