Vesta, one of the most prominent godesses of Paganism who is, nevertheless, not very well-known. Because of this, Ovid, wanting to mention her in his poem “The Fasti,” says of her “Goddess, as men are not allowed to see or know you, it is thus necessary that I speak of you.”

Those who had penetrated deep into the Pythagorean religion claimed that through Vesta they could understand the universe, to whom they attributed a soul and whom they honored as the sole divinity, sometimes by the name of τὸ πὰν, which means all, sometimes under the name of μονὰς, which means unity . This was, according to them, the mysterious meaning of the name Vesta, although the non-initiates worshipped her as the goddess of the earth and of the fire.

As the fable goes, there are two goddesses named Vesta: one a mother and the other a daughter of Saturn. The first was associated with the Earth and was sometimes called Cybele and sometimes called Pales, and the second was associated with Fire; it is the latter that Horace called oeterna Vesta [“eternal Vesta” –Horace, Odes , 3.5] , in whose honor the reverent King Numa constructed a temple in Rome and consecrated a group of Roman virgins to tend to a perpetual flame on her altar, so that, says Florus, this flame, protector of the empire, would forever watch over the imitation of the stars: ut'ad simulacrum coelestium siderum, custos imperii flamma vigilaret [“so that the flame, imitating the heavenly stars, might keep watch as a protector over the empire." — Lucius Annaeus Florus, Epitome of Roman History , Book 1.3]

Formerly, according to the Greeks and Romans, there was never any other image or symbol of Vesta that the fire guarded so religiously in its temples, and, when one made statues of Vesta , they represented Vesta , the Earth, rather than Vesta of Fire; however, it appears that some went on to confuse the two. The goddess was often depicted in matronly dress, holding a lamp or a torch in her right hand, and sometimes a palladium , or a small statue that ensured victory. Titles that were attributed to her on coins or on ancient monuments include Vesta the happy, the mother, the saint, the eternal, etc. We have discussed in great detail her temples and we will also talk much of the Vestal Virgins, her priestesses.

When Aeneas and the other Trojans arrived in Italy from Phrygia, they brought the cult of Vesta and fire with them. Virgil observed that before leaving his father’s palace, Aeneas took the flame from the sacred hearth. AEternumque adytis effert penetralibus ignem. AEneid. l. II. [“from our secret, innermost shrines he bore out the eternal fire”—Virgil, Aeneid , 2.297)]

Consequently, each member of the cult took from the fire of Vesta a flame to place in the doorway of his home; according to Ovid, this is where the word vestibule comes from. As it is, the Trojans and the Phrygians themselves inherited the fire cult from other peoples of the Orient.

The name Vesta is synonymous with the Greek word for fire ἑστία, mutatâ aspiratione in V [“Hestia, with the initial aspiration (i.e. the “H”) changed to a ‘V’”] , and the Chaldean and ancient Persian word Avesta . If we are to believe the learned Hyde, it is also, undeniably the namesake for the title of Zoroaster’s famous book on the cult of fire, Avesta , or rather, the guard of the fire .