It’s possible to climb the greasy pole. Apparently, climbing a greasy pole is both an actual contest and a metaphor for how hard it can be to get to the top of a company or to get elected to the top political office. It’s also been used to describe moving up in ancient Roman society. If you wanted to up your status, there were three major categories: (1) money; (2) importance; and (3) reputation. It’s all well and good to have money, but if you walk around with “diamonds on the soles of your shoes,” people will get mad. You had to be rich, influential, and it certainly helped to be a paragon of Roman virtues. Such people used their wealth to build temples or bathhouses, to pave streets, or to fund a gladiator contest. “Gaius Maximus Presents: The Hometown Games;” this Saturday only.
Romans were impressed with people who were courageous, loyal, disciplined, and offered amazing hospitality. Here’s what ideal Greco-Roman hospitality looked like: Someone knocks at your door. You’re not allowed to ask them their name, where they’re from, or where they’re going. You welcome them inside, immediately giving them water to wash their feet and show them to their room so that they can get settled. As soon as they entered your house, you made an implicit vow to keep them safe while they’re in your care. But, here and now, you organize a lavish feast, complete with wine and entertainment. It’s only after the feast is over that you can find out more about them. They sleep. You give them gifts, enough food and supplies to make a day’s journey, and a guide to keep them safe until they leave your region. You treat them as an equal no matter who they are. You make sure other people know about your largesse and you can almost feel your social status climbing. Folks who weren’t wealthy or high status extended this virtue as they were able. They say you have to dress for the job you want, right?
Ok, I don’t know about you, but this all seems puzzling. The good person is the one who sponsors a gladiatorial contest (a free, very violent show) AND ALSO down-home hospitality. What?! It turns out that hospitality was a virtue that was shared across cultures, religions, and ethnicities in the lands around the Mediterranean. In the Old Testament, we find the story of Abraham visited by three strangers. A feast is prepared and, lo and behold, they were angels all along! There’s a story in ancient Greek mythology that Zeus and Hermes once visited a town disguised as humans. Every door that they knocked on was locked and barred except for one. When it was revealed that the gods were among them, the one household was spared, but bad things awaited the rest of the town.
So, why was hospitality important to the Greco-Romans? Well, if you gave a good welcome to a good stranger, it might enrich the community or even earn a blessing from the gods! But if a dangerous stranger is not welcomed, they might get angry and take revenge. That’s scary whether it’s a god or goddess OR a person with an army to back them up. Welcoming the stranger was a risk that you took for the community. The better the welcome, the better chance that any danger would be smoothed away.
Reference:
-https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8086&context=doctoral
