audāx

Fides; Fidelitas; Fiducia; Confidentia; Audacia; Audentia. 1. Fides and fidelitas mean the fidelity which a man himself observes towards others; fides, in a more general sense, like πίστις, the keeping of one’s word and assurance from conscientiousness, together with the reliance of others upon us as springing from this quality, the credit we possess; fidelitas denotes, in a more special sense, like πιστότης, the faithful adherence to persons to whom we have once devoted ourselves; whereas fiducia and confidentia denote the trust we place in others; fiducia, the laudable trust in things, in which we actually can trust, which is allied to the courage of trusting in ourselves, in opp. to timor; Cic. Div. ii. 31. Plin. Ep. v. 17, like θάρσος; but confidentia denotes a blamable blind trust, particularly in one’s own strength, in opp. to foresight and discretion, and which converts spirit into presumption, like θράσος. 5. Fiducia and confidentia have their foundation in trusting to the prosperous issue of anything; audacia and audentia, in the contempt of danger; audacia sometimes means a laudable boldness, as a word of higher import than fiducia; sometimes a blamable boldness, as a civil term for temeritas, like τόλμα; but audentia is always a laudable spirit of enterprise. Juven. xiii. 108. Quum magna malæ superest audacia causæ, creditur a multis fiducia. Sen. Ep. 87. Quæ bona sunt, fiduciam faciunt, divitiæ audaciam. (v. 256.)