Fides

Fides is the Roman goddess or deification of good faith, fidelity, loyalty, and honesty.

FIDES

van Alfen, P. G., G. Brandsbourg, & M. Amandry, eds. FIDES. Contributions to Numismatics in Honor of Richard B. Witschonke. ANS. (New York, 2015).


DICTIONARY OF ROMAN COINS



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Fides (Good Faith, Fidelity, Loyalty) was adored as a goddess by the Romans, according to Cicero, Lactantius, and others. Attilius Calatinus dedicated to Fides a temple, near that of Jupiter, where she had priests and sacrifices peculiar to her worship. On denarii of the Licinia and other Roman families, her head appears, sometimes crowned with olive as the preserver of peace; at others adorned with laurel, as the guarantee of |victory|. The type of the same divinity exhibits itself in various ways on the imperial series coins.

- FIDES (the goddess herself), the figure on a coin of Claudius II is that of a woman, with a spear in her left hand
- FIDES AVGVSTA, she appears on a large brass of Plotina
- FIDES AVGVSTORVM, she stands holding a cornucopia, on a silver of Maximianus

Sometimes the type consists of two right hands joined; or with a caduceus and two corn ears, held by two right hands; or with a military standard, held by two right hands; but then we read FIDES PVBLICA, as in Titus, or FIDES EXERCITVVM, as in a large brass of Vitellius, and also in Nerva. And in that case the two united hands were meant to symbolize the good faith and fidelity of soldiers and people to the reigning prince; and not to represent Fides in her quality of goddess. Examples of the latter kind are also to be found on coins of Balbinus and Pupienus.

The type of a draped female, holding in her right hand one military ensign planted upright on the ground, and carrying another transversely under her left arm, accompanies the legend CONCORD EXERCI on gold of Claudius II.



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