Modern Hospitality - Ancient Hospitality How has modern hospitality changed from ancient hospitality, and what has been taken from it. What is xenia? Xenia is essentially hospitality. It is where someone takes care of a guest and welcome them to stay. In the Odyssey an example would be when someone invites Odysseus to stay in their home while he is traveling (Homer The Odyssey). In modern times it is basically the same concepts where someone invites another person to stay. When Odysseus and his men went to the cyclops's house they did not treat him with respect. While he was out herding, Odysseus took food from him, and took over his home. When the cyclops gets back he is angry. They invited themselves in and made themselves at home. The cyclops locks them in and eats two men. This goes on for a few days. Then Odysseus stabs the cyclops in the eye and escapes ( The Odyssey - Homer - Book 9). This is not a good representation of xenia at all. The guests were rude to their host and his home. Then to make up for it the host eats some of the guests. This could have all been ignored if they were respectful and showed actual xenia towards each other. A good representation of xenia is when Odysseus stopped by Nausicaa. When they arrived …show more content…
Nowadays most people are very reserved. People do not trust other people anymore, so xenia is not as practiced as it once was. It is done it for family members and commercially, but not in a random way like it used to be. People used to invite each other to stay if the other needed it. Most Americans now are skeptical if another person showed up at their doorstep. They would not definitely not let them stay overnight and feed them. Many people used to live or go on journeys relying on others hospitality to let them stay. Now that is virtually impossible, but xenia is still important in modern times. Xenia is good practice for virtues like respect, kindness, and