![]() 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). Instead, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge his siblings and led them in a war against their father and the other Titans. Immediately after their birth, Cronus swallowed all his children (Hestia was the first who was swallowed) except the last and youngest, Zeus, who was saved by Rhea. She is the eldest daughter of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Demeter, Hades, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus. Hestia is a goddess of the first Olympian generation. Hestia holding a branch of a chaste-tree, red-figure kylix, attributed to Oltos, Tarquinia National Museum. ![]() Hestia's naming thus makes her a personification of the hearth and its fire, a symbol of society and family, also denoting authority and kingship. Likewise, the hearth of the later Greek prytaneum was the community and government's ritual and secular focus. The Mycenaean great hall ( megaron), like Homer's hall of Odysseus at Ithaca, had a central hearth. Burkert states that an "early form of the temple is the hearth house the early temples at Dreros and Prinias on Crete are of this type as indeed is the temple of Apollo at Delphi which always had its inner hestia". It thus refers to the oikos: domestic life, home, household, house, or family. Hestia's name means "hearth, fireplace, altar", This stems from the PIE root *wes, "burn" (ultimately from *h₂wes- "dwell, pass the night, stay"). The goddess Vesta is her Roman equivalent. Whenever a new colony was established, a flame from Hestia's public hearth in the mother city would be carried to the new settlement. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum functioned as her official sanctuary. Greek custom required that as the goddess of sacrificial fire, Hestia should receive the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. Like Athena and Artemis, Hestia elected to never marry and remain an eternal virgin goddess instead, forever tending to the hearth of Olympus.ĭespite her limited mythology, Hestia remained a very important goddess in ancient Greek society. After the establishment of the new order and in spite of her status, Hestia withdraws from prominence in mythology, with few and sparse appearances in tales. Cronus and the rest of the Titans were cast down, and Hestia then became one of the Olympian gods, the new rulers of the cosmos, alongside her brothers and sisters. ![]() Īccording to ancient Greek tradition, Hestia was along with four of her five siblings devoured by her own father Cronus as an infant due to his fear of being overthrown by one of his offspring, and was only freed when her youngest brother Zeus forced their father to disgorge the children he had eaten. In myth, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and one of the Twelve Olympians. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hestia ( / ˈ h ɛ s t i ə, ˈ h ɛ s tʃ ə/ Greek: Ἑστία, meaning "hearth" or "fireside") is the virgin goddess of the hearth, the right ordering of domesticity, the family, the home, and the state. Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus Chiron ( half)
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