HESTIA, a goddess of Greece, supposed to have been the latest In origin of the, greater deities. She appears to belong to a particular stage in the advancement of civili zation, and to embody the religious sanction that confirmed the social system reached. The fact that Hestia is not mentioned in Homer shows that her worship was not then so universally acknowledged. Perhaps we may sec in the connection of the Latin Jupiter and Vesta at Laviniurn a relic of the worship of this same goddess under the same name (they are only two forms of the feminine of the passive participle of the root eras, burn), and an evidence of the connection between the two races. find therefore in Hestia, relics of the old pre-Greek worship; she is the altar-fire, presiding over all sacrifices, and sharing the honors of all the gods. The opening sacrifice was offered to Hestia; to her at the sacrificial meal the first and last libations were poured. The fire of Hestia was always kept burning, or if by any mischance it were extinguished.' ' only sacred fire produced by friction, or directly obtained from the sun, might he used to'rekindle it. 13ut beyond this she is the goddess of family union, the personification of the idea of home, the protectress along with Zeus of the suppliants who fled for refuge to the hearth. To her therefore is ascribed the art of houselmilding. Hestia
and Hermes are often united as the representatives of home and private life on the one hand, and of business and outdoor life on the other. The city union, moreover, is just the family union ou a large scale; it has its center in the prytaneum, where the common hearth-fire round which the magistrates meet is always burning, and where the sacred rites that sanctify the concord of city life are performed, From this fire, as the repre sentative of the life of the city, was taken the fire wherewith that on the health of n new colony was kindled, Even larger unions than the city had their central fire; in 'leg -a we find the Hestia of the Arcadians; and it is probable that the Achmans had theirs at ./Eginium. In the later mystic philosophy Hestia became the hearth of the universe, the eternal fire at the center of the world. As Hestia had her home in the pryttatetun. special temples to her rarely occur. There was one in Hermione, where the only sym bol of the goddess was a fire always burning on the hearth. We also hear of her house at Olympia. Her statue stood in the prytaneum at Athens beside that of peace. Though many statues of the Roman Vesta arc preserved, more or less based on the Grecian conception of Hestia, yet no really Greek representation of the goddess has come down to us.