Aeschylus’ «Supplices»: a «hospitality» shaped in Law

Abstract

Through its mythical clothing and its highly poetical formal expression, this Aeschylus’ tragedy allows to glimpse how the ancient homeric xenía, of an originary private character, became a political institution of the city-state regulating by law the access and eventual integration of foreigners. This regulation shows itself both in the political, legal and procedural aspects.

At a more general level, this tragedy allows to look at the Athenian politics about the integration of foreigners along the first half of the 5th century b.C.