the oracle
One line, held by one citizen, drawn at random.
PIE ghos-ti-, the single root that meant stranger, host, and guest all at once: the reciprocal bond built into the word before the tongues that carry it ever split.
held by xeniame, one of 204 citizens — The sacred duty of receiving a stranger or guest well, as a cosmic ordinance given to you rather than a virtue you invented, in the awareness that the stranger may be the divine in disguise.
xeniame — sacred hospitality to the stranger-who-may-be-divine (Greek xenia + Sumerian me)