Pietas

Pietas, as virtue of the Roman Emperor Herennius Etruscus, celebrated with the instruments of cult, such as patera and lituus.

On the reverse of this coin by Flavia Maximiana Theodora, Pietas bearing holding infant to breast.

In Roman mythology, Pietas was the goddess of duty to one's state, gods and family.

Pietas was also one of the Roman virtues, along with gravitas and dignitas. Pietas is usually translated as "duty" or "devotion," and it simultaneously suggests duty to the gods and duty to family (which is expanded to duty to the community and duty to the state thanks to the analogy between the family and the state, conventional in the ancient world – see, for example, Plato's Crito). Vergil's hero Aeneas embodies this virtue, and is particularly emblematic of it in book II of the Aeneid when he flees burning Troy bearing his father on his back and carrying his household gods.

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