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The general tourist could chose from four classes of hotel, from the hospitium—which not only offered bedrooms and a full dinner service, but also had rooms that could be hired out for private functions—down to the stabula, the horse equivalent of a truck stop.

“Hospice” stems from the Latin word hospitium, meaning “hospitality.”

During the Middle Ages religious orders had employed the term - from the Latin "hospitium", meaning a lodging or inn - for shelters they established at important crossroads on the way to religious shrines.

Plautus calls an entertainment free from these despicable guests, Hospitium sine muscis.

Public hospitium seems also to have existed among the Italian races; but the circumstances of their history prevented it from becoming so important as in Greece.