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In Ancient Greek religion, Hestia (; , "hearth" or "fireside") is a virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and the right ordering of domesticity, the family, and the state. In Greek mythology she is a daughter of Cronus and Rhea. 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. With the establishment of a new colony, flame from Hestia's public hearth in the mother city would be carried to the new settlement. She sat on a plain wooden throne with a white woolen cushion and did not trouble to choose an emblem for herself.〔 Her Roman equivalent is Vesta.〔Hughes, James. (1995). ''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', p. 215. Larousse/The Book People.〕 == Origins and cults == Hestia's name means "hearth, fireplace, altar",〔R. S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 471.〕 the ''oikos'', the household, house, or family. "An early form of the temple is the hearth house; the early temples at Dreros and Prinias on Crete are of this type as indeed is the temple of Apollo at Delphi which always had its inner ''hestia''"〔Burkert, W. p. 61.〕 The Mycenaean great hall which had a central hearth – such as the hall of Odysseus at Ithaca, a ''megaron''. Likewise, the hearth of the later Greek ''prytaneum'' was the community and government's ritual and secular focus. Hestia's name and functions show the hearth's importance in the social, religious, and political life of ancient Greece. It was essential for warmth, food preparation, and the completion of sacrificial offerings to deities; in the latter, Hestia was the "customary recipient of a preliminary, usually cheap, sacrifice". She was also offered the first and last libations of wine at feasts.〔(Homeric Hymn 29, tr. Evelyn-White, Hugh G. )〕 Her own sacrificial animal was a domestic pig.〔Bremmer, Jan. N., in Ogden, D. (Ed). (2010). ''A Companion to Greek Religion'', Wiley-Blackwell, (googlebooks preview, p.134 ), ISBN 978-1-4443-3417-3〕 The accidental or negligent extinction of a domestic hearth-fire represented a failure of domestic and religious care for the family; failure to maintain Hestia's public fire in her temple or shrine was a breach of duty to the broad community. A hearth fire might be deliberately, ritually extinguished at need, and its lighting or relighting should be accompanied by rituals of completion, purification and renewal, comparable with the rituals and connotations of an eternal flame and of sanctuary lamps. At the level of the ''polis'', the hearths of Greek colonies and their mother cities were allied and sanctified through Hestia's cult. Hestia's nearest Roman equivalent, Vesta, had similar functions as a divine personification of Rome's "public", domestic, and colonial hearths, and bound Romans together within a form of extended family. The similarity of names between Hestia and Vesta is, however, misleading: "The relationship ''hestia-histie-Vesta'' cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European linguistics; borrowings from a third language must also be involved," according to Walter Burkert.〔Burkert, W. (1985). ''Greek Religion'' III.3.1 note 2.〕 Responsibility for Hestia's domestic cult usually fell to the leading woman of the household, sometimes to a man. Her public rites, at the hearths of public buildings, were usually led by holders of civil office, and their assistants. Dionysius of Halicarnassus testifies that the ''prytaneum'' of a Greek state or community was sacred to Hestia, who was served by the most powerful state officials.〔Kajava, Mika. (2004). Hestia Hearth, Goddess, and Cult. ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', vol. 102, p. 5.〕 Evidence of her specialist priesthoods is extremely rare. Most stems from the early Roman Imperial era, when Sparta offers several examples of women with the priestly title "Hestia"; Chalcis offers one, a daughter of the local elite. Existing civic cults to Hestia probably served as stock for the grafting of Greek ruler-cult to the Roman emperor, the Imperial family and Rome itself. In Athens, a small seating section at the Theatre of Dionysus was reserved for priesthoods of "Hestia on the Acropolis, Livia, and Julia", and of "Hestia Romaion" ("Roman Hestia", thus "The Roman Hearth" or Vesta). A priest at Delos served "Hestia the Athenian Demos" (the people or state) "and Roma". An eminent citizen of Carian Stratoniceia described himself as a priest of Hestia and several other deities, as well as holding several civic offices. Hestia's political and civic functions are further evidenced by her very numerous privately funded dedications at civic sites, and the administrative rather than religious titles used by the lay-officials involved in her civic cults.〔Kajava, Mika. (2004). Hestia Hearth, Goddess, and Cult. ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', vol. 102, pp. 1, 3, 5.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hestia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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