The House Witch: Your Complete Guide to Creating a Magical Space with Rituals and Spells for Hearth and Home - Arin Murphy-Hiscock 2018

Vesta
Hearth and Home Deities

The Roman cognate of Hestia is Vesta, and while performing a similar function and position, Vesta is not precisely equal to the Greek goddess of the hearth. A major difference is that Vesta’s worship was formalized, and an order of priestesses served her in formal temples. Vesta’s temple housed an eternal flame that symbolized the life and safety of the city of Rome itself. It was guarded and watched over by a group of priestesses dedicated to the service of Vesta called the Vestales, or Vestals. These priestesses swore to devote their lives to Vesta and thus pledged celibacy for thirty years in order to devote all their energy and time to serving the goddess, giving rise to the descriptive name “the Vestal virgins.”

Vesta’s sacred fire was relit every first of March. A sample of the fire was taken and kept safe in a container. After the hearth was cleaned, the fire was lit again from the embers kept safe from the original fire. In this sense, the eternal flame was truly eternal, the essence of the previous year’s flame and all the years before it being passed on in the embers to the new fire. The remains of sacrificial fires in the temple were also considered sacred, and the ashes were collected and stored under the temple until the yearly procession to the Tiber River, where they were thrown in. Vesta’s festival was known as the Vestalia and was celebrated from June 7 to June 15.

Like Hestia, Vesta’s presence is symbolized by a flame burning on an altar or the hearth of the home. Iconology depicts her with a javelin and/or an oil lamp.