The household fire was a god in itself. Sitting in the ashes by the hearth was an act of submission — older even than clasping the knees. In Alcinous’s hall, after asking Arete for passage home, Odysseus crosses to the hearth and sits down in the ashes, and the room stops. A man of his bearing does not voluntarily sit in soot. Doing it tells the king: I have placed myself below your fire, in the place where suppliants go, and it is now your honor that decides what happens next. Alcinous lifts him out of the ashes himself. The hearth is the engine of xenia made into a piece of furniture.
The Sacred Hearth
The fire at the heart of the hall. Sit in the ashes beside it and you've put your fate in the host's hands.