Pietas, an ancient but very modern sentiment

It forces you to notice others, avoiding slipping into the quicksand of narcissism.

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feet
We could define pietas, in a modern key, as a key to achieving the entire part of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development relating to social justice: eliminating fame and poverty, ensuring healthcare and good education for all, eliminating gender gap. Already in ancient Rome, pietas indicated respect and a sense of duty toward the gods, family, country, and other human beings. It was not simply compassion, but a moral responsibility toward what one considered important.
The ancient feet and current piety are two very different things. By considering the two terms as synonyms, one risks emptying the meaning of both, and in particular, one wastes the value of feet which for the Romans was both a divinity and a virtue. To the point that it was printed on coins to indicate devotion, a sense of duty, love, justice, benevolence, clemency. In Roman civilization the feet It was a cornerstone of human relationships and of the relationship with the divine. Something much more concrete than we might imagine from the use, and abuse, of the term. Pietas meant prcaring for others, even those from the weakest social classes in such an unequal society, but above all respecting them, starting with the family circle. The narrative episode that best frames the feet Roman is the escape of Aeneas from burning Troy. The hero risks his life not so much to save himself, which he could have done very easily, but to save his elderly father Anchises, his young son Ascanius, and his wife Creusa. The family is one, and even before Christianity, man protects and respects it with the feetLike religion. During his escape from Troy, Aeneas is concerned with securing the statuettes of the Penates: it's not just the saving of objects, and therefore of wealth, but the sign of an indissoluble bond between man and divinity. Religion, and the sense of the sacred, always accompanies our lives, even in the most difficult moments, when we feel it at risk and when we are most vulnerable. fragile. 
Even the etymological root of the pietas (which derives from the adjective pius, (which means “dutiful”, “respectful”, “devoted”) indicates moral obligations that are very different from the sense of participation, even detached and cold, that today we associate with the word pity. feet It's a gaze, but combined with action, with not being too detached from others, with feeling part of a community where duties, civil and religious, towards family and towards the gods, come far before rights.
Today piety is manifested in many daily behaviors:
  • Empathy and solidarity towards those who suffer, such as the sick, the elderly or people in difficulty.
  • Respect for the family and for emotional ties.
  • Civic sense, that is, attention to the common good and the rules of coexistence.
  • Responsibility towards the environment and future generations.
  • Welcome and understanding towards people from different cultures or situations.

For this reason, pietas can be considered a universal value: it invites us to recognize the dignity of others and to feel responsible for our own actions. In a world characterized by conflict, individualism, and inequality, the ability to feel pietas remains a particularly precious and necessary quality.

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