It was said that Fortuna's father (cult of Fors Fortuna) was Jupiter and like him, she could also be generous (Copia). As Annonaria, she protected the grain supply. On June 24, she receives worship during the festival of Fors Fortuna. The name Fortuna seems to derive from Vortumna (she who turns the year).
Fors Fortuna, the one that turns the year
Fortuna is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion who, largely thanks to the late antique author Boethius, remained popular in the Middle Ages until at least the Renaissance. The depiction of her blindfolded is still an important figure in many aspects of Italian culture today.
Fortuna is often depicted with a gubernaculum (ship's rudder), a ball or Rota Fortunae (wheel of fortune, first mentioned by Cicero), and a cornucopia (horn of plenty). She could bring good luck or bad luck: she could be depicted as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Lady Justice, except that Fortuna does not balance. Fortuna came to represent the vagaries of life. She was also a goddess of destiny: as Atrox Fortuna, she claimed the young lives of Princeps Augustus's grandsons Gaius and Lucius, potential heirs to the Empire.
The first temple dedicated to Fortuna, then to the festival of Fors Fortuna, was attributed to theEtruscan Servius Tullius, while the second is known to have been built in 293 BC as the fulfillment of a Roman promise made during the wars Etruscans subsequent ones. The date of consecration of its temples, Fors Fortuna, was June 24, or St. John's Day, when celebrants from Rome floated annually to the temples downriver from the city. After undisclosed rituals, they were then rowed, garlanded and drunk.
Fortuna's identity as the personification of chance events was closely linked to virtus (strength of character). Public officials who lacked virtues invited bad luck upon themselves and upon Rome: Sallust uses the infamous Catiline as an illustration – “Truly, when in the place of work, idleness, in place of the spirit of moderation and equity, caprice and pride invade, fortune is changed like morality.”
An oracle at the Temple of Fortuna Primigena in Praeneste used a form of divination in which a little boy chose one of various futures written on oak rods. Cults of Fortuna in her many forms are attested throughout the Roman world. Dedications have been found to Fortuna Dubia (doubtful fortune), Fortuna Brevis (fickle or capricious fortune) and Fortuna Mala (bad fortune).
Fortuna did not disappear from the popular imagination with the rise of Christianity.
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