Fustel de Coulanges explains that in the city of antiquity a stranger possessed no status in law nor in religion and that it was necessary for him to have a patron in order to gain the protection of the local laws and Gods. To offend the newcomer was to offend his patron since by the code of hospitality the two were allied in this way. ‘L’étranger se rattachait par cet intermédiaire à la cité’.4 The provisions of Arab hospitality are not dissimilar in this respect; indeed, in many countries similar customs are found.
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Julián Pitt-Rivers (2012) studied this question.