Xenia (Greek)

Xenia (Greek: ξενία) is an ancient Greek concept of hospitality. It is almost always translated as 'guest-friendship' or 'ritualized friendship'. It is an institutionalized relationship rooted in generosity, gift exchange, and reciprocity.^[1] Historically, hospitality towards foreigners and guests (Hellenes not of your polis) was understood as a moral obligation. Hospitality towards foreign Hellenes honored Zeus Xenios (and Athene Xenia), patrons of foreigners.^[2]

The rituals of hospitality created and expressed a reciprocal relationship between guest and host expressed in both material benefits (e.g. gifts, protection, shelter) as well as non-material ones (e.g. favors, certain normative rights). The word is derived from xenos 'stranger'.

The Greek god Zeus is sometimes called Zeus Xenios in his role as a protector of strangers. He thus embodied the moral obligation to be hospitable to foreigners and guests. Theoxeny or theoxenia is a theme in Greek mythology in which human beings demonstrate their virtue or piety by extending hospitality to a humble stranger (xenos), who turns out to be a disguised deity (theos) with the capacity to bestow rewards. These stories caution mortals that any guest should be treated as if potentially a disguised divinity and help establish the idea of xenia as a fundamental Greek custom.^[3][4] The term theoxenia also covered entertaining among the gods themselves, a popular subject in classical art, which was revived at the Renaissance in works depicting a Feast of the Gods.

Legally, xenia was a charge of bastardy. Attic lawsuits apply it to accuse someone of committing citizenship fraud perpetrated through marriage fraud. The Periclean citizenship law of 451/450 BC expanded the definition of bastardy to include the children of unions between Athenians and non-Athenians.^[5]