Of all the pagan deities, Fortune was the most absolute and the most
universally worshiped; for she kept all men at her feet, the prosperous
through fear and the unfortunate through hope.[236] She was also an
eccentric goddess, not only favoring the brave, according to the familiar
maxim of Terence, but likewise being decidedly partial to fools, if we
may believe another classical saying, _Fortuna favet fatuis_. And again,
as an ancient poet wrote, _Legem veretur nocens, Fortunam innocens_. The
satirist Juvenal said that, if men were discreet, Fortune had no power
over them. When she entered Rome she folded her wings as a sign that she
wished to remain there; and, as has been aptly remarked, she is there
still, for the modern Roman is as firm a believer in luck, whether good
or bad, as was the Roman citizen two thousand years ago.[237] Among the
ancients, a lucky event, something opportune occurring unexpectedly, was
ascribed to a sudden caprice or whim on the part of the goddess, while
success in an undertaking was thought to be due to her favor when in a
sober mood.[238]
“Why was Fortune made a goddess?” asked St. Augustine, since she is so
blind that she runs to anybody without distinction, and often passes by
her admirers to cling to those who despise her.[239] And Cicero remarked
that Fortune was not only blind herself, but often deprived her votaries
of sight.
Pliny, in discoursing about the religious beliefs current in his time,
says:—
All over the world, in all places and at all times, Fortune is
the only God whom every one invokes: she alone is spoken of;
she alone is accused and is supposed to be guilty; she alone
is in our thoughts, is praised and blamed, and is loaded with
reproaches; wavering as she is, conceived by the generality
of mankind to be blind, wandering, inconstant, uncertain,
variable, and often favoring the unworthy. To her are referred
all our losses and all our gains, and, in casting up the
accounts of mortals, she alone balances the two pages of our
sheet. We are so much in the power of chance, that chance
itself is considered as a God.
The representations of Fortune, which are to be seen in ancient statues,
bas-reliefs, medals, and coins, exhibit the many different attributes of
her character. The earliest image of the goddess was probably at Smyrna,
and was the work of the eminent sculptor Bupalus, who lived in the sixth
century B. C. She was here shown as bearing on her head a hemisphere,
and with the horn of Amalthæa in her left hand, thus typifying the
distribution of all good things.[240]
Her lack of discernment has been symbolized by artists, who have
portrayed her with a bandage before her eyes; with a rudder, as guiding
worldly affairs; or with a wheel or ball, as types of instability. In a
painting by Sulzer, Fortune is shown seated on a throne, which is borne
aloft in the air by contrary winds. In her hand is a magic wand, and her
countenance expresses inconstancy and fickleness, while in her train
follow Riches, Poverty, Despotism, and Slavery. In the Villa d’Este, near
the Italian town of Tivoli, is a painting by Zucchari showing Fortune
astride of an ostrich, which has been supposed to be an allegorical
intimation that the goddess has a preference for simpletons.[241] In
her temple at Thebes, she held Wealth in her arms. Sometimes she was
accompanied by a winged youth named Favor, to denote how speedily her
favors may fly away from us;[242] or by a winged Cupid, which has been
thought to signify that, in Love, Beauty has a less permanent influence
than Fortune.[243]
Her numerous titles were usually complimentary, as Golden or Royal
Fortune, but she was disrespectfully spoken of by Horace, Ovid, and other
writers, by whom she was characterized as unjust, fickle, and delighting
in mischief. One reproachful epithet applied to her was _viscosa_,
tenacious or sticky, because men are caught in her toils like birds in
quicklime.[244]
The Abbé Banier, in his “Mythology and Fables of the Ancients,” thus
moralizes regarding Fortune, good and bad:—
As men have always highly valued earthly goods, ’tis no
wonder that they adored Fortune. Fools! who thus instead of
acknowledging an intelligent Providence that distributes riches
and earthly goods, from views always wise, though dark and
placed beyond the reach of human discovery, addressed their
vows to an imaginary Being, that acted without design and
from the impulse of unavoidable necessity; for ’tis beyond
question that, in the Pagan system, Fortune was nothing else
but Destiny. Accordingly she was confounded, as we shall see
afterwards, with the _Parcæ_, who were themselves that fatal
Necessity, which the poets have reasoned so much about.
We learn from the historian Suetonius that the early Roman emperors were
wont to cherish small images of Fortune, which they venerated as special
tutelary deities.
The goddess is said to have once appeared in a vision to the Emperor
Galba, who reigned A. D. 68-69, and to have informed him that she was
standing weary before his door, and that, if she were not quickly
admitted, every one dear to him would become her prey. On awakening he
found outside the entrance-hall of his palace a bronze figure of Fortune,
which he concealed beneath his garments and carried to his summer
residence at Tusculum. There he set apart a sanctuary for the image,
and offered prayers to it each month, keeping, moreover, in its honor
an all-night vigil every year. On one occasion Galba had intended to
present his little guardian genius with a necklace of pearls and precious
stones, but changed his mind and gave it to the Capitoline Venus. The
following night Fortune, in angry mood, again appeared to the emperor in
a dream, complaining that she had been cheated out of the intended gift,
and threatening to take away the many benefits which she had bestowed
upon him. Alarmed at this, Galba sent a messenger early in the morning
to prepare a sacrificial offering, and he himself hastened to Tusculum,
but found on the altar of the sanctuary nothing but warm ashes; and
near by stood an old man clothed in black, holding in one hand a glass
plate containing incense, and in the other an earthenware vessel full of
sacrificial wine.[245]
Some verses containing uncomplimentary allusions to the character of
Fortune were formerly to be seen on the wall of a chamber in Wressell
Castle, Yorkshire, a building of the latter part of the fourteenth
century, which was destroyed by fire in 1796:—
The Proverbis in the syde of the utter chamber above of the
Hous in the Gardyng at Wresyll.
No thynge to fortune thou apply,
For her gyftis vanyshithe as doth fantasy,
The more thou receyvethe of her gyftis moste unsure,
The more to the aprochethe displeasure.
Then in blynde fortune put not thy truste.
For her brightness sone receyveth ruste.
Fortune is fykill, fortune is blynde.
Her rawardes be fekill and unkynde.
Forsake the glory of fortune(’s) fyckillnes,
Of whom comythe worldly glory and yet much unkyndnes,
Put thy trust and in hym sett thy mynde,
Whiche when fortune faylithe will nevyr be unkynde.[246]
Among most civilized nations of the present day the Goddess Fortune is
not openly worshiped, although the Japanese have their seven Gods of
Luck, which are comparatively modern deities, brought together from
various sources, including their own primitive Shinto religion, Buddhism,
and the Taouism of China.[247]
The Lamas of Tibet perform each year a peculiar scapegoat rite called the
Chase of the Demon of Ill-luck. One of their number, in fantastic garb
and with grotesquely painted face, sits in the market-place for a week
previously, and on the day of the ceremony this worthy, who is known as
a ghost-king, wanders about shaking a black yak’s tail over the heads of
the people, whereby their ill-luck is in some mystic way transferred to
him.[248]