Horatius at the Bridge
In 508 BCE, one man held the Etruscan army at a bridge long enough for Rome to destroy it. His name was Publius Horatius Cocles. He survived, which surprised everyone including him.
roman virtue
Pietas: The Roman Virtue of Duty, Devotion, and Obligation
Pietas was the most Roman of virtues — not piety in the modern sense, but the whole network of obligations a person owed to the gods, to their family, and to the state. Aeneas carried his father out of Troy on his back. That was pietas.