The notion of centrality emerges from literary evidence on Hestia: the adjective mesos ("middle") appears several times in connection to her central location in both private and public settings. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, she is described as sitting in the middle of the oikos. According to other descriptions, Hestia dwells amidst the burning flame and is herself the house of the gods. By the same token, Hestia's centrality is also linked to Delphi, the omphalos of the earth. Moreover, when Hestia is described as sitting in the ether, her centering is imagined as cosmic. This "centering" is further noticeable in the public field of the polis. In Bacchylides, for instance, Hestia is described as "sitting in the middle of the streets" (that is, in mid-city; […], Bac.14B.4).
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Hestia is thus attested as standing "in the middle," a center associated with domestic space, the polis, and sacrifice. This positioning in the middle, at the center, ultimately blurs the boundaries between the categories through which we attempt to visualize Hestia. It thus becomes less important whether a space is identified as private or public, related to the oikos or the polis, allegedly female or male, in order for it to be connected to Hestia. That would explain why we find the goddess both in the presumably private and feminine oikos, as well as in the agora, a place often described as the center of male, public, and civic life.
Ariadne Konstantinou, "Hestia and Eos"
