Fides is the Roman Goddess of good faith, fidelity, loyalty, trust, and honor. Unlike most personified virtues, Fides was honored from the earliest times, and She was said to be a favorite of Numa, the legendary second King of Rome who was credited with establishing many of the oldest customs, both religious and political. Numa is in fact said to have built Her first shrine on the Capitoline Hill. Though Fides is old, She did not have a flamen, one of the ancient order of priests dedicated to specific, and some times anciently obscure, Deities. Instead the three flamines maiores, dedicated to Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, performed Her rites.

In the third century BCE, a temple to Fides was built near to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline, likely on the site of the old shrine. It was built by Aulus Atilius Calatinus, a general who had fought in the First Punic War, and dedicated in 254 BCE on the Kalends of October (October 1st), which was Her feast day. On that day the flamene maiores rode to Her temple in a covered biga, or two-horse chariot, and made sacrifices to Her. Those sacrifices were made with the right hand, considered the honorable one (as opposed to the sinister one, the left), which was wrapped in or covered by a white cloth. The covering on the biga probably served the same purpose: to protect the honor and faith of Rome.

There was supposedly also a temple to Fides on the Palatine, said to have been dedicated by one Rhome, a granddaughter of Aeneas. This is probably more legend than fact, given the Roman predilection for making stories up to assert that their city had grand and auspicious beginnings and was fated to be the greatest and best (maximus, optimus). At any rate this ‘Rhome’ person, who supposedly gave her name to the city, is only mentioned in this context, as is the temple on the Palatine, which likely never existed.

Fides was described as wearing all white, with Her head veiled. Depending on the depiction, She might be a young woman, matron, or old woman with white hair; She was sometimes said to be older than Jupiter. She was usually shown wearing a wreath of laurel leaves (symbolic of victory) or olive leaves (for peace), holding ears of wheat or a basket of fruits, or with a turtle dove, considered sacred to Her (perhaps because they mate for life, and so are faithful to each other).

Fides presided over contracts, especially verbal ones, common in an age of limited literacy; and oaths might be sworn by Her name, attesting to the swearer’s honesty. Two clasped right hands, as in fellowship or agreement, were Her symbol; and She was often shown holding out Her own right hand as a gesture of faith, or an invitation to keep faith.

Like many other Goddesses Who are personified virtues, Fides was freely used in propaganda, especially on coins of the Empire. Her temple on the Capitoline was properly the temple of Fides Publica Populi Romani, the Common Trust of the Roman People, considered a foundational virtue of the Roman state, for without a certain amount of trust a society falls apart. Fides’s temple was also where bronze tablets recording laws and treaties were displayed; and the Senate occasionally used it for meetings, which I guess means it was a properly inaugurated templum, as the Senate could only meet in a place ritually consecrated as such.

On coins, often Her symbol of two clasped (right) hands was shown; if the Goddess Herself was depicted, She could be standing or seated, with a cornucopia or spear. On one coin labelled Fides Maxima (‘Greatest Trust’) She holds a rudder and a globe, which are usually emblems of Fortuna; perhaps that depiction is more about trusting in fortune or destiny. When the coins are celebrating the trust between the Emperor and the military (in hopes that the military will prove faithful to the Emperor, and not try to overthrow him), She can hold military standards, or even a tiny statue of Victoria, the Goddess of Victory.

Some of Her epithets are: Maxima (‘Greatest Trust’), Publica (‘Common Trust’), and Augusta (referring to the loyalty of the Empress, or the loyalty she commands). The various military epithets may refer more to the abstract quality of loyalty between the military and the state/Emperor than the Goddess Herself. Such epithets are: Exercituum, (the Trust of the Army’), Militum (‘the Trust of the Soldier’), Equilum (‘the Trust of the horsemen’), and Praetorianorum (‘the Trust of the Praetorian Guard’ i.e. the Imperial bodyguards).