Midterm Short Answer

Question 1

Define the concept of Xenia and explain it’s importance in Greek culture

Answer 1

Xenia - Greek Concept of hospitality / guest-host friendships

• part of Xenia is often a gift exchange
• feast with guest before asking them who they are and what they want
• part of this is due to the Gods and Goddesses constantly disguising themselves as mortals, we never know if they are a God or not, so treat everyone as if they were.
• Odysseus learns that some creatures and people do not practice Xenia such as Polyphemus. Odysseus asks him for Xenia - gifts and hospitality but is given none
• example of Nestor
• Example of Sparta
• Example of Phaeacians with Odysseus
• once Xenia is established, it remains in the generations, as we saw with Menelaus.

Question 2

Events that led up to the start of the odyssey

• include cause and results of the Trojan War

Answer 2

• Aphrodite made a woman named Helen fall in love with a Trojan man named Paris. Paris had chosen Aphrodite to be the most beautiful goddess, and I suppose as a reward for his worship she helped him.
• Problem was Helen was already married to Menelaus, the King of Sparta.
• Paris abducted Helen / Helen went willingly - they might of had sex or she might of been raped
• Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon summoned all the kings of Greece and waged war against Troy
• after the war Menelaus eventually returns home with Helen, Agamemnon is killed by his wife and her new lover, Nestor returns home, and Odysseus due to the wrath of Poseidon gets blown off his course.
• Leads to odysseus being gone from Ithaca for like 17 years

Question 3

Trickery and Deceit

Answer 3

Athena and Zeus: tricking mortals by disguising themselves as other people - sleeping with mortals, and lying to them

Helen: drugs everyone, makes them forget their human connections.

Penelope’s trickery: when she is weaving, she says once she is done she will choose a suitor, every night she unravels the loom?

Calypso’s trickery kind of: by hiding Odysseus from Poseidon

Circe: drugs men and turns them into pigs with human brains