FORTUNA, in Ancient Mythology, the goddess of fortune, was worshipped with especial honours in various parts of Italy. Her name does not occur in the earlier Greek authors, who refer the chances of life to the will of Jupiter and the decrees of the Fates. The worship of this goddess seems to have been common in Italy at a very early period. Before the Roman era, the Etruscans (among whom she was known by the name of Nursia) had erected a temple in her honour at Volsinii, and the Latins at Præneste. But the most splendid of all her temples was that at Antium, which Horace has celebrated in his ode beginning—
O Diva, gratum quo regis Antium,
and of which the sortes or oracular responses were very celebrated. Fortuna was sometimes represented as blind, with winged feet, resting on a wheel, at others with a sun and crescent moon on her head. The Romans had a tradition, that when this goddess entered their city she laid aside her wings and sandals, indicating by this means that she intended to remain there for ever. Fortuna is mentioned by Roman writers with a great variety of epithets attached to her name, such as publica, privata, muliebris, virilis, &c. &c. At Rome alone the number of her temples amounted to twenty-six.