Fors Fortuna was a doubly lucky goddess for the Romans, and her festival on 24thJune was the traditional day for ordinary citizens to celebrate the establishment of one of her oldest temples in Rome.
So who was Fors Fortuna? And what made her so lucky?
The Goddess of Good Fortune
As her name suggests, Fortuna was the generic Roman goddess of luck. However, the Romans attached various prefixes and postfixes to her name, to change the specific focus of that good fortune. So, Fortuna Muliebris was the goddess of “women’s luck,”linked to fertility and childbirth, while the later Fortuna Redux was a luck goddess beloved of the Augustan era, courted to ensure the triumphant return of troops from war.
But it was Fors Fortuna who was the most popular form of the goddess in Rome. The Latin “Fors” means ‘chance’ or ‘luck’ —meaning that Fors Fortuna was a doubly fortunate diety.
The Origins of Fortuna
Fors Fortuna was not one of the oldest Roman gods. She has no feast day marked on the most ancient Roman calendars and crucially, had no flamenor priest dedicated to her cult.
Her role in good fortune means Fortuna was often connected with the Greek goddess of luck, Tyche. But this does not mean that the Romans adopted Fortuna from the Greeks.
In fact, Fortuna was very much an Italic deity. She had well-established cults at Antium and Praeneste, towns respectively 35 miles and 22 miles from Rome. As the Roman state expanded its reach into Italy during the second century BC, Fortuna’s cult was adopted, eventually establishing itself in Rome.
But many sources suggest that the Roman’s adopted Fors Fortuna much earlier than the second century BC.
Fortuna’s Temple and Cult in Rome
“But of Fortune, there are splendid and ancient shrines, all but coeval with the first foundations of the City,” states Plutarch. “For the first to build a temple of Fortune was Ancus Marcius, the grandson of Numa and king fourth in line from Romulus.”
According to Plutarch, it was Romulus who“added the title of Fortis to Fortuna for in Fortune Manly Fortitude shares most largely in the winning of victory.”
This association between luck and victory was dear to the Roman heart and probably explained why they were so taken with Fors Fortuna. But Plutarch’s account is not the only one that links the goddess with early Rome.
Varro recounts how the early Roman King, Servius Tullius established fanum or shrines in the city on the right bank of the Tiber near the Forum Boarium —during June. The King had good reason to be grateful to Fortune who, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassushad “favoured him all his life,” raising him from the son of a slave to King of Rome.
These ancient precedents for Fors Fortuna in Rome are born out by archaeology. Excavations have revealed archaic twin temples to Fors Fortuna and Matuta Mater — both in the vicinity of the Forum Boarium.
The Festival of Fors Fortuna: 24th June
It was to commemorate the foundation of King Tullius’s riverside shrine to Fors Fortuna that the Romans marked 24th June as sacred to Fors Fortuna. Even in the early imperial period, popular festivities dedicated to Fortune still marked the day.
Ovid’s Fasti provides us with the fullest account of these celebrations. It seems the cult was popular with the plebeians and slaves — possibly because of the servile origins of the King who established the goddess’s shrine.
The River Tiber, the site of Tullius’s temple was central to events. People hurried to the shrine on foot along its banks or along the river itself in a “speedy skiff.” The revellers garlanded themselves with flowers and took plenty of wine along to mark the temples day of dedication. It was not unusual or unacceptable for them to end up roaring drunk.
Links to the Summer Solstice
Interestingly — although it is not possible to say with any certainty if this is a more than a coincidence — the celebrations for Fortuna’s temple coincided with what many ancient writers agreed was the day of the Roman celebrations of the summer solstice.
Instead of marking the day on the 21st June, Pliny and Columellaboth mark the day of the solstice on the 24th— the very day of the celebrations at Fortuna’s shrine.
So perhaps the revels of Fors Fortuna had a double significance — just like the goddess herself.
Sources
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book IV.4
Ovid, Fasti, 6. Penguin Classics
Pliny, The Natural History, Book 18. 256, 264, 288
Plutarch, On the Fortunes of the Romans, 5
Columella, De re Rustica, XI.2.48
