Ancient+Greek+Values

__Ancient Greek Values__

__Ancient Greek Values__

__Arete__ is "Excellence" is better, or "worth." Arete conveys in one word the combination of qualities for which a Homeric hero is admired: physical strength, courage, daring, and above all success in battle.

__Time__ is the honouror recognition which the hero expects to receive in proportion to his "worth" (__arete__). The word __time__ may be used in a fairly abstract sense, like English "honor;" it may also be used (sometimes in the plural, __timai__) for the gifts or prizes which are the tokens of honor--for example, the share of booty from a captured city given to each warrior who helped to take that city. The quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon in Book I of the Iliad starts when Agamemnon threatens to take Briseis, a captive woman who was given to Achilles when he sacked her town. For Achilles this is an intolerable loss of __time__.

__Kleos__ is the __fame__ or renown which a hero wins when he accomplishes some great deed, like the killing of a powerful enemy or the sacking of a city. Like __time__, it has both an abstract sense--something like English "glory"--and a more concrete sense, for it is based in the first place on what is __reported__ and can only survive if people, and especially poets, continue to speak or sing of it. To the Homeric heroes, who believe in a dismal and shadowy afterlife for all men, __kleos__ is the closest thing to immortality that a human being can attain. It is thus the ultimate goal of the warrior.

__Moira__ is an individual's "lot" or "portion;" in the distribution of booty in means a __share__, and in speaking of a person's life as a whole it means his or her __destiny__. On yet a higher level it is sometimes translated "Fate" and refers to the impersonal and inscrutable forces--beyond the control even of the gods--which impose the ultimate conditions under which men live, in particular the time and manner of one's death.

__Aidos__ is usually translated "shame," but it covers a whole range of emotions, from simple respect to a deep-seated fear of disgrace. In every case, however, it is an emotion which is created by the anticipation of "what people will think" and is based on a sense of one's obligations to family or society. Hector repeatedly says he feels __aidos__ toward the Trojan men and women, whose chief defender he is; and Achilles' friends accuse him of a lack of __aidos__ when he refused to fight in their behalf.

__Nemesis__ is the "righteous indignation" evoked by a __lack__ of __aidos__ in another person. The Trojans--and especially Hector, the hero of __aidos__--feel __nemesis__ toward Paris when he hangs back from fighting in the war he is chiefly responsible for starting.

__Ate__ is the "blindness," "madness" or" folly" a god can send to punish or harass a mortal. In some cases, it is actually both a punishment __and__ a crime, insofar as it leads the mortal into further wrongdoing. But it may be inflicted for no apparent reason.

**Xenia** ( [|Greek] : [|ξενία], //xenía//, trans. "guest-friendship") is the [|ancient Greek] concept of [|hospitality] , the generosity and courtesy shown to those who are far from home and/or associates of the person bestowing guest-friendship. The rituals of hospitality created and expressed a reciprocal relationship between guest and host expressed in both material benefits (such as the giving of gifts to each party) as well as non-material ones (such as protection, shelter, favors, or certain normative rights).

The Greek god [|Zeus] is sometimes called [|Zeus Xenios] in his role as a protector of guests. He thus embodied the religious obligation to be hospitable to travelers. **Theoxeny** or //**theoxenia**// is a theme in [|Greek mythology] in which human beings demonstrate their virtue or piety by extending hospitality to a humble stranger //(xenos)//, who turns out to be a disguised deity //(theos)// with the capacity to bestow rewards. These stories caution mortals that any guest should be treated as if potentially a disguised divinity and help establish the idea of //xenia// as a fundamental Greek custom. [|[1]] The term //theoxenia// also covered entertaining among the gods themselves, a popular subject in classical art, which was revived at the Renaissance in works depicting a [|Feast of the Gods].