#Hestia also presided over the central hearth of a state, the fire kept alight in the civic hall as a public hearth in every town. City officials would sacrifice at the public hearth on entering upon their office, and there, as at a private hearth, Hestia protected the suppliants.
When a new colony was founded, the emigrants took the fire which was to burn on the hearth of their new home from the public hearth of their mother town.