A law that protects the stranger and the suppliant under the guardianship of Zeus. By the rule, the guest is fed and bathed before anyone asks who he is, receives gifts, and, if he asks, an escort back to his homeland. The poem measures each people by it: the Cyclops devours guests, the suitors eat another man's house without paying, and the swineherd Eumaeus takes in a beggar out of fear of Zeus, without demanding that he be believed.
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