INTRODUCTION
is no merely sociable virtue. Rather, this is the old Homeric
xenia. It is one of the steps by which society progresses from
savagery to civilization, when strangers make a willing, im-
mediate, and permanent agreement to be friends. In this
sense, xenia also includes cases at least of the nonabuse of
power against those over whom one has power. Apollo, for
punishment, was put at the mercy of Admetus, and Admetus
gave him fair and friendly treatment (11. 8-10; 222-24; 568-
79). A different king might have reveled in his power over
such a subject and acted outrageously. This is what Laomedon,
king of Troy, did to Apollo and Poseidon (Iliad xxi. 441-60),
and Poseidon never forgave him or his people. So, too, with
Heracles, generous hospitality for the tramping hero becomes
more than just a matter of correctness or etiquette when one
thinks of such "hosts" as Procrustes, Sciron, and Antaeus.
Violation of the rights of xenia is an underlying theme which
directs the action in both the story of Troy and the story of
Odysseus. The sin of Laomedon provoked divine rage against
Troy; then Paris doomed the city when, after being properly
received in the house of Menelaus, he went off with his host's
wife and most of his furniture. Decisive for the action of the
Odyssey is that travesty of xenia performed by the suitors
when they settle down and make themselves intolerably at
home in the house of Odysseus.
If we adopt the admittedly somewhat hypothetical scheme
according to which tragedy consists in the destruction or self-
destruction of an otherwise great man through some fault or
flaw in his character, then Alcestis might be viewed as a kind
of inverted tragedy. For this hero, otherwise no better than
ordinary, has one significant virtue, which saves him. Thus,
again, the progress of the play is from ruin to safety, reversing
what might be considered the normal course of tragedy. I
would not press this view, although I think there is a little
truth in it, because Euripides would have had to have a for-
mula for tragedy before he could invert it, and we do not
know that he had such a formula. At any rate, the "comic*'
qualities of Alcestis have puzzled critics since ancient times.
It was played fourth in the set, in the position usually given to*
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