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Welcome to my channel.
I’m telling you history
and mythology here.
In this video,
I’m going to tell you
about Hestia.
In ancient Greek religion
and mythology,
Hestia is the goddess
of the hearth,
the right ordering
of domesticity,
the family,
the home,
and the state.
She is one of the
Twelve Olympian gods.
Let’s begin!
Hestia is the virgin goddess
In Greek mythology,
she is the eldest daughter
and firstborn child of
the Titans Kronos and Rhea.
Hestia is depicted
as a modestly dressed,
veiled woman,
sometimes holding a
branch with flowers –
possibly a chaste tree.
The kettle is her attribute.
The pig,
donkey, crane
and the chaste tree
were sacred to her.
Hestia is a symbol
of the hearth
and the home.
She is associated
with the family and
presides over
the baking of bread and
the preparation of
family meals.
Every city
in Ancient Greece
had a hearth
sacred to Hestia,
where the fire was
never allowed
to go out.
Hestia is a virgin goddess
and, like Athena
and Artemis,
immune to love.
She is kind,
forgiving and
unobtrusive,
without any strong features.
Her Roman equivalent
is Vesta;
Vesta has similar functions
as a divine personification
of Rome's "public",
domestic, and colonial hearths,
binding Romans
together within a form
of extended family.
Customarily,
in Greek culture,
Hestia received
the first offering
at every sacrifice
in the household.
In the public domain,
the hearth of the prytaneum
functioned as her
official sanctuary, and,
when a new colony was established,
flame from Hestia's
public hearth
in the mother city
would be carried
to the new settlement.
Hestia was born to
Kronos and Rhea.
Hestia had been
growing inside Kronos
for years,
being immortal.
She was thrown up last.
She also was a
part of the Titanomachy,
where she fought the Titans.
When the gods won,
she would become
one of the twelve Olympians.
Throughout mythology,
Hestia rejected the
marriage suits of
Poseidon and Apollo,
and swore herself
to perpetual virginity.
She thus rejected
Aphrodite's values
and becomes,
to some extent,
her chaste,
domestic complementary,
or antithesis,
since Aphrodite couldn’t bend
or ensnare her heart.
Only once
was Hestia's virginity
ever in danger.
After a feast attended
by all the gods,
after everyone fell asleep.
Priapus, a fertility god
who was the son of
Aphrodite and Dionysus,
made his way over to her
and tried to ravish her
while she was asleep.
A donkey brayed
just in time
to awaken Hestia,
who screamed
when she saw Priapus
about to mount her.
Her screaming
frightened him away
and her virginity
was secure once again.
Hestia's Olympian status
is equivocal
to her status among men.
However, at Athens,
"in Plato's time,"
notes Kenneth Dorter
"There was a discrepancy
in the list of the
twelve chief gods,
as to whether Hestia
or Dionysus was included
with the other eleven.
The altar to them
at the agora, for example,
included Hestia,
but the east frieze
of the Parthenon
had Dionysus instead."
Hestia's omission
from some lists of
the Twelve Olympians
is sometimes taken
as illustration of her passive,
non-confrontational nature –
by giving her Olympian seat
to the more forceful Dionysus
she prevents heavenly conflict –
but no ancient source or myth
describes such a
surrender or removal.
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