HESTIA

Hestia was the first-born daughter of Kronos and Rhea, and sister of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera and Demeter. Many gods wooed her, but she swore to remain forever a virgin. She was personification of the hearth, the centre of house and family. The hearth was an offering place for libations and small gifts of food; the meal started by throwing these offerings onto the fire.

A father would acknowledge and name a newborn child by walking around the hearth with the baby in his arms. It was the daughters of the household that tended the hearth fire. Each polis also possessed a communal hearth, which stood in a temple or the prytaneion (government house). As a domestic deity associated with the hearth, which is immovable, Hestia was unable to participate in the activities of the other Olympians, and had no temples of her own. She never attained an importance comparable to that of her Roman counterpart, Vesta.