Re: Questions about Hestia/Vesta

["Nancy Dalton" <nancykd@ea.net>]

Poster: "Nancy Dalton" <nancykd@ea.net>

On  Sun, 2 Mar 1997 10:52:09 -0500 (EST) Dick Eney wrote:
> On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Brenda wrote:
> > Poster: Brenda <Adendra@Charleston.Net>
> > Megan Brett wrote:
> > > Does anyone know of good resources about women's Celtic clothing? As in,
> > > what it looks like, and how it might be constructed?
> > > Also, has anyone ever heard any Greek myths about the goddess Hestia? Or
> > > Roman myths about Vesta? (They're the same goddess...)
> Hestia/Vesta kept pretty much out of the Greek myths,
The following information comes from the Larrouse Encyclopedia of 
Mythology, 3rd Impression 1960, Prometheus Press, NY.  So anyone 
choosing to correct or pick on my source, please feel free (like 
you'd stay quiet anyway::grin::).
According to Greek mythos the six children of Cronus and Rhea were: 
Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus.  Cronus ate all of 
them except Zeus whose birth was hidden from his cannibalistic 
father.  When Zeus was grown, Metis, daughter of Oceanus, came to his 
aid.  "Metis gave Cronus a draught that made him vomit up the stone 
and with it the gods, his own children, whom he had swallowed.
The following 2 stories are not in the encyclopedia.
> barring one: the
> revolt of the other Olympians against Zeus, when they surprised him
> sleeping and got him tied up before he could reach his thunderbolts.  Then
> they fell to arguing about how to portion out his power; whereupon Hestia,
> realizing that bad as Zeus was a civil war among the gods would be worse,
> released the hundred-handed Hekatoncheires.  Using all their hands at
> once, they untied Zeus before the other gods could stop them, and the
> revolt collapsed.
> There were a couple of other stories about her which are more incidental
> anecdotes than real myths..  At one of the gods' feasts, when everybody was
> in the digestive torpor afterward, the lustful Priapus found her
> cat-napping, but before he could carry out any plans he might have formed
> Silenus' ass brayed and wakened her.  (_Videlicet_, even the archetype of
> casual lust, the ass, objects to making out with a lady who doesn't know
> what's happening.)
Please excuse direct quotes, but my brain doesn't function well 
enough in the morning to paraphrase without copying directly.  
"Assembled on Olympus, the gods formed a society with its own laws 
and hierarchy.  First came the twelve great gods and goddesses: Zeus, 
Poseidon, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares and Apollo; Hera, Athene, Artemis, 
Hestia, Aphrodite and Demeter."(Pg. 102)
"The Greek word 'hestia' means the hearth , the place in the house 
where the fire was maintained."(Pg. 155)
"When one of the [family members] departed to founda new family he 
tood with him a parcel of fire from his parents' hearth, which thus 
symbolised the continuity of the family.  When families began to form 
groups in towns, each town had its communal hearth where the public 
fire was maintained.  Finally the fire of the hestia was used in 
sacrifices." (Pg. 156)
"Hestia symbolised the household fire -- fire, as it were, 
domesticated.  Hence the homely and social character of this goddess, 
whose province was to protect not only the house and the family but 
also the city.  Later Hestia, by analogy, represented the fire in the 
centre of the earth and the earth itself; but this conception was 
less mythological than philosophical.
  Hestia was venerated in all Greek towns; she had her altar in every 
prytaneum -- or Public Hearth.......Temples of Hestia were 
characterised by their circular form."(Pg. 156)
"According to Hesiod -- for Homer, before him, did not know of the 
goddess Hestia -- she was the first child born to Cronus and Rhea.  
Thus she was the oldest of the Olympians and always maintained her 
precedence.  Men understood this well and when they offered 
sacrifices consecrated the first moresels of the victims to Hestia 
and in festivals poured her the first and last libations.  On Olympus 
Hestia's dignity was unquestioned and her rights as the eldest were 
recognised.  She seems to have taken little advantage of this and 
played a minor role in Olympian drama. 'In the dwelling of the gods,' 
says Plato, 'Hestia alone maintains repose.'  We only know of her 
that both Poseidon and Apollo sought her hand in marriage.  She would 
have neither one nor the other.  In order to put an end to their 
attentions she placed herself under Zeus' protection and made a 
solemn vow, touching the head of the master of the gods, to remain a 
virgin for ever.  Zeus accepted her vow and 'instead of marriage 
offered her a handsome recompense: seated in the midst of the 
celestial dwelling-place she receives the riches part of sacrifices, 
and among men she is of all the deities the most venerated.'
  Hestia thus shared with Athene and Artemis the prerogative of 
chastity.  She was one of those over whom Aphrodite never succeeded 
in exercising her power."(Pg. 156)
> Again, after the overthrow of the Titans when the
> original Olympians were pairing off, Hestia surprised Zeus, Poseidon and
> Hades arguing about which of them would get her first; then and there she
> swore to remain a virgin forever, and made the oath stick, too, though she
> was defying all of the eldest Olympians at once.  (There is a different
> version in which it was Poseidon and Apollo who were arguing; as Apollo
> wasn't born until well after the Olympian takeover, this is less
> plausible.)  The poets don't record it, but I'd bet a few obols that she
> also voiced some candid opinions about three macho peckerheads who would
> try to settle a question like that without getting the opinion of the lady
> involved.
"Vesta is the most beautiful of Roman divinities, bright an dpure 
like the flame which is her symbol.  Her name derives -- like the 
name Hestia -- from a Sanskrit root, vas, which expresses the idea of 
'shining'.
  The Latins had made Vesta a goddess who personified the earth and 
fire.  The Romans kept only the second of these personifications.  
Nor was Vesta the goddess of fire in its broadest sense, but only of 
fire required for domestic use or in religious ceremonial.
   In the beginning Vesta was associated with Janus Pater and Tellus 
Mater, and was the protectress of sown fields.  She was also a symbol 
of idealised maternity -- although she was a virgin -- because fire 
nourishes.
  As a goddess of fire she received both a privated and a public 
cult.
  Every hearth had its Vesta.  With Jupiter Dapalis she presided over 
the preparations of meals; she was offered the first food and drink.  
Withe the Lares and the Penates she held a pre-eminent position in 
the house.
  At Rome the centre of her cult, which was said to have been 
originated by Romulus, was in the Regia.  It lasted almost all the 
year, being interrupted only during the months of January and 
November.  The chief festivals of Vesta were the Vestalia which were 
celebrated on the seventh of June.  On that day her sanctuary (which 
normally no one except her priestesses, the Vestal Virgins, entered) 
was accessible to mothers of families who brought plates of food.  
The Vestals officiated.  The ceremonies were simple and unsanguinary. 
 The objects of the cult were essentially the hearth fire and pure 
water drawn into a clay vase, handmade, and narrow at the base so 
that it could not stand on the ground."(Pg. 218)
More paragraphs follow mostly about the training, requirements, 
punishments, and length of service for Vestal Virgins.
> Hestia had no temples of her own (and Vesta only the one in downtown
> Rome), but she was the Goddess of the Hearth-Flame, and no temple could be
> considered sacred unless there were an altar fire there.  Besides, this
> gracious and gentle aspect of the Great Goddess was welcome where-ever she
> chose to go.
Now that I've put you all to sleep.::grin::
Later,
Nancy Dalton
ska Earnwynn van Zwaluwenburg
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