Hestia

In Greek mythology, Hestia (Greek: Ἑστια, "hearth") was the goddess of the hearth, the home, domesticity, architecture, and the state. She was a virgin goddess and the daughter of Cronus and Rhea. Her sacred symbol was a kettle or a fire in the hearth and her sacred animal was the pig and the donkey.
In Roman mythology, Hestia was closely equated with Vesta.
==Mythology==
Hestia was the eldest daughter of Cronus and Rhea and the sister to Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera, and Hades. Immediately after her birth, Cronus swallowed all his children except the youngest, Zeus, who forced Cronus to disgorge his siblings and led them in a war against their father and the other Titans.
Hestia rejected the marriage suits of Poseidon and Apollo and swore herself to perpetual virginity. She, thus, rejected Aphrodite's values and became, to some extent, her chaste, domestic complementary, or antithesis. Aphrodite could not bend or ensnare her heart.
Zeus then assigned Hestia the duty to feed and maintain the fires of the Olympian hearth with the fatty, combustible portions of animal sacrifices to the gods. Wherever food was cooked or an offering was burnt, she thus had her share of honor.
Hestia's Olympian status is equivocal. Hestia's omission from some lists of the twelve Olympians is sometimes taken as an illustration of her passive, non-confrontational nature - by giving her Olympian seat to the more forceful Dionysus, she prevents heavenly conflict. Hestia was known for her kindness, but no ancnient source or myth describes such a surrender or removal.
==Depiction==
The ambiguities in Hestia's mythology were matched by her indeterminate attributes, character, and iconography. She is identified with the hearth as a physical object and the abstractions of community and domesticity, but portrayals of her are rare and seldom secure. In classical Greek art, she is occasionally depicted as a woman, simply and modestly cloaked in a head veil. She is sometimes shown with a staff in hand or by a large fire. She sat on a plain wooden throne with a white woollen cushion and did not trouble to choose an emblem for herself. In some stories, Hestia did not have a throne at all. In other, sh egave up her throne for Dionysus.
Category:Greek deities
Category:Greek gods