These three epithets include the three different classes of personal sympathy and obligation: 1. The Phratry, in which a man is connected with father, mother, brothers, cousins, brothers-in-law, clansmen, etc.; 2. The θέμιστες, whereby he is connected with his fellow-men who visit the same agora; 3. His Hestia, or Hearth, whereby he becomes accessible to the ξεῖνος and the ἱκέτης:—
Τῷ δ᾽ Ὀδυσεὺς ξίφος ὀξὺ καὶ ἄλκιμον ἔγχος ἔδωκεν,
Ἀρχὴν ξεινοσύνης προσκηδέος· οὐδὲ τραπέζῃ
Γνώτην ἀλλήλοιν. (Odyss. xxi. 34.)
[139] It must be mentioned, however, that when a chief received a stranger and made presents to him, he reimbursed to himself the value of the presents by collections among the people (Odyss. xiii. 14; xix. 197): ἀργαλέον γὰρ ἕνα προικὸς χαρίσασθαι, says Alkinous.
[140] Odyss. i. 123; iii. 70, etc.
[141] Odyss. xvii. 383.—
Τίς γὰρ δὴ ξεῖνον καλεῖ ἄλλοθεν αὐτὸς ἐπελθὼν
Ἄλλον γ᾽ εἰ μὴ τῶνδ᾽, οἳ δημιόεργοι ἔασιν, etc.;
which breathes the plain-spoken shrewdness of the Hesiodic Works and Days, v. 355.