14 Facts About Hestia

1.

Greek custom required that as the goddess of sacrificial fire, Hestia should receive the first offering at every sacrifice in the household.

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2.

Hestia's name means "hearth, fireplace, altar", This stems from the PIE root *wes, "burn".

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3.

Hestia's naming thus makes her a personification of the hearth and its fire, a symbol of society and family, denoting authority and kingship.

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4.

Worship of Hestia was centered around the hearth, both domestic and civic.

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5.

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.

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6.

Hestia offered sanctuary from persecution to those who showed her respect and would punish those who offended her.

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7.

Xenophon's Hellenica mentions fighting around and within Olympia's temple of Hestia, a building separate from the city's council hall and adjoining theatre: A temple to Hestia was in Andros.

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8.

Homeric Hymn 24, To Hestia, is an invocation of five lines, alluding to her role as an attendant to Apollo:.

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9.

Hestia tapestry is a Byzantine tapestry, made in Egypt during the 6th century AD.

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10.

Hestia is the eldest daughter of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Demeter, Hades, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus.

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11.

Burkert remarks that "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".

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12.

Hestia's 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, though this was not universal among the Greeks.

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13.

Hestia is identified with the hearth as a physical object, and the abstractions of community and domesticity, in contrast to the fire of the forge employed in blacksmithing and metalworking, the province of the god Hephaestus.

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14.

Hestia sits on a plain wooden throne with a white woolen cushion and, Robert Graves declares, "did not trouble to choose an emblem for herself".

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