Hestia

In the Ancient Greek religion, Hestia (/ˈhɛstiə, ˈhɛstʃə/; Greek: Ἑστία, "hearth" or
"fireside") is the virgin goddess of the hearth, the right ordering of domesticity, the family, the Hestia
home, and the state. In Greek mythology, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Goddess of the hearth, home,
Rhea.[1] domesticity, virginity, family, and
the state
Customarily, in Greek culture, Hestia received the first offering at every sacrifice in the
Member of the Twelve Olympians
household. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum functioned as her official
sanctuary, and, when a new colony was established, a flame from Hestia's public hearth in
the mother city would be carried to the new settlement. The goddess Vesta is her Roman
equivalent.

Contents
Etymology
Worship
Temples
Hymns, odes and oaths
Hestia tapestry
Mythology
Life
Duty
Status and attributes
Equivalency
Genealogy
See also
The Giustiniani Hestia
Notes
Abode Delphi or Mount
References
Olympus
External links
Planet 46 Hestia, 4 Vesta
Symbol The hearth and its fire
Etymology Personal information
Parents Cronus and Rhea
Hestia's name means "hearth, fireplace, altar",[2] This stems from the PIE root *wes, "burn"
Siblings Chiron, Demeter,
(ult. from *h₂wes- "dwell, pass the night, stay").[3][4][5] It thus refers to the oikos, the
domestic, home, household, house, or family. "An early form of the temple is the hearth Hera, Hades,
house; the early temples at Dreros and Prinias on Crete are of this type as indeed is the temple Poseidon, Zeus
of Apollo at Delphi which always had its inner hestia".[6] The Mycenaean great hall Roman Vesta
(megaron), like Homer's hall of Odysseus at Ithaca, had a central hearth. Likewise, the hearth equivalent
of the later Greek prytaneum was the community and government's ritual and secular focus.

Worship
The worship of Hestia was centered around the hearth. The hearth was essential for warmth, food preparation, and the completion of
sacrificial offerings to deities. It was a common practice that she was respected by being offered the first and last libations of wine at
feasts.[7] Pausanias writes that the Eleans sacrifice first to Hestia and then to other gods.[8] Xenophon in Cyropaedia wrote that Cyrus
the Great sacrificed first to Hestia, then to sovereign Zeus, and then to any other god that the magi suggested.[9]

The accidental or negligent extinction of a domestic hearth-fire represented a failure of domestic and religious care for the family;
failure to maintain Hestia's public fire in her temple or shrine was a breach of duty to the broad community. A hearth fire might be
deliberately, ritually extinguished at need, and its lighting or relighting should be accompanied by rituals of completion, purification,
and renewal, comparable with the rituals and connotations of an eternal flame and of sanctuary lamps. At the level of the polis, the
hearths of Greek colonies and their mother cities were allied and sanctified through Hestia's cult. Athenaeus, in the Deipnosophistae,
 writes that in Naucratis the people dined in the
Prytaneion on the natal day of Hestia Prytanitis
(Ancient Greek: Ἑστίας Πρυτανίτιδος).[10]

Responsibility for Hestia's domestic cult usually fell

Dedication of an altar to Hestia in
Karneades, Taormina (undated). The
inscription states: "Beside these
walls of Serapis the warden of the
temple Karneades of Barke, son of
Eukritos, o foreigner, and his spouse
Pythias and his daughter Eraso
placed to Hestia a pure altar, as a
reward for this, o you that governs
the marvelous dwellings of Zeus,
grant to them a lovely
auspiciousness of life."
further evidenced by her very numerous privately funded dedications at civic sites, and the administrative rather than religious titles
used by the lay-officials involved in her civic cults.[12]
to the leading woman of the household, although
sometimes to a man. Hestia's rites at the hearths of
public buildings were usually led by holders of civil
office; Dionysius of Halicarnassus testifies that the
Part of a marble altar with inscription
prytaneum of a Greek state or community was
ESTIAS ISTHMIAS, 5th – 4th
sacred to Hestia, who was served by the most
[11] century BC. The altar was dedicated
powerful state officials. However, evidence of to the goddess Hestia with the
her priesthood is extremely rare. Most stems from the epithet Isthmia. Archaeological
early Roman Imperial era, when Sparta offers several Museum of Paros.
examples of women with the priestly title "Hestia";
Chalcis offers one, a daughter of the local elite.
Existing civic cults to Hestia probably served as stock for the grafting of Greek ruler-cult to
the Roman emperor, the Imperial family, and Rome itself. In Athens, a small seating section
at the Theatre of Dionysus was reserved for priesthoods of "Hestia on the Acropolis, Livia,
and Julia", and of "Hestia Romain" ("Roman Hestia", thus "The Roman Hearth" or Vesta).
At Delos, a priest served "Hestia the Athenian Demos" (the people or state) "and Roma". An
eminent citizen of Carian Stratoniceia described himself as a priest of Hestia and several other
deities, as well as holding several civic offices. Hestia's political and civic functions are

Temples

Every private and public hearth or prytaneum was regarded as a sanctuary of the goddess, and a portion of the sacrifices, to whatever
divinity they were offered, belonged to her. A statue of her reportedly existed in the Athenian Prytaneum:

"Hard by is the Prytaneon (Prytaneum) [the town-hall of Athens] . . . and figures are placed off the goddesses
Eirene and Hestia."[13]

However, there were very few temples dedicated to Hestia. Pausanias mention only two, in Ermioni and in Sparta:

"[At Hermione in Argolis :] Passing into the sanctuary of Hestia, we see no image, but only an altar and they
sacrifice to Hestia upon it.[14] [...] The Lacedaemonians (Lacedaemonians) also have a sanctuary of Hestia [at
Sparta]."[15]

Xenophon at Hellenica mention a temple of Hestia at the Olympia:

"When, however, they had pursued the enemy to the space between the senate-house and the temple of Hestia
and the theatre which adjoins these buildings, although they fought no less stoutly and kept pushing the enemy
towards the altar, still, since they were pelted from the roofs of the porticoes, the senate-house, and the great
temple, and were themselves fighting on the ground-level, some of the Eleans were killed, among them Stratolas
himself, the leader of the Three Hundred."[16]

Hymns, odes and oaths

Homeric Hymn 24, To Hestia, is a brief invocation of five lines:

Hestia, you who tend the holy house of the lord Apollo, the Far-shooter at goodly Pytho, with soft oil dripping ever from
your locks, come now into this house, come, having one mind with Zeus the all-wise: draw near, and withal bestow
grace upon my song.[17]

Homeric Hymn 29, To Hestia, is another invocation for the goddess and to Hermes:

Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deathless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting
abode and highest honor: glorious is your portion and your right. For without you mortals hold no banquet, -- where one
does not duly pour sweet wine in offering to Hestia both first and last. And you, slayer of Argus (Hermes's epithet), Son
 of Zeus and Maia, the messenger of the blessed gods, bearer of the goldenrod, the giver of good, be favorable and help
us, you and Hestia, the worshipful and dear. Come and dwell in this glorious house in friendship together; for you two,
well knowing the noble actions of men, aid on their wisdom and their strength. Hail, Daughter of Cronos, and you also,
Hermes, bearer of the goldenrod! Now I will remember you and another song also.[18]

There is also an Orphic Hymn dedicated to Hestia.[19] And, the 11th Nemean ode of Pindar writes about Hestia.[20][21]

Dedication with military oaths, found at Acharnai, from the Sanctuary of Ares and Athena Areia, dated 350-325 BC. In one of these
oaths, the Hestia is mentioned.[22][23]

Hestia tapestry

The Hestia tapestry is a Byzantine tapestry, made in Egypt during the 6th century AD.
It is a late representation of the goddess, whom it identifies in Greek as Hestia
Polyolbos; (Greek: Ἑστία Πολύολβος "Hestia full of Blessings"). Its history and
symbolism are discussed in Friedlander (1945).[24]

Mythology

Life

Hestia is a goddess of the first Olympian Hestia full of Blessings, Egypt, 6th century
generation. She is the eldest daughter of the tapestry (Dumbarton Oaks Collection)
Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Chiron,
Demeter, Hades, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus.
Immediately after their birth, Cronus swallowed all his children (Hestia was the first who was
swallowed) except the last and youngest, Zeus. Instead, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge his
siblings and led them in a war against their father and the other Titans.[25] As "first to be
devoured . . . and the last to be yielded up again", Hestia is thus both the eldest and youngest
daughter; this mythic inversion is found in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (700 BC).[26]
Throughout mythology, Hestia rejected the marriage suits of Poseidon and Apollo, and swore
herself to perpetual virginity. She thus rejected Aphrodite's values and becomes, to some extent,
her chaste, domestic complementary, or antithesis, since Aphrodite could not bend or ensnare her
heart.[27]

Duty

Zeus assigned Hestia a duty to feed and maintain the fires of the Olympian hearth with the fatty,
combustible portions of animal sacrifices to the gods.[28] Wherever food was cooked, or an
offering was burnt, she thus had her share of honor; also, in all the temples of the gods, she has a
share of honor. "Among all mortals she was chief of the goddesses".[27]

Statue of Hestia (Wellesley Status and attributes

College, Massachusetts, USA)
Hestia's Olympian status is equivocal to her status among men. However, at Athens, "in Plato's
time," notes Kenneth Dorter[29] "there was a discrepancy in the list of the twelve chief gods, as
to whether Hestia or Dionysus was included with the other eleven. The altar to them at the agora, for example, included Hestia, but
the east frieze of the Parthenon had Dionysus instead." Hestia's omission from some lists of the Twelve Olympians is sometimes taken
as an illustration of her passive, non-confrontational nature – by giving her Olympian seat to the more forceful Dionysus she prevents
heavenly conflict – but no ancient source or myth describes such a surrender or removal.[30] "Since the hearth is immovable Hestia is
unable to take part even in the procession of the gods, let alone the other antics of the Olympians", Burkert remarks.[31] Her
mythographic status as firstborn of Rhea and Cronus seems to justify the tradition in which a small offering is made to Hestia before
any sacrifice ("Hestia comes first").

There was a tradition where Hestia received a small offering before any sacrifice, however this was not universal among the Greeks.
In Odyssey 14, 432–436, the loyal swineherd Eumaeus begins the feast for his master Odysseus by plucking tufts from a boar's head
and throwing them into the fire with a prayer addressed to all the powers, then carved the meat into seven equal portions: "one he set
aside, lifting up a prayer to the forest nymphs and Hermes, Maia's son."[32]
Hestia is identified with the hearth as a physical object, and the abstractions of community and domesticity, but portrayals of her are
rare and seldom secure.[33] In classical Greek art, she is occasionally depicted as a woman, simply and modestly cloaked in a head
veil. At times, it shows her with a staff in hand or by a large fire. She sits on a plain wooden throne with a white woolen cushion and
did not trouble to choose an emblem for herself.[1] Her associated sacrificial animal was a domestic pig.[34]

Equivalency

Her Roman equivalent is Vesta;[35] Vesta has similar functions as a divine personification of
Rome's "public", domestic, and colonial hearths, binding Romans together within a form of
extended family. The similarity of names between Hestia and Vesta is, however, misleading:
"The relationship hestia-histie-Vesta cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European
linguistics; borrowings from a third language must also be involved," according to Walter
Burkert.[36] Other mythology and religion show similar goddesses or figures. Herodotus
equates the Scythian Tabiti with Hestia. And, the Zoroastrian holy fire (atar) of the Sasanians
in Adhur Gushnasp was also equated with Hestia by Procopius.[37]

Genealogy

Votive relief dedicated to Vesta.

From Rome, Italy. 140-150 CE.
Marble. Altes Museum, Berlin,
Germany. The inscription mentions
that a man and his wife dedicated
this statue to the goddess Vesta.

Hestia's family tree [38]

Uranus Gaia

Uranus' genitals Cronus Rhea

Zeus Hera Poseidon Hades Demeter HESTIA

a [39]
b [40]

Ares Hephaestus

Metis

Athena[41]

Leto

Apollo Artemis

Maia

Hermes

Semele
 Dionysus

Dione

a [42] b [43]

Aphrodite

See also
46 Hestia, asteroid named after the goddess
Sacred fire of Vesta
Vitex agnus-castus
Zalmoxis

Notes
1. Graves, Robert. "The Palace of Olympus". Greek Gods and Heroes (https://archive.org/details/greekgodsheroes00gr
av).
2. R. S. P. Beekes. Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 471.
3. Calvert Watkins, "wes-", in: The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
Boston 1985 (web archive (https://web.archive.org/web/20080626081035/http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE579.ht
ml)).
4. Mallory, J. P.; Adams, D. Q. (2006-08-24). The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-
European World (https://books.google.com/books?id=iNUSDAAAQBAJ). OUP Oxford. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-19-
928791-8.
5. West, M. L. (2007-05-24). Indo-European Poetry and Myth (https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC).
OUP Oxford. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-19-928075-9.
6. Burkert, p. 61.
7. Homeric Hymn 29, tr. Evelyn-White, Hugh G. (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1
999.01.0138%3Ahymn%3D29:Perseus)
8. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 5.14.4 (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg
001.perseus-grc1:5.14.4)
9. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, 7.5.57 (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg007.perse
us-grc1:7.5.57)
10. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 4.149 (http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/erudits/athenee/livre4gr.htm#149a)
11. Kajava, p. 5.
12. Kajava, pp. 1, 3, 5.
13. Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 18. 3 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.)
14. Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 35. 1
15. Pausanias, Description of Greece 3. 11. 11
16. Xenophon, Hellenika, 7.4.31 (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg001.perseus
-grc1:7.4.31)
17. Hymn 24 to Hestia (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0138%3ahymn%3
d24).
18. Homeric Hymn to Hestia 29.1 (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0137%
3Ahymn%3D29%3Acard%3D1) This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
19. THE ORPHIC HYMN TO HESTIA (http://www.hellenicgods.org/orphic-hymn-to-hestia)
20. Pindar, Nemean Odes, 11.1, EN (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0033.tlg003.pers
eus-eng1:11)
21. Pindar, Nemean Odes, 11.1, GR (https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Νεμεόνικοι#ΑΡΙΣΤΑΓΟΡᾼ_ΤΕΝΕΔΙῼ_ΠΡΥΤΑΝΕΙ)
22. topostext, 2.1 (https://topostext.org/work/649#2.1)"...Witnesses the gods Aglauros, Hestia, Enyo, Enyalios, Ares and
Athena Areia, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone, Herakles, and the boundaries of my fatherland, wheat, barley, vines,
olives, figs."
23. Attic Inscriptions Online, 17 (https://www.atticinscriptions.com/inscription/RO/88)
24. Friedlander, Paul. (1945). Documents of Dying Paganism. University of California Press.
25. Hesiod, Theogony 453 ff. (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:453-491)
26. Kereny, p. 91
27. "Homeric Hymns, To Aphrodite" (http://www.theoi.com/Text/HomericHymns3.html).
28. Kajava, pp. 1–2.
29. Dorter, K. (1971). Imagery and Philosophy in Plato's Phaedrus. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 9 (3), 279–288
(July 1971).
30. Kereny, p. 92: "There is no story of Hestia's ever having taken a husband or ever having been removed from her
fixed abode."
31. Burkert, p. 170.
32. Robert Fagles' translation
33. Kajava, p. 2.
34. , Bremmer, Jan. N., in Ogden, D. (Ed). (2010). A Companion to Greek Religion, Wiley-Blackwell, Google Books
preview, p. 134 (https://books.google.com/books?id=yOQtHNJJU9UC&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=%22+customar
y+recipient+of+a+preliminary,+usually+cheap,+sacrifice%22&source=bl&ots=hd5eMvPrAG&sig=iUdQ31aBlBEPU
YOy9AmfEPdy0IE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CCt8T4__KsSG8gPEhYiaDQ&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22%20
customary%20recipient%20of%20a%20preliminary%2C%20usually%20cheap%2C%20sacrifice%22&f=false),
ISBN 978-1-4443-3417-3.
35. Hughes, James. (1995). Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia, p. 215. Larousse/The Book People.
36. Burkert, p. 415, 3.3.1 n. 2.
37. Procopius, History of the Wars, Book II, XXIV
38. This chart is based upon Hesiod's Theogony, unless otherwise noted.
39. According to Homer, Iliad 1.570–579 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:
1.570), 14.338 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:14.338), Odyssey
8.312 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg002.perseus-eng1:8.312), Hephaestus was
apparently the son of Hera and Zeus, see Gantz, p. 74.
40. According to Hesiod, Theogony 927–929 (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+927),
Hephaestus was produced by Hera alone, with no father, see Gantz, p. 74.
41. According to Hesiod, Theogony 886–890 (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+886), of Zeus'
children by his seven wives, Athena was the first to be conceived, but the last to be born; Zeus impregnated Metis
then swallowed her, later Zeus himself gave birth to Athena "from his head", see Gantz, pp. 51–52, 83–84.
42. According to Hesiod, Theogony 183–200 (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+183), Aphrodite
was born from Uranus' severed genitals, see Gantz, pp. 99–100.
43. According to Homer, Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus (Iliad 3.374 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekL
it:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.374), 20.105 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perse
us-eng1:20.105); Odyssey 8.308 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg002.perseus-eng1:8.30
8), 320 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg002.perseus-eng1:8.320)) and Dione (Iliad
5.370–71 (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng1:5.370)), see Gantz, pp. 99–
100.

References
Burkert, Walter. (1985). Greek Religion. Harvard University Press.
"Cave of Hestia". Legendary Journeys. Retrieved 2021-05-22
Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996,
Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White,
Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the
Perseus Digital Library (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130%3Acar
d%3D1).
"Hestia". Riordan Wiki. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts.,
Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library (http
s://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D1).
Homer; The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge,
Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus
Digital Library (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D1%
3Acard%3D1).
Kajava, Mika. "Hestia Hearth, Goddess, and Cult", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 102 (2004): 1–20.
Kerenyi, Karl. (1951). The Gods of the Greeks.
Stephenson, Hamish. (1985). The Gods of the Romans and Greeks. NYT Writer.
Friedlander, Paul. (1945). Documents of Dying Paganism. University of California Press.
External links
Carlos Parada, "Hestia" (http://www.maicar.com/GML/Hestia.html)
Socrates to Hermogenes about Hestia - Estia - Esti (Eesti) - Osia (http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/cratylus.ht
m)
Hestia "Polyolbos" (https://web.archive.org/web/20080808121259/http://www.doaks.org/ByzImages/BT1.html)
Dumbarton Oaks site.
HESTIA: THE EPITHETS (http://www.hellenicgods.org/hestia-the-epithets)

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