Fortuna
Fortuna EuropeAn Italian goddess identified with the Greek goddess of luck Tyche, ‘child of Zeus the Deliverer’. The Greeks thought that Tyche worked obscurely, lifting up one man and pushing down another; she was chance personified. In Italy Fortuna, or Fors, began as a bringer of increase, the luck of good crops and plentiful flocks. Gradually her cult assumed in Rome a much wider role, perhaps because luck is no respecter of persons. Indeed, hers was one of the very few festivals, held every June, which slaves could attend as well as free persons. Normally slaves or prisoners were considered to pollute any religious ceremony at which they happened to be present, so that elaborate precautions were taken to exclude them before the proceedings began. Popular Fortuna survived into the Middle Ages as Fortune's Wheel. Felicitas, specifically the goddess of good luck, was made an official cult under the Roman emperors, who saw her as an ally of Victoria.
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