Hestia
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40 free Hestia trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Hestia is the Greek goddess almost everyone has heard of and almost no one can tell a story about. She guards the hearth, the fire at the centre of every home and every city, and she never leaves it. That is why the fun facts about her are so good: she was honoured ahead of the other gods at a sacrifice, yet she barely appears in the myths. This quiz covers her strange birth, her suitors and the vow that kept her single, the sacred fires that burned in her name, her Roman counterpart and its priestesses, and the places she turns up today, from an asteroid to novels, a webcomic and an anime. It is written for mythology fans, students working on a Greek gods project, and quiz hosts who want a themed set. The questions run from classroom favourites to a few deep cuts, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which animal's cry woke Hestia's sleeping Roman counterpart before a lustful god could reach her?
A donkey
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.
Q 02Hestia was her father's first-born child, yet a Homeric hymn also calls her what?
The youngest
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.
Q 03Which Roman goddess, whose temple fire was guarded by six priestesses, was Hestia's counterpart?
Vesta
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.
Q 04Which god takes Hestia's place among the twelve gods on the Parthenon frieze?
Dionysus
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.
Q 05A fire on Hestia's altar burned throughout which ancient Greek festival?
The Olympic Games
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.
Q 06What fate awaited a Roman priestess of Hestia's counterpart who broke her vow of chastity?
Buried alive
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.
Q 07Which everyday English word is simply the Latin for hearth, the fireplace Hestia watched over?
Focus
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.
Q 08Which Titan swallowed the newborn Hestia, fearing that one of his own children would overthrow him?
Cronus
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.
Q 09In Rick Riordan's novels, which demigod hero entrusts Pandora's jar of hope to Hestia?
Percy Jackson
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.
Q 10According to a Homeric hymn, what was poured to Hestia both first and last at every banquet?
Wine
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.
Q 11Which god, Hestia's own brother, asked to marry her and was firmly turned down?
Poseidon
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.
Q 12Hestia and Athena were two of the three goddesses who swore never to marry; who was the third?
Artemis
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.
Q 13Hestia ruled the fire of the hearth, while the fire of the forge belonged to which god?
Hephaestus
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.
Q 21Hestia's public hearth burned in which civic hall, where Greek officials hosted foreign envoys?
The prytaneum
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.
Q 22In a tale told by Plutarch, Hestia's warning in a king's dream saved the mother of which twins?
Romulus and Remus
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.
Q 23Which Greek historian equated Hestia with Tabiti, the fire goddess who headed the Scythian pantheon?
Herodotus
Q 14One Homeric hymn asks Hestia to share a house in friendship with which other god?
Hermes
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.
Q 15Which Titaness, the mother of Hestia, tricked her husband with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes?
Rhea
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.
Q 16A Homeric hymn pictures Hestia tending the temple of which archer god, oil dripping from her hair?
Apollo
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.
Q 17When Hestia does appear in classical Greek art, which item is she shown wearing on her head?
A veil
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.
Q 18Greeks carried a flame from their city's hearth of Hestia abroad to light the first fire of what?
A new colony
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.
Q 19In the Iliad, which goddess claims to be the eldest daughter, a title the Theogony gives Hestia?
Hera
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.
Q 20Hestia swore her oath of lifelong maidenhood while touching which part of her brother Zeus?
His head
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.
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.
Q 24In which philosopher's Phaedrus does Hestia alone stay home while the other gods ride in procession?
Plato
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.
Q 25According to Diodorus Siculus, Hestia won a shrine in almost every home by discovering which craft?
Building houses
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.
Q 26Which early Greek poet's Theogony names Hestia as the firstborn child of her Titan parents?
Hesiod
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.
Q 27Hestia is usually missing from ancient scenes of the gods' battle with which earth-born enemies?
The Giants
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.
Q 28Rome's temple to Hestia's counterpart copied an ancient hut and so had which unusual shape?
Round
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.
Q 29After Plataea, Greek cities relit their fires from the common hearth, or hestia, at which sanctuary?
Delphi
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.
Q 30In the anime DanMachi, which young adventurer starts out as the only member of Hestia's Familia?
Bell Cranel
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.