40 Fun Facts About Hestia

Which animal's cry woke Hestia's sleeping Roman counterpart before a lustful god could reach her?

A donkey brayed just in time, and the other gods drove the intruder off. Romans later crowned donkeys with garlands of flowers and bits of bread at the goddess's June festival.

Hestia was her father's first-born child, yet a Homeric hymn also calls her what?

The youngest fits because the swallowed children came back out in reverse order, with Hestia last. A Homeric hymn calls her first-born and last-born at once.

Which Roman goddess, whose temple fire was guarded by six priestesses, was Hestia's counterpart?

Vesta kept the sacred fire of Rome, and her priestesses were whipped if it ever went out. She was rarely shown in human form: the fire in her temple stood for her instead.

Which god takes Hestia's place among the twelve gods on the Parthenon frieze?

Dionysus sits with the twelve on the Parthenon's east frieze, where Hestia is missing. Other ancient lists kept her and left him out, so the twelve were never settled.

A fire on Hestia's altar burned throughout which ancient Greek festival?

The Olympic Games kept a fire alight on Hestia's altar for as long as the festival lasted. The modern version of that flame first appeared at Amsterdam in 1928.

What fate awaited a Roman priestess of Hestia's counterpart who broke her vow of chastity?

Buried alive was the sentence, because a priestess's blood could not be spilled. She was sealed in an underground chamber near Rome's Colline Gate, so the city never struck the blow.

Which everyday English word is simply the Latin for hearth, the fireplace Hestia watched over?

Focus meant hearth in Latin, the centre of a Roman home. Science later borrowed the word for the point where rays of light or heat meet.

Which Titan swallowed the newborn Hestia, fearing that one of his own children would overthrow him?

Cronus swallowed Hestia before any of her brothers and sisters, so she spent longer inside him than the rest. A stone fed to him in place of his last child proved his undoing.

In Rick Riordan's novels, which demigod hero entrusts Pandora's jar of hope to Hestia?

Percy Jackson is offered the jar by Prometheus as a way to surrender, simply by letting hope out. He refuses and leaves it with the goddess of the hearth instead.

According to a Homeric hymn, what was poured to Hestia both first and last at every banquet?

Wine was poured to Hestia at the start and again at the end of a feast, so every meal opened and closed with her. The hymn says no mortal banquet could be held without it.

Which god, Hestia's own brother, asked to marry her and was firmly turned down?

Poseidon was one of two gods who sought Hestia's hand. She stubbornly refused them both and swore instead to stay a maiden all her days.

Hestia and Athena were two of the three goddesses who swore never to marry; who was the third?

Artemis, Athena and Hestia each kept the vow for good. Hestia made hers after two gods came courting, and it left her free to stay beside the hearth forever.

Hestia ruled the fire of the hearth, while the fire of the forge belonged to which god?

Hephaestus owned the working fire of the smithy, Hestia the fixed fire of home. Because a hearth cannot move, she takes almost no part in the adventures of the other gods.

One Homeric hymn asks Hestia to share a house in friendship with which other god?

Hermes and Hestia make a natural pair: she is the hearth that never moves, he the god who is always on the road. The hymn asks both to settle in the same home as friends.

Which Titaness, the mother of Hestia, tricked her husband with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes?

Rhea lost Hestia and four more babies to her husband's appetite before she fooled him with the stone. Only her last child, born in a cave on Crete, escaped being swallowed.

A Homeric hymn pictures Hestia tending the temple of which archer god, oil dripping from her hair?

Apollo was Hestia's nephew and also one of her rejected suitors. An undying fire burned on the inner hearth of his greatest temple, the setting the hymn gives her.

When Hestia does appear in classical Greek art, which item is she shown wearing on her head?

A veil marks Hestia out in vase painting, but pictures of her are rare. Her true image was the hearth fire, and at least one of her sanctuaries held an altar and no statue.

Greeks carried a flame from their city's hearth of Hestia abroad to light the first fire of what?

A new colony took its fire from the mother city, which kept the two hearths allied. Without Hestia's hearth, a settlement was not yet a true Greek city.

In the Iliad, which goddess claims to be the eldest daughter, a title the Theogony gives Hestia?

Hera makes the claim in the Iliad, so the two great early poems of Greece disagree. Ancient writers never settled the birth order of the six siblings.

Hestia swore her oath of lifelong maidenhood while touching which part of her brother Zeus?

His head was what she touched as she swore her great oath. Zeus gave her a high honour in place of marriage: the centre of every home and the richest share of each sacrifice.

Hestia's public hearth burned in which civic hall, where Greek officials hosted foreign envoys?

The prytaneum was a city's town hall, and the fire on its hearth was kept alight continuously. Guests of the state and visiting ambassadors were received there, beside Hestia's fire.

In a tale told by Plutarch, Hestia's warning in a king's dream saved the mother of which twins?

Romulus and Remus were born to a handmaid in this version, after Hestia forbade King Tarchetius to put her to death. The goddess of the Greek hearth thus saves the founders of Rome.

Which Greek historian equated Hestia with Tabiti, the fire goddess who headed the Scythian pantheon?

Herodotus placed Tabiti first among the Scythian gods and gave her Hestia's name. Her first place there echoes the Greek custom of opening every sacrifice with the hearth goddess.

In which philosopher's Phaedrus does Hestia alone stay home while the other gods ride in procession?

Plato has the gods' chariots climb to the high ridge of heaven behind Zeus, with Hestia the only one left indoors. A hearth cannot travel, so neither can she.

According to Diodorus Siculus, Hestia won a shrine in almost every home by discovering which craft?

Building houses was Hestia's gift to humankind in this account, a fitting invention for the goddess of home. In thanks, he says, practically everyone set up her shrine indoors.

Which early Greek poet's Theogony names Hestia as the firstborn child of her Titan parents?

Hesiod lists the family in birth order, with Hestia at the front and the future king of the gods at the back. His Theogony is the main early Greek account of where the gods came from.

Hestia is usually missing from ancient scenes of the gods' battle with which earth-born enemies?

The Giants were fought by nearly every god in Greek art, but someone had to keep the home fires burning. One worn inscription on a treasury frieze may put her in the fight after all.

Rome's temple to Hestia's counterpart copied an ancient hut and so had which unusual shape?

Round walls recalled the primitive huts of early Rome. Every temple of the goddess kept that shape, with its entrance facing east, while most Roman temples were rectangular.

After Plataea, Greek cities relit their fires from the common hearth, or hestia, at which sanctuary?

Delphi was known as the hearth of Greece. Once the Persian invaders were beaten, the cities put out their own fires and fetched new fire from its ever-burning hearth.

In the anime DanMachi, which young adventurer starts out as the only member of Hestia's Familia?

Bell Cranel is a 14-year-old rookie when the story opens, and Hestia's whole Familia. The full title asks whether it is wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon.

In which hit webcomic by Rachel Smythe does Hestia found The Goddesses of Eternal Maidenhood?

Lore Olympus makes Hestia the founder of a club for goddesses sworn to stay unmarried. The comic is a modern retelling of the romance of Hades and Persephone.

In the 6th-century Hestia Tapestry, the goddess hands out her blessings in the form of which fruit?

Pomegranates also make up her headdress and her earrings. The wool hanging names her Hestia Polyolbos, 'full of blessings', a rare image of the goddess from the Byzantine era.

The asteroid 46 Hestia was discovered at the Radcliffe Observatory in which English university city?

Oxford was home to the Radcliffe Observatory. Discoverer Norman Pogson let the telescope's former owner pick the name, which caused trouble in Greek, where another asteroid already went by Hestia.

Followers of which Greek thinker pictured a central fire as the hestia, or hearth, of the universe?

Pythagoras's follower Philolaus had the Earth and planets circle this unseen fire. The idea took Earth out of the centre of the cosmos about two thousand years before Copernicus.

According to Xenophon, which Persian king sacrificed to Hestia first, ahead of even Zeus?

Cyrus the Great offers to Hestia, then Zeus, then any god his priests suggest, in Xenophon's Cyropaedia. Greek writers more than once gave her name to the sacred fire of other peoples.

Which Christian emperor's edicts against pagan worship put out the fire of Hestia's Roman counterpart?

Theodosius I ended a cult that had lasted for more than a thousand years. The fire went out in the early 390s, and its priestesses were disbanded.

Which Athenian, condemned by his fellow Thirty Tyrants, leapt onto Hestia's hearth in the council chamber?

Theramenes hoped that being dragged from the goddess's hearth would expose the impiety of his killers. He was hauled away all the same and made to drink hemlock.

Hestia Boulaia, guardian of the council, had a temple in which city famed for a Wonder of the World?

Ephesus worshipped her as Hestia Boulaia, 'of the council'. It shows her political side: she watched over a city's government as well as its family homes.

In the town hall of Athens, Hestia's statue stood beside that of which goddess of peace?

Eirene, known to the Romans as Pax, shared the hall with Hestia. Peace and the hearth made a fitting pair at the centre of Athenian public life.

A Homeric hymn says only Hestia, Athena and one other goddess could resist the power of which deity?

Aphrodite could sway every god and mortal but three, the hymn says. It singles out Hestia as a pure maiden who cares nothing for love's works.