But in all stages of society it has been ordained by Providence that out of the wickedness of man some compensating good shall flow: thus, from the dangers and difficulties surrounding the stranger the virtue of hospitality[145] sprang up in generous minds. From the distress and misery of the passionate or accidental slayer of man arose the merciful rites of expiation, and all the friendly ties which subsisted between the purifier and the purified. Wanderers driven from their home often found a better in a foreign land; and thus even the transgressions and misfortunes of men, by breaking down the narrow enclosures of families and clans, and connecting persons of distant tribes together by benefits and gratitude, hastened the progress of refinement and paved the way for the greatness and glory of succeeding ages. Footnote 145: Il. ρ. 212. seq. The word ξένος signified, actively and passively, the host and the guest. The rights of hospitality were hereditary, the descendants of men being compelled to entertain the descendants of those with whom their forefathers had contracted hospitable ties. Πρόξενοι sometimes signified persons who publicly received ambassadors, as Antenor among the Trojans. Agamemnon had hospitable ties with the Phrygians, because he came of Phrygian ancestors. Damm. _v._ ξένος. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 347. Cf. Virg. Æn. viii. 165. et Serv. ad loc. Plat. Soph. t. iv. p. 125, where Socrates alludes to a passage in Homer, in which Zeus is said to be the companion of the wanderer, observing jocularly that the Eleatic stranger might probably have been some deity in disguise. Cf. Tomas. Tess. Hosp. c. 23. ap. Gronov. Thesaur. ix. 266. sqq. It was a proverb at Athens that the doors of the Prytaneion would keep out no stranger.—Sch. Aristoph. Ach. 127. The Lucanians had a law thus expressed: “If a stranger arriving at sunset ask a lodging of any one, let him who refuses to be his host be fined for want of hospitality.” The object, I imagine, of the law, says Ælian (Var. Hist. iv. i.) was at once to avenge the stranger and Hospitable Zeus.