Fortuna The early Fortuna was a goddess of plenty and fertility, manifesting herself among mankind as a protectress of women and childbirth, among the crops and herds as a deity of fertility and fecundity. The name no doubt finds its origin in the same root as the verb fero. Such an inscription as nationu gratia| Fortuna Diovo fileia | primogenia may have been offered in gratitude for childbirth, though Mommsen, on the ground of a gloss, would refer it to cattle. It is claimed that Genius is similar to Fortune in almost all the manner of his manifestation.3 Cicero, in telling of the discovery of the sortes of Praeneste, says: Is est hodie locus saeptus religiose propter Iovis pueri (sacellum) qui lactens cum Iunone Fortunae in gremio sedens, mammam adpetens castissime colitur a matribus. This statement is very perplexing because Fortuna seems to have been worshipped also at Praeneste as Primigenia, which has been commonly interpreted to mean "the first-born daughter of Jupiter." No wonder Warde Fowler exclaims that the Praenestines must have been most inconsistent people, expecially as the older inscription bearing evidence on the subject has filia and the later one the antique use of puer. Until we have more explicit evidence, he is inclined to omit Diovo fileia and understand Primigenia to mean the goddess who claimed to be the original deity of the name, before man began to interfere with her, adding artificial titles such as Fortuna huiusce diei, Fortuna muliebris, and so forth. He goes on to say that she "may originally at Praeneste have been thought of as the equivalent of Genius, the spiritual power which the Romans called Juno, attending on women as Genius on men. . . . This would fall in with the fact that at Praeneste and elsewhere Fortuna was especially worshipped by women, without doubt in special connexion with childbirth. Possibly 1 Carter, Relig. of Numa, p. 51; Wissowa, Relig. und Kult.2 pp. 259-60. 2 C.I.L. XIV, 2863. Pauly-Wissowa, VII, 1156. De Div. II, 85. Rom. Essays and Interpret. pp. 67-9. Op. cit. p. 69. she held at Praeneste the same place, or something like it, which Juno Lucina held at Rome and elsewhere; for Lucina, I believe, is not known to have inhabited Praeneste, where Juno was of secondary importance. It is worth noting that there was a Iunonarium, i.e., a cella or shrine, in the great temple of Fortuna there." This explanation of the epithet is not convincing. The dedication day of her temples seems to have been the Ides of November, a day sacred to Jupiter. This is an appropriate choice only if Primigenia has the usual interpretation. Piganiol' goes still further and says that Juno is the Latin name of Sabine Fortuna. To him it is possible that the name Juno was a common noun and the feminine equivalent of Genius. Legend1o tells that Tatius, the Sabine, developed the cult of Juno, and although from inscriptional evidence it is very rare in Picenum and among the Sabines, nevertheless Piganiol declares the legend is fundamentally true and the name Juno is only the Latin equivalent of the Sabine earth-goddess. In commenting on the statue mentioned by Cicero, he11 rather absurdly remarks that the chthonic Fortuna of Praeneste makes concessions to the gods of the sky and takes on her knees the infant Jupiter. Warde Fowler12 seemed to be much nearer the truth when, following Mommsen, he said twenty-five years ago that here are considerations which suggest hesitation before hastily concluding that all this is genuine Italian development of genuine Italian ideas. It seems as if there existed at Praeneste a local earth-goddess who, because of her own relation to fertility, gained a connection with Jupiter and Juno, since the latter were associated with fertility in certain phases of their early worship. Fortuna, as an older deity of the region, became the mother, when myth-making Greeks penetrated the region. By others, who considered the sky-god older, she was made the daughter (the first-born, it is true, because of her age). Both illustrations from sculpture and the parental relationships among these deities show that we are dealing with ideas imported 'C.I.L. XIV, 2867; Preller, Röm. Myth. II3, p. 191, note 1. Carter, C. R. XIV (1900) p. 90. Les Origines de Rome, pp. 110-1. 10 Dion. Hal. II, 50; cf. Festus, p. 42 L. 11 Op. cit. p. 120. 12 Rom. Fest. p. 225. into Italy. Those who would say that she is the Sabine equivalent of Juno should remember that Jupiter was in like manner connected with Fortuna. There seems to be no relation with Genius, though it is interesting to observe that the cult-title Primigenius is applied to Hercules also in a few inscriptions" from Rome and Baetica. Many of the centers of Fortuna-worship show no trace of the luck-goddess, but of a deity pertaining to women. Such was Fortuna Muliebris, as the epithet indicates. Fortuna of the Forum Boarium was closely related to Mater Matuta; and with the latter Juno is closely connected, according to Otto." Fortuna was not one of the di indigites, however, as was Juno. She belongs to the di novensides of Italian origin. Her titles Diovo fileia primogenia and Iovis puer primigenia and the representation of her in art indicate that she was as closely related to Jupiter as to Juno. 13 C.I.L. II, 1436; Dessau, no. 3433=C.I.L. VI, 30907; C.I.L. XI, 5954 14 Op. cit. p. 193. 15 C.I.L. XIV, 2863 and 2862. Caprotinal On the seventh of July a woman's festival was held in Latium in honor of Juno1 and the rites were of such a nature as to show that her worshippers undoubtedly regarded her as a goddess of marriage and of women. But it looks as if the festival had later incorporated ceremonies which were not a part of the earlier adoration of the divinity. Mannhardt2 saw in this day an occasion for purification, driving out sickness, and so forth. Indeed, this Nonae Caprotinae, as it was called, belongs to the older order of celebrations3and seems to have been a continuation of the Poplifugia on the fifth of July. The calendar of Amiternum tells us that the Poplifugia was in honor of Jupiter, and this statement is accepted by Wissowa. Otto, on the other hand, refuses to believe that the fifth of July had any connection with the cult of Jupiter; but as Ehrlich remarks, "Darin liegt überhaupt unleugbar eine Einseitigkeit der Ottoschen Arbeit, dass die Verbindung der Juno mit Jupiter für ihm völlig zurücktritt." Both these days seem to have been parts of a great harvest-festival; and as Roscher says, the connection of the two Italian deities of light again appears in the Nonae Caprotinae, which was held in honor of Juno. The derivation of the name Caprotina and the portrayal of her with a goatskin headdress show that the goat was connected with the cult of the goddess. Wissowas believes that this animal relates to sexual life and fertility of women, but Roscher' believes that we may regard the goat as a customary sacrifice to the moon-goddess. We know, for instance, that in the worship 1 Varro, L.L. VI, 18; Macrobius, S. I, 11, 36 ff.; Plutarch, Rom. 29 and Cam. 33; Polyaen. VIII, 30; C.I.L. IV, 1555; Warde Fowler, Rom. Fest. pp. 177 ff. ' Quellen und Forsch. zur Sprach- und Cultur-Gesch. LI (1884) p. 132. 'Wissowa, Relig. und Kult. 1st ed. p. 118. 'Relig. und Kult. p. 116. 'Op. cit. p. 189. • Zeitschr. für vergl. Sprachforsch. XLI (1907) p. 284. 7 Roscher's Lex. II, 104; supra pp. 15–6. Op. cit. p. 184. Roscher's Lex. II, 587. of Artemis at Brauron, Agrai, and Sparta (as well as of Hera at Sparta) the sacrifice of goats was usual. Scarcely any animal was so significant in ancient weather charms as the goat,10 and primitive peoples are likely to believe that the moon has some influence on the weather."1 It is possible then that Jupiter and Juno were in early times honored together by a harvest-festival lasting two days, since both were deities of forces which had influence on the crops. Juno, because of her association with the moon, assumed some of the attributes of Hera and Artemis. In like manner, through her identification with the moon and fertility of crops, rites connected with women and birth attached themselves to her festival; for, as Ehrenreich 12 says, the lunar deity is always at the same time a divinity of the earth, of vegetation, of birth, and of death. 10 Otto, op. cit. p. 184. 11 Frazer, Golden Bough, VI3, p. 138. 12 Allegemeine Myth. pp. 40-1. |