Pietas
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Pietas, translated variously as "duty", "religiosity" or "religious behavior", "loyalty", "devotion", or "filial piety", was one of the chief virtues among the ancient Romans. It was the distinguishing virtue of the founding hero Aeneas, who is often given the adjectival epithet pius ("religious") throughout Virgil's epic Aeneid. The sacred nature of pietas was embodied by the divine personification Pietas, a goddess often pictured on Roman coins. The Greek equivalent is eusebeia (εὐσέβεια).
Pietas, as a virtue of the emperor Antoninus Pius, represented by a woman offering a sacrifice on the reverse of this sestertius
Flavia Maximiana Theodora on the obverse, on the reverse Pietas holding infant to her breast.
Denarius of Herennius, depicting Pietas and an act of Pietas.
The Temple of Piety with those of Hope and Juno Sospita at the Forum Olitorium, drawn by Lanciani
Mos maiorum
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The mos maiorum is the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans derived their social norms. It is the core concept of Roman traditionalism, distinguished from but in dynamic complement to written law. The mos maiorum was collectively the time-honoured principles, behavioural models, and social practices that affected private, political, and military life in ancient Rome.
The Roman family was one of the ways that the mos maiorum was passed along through the generations.