O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 Classical Greece The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 DOMESTIC HOSPITALITY: THE NOMAD AND THE HOMESTEAD

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 Basis for understanding  Just as Genesis set the foundations for the Judaeo-Christian practices of hospitality the Greco-Roman ones can only be understood in the context of the Homeric writings.  In Chapter 1 xenos, had the interchangeable meaning of guest or stranger.

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 Classical Authors  Ancient Greece: Homer 800 BC philoxenos was the law or custom of offering protection and hospitality to strangers. Hospitality brought expectations The law / custom was felt by the Greeks to be so central, so fundamental to civilized life that its patron was the god of gods, Zeus himself.

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 “I will not detain you here for long… I’d find fault with another host, who acted excessively hospitable or excessively hostile. Balance is best in all things. It’s bad either way, to urge a guest to leave who does not want to go as it is to detain the guest who wishes to leave. Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest”  Homer Odyssey

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 Evolution of Hospitality – Domestic  Based around the household  All guests / strangers are treated the same  Reciprocal  Hereditary

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 CIVIC HOSPITALITY: COMMUNITIES AND THE EMERGENT CITY

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 Evolution of Hospitality - Public  Proxenos – Greek City States c.490 BC  Plato c. 400 BC different ways of treating different guests.  Hospitality treats different people in different ways

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 Plato’s Stratification of Guests

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 COMMERCIAL HOSPITALITY: THE GENESES OF AN INDUSTRY

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 Commercial Hospitality  The city the Thebans gave for about a year to some political emigrants from Megara, and to the surviving Plataeans of their own party to inhabit, and afterwards razed it to the ground to its very foundations, and built on to the precinct of Hera an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all round above and below. (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 3:68)

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 Commercial Hospitality  When [city] funds were sufficient, it would be a fine plan to build more inns for ship owners near the harbours, and convenient places of exchange for merchants, also inns to accommodate visitors. Again, if inns and shops were put up both in Peiraeus and in the city for retail traders, they would be an ornament to the state and at the same time the source of considerable revenue. (Xenophon, Ways and Means 3:12–13)

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 SUMMARY OF HOSPITALITY IN CLASSICAL GREECE

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 CLASSICAL GREECE  Developments within the societies of Classical Greece led to the formal stratification of hospitality  Three different typologies of hospitality had emerged: Private or personal hospitality based around the entire household Civic or public hospitality connected with the state An emergent, but important, commercial industry.

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 CLASSICAL GREECE  Hospitality essentially organic and its evolution revealed a great deal about the cultural values and beliefs of the societies that existed  Central was the concept of crossing thresholds; hospitality was freely offered to a guest regardless of whether he had entered a tent, a house or a temple, and the guest was entitled to the hospitality of the host together with the sanctuary and security that came with it  Strangers without exception, were regarded as being under the protection of the gods, and in general were treated as guests

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 CLASSICAL GREECE  The concepts of guest, stranger, and host are closely related but only when hospitality was based around the household, all guests/strangers were to be treated the same  Hospitality was central to virtually all the ethical and moral behaviour; the gods, the great hosts, led by example  Through practising hospitality, the household increased in strength and status; hospitality itself could be hereditary and reciprocal in nature  As hospitality moved from being centred in and on the home into the civic domain, guests were no longer treated equally

O’Gorman, The Origins of Hospitality and Tourism, Goodfellow Publishers © 2010 CLASSICAL GREECE  Civic and business hospitality developed from private hospitality but retained the key foundation: treat others as to make them feel at home even though they are not at home  A distinct and rapidly developing commercial hospitality sector represented a key source of income for a city and as a necessary attraction to bring tourists or traders to the city