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.) The generous readiness with which hospitality is afforded to the stranger who asks for it,[139] the facility with which he is allowed to contract the peculiar connection of guest with his host, and the permanence with which that connection, when created by partaking of the same food and exchanging presents, is maintained even through a long period of separation, and even transmitted from father to son—these are among the most captivating features of the heroic society. The Homeric chief welcomes the stranger who comes to ask shelter in his house, first gives him refreshment, and then inquires his name and the purpose of his voyage.[140] Though not inclined to invite strangers to his house, he cannot repel them when they spontaneously enter it craving a lodging.[141] The suppliant is also commonly a stranger, but a stranger under peculiar circumstances; who proclaims his own calamitous and abject condition, and seeks to place himself in a relation to the chief whom he solicits, something like that in which men stand to the gods. Onerous as such special tie may become to him, the chief cannot decline it, if solicited in the proper form: the ceremony of supplication has a binding effect, and the Erinnys punish the hardhearted person who disallows it. A conquered enemy may sometimes throw himself at the feet of his conqueror, and solicit mercy, but he cannot by doing so acquire the character and claims of a suppliant properly so called: the conqueror has free discretion either to kill him, or to spare him and accept a ransom.[142] [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. [142] See the illustrative case of Lykaon, in vain craving mercy from Achilles. (Iliad, xxi. 64-97. Ἀντί τοι εἶμ᾽ ἱκέταο, etc.)