Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

HOSPITALITV. 109
how they treated strangers who had the misfortune to
come among- them, is well known from various tales,
never contradicted, which I shall be obliged to notice
hereafter.
Be that as it may, this is that barbarous hospitality,
as it has been called, which it is admitted that commerce
and civilization destroy; to the vast comfort of all par-
ties. Yet it was not thus destroyed in civilized Greece
and Rome, even in the latest and worst of times; and,
among their many faults of social life, these people may
well claim the praise of an hospitality as little known to
Highlanders as to Lowlanders or Englishmen. The
Greeks founded Hospitia. Alexander, on this subject,
says that all good men are relations. iElian relates a law
of Lucania by which those who refused admittance to a
stranger after sun-set were fined. It is in no very good
period of Greece that Lucian goes with a letter of intro-
duction to the house of a noted miser, where, never-
theless, he and his servant are warmly received and a
good supper provided for him ; where he is pressed to
stay, and dares not even accept another invitation lest he
should offend bis host. This was Greek hospitality. The
Romans even exceeded them. They also founded Hos-
pitia ;
and all strangers were received and feasted indis-
criminately during the Lectisternia. Livy calls that law
an execrable violation of the rights of humanity, by
which the Achseans refused to receive any Macedonian.
All the great families of Rome, as is well known, made it
their boast to receive all those who were recommended to
them, strangers as well as friends; and Cicero warmly
praises this practice, particularly as it regarded foreigners.
It was the same in the Roman cities and towns. Cicero
also calls the King of the Gods Jupiter hospitalis; be-
sides which, all strangers and guests were under the