An act of care for a parentIncenseWineFirst fruitsA duty performed without being asked
Invocation Approach
Tone
Sober and warm
Address
PietasPietas AugustaThe Right Relation
Relationship
The debt that is paid because it is owed
Warning
She is not sentiment and does not promise a return
Resonance
Caregivers those burying a parent and the dutiful
Symbols
The storkThe veilThe altarThe hand extended
Mythology Summary
Pietas is the Roman personification of duty - above all the duty owed to the gods, to parents and to the city - and the virtue Virgil makes the defining mark of Aeneas, pius Aeneas. A temple of Pietas stood in the Forum Holitorium, vowed by Manius Acilius Glabrio at Thermopylae in 191 BCE and dedicated by his son in 181 BCE (Livy 40.34). Her iconography is the stork, the bird said to feed its aged parents, and the story told of her is the daughter who secretly nursed her father in prison (Valerius Maximus 5.4.7). Pietas Augusta belonged to the imperial cult, and the Greek equivalent is eusebeia.
Modern Practice
Pietas is invoked by those who are carrying someone: a parent, a child, a household, a post. Her practice is the unglamorous visit, the bill paid, the rite kept on the day it falls due - duty as a form of attention rather than of obligation.