“Zeus’s Law”

Firstly, xenia is called “Zeus’s law” throughout the movie, which is…perhaps not entirely wrong, but certainly an oversimplification. It’s true that hospitality and how you treated foreigners and the obligation to welcome them was technically under Zeus’s purview, since as King of the Gods everything was.

Propriety and courtesy and kindness is not what Zeus was known for, however — frankly, if Nolan wanted to credit xenia to an individual divinity in concept, either Hestia (as goddess of hearth and home) or Hermes (as god of travelers and journeys) would be more fitting.

And really, it wasn’t just about one god; just as hubris is about mortals overstepping or thinking themselves equal to anything divine, xenia is at least in part about mortals being courteous to any fellow man in the name of any god that might have put that person on their path. The only reason to call it Zeus’s law is when thinking about divine retribution, which the Odyssey movie intentionally muddies the waters on by erasing the gods’ consistent direct involvement.

Zeus’s role is in setting the standard kings and leaders must follow, yes. But his connection to xenia is more about punishing those who misunderstand it, and…Odysseus doesn’t actually suffer from that. Or rather, he never suffers undeservedly, and he does benefit from it in the end. He underwent his struggles in getting home due to other people violating xenia, but when he does get home? Odysseus benefits from the fact that those who break xenia are punished.

Xenia among Greeks

Now, let’s get into the actual meaning and consequences of xenia. Because it wasn’t actually about threat of divine retribution — it was about cultural mediation and exchange. Something that gets lost in the film’s treatment of Greek culture as a monolith (it very much wasn’t at the time), and oversimplification of wartime vs. peacetime negotiations.

ξενια was a social code relating to how hosts should welcome any visitors to their home, and how guests should act when welcomed. The expectation is that the host provides good food and drink (to the absolute best of their ability — you don’t just feed them, you give them delicious food and your purest wine and nicest clothes and linens and bed). The guest, after enjoying the host’s hospitality, will reveal their name and identity and life’s story and purpose for their journey. And that’s where it got political.

Crucial to xenia was mutual peacefulness — if someone comes to you as a peaceful traveler, it doesn’t matter that they’re foreign. You have to treat them courteously. The movie made it seem like the entire reason you had to welcome travelers was in case they were gods in disguise, but that’s just not true. Implicit threat of offending a god did mean it was considered smart to treat everyone who hadn’t outright wronged you courteously, but the real point was peace between peoples from different lands, especially different Greek city-states. Because once you or anyone in your family line offered or received xenia to/from anyone in that person’s family line? You could not hurt each other. It was forbidden.

There’s a whole scene in the Iliad where a Trojan and Greek soldier both exchange lineages before they fight, to make sure they’re not breaking xenia, and discover one of their dads played host to another. They then go “ok, we can’t fight, let’s trade armor as a friendly peaceful gesture, good luck going to war!” Because xenia established outside war had a different standard.

ξενος means foreigner or stranger. It also means friend and guest. Xenophobia is literally the Greek words for foreigner and fear mashed together, and it wasn’t a good term in their eyes. Because at least among those who would understand and respect your customs, you had to treat the foreigner/stranger as a guest/friend. That’s xenophilia, love of strangers, or the act of being a good host.

The point of xenia is that it forges a peace compact. Critically, it only did so among different Greek civilizations — one polis going to war against another was what xenia sought to combat. Enough people traveling would ensure two city-states didn’t and couldn’t raise arms against each other.

The Exception

I do think this is the part people don’t get, because the movie clearly didn’t understand it either — xenia does not apply between people at war.

Yes, the Iliad has a bit with Glaukos and the armor and the peaceful exchange between people who had ancestral xenia. But the reason they can’t fight is because their families had contact during a time of peace.

If your first time meeting someone is while you try to kill them and pillage their land — or rather, if you’re the “host” and they’re trying to kill you and pillage your land and rape your women — you do not owe them xenia, because there is no peaceful compact to be made. Preexisting relationships must be respected…

…but crucially, the entire Trojan War started because Paris, a Trojan Prince, broke xenia after Sparta welcomed him as a guest.

Nolan’s Odyssey makes it seem like perhaps the whole saga is punishing the Greek heroes and Odysseus especially for violating Zeus’s Law/xenia through the Trojan Horse trick. But like…they didn’t? The Greeks didn’t come to Troy in good faith as guests, they came as armed conquers determined to see Ilion burn. And the concept of soldiers disguising themselves as civilians (or hiding inside a horse) being like…a war crime or violation of ethics? Was not a thing by Greek standards.

Very notably, one of the (cut) scenes with Helen in the Telemachy sees her recount how she helped Odysseus when he snuck into Troy before the horse trick — she helped him disguise himself as a local/refugee and gather intel before sneaking back to the Greek ships. And that’s never treated as morally questionable — helping Odysseus sneak around and deceive the Trojans is unambiguously a good thing that Helen did, in fact.

TL:DR, the point is — people trying to burn your city do not count as guests, conquerers do not think of the people they plan to rob rape and kill as hosts. Xenia does not apply to people at war, and the idea Odysseus should feel guilt for his trick with the horse because it was a violation of “Zeus’s law” is laughable. The Greeks wouldn’t have cared! That’s not ever a source of angst or guilt in the source text, despite xenia being such a central theme.

Utility of xenia in the Odyssey

The biggest purpose of xenia was that observing it ensured peace. Neither guest nor host poisons or hurts anyone else, not directly or by proxy through hurting their family and friends. When the guest leaves, in exchange for their story, the host also should them off with valuables, ideally gold. Xenia was a way to encourage non-violent contact between different people, and stimulate exchange of information and valuables between different settlements.

Notably, where xenia is practiced, the standard for violating it is high. There are many myths about people who did things that were weird or unpleasant but not an outright violation, and therefore had to still be treated with courtesy and respect as guests.

The reason Penelope and Telemachus can’t kick the suitors out isn’t because she’s a helpless woman and he’s a helpless child — their political positions are shaky, yes, but that’s not the core issue. Rather, it’s because while the suitors have been rude, and wildly overstayed their welcome, they haven’t actually broken xenia. Eating and drinking their food and wine for years instead of days, being mean to the slaves, having the bard tell stories that hurt Penelope’s feelings, all of that is bad but not transgressions worthy of breaking xenia over. Legally, Telemachcus and Penelope have to let these assholes stay and treat them courteously, because the suitors are abusing the spirit of the law but not violating the letter of it.

The suitors don’t actually break xenia until their attempt to kill Telemachus, and then when they try to refuse to welcome a poor traveller who should be entitled to all the same luxuries they’ve taken.

That’s a huge part of the motive for Odysseus’s disguise. He shows up as a beggar dressed in disgusting rags because he knows these immature assholes will abuse him over it, and he knows that once they do he can legally kill them and get away with it in the eyes of the gods. That’s the point of the first feasts and the challenge and almost everything Odysseus does upon arrival to Ithaca.

Fully half of the Odyssey is Odysseus already having returned home, but acting like a guest, so he can see who respects xenia (and is therefore loyal to him) vs. who breaks xenia (and is therefore deserving of death). And Odysseus actively works to slot the suitors and many of his own slaves into the latter category, so he can kill them and know that he’s not breaking custom, that he isn’t incurring further divine wrath. And Athena helps him do it, so he can get his glorious revenge. That’s…pointed.

Conclusion

Odysseus’ attempts to exploit xenia for his own gain — implicitly in Books 5-12 and more explicitly and maliciously in Books 13-22 — are missing in the film adaptation. I think that’s in part because Christopher Nolan…isn’t interested in that side of Odysseus. He wanted the story of a tough tortured war hero finally returning home and repenting for his wrongs at war. He didn’t like or focus on Odysseus the witty schemer, the master of tricks and lies. And Nolan certainly didn’t want Odysseus’ return home to center on a blatantly bitter and violent, arguably unnecessary revenge ploy, as it did in the epic poem.

But the fact of the matter is that the last half of the original poem is Odysseus struggling to find an excuse to break xenia. He doesn’t want to send the suitors peacefully home — which he at least nominally could. There’s a threat that they physically overpower him, but that requires the suitors to openly break xenia. Which thus far those who did by conspiring to kill Telemachus have done only in discreet ways, and many have not done at all.

Like, crucially, the original epic poem does introduce suitors who were more decent in their conduct, even if they did still eat Odysseus’ food and try to court his wife. They’re not all evil people who have to be killed for his own safety. Some would just fucking leave if they knew the king was in fact alive. Some would accept that since Odysseus is back to be King again, the Ithacan suitors should return to their houses and the foreign suitors return to their city-states. Some of them would respect xenia and make up for their wrongdoing. There’s a dichotomy when the suitors die — some, like Antinous, go down fighting and cursing Odysseus and Telemachus, but others try to apologize. They promise to repay the guest-gifts and food and charity they abused and respect xenia and go in peace. Odysseus tells them “nope, too late, die.”

I get why instead of the brutal slaughter of many men who beg for mercy, Nolan frames the final battle against the suitors as a desperate, almost losing struggle for Odysseus. But in the epic poem…it’s just him taking advantage of the fact he finally tricked them all into really breaking xenia, and taking revenge.

The entire epic poem was about xenia — not in the context of war, either.

The Telemachy is the first four books of the Odyssey, focused on how Odysseus’s son sees xenia exploited in his own home, but benefits from it immensely when welcomed as a guest in someone else’s.

The Apologoi or Wanderings are books 5-12 (Calypso, the Phaeacians, Aeolus, Polyphemus, the Lotus-Eaters, the Lasteygones, Circe, and the Underworld) and see Odysseus arrive at foreign islands where he tries to exert xenia over and over again. He meets good foreigners who do exactly as they should, dangerous foreigners who instead respond with sinister temptation or outright violence, and people who aren’t foreigners at all but divinities, and therefore aren’t bound to mortal customs like xenia.

The Mnesterophonia or Murder of the Suitors is Books 13-24 — fully half of the Odyssey is Odysseus having already reached Ithaca, but now using xenia both to test people’s loyalty and morals, and to contrive an excuse to kill them if they fail to uphold the custom.

You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Deuteronomy 10:19

Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, should not hurt his neighbor and whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, should serve his guest generously […]. Sahih al-Bukhari 6136