Hospitality is a key concept in The Odyssey. In the ancient world, travelers and strangers were to be given hospitality with no questions asked. A visitor to a palace would receive immediate hospitality, as a host knows that there is a possibility that it might be a god. In The Odyssey , hospitality included being bathed, rubbed by beautiful maids with oils, given fine linens to and a cloak to wear, and fed with good food and fine wine. The host would not even dare ask any questions of the visitors travels until all of this was done and the stranger was satisfied. After hospitality was shown, the host could ask questions. Odysseus can survive only by the hospitality of the people on who he happens to come into contact with. Guests, in return were not to abuse that hospitality. When a Trojan, as a guest at the home of Meneleus stole his wife Helen and treasure. It was a breach of the rules of hospitality that lead to the Trojan War.
             The suitors commit a grave offense when they abuse the rules of hospitality by taking over the home of an absent man. To compound their offense they themselves abuse the beggar (Odysseus in disguise) and fail to extend to him the hospitality that they abused. The interest of the Gods in punishing abuses of hospitality is shown by the direct intervention of Athena helping Odysseus to trap and kill the suitors.
             Homer shows good hospitality when Telemachus goes to the palace of Menelaus to seek news of his father, when Odysseus arrives on the land of the Phaecians, and also in Eumaeus' hut. Homer explores the theme of bad hospitality through book IX when Odysseus and his men go to the Cyclops whom does not give hospitality to strangers, and also when Odysseus goes to Circe's house, who turns some of his men into pigs.
             Hospitality seemed to play a major role in ancient Greek societies. Social status appears to have been determined by how well a person could accommodate his guests. Only t...