Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

HOSPITIUM.

209

HYACINTHIA.

cal inheritance of former times. Or a person
belonging to one state might have either
extensive connections with the citizens of
another state, or entertain great partiality
for the other state itself, and thus offer to
receive all those who came from that state
either on private or public business, and to
act as their patron in his own city. This he
at first did merely as a private individual,
but the state to which he offered this kind
service would naturally soon recognise and
reward him for it. "When two states estab-
lished public hospitality, and no individuals
came forward to act as the representatives of
their state, it was necessary that in each
state persons should be appointed to show
hospitality to, and watch over the interests
of, all persons who came from the state con-
nected by hospitality. The persons who were
appointed to this office as the recognised
agents of the state for which they acted were
called proxeni (Trpofeyoi), but those who un-
dertook it voluntarily etheloproxeni (efleAoTrpd-
(evoi). The office of proxenus, which bears
great resemblance to that of a modern consul
or minister-resident, was in some cases here-
ditary in a particular family. When a state
appointed a proxenus, it either sent out one
of its own citizens to reside in the other
state, or it selected one of the citizens of this
state, and conferred upon him the honour of
proxenus. The former was, in early times,
the custom of Sparta, where the kings had
the right of selecting from among the Spar-
tan citizens those whom they wished to send
out as proxeni to other states. But in sub-
sequent times this custom seems to have been
given up, for we find that at Athens the
family of Callias were the proxeni of Sparta,
and at Argos, the Argive Alciphron. The
principal duties of a proxenus were to receive
those persons, especially ambassadors, who
came from the state which he represented ; to
procure for them admission to the assembly,
and seats in the theatre ; to act as the patron
of the strangers, and to mediate between the
two states if any disputes arose. If a stranger
died in the state, the proxenus of his country
had to take care of the property of the de-
ceased.-—The hospitality of the Romans was,
as in Greece, either hospitium privatum or
publicum. Private hospitality with the Ro-
mans, however, seems to have been more
accurately and legally defined than in Greece.
The character of a hospes, i. e. a person con-
nected with a Roman by ties of hospitality,
was deemed even more sacred, and to have
greater claims upon the host, than that of a
person connected by blood or affinity. The
relation of a hospes to his Roman friend was
next in importance to that of a cliens. The

obligations which the connection of hospi-
tality with a foreigner imposed upon a Ro-
man, were to receive in his house his hospes
when travelling ; and to protect, and, in case
of need, to represent him as his patron in the
courts of justice. Private hospitality thus
gave to the hospes the claims upon his host
which the client had on his patron, but with-
out any degree of the dependence implied in
the clientela. Private hospitality was estab-
lished between individuals by mutual pre-
sents, or by the mediation of a third person,
and hallowed by religion ; for Jupiter hospi-
talis was thought to watch over the jus hos-
pitii, as Zeus xenios did with the Greeks, and
the violation of it was as great a crime and
impiety at Rome as in Greece. When hospi-
tality was formed, the two friends used to
divide between themselves a tessera Jtospi-
talis, by which, afterwards, they themselves
or their descendants— for the connection was
hereditary as in Greece—might recognise one
another. Hospitality, when thus once estab-
lished, could not be dissolved except by a
formal declaration (renuntiutio), and in this
case the tessera hospitalis was broken to
pieces. Public hospitality seems likewise to
have existed at a very early period among
the nations of Italy ; but the first direct men-
tion of public hospitality being established
between Rome and another city, is after the
Gauls had departed from Rome, when it was
decreed that Caere should be rewarded for
its good services by the establishment of
public hospitality between the two cities.
The public hospitality after the war with the
Gauls gave to the Caerites the right of
isopolity with Rome, that is, the civitas
without the suffragium and the honores.
[Coloxia.] In the later times of the republic
we no longer find public hospitality estab-
lished between Rome and a foreign state ;
but a relation which amounted to the same
thing was introduced in its stead, that is,
towns were raised to the rank of municipia,
and thus obtained the civitas without the
suffragium and the honores; and when a
town was desirous of forming a similar rela-
tion with Rome, it entered into clientela to
some distinguished Roman, who then acted
as patron of the client-town. But the cus-
tom of granting the honour of hospes publi-
cus to a distinguished foreigner by a decree
of the senate, seems to have existed down to
the end of the republic. His privileges were
the same as those of a municeps, that is, he
had the civitas, but not the suffragium or the
honores. Public hospitality was, like the hos-
pitium privatum, hereditary in the family of
the person to whom it had been granted.
HYACINTHIA (vaKiVflia), a great national

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