A formal posture of total surrender. The stranger walks in past the threshold, kneels, and wraps his arms around the host’s knees. He cannot fight from that position and the gesture admits it. Once a man clasps your knees you cannot harm him without breaking the deepest law of the household. Odysseus does it in Phaeacia — Athena shrouds him in mist, he walks straight through Alcinous’s hall, kneels at Arete’s knees, and only then asks for help. The queen, not the king. He knows where the real authority sits. The position is humility used as leverage, the lowest body language in the room making the largest demand on the people standing.
Suppliancy / Clasping the Knees
A stranger throws himself at the host's knees. Hands on the legs, no weapon, no pretense. Refuse him and you have refused the gods.