Source: TW conversation between AryAMsha and MT
Hostis Xenos
The Latin ‘hostis’ (hostile) & the Greek ‘xenos’ (xenophobic) did not always have a -ve sense. They originally used to mean ‘guest’, someone in a reciprocal relationship with your clan. As the Greco-Romans lost their clannish society, “guests” became “enemies” and “strangers”. As their clans grew, cities came up, the polis replaced the basic interactional unit of one dempotis / paterfamilias with another, as they became nations from tribes; the clan-clan reciprocality ended. You were now either “in” the civitas or “out of it”.
Homeric literature generally keeps this distinction, it’s why Diomedes tells Glaucus that they are guests (xeinwos) from their grandfathers days. The clan reciprocality must be honored even in war (they won’t fight each other), it in fact superseedes the good of the nation. This is why the nominal and verbal derivatives surrounding xenos are all related to ‘hospitality, guesthood’
- xeinizdo = “entertain as a guest”
- xeinisis = “hospitality”
- philoxeinos = “guest lover, hospitable”
A direct parallel with our society is the concept of xeinodokos (guest-receiver, host, entertainer).
In Aryan society, this is the atithipati (guest-receiver, host, entertainer). The word, used as such, in the AV. This is all related to the concept of the social contract embodified by mitra/mithra in the RV and Avesta. A related word to mitra is mithwara in Avestan, from which actually descends modern iranian “mehman” (guest), a word that brings us back to the original meaning. To extend the above: Skt root: mith- to unite, to meet as friend or foe – the ambivalence of host- is preserved even here. Latvian mit- exchange; Latin mutual. The old Slavic cognate mIru is curious was there a form close to mitra- in proto-Balto-Slavo-Aryan or was it Iranic loan remains unclear. Also the same applies to the root of the ethnonym Arya: ari - people with who marriage is observed & also hostile stranger – same dichotomy of the meaning of “host”.