This week's #MythologyMonday theme is fire and there are two major Greek gods associated with fire: #Hestia, goddess of the hearth, and #Hephaistos, god of smiths.
They represent #fire in two different forms: the sacrificial flame of the hearth as the sacred centre of domestic life and the flame of Hephaistos, source of all arts, and fuel of the funeral pyre. But both could be invoked for the cooking of sacrificial meat or a good meal:
"For without you [Hestia] mortals hold no banquet."
Homeric Hymn 24 to #Hestia
"Swine with the fat abundant upon them were singed and stretched out across the flame of #Hephaistos."
Homer, Iliad 9.467
As the hearth of a house is at the same time the altar on which sacrifices are offered to the domestic gods, Hestia presides over all sacrifices, and, as the goddess of the sacred fire of the altar, she gets a share of every sacrifice to the gods made at home or in their temples.
#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.