Cronus was supplanted by this new generation of deities; and Hestia thus became one of the Olympian gods, the new rulers of the cosmos, alongside her brothers and sisters.

Like Athena and Artemis, Hestia elected never to marry and remained an eternal virgin goddess instead, forever tending to the hearth of Olympus.

[8] As "first to be devoured ... and the last to be yielded up again", Hestia is thus both the eldest and youngest daughter; this mythic inversion is found in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (700 BC).

[9] Zeus assigned Hestia a duty to feed and maintain the fires of the Olympian hearth with the fatty, combustible portions of animal sacrifices to the gods.

[11] The gods Poseidon and Apollo (her brother and nephew respectively) both fell in love with Hestia and vied for her hand in marriage.

[12] At Athens, "in Plato's time", notes Kenneth Dorter[13] "there was a discrepancy in the list of the twelve chief gods, as to whether Hestia or Dionysus was included with the other eleven.

[16] Nevertheless, her possible participation in the fight against the Giants is evidenced from an inscription on the northern frieze of the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi; Brinkmann (1985) suggests that the letter tracings of one of the two goddesses right next to Hephaestus be restored as "Hestia", although other possible candidates include Demeter and Persephone, or two of the three Fates.

"[19] Hestia is identified with the hearth as a physical object, and the abstractions of community and domesticity, in contrast to the fire of the forge employed in blacksmithing and metalworking, the province of the god Hephaestus.

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.

[29] Xenophon in Cyropaedia wrote that Cyrus the Great sacrificed first to Hestia, then to sovereign Zeus, and then to any other god that the magi suggested.

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.

Diodorus Siculus writes that Theramenes sought asylum directly from Hestia at the Council Chamber, leaping onto her hearth not to save himself, but in the hope that his slayers would demonstrate their impiety by killing him there".

[37] Xenophon's Hellenica mentions fighting around and within Olympia's temple of Hestia, a building separate from the city's council hall and adjoining theatre.

[39] Prospective founders of city-states and colonies sought approval and guidance not only of their "mother city" (represented by Hestia) but of Apollo, through one or another of his various oracles.

Additional patron deities might also be persuaded to support the new settlement, but without Hestia, her sacred hearth, an agora and prytaneum there could be no polis.

[40] Homeric Hymn 24, To Hestia, is an invocation of five lines, alluding to her role as an attendant to Apollo: Hestia, you who tend the holy house of the lord Apollo, the Far-shooter at goodly Pytho, with soft oil dripping ever from your locks, come now into this house, come, having one mind with Zeus the all-wise: draw near, and withal bestow grace upon my song.

And you, slayer of Argus (an epithet of Hermes), Son of Zeus and Maia, the messenger of the blessed gods, bearer of the goldenrod, the giver of good, be favorable and help us, you and Hestia, the worshipful and dear.

[42]Bacchylides Ode 14b, For Aristoteles of Larisa: Golden-throned Hestia (Ἐστία χρυσόθρον᾽), you who increase the great prosperity of the rich Agathocleadae, seated in the midst of city streets near the fragrant river Peneius in the valleys of sheep-nurturing Thessaly.

[44][45] In one military oath found at Acharnai, from the Sanctuary of Ares and Athena Areia, dated 350–325 BC, Hestia is called, among many others, to bear witness.