pietas

thumb|upright=1.5|, as a virtue of the emperor Antoninus Pius, represented by a woman offering a sacrifice on the reverse of this [[sestertius]] thumb|200px|Flavia Maximiana Theodora on the obverse, on the reverse Pietas holding infant to her breast. '''''' (), translated variously as "duty", "religiosity" or "religious behavior", "loyalty", "devotion", or "filial piety" (English "piety" derives from the Latin), 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 wikt:pius#Latin| ("religious, devoted") throughout Virgil's epic Aeneid. The sacred nature of was embodied by the divine personification Pietas, a goddess often pictured on Roman coins. The Greek equivalent is ().

Cicero defined as the virtue "which admonishes us to do our duty to our country or our parents or other blood relations." The man who possessed "performed all his duties towards the deity and his fellow human beings fully and in every respect," as the 19th-century classical scholar Georg Wissowa described it. Cicero suggests people should have awareness of their own honor and must always attempt to raise the honor of others with dignified praise. Furthermore, praise, admiration, and honored actions must be beyond all one's own desires, and actions and words must be chosen with respect to friends, colleagues, family, or blood relations. Cicero describes youth in the pursuit of honour: “How they yearn for praise! What labours will they not undertake to stand fast among their peers! How will they remember those who have shown them kindness and how eager to repay it!”