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Plate 1 A veiled goddess beside a hearth fire

Hestia

The Greek goddess of the hearth and its fire, eldest of the children of Cronos, who chose never to marry. She has almost no myths and few images: the fire of each home and town hall was hers, and she was given the first offering at every feast.

Greek gods and their symbols. Also called hestia hearth, hestia symbol, hestia symbols, symbol of hestia.

Meaning

Hestia (HES-tee-uh, as Dictionary.com respells it) is the goddess of the hearth, whom the Romans knew as Vesta. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite tells her one story: both Poseidon and Apollo wanted to marry her, but she touched the head of Zeus and swore to remain a maiden all her days, so Zeus gave her “her place in the midst of the house” and the richest portion, and a share of honour in every temple. The twenty-ninth hymn says that without her people hold no banquet, because sweet wine is poured to Hestia “both first and last”. Pausanias saw her statue with one of Peace in the town hall of Athens, and found that at Olympia the Eleans sacrificed to Hestia first, before Zeus. Hellenic polytheism today is “a mainly domestic religion in which prayers and offerings are given in the home”, Religion News Service reported in 2017.

Origin and history

Hesiod names her first among the children Rhea bore to Cronos, before Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus. The Hymn to Aphrodite calls her the first-born of Cronos “and youngest too”, which Hugh Evelyn-White’s note explains: Cronos swallowed his children as they were born, and Hestia, the first swallowed, was the last he brought up again.

Plato’s Phaedrus pictures the gods riding out across the heavens behind Zeus in eleven companies while “Hestia alone remains in the house of the gods”. On earth she lived in the hearth itself. In the town hall at Olympia, Pausanias says, the hearth was made of ash and fire burned on it every day and every night; its ashes were carried to the great altar of Zeus. He also saw her among the gods worked in gold on the base of the statue of Zeus at Olympia, between Hermes and Aphrodite, and a group of Amphitrite, Poseidon and Hestia made by Glaucus of Argos. The Homeric Hymns pair her with Hermes as gods of the house, and another short hymn has her tending Apollo’s temple at Delphi “with soft oil dripping ever from your locks”.

Why there are so few pictures of her

The goddess was the fire, and that left artists little to show. Ovid, writing of the Roman Vesta in the Fasti, says she should be understood as nothing other than living flame (“Nec tu aliud Vestam, quam vivam intellige flammam”). He thought for a long time that her domed temple in Rome held images of her, then learned there were none: an undying fire is kept there, and “Effigiem nullam Vesta, nec ignis, habent”, neither Vesta nor fire has any likeness. Greek images of her are scarce for the same reason. A seated goddess on the Parthenon’s east pediment, turning towards the birth of Athena, is usually identified as Hestia, the Acropolis Museum says; her head and arms are lost.

See also

Hermes, Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena.

Sources

  1. Hestia (Dictionary.com), Dictionary.com, “Hestia” (Random House Unabridged Dictionary and The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy), Dictionary.com, entry and pronunciation
  2. Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica (tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White), Hesiod, Theogony; Shield of Heracles; The Homeric Hymns, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb Classical Library, 1914), Project Gutenberg eBook #348, Project Gutenberg, Homeric Hymn V, ll. 21–32, with Evelyn-White’s note; Homeric Hymns XXIV and XXIX; Theogony, ll. 453–491
  3. Plato, Phaedrus 247a (tr. H. N. Fowler), Plato, Phaedrus 247a, translated by Harold N. Fowler (Loeb, 1925), Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Plato, Phaedrus 247a
  4. Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.18.3 (tr. W. H. S. Jones), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (Loeb, 1918), 1.18.3, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Paus. 1.18.3
  5. Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.14.4 (tr. W. H. S. Jones), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (Loeb, 1918), 5.14.4, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Paus. 5.14.4
  6. Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.15.9 (tr. W. H. S. Jones), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (Loeb, 1918), 5.15.9, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Paus. 5.15.9
  7. Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.11.8 (tr. W. H. S. Jones), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (Loeb, 1918), 5.11.8, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Paus. 5.11.8
  8. Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.26.2 (tr. W. H. S. Jones), Pausanias, Description of Greece, translated by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod (Loeb, 1918), 5.26.2, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Paus. 5.26.2
  9. Ovid, Fasti (Latin text, ed. Thomas Keightley), Ovid, Fasti, Latin text with notes by Thomas Keightley, Project Gutenberg eBook #8738, Project Gutenberg, Fasti VI, ll. 291–298
  10. Parthenon, east pediment, Hestia (Acropolis Museum), Acropolis Museum, “Parthenon. East pediment. Hestia. Replica”, collection entry, Acropolis Museum, description
  11. Spiritual seekers reconstruct ancient Greek polytheism (Religion News Service, 7 March 2017), Religion News Service, “Spiritual seekers reconstruct ancient Greek polytheism”, 7 March 2017, Religion News Service, article text

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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 8, 2026. How we research

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