Good faith: keeping one's word, honoring agreements and obligations, and dealing honestly with others, treated by Roman writers as the bond that makes treaties, contracts and oaths binding. Fides was also worshipped as a goddess in her own right, with a temple on the Capitoline Hill associated with the sanctity of oaths and international treaties, distinct from the Fides News Agency this atlas cites elsewhere as a modern source, an unrelated later use of the same Latin word.
Facts
Origins
Place of OriginRome, with a temple on the Capitoline Hill. 1 Origin of the NameLatin fides, trust or good faith, from a root shared with English confide and fidelity. 2 Attributed Author / CompilerA Roman civic and religious value with no single named author; personified as a goddess with a Capitoline temple by the early Republic and treated across Roman legal and diplomatic practice as the basis of binding agreement. 2 Status
Status Within the TraditionStandard teaching, not formally defined 2 Doctrinal Status DetailUnderwrote the sanctity of Roman treaties, contracts and oaths; a breach of fides was treated as both a legal and a religious offense, since the goddess was believed to witness the agreement. 1 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceGood faith: keeping one's word and honoring agreements, treated as the bond underlying Roman law, treaty and oath. 2 Disputed
Origin PeriodA civic and religious value from the early Roman Republic; her cult and Capitoline temple are traditionally dated to the third century BCE, though the underlying value in Roman practice is older and not precisely dateable. 1 Connections
Associated With
This source names Capitoline Hill directly: "in her own right, with a temple on the Capitoline Hill associated with the sanctity of oaths and international treaties, distinct from the Fides News Agency this atlas cites elsewhere as a modern..."
Source The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th editionSimon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.)
Belongs to Tradition
Source The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th editionSimon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.)
In Language
Opposes
Good faith stands directly against deceit; Maya, the Sanskrit term for deceit already catalogued among the arishadvarga, is the atlas's existing entry for that disposition, a cross-tradition pairing on the same footing as the Buddhist Dana's own opposition to the Hindu Lobha already live on this axis.
Source The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th editionSimon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.)
Originates in Language
Source The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th editionSimon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.)
Related To
Gravitas, Virtues Both core Roman civic virtues expected of a person of public standing.
Source The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th editionSimon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.)
Pietas, Virtues Both named on Augustus's golden shield or among the core Roman civic virtues.
Source The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th editionSimon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.)
Sources
1. Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic
H. H. Scullard, Thames and Hudson, 1981
2. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition
Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2012Originates in Language: Latin, Stored language property on this entity, cited to this source: latinView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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