note
| - In this book, Gabriel Herman offers a new interpretation of Greek \"xenia\", a term traditionally rendered as \"guest-friendship\". Drawing on contemporary literary sources and inscriptions as well as anthropology, sociology, and comparative evidence from other times, he shows that \"xenia\" was a bond of fictitious kinship akin to godparenthood, rather than a tie of hospitality or ordinary \"friendship\". Starting off from this proposition, he develops a dynamic model of the formation of elite relationships and values. In the age of Homer the Greek world was criss-crossed with a network of alliances between the lords of different communities. Buttressed with rituals, gifts, favours and a heroic ethos, these alliances formed one of the corner-stones of society. With the advent of the \"polis\" in the eighth and seventh centuries, the new social structures superimposed themselves upon this archaic network without dissolving it. When the \"polis\" finally emerged as the dominant form of institution, dense webs of \"ritualised friendship\" still stretched beyond its bounds. Inevitably, civic values came to clash with values inherited from the heroic past. Dr Herman unravels the resulting conflicts. He explores the concepts of obligation and loyalty, gift and bribe, treason and patriotism, and places the Greek city within a new context of power relations. This book, which assumes no knowledge of Greek, will be of interest to students and teachers of ancient history and classics.It will also appeal to social and political scientists
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