(Tux), a name which among the ancients seems to have denoted a principle of fortuity, whereby things came to pass, without being necessitated thereto: but what and whence that principle is, they do not seem to have ever precisely thought. Hence their philosophers are often intimating, that men only framed the phantom Fortune to hide their ignorance; and that they call Fortune whatever befalls a man without his knowing for what purpose. Hence Juvenal (sat. x. ver. 366.) affirms, they were men who made a deity of Fortune.
Nullum nomen abest, si fit prudenter; sed te Nos facimus, Fortuna, deum exologue locamus.
The ingenious Mr Spence gives another reading of this passage:
Nullum nomen abest, si fit prudenter; sed te Nos facimus, Fortuna, deum exologue locamus.
This reading, he thinks, agrees best with the context: Juvenal says, ver. 356., that the two things we should pray for are good health and good sense; that we might be the authors of our own happiness if we pleased, ver. 363.; that virtue is the only way to true happiness, ver. 364.; that if we ourselves are prudent, Fortune has no power over us; and that, in truth, she is no goddess at all, and has only usurped a seat in heaven from the folly of mankind, ver. 366. Fortune was not considered as a deity by the old Romans, but was made so by the devotion and folly of the vulgar; and Mr Spence says, that he has seen an ancient gem, in which Cybele, the mother of the gods, is represented as turning away her head from Fortune, in an attitude of disowning and rejecting her; (Polymetis, p. 150, 154. &c.)
According to the opinion of the heathens, therefore, fortune in reality was only the arrival of things in a sudden and unexpected manner, without any apparent cause or reason: so that the philosophical sense of the word coincides with what is vulgarly called chance.
But in religion it had a farther force; altars and temples in great numbers were consecrated to this Fortune, as a deity. This intimates, that the heathens had personified, and even deified, their chance; and conceived her as a sort of goddess, who disposed of the fate of men at her pleasure. Hence that invocation of Horace, O divos, gratum que regis Antium, in the 35th ode of the first book, where he recommends Augustus, then preparing for a visit to Britain, to her protection. From these different sentiments it may be inferred, that the ancients at one time took Fortune for a peremptory cause, bent upon doing good to some, and persecuting others; and sometimes for a blind inconstant cause, without any view or determination at all.
If then the word fortune had no certain idea in the mouth of those who erected altars to her, much less can it be ascertained what it denotes in the mind of those who now use the word in their writings. They who would substitute the name Providence in lieu of that of Fortune, cannot give any tolerable sense to half the phrases wherein the word occurs.
Horace paints the goddess, preceded by Necessity, holding nails and wedges in her hands, with a cramp-iron, and melted lead to fasten it; rarely accompanied with Fidelity, unless when she abandons a family; for in that case Fidelity never fails to depart with her, as well as friends.
She is disrespectfully spoken of by most of the Roman writers, and represented as blind, inconstant, unjust, and delighting in mischief. (Ovid. ad Liv. ver. 52. ver. 374. Hor. lib. i. od. 34. ver. 26. lib. iii. od. 29. ver. 51. Statius, Theb. xii. ver. 505.) However, they had a good as well as a bad Fortune, a constant and inconstant Fortune; the latter of which was represented with wings, and a wheel by her. (Hor. lib. iii. od. 29. ver. 56.) Juvenal alludes to a statue of Fortune, which exhibited her under a very good character, as the patroness of the poor infants that were exposed by their parents in the streets. (Sat. vi. ver. 605.)
The painters represent her in a woman's habit, with a bandage before her eyes, to show that she acts without discernment; and standing on a wheel, to express her instability. The Romans, says Lactantius, represented her with a cornucopia, and the helm of a ship, to show that she distributes riches, and directs the affairs of the world. In effect, it is with such characters that we see her represented on so many medals, with the inscriptions, FORTUNA AVG. FORTUNA REDUX. FORTUNAE AVG. OR REDUCIS, &c. Sometimes she is seen pointing at a globe before her feet, with a sceptre in one hand, and holding the cornucopia in the other.
The Romans had a virile as well as a muliebrian Fortune, for the objects of their adoration: the Fortuna virilis was honoured by the men, and the Fortuna muliebris by the women. They honoured Fortune also under a variety of other appellations.
The Romans derived the worship of Fortune from the Greeks, under the reign of Servius Tullius, who dedicated the first temple to her in the public market. Nero also built a temple to Fortune. The Fortune worshipped at Antium was probably of the most exalted character of any among the Romans; if we may judge by the account which Horace gives us of the great solemn processions that were made to her. (Hor. lib. i. od. 35. ver. 22.) But the most celebrated temple of Fortune was at Preneste. Statius speaks of several Fortunes there, and calls them the Prænestej fortunæ. (Lib. i. Sylv. iii. ver. 80.)
Fortune-Tellers. Persons pretending to tell fortunes are to be punished with a year's imprisonment, and standing four times on the pillory. Stat. 9 Geo. II. c. 5.