{ "id": "fortuna", "type": "entity", "name": "Fortuna", "summary": "Roman goddess of fortune and chance. In Livy she is the power that grants or withholds glory (only twice has she allowed the spolia opima); in the Aeneid she is the force Aeneas, Palinurus and Turnus are told to follow — \"Fortune will help the brave\" — and the \"Fortune blind\" Evander curses; Ovid's Sun commits Phaethon to her and Niobe boasts she is beyond her reach.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "roman", "deities", "fortune", "chance", "fate" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "related", "target": "jupiter" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "romulus" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "aeneas" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "aeneid" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "metamorphoses" } ], "questions": [ "Who is Fortuna in Roman mythology?", "What does \"Fortune favours the brave\" come from?", "Is Fortuna the same as Tyche?", "How does Livy speak of Fortune?", "What does Fortuna do in the Aeneid?", "Is Fortuna a goddess or an abstraction?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "Livy treats Fortune as the giver of rare glory: after Romulus dedicates the first spolia opima to Jupiter Feretrius he notes that in all the wars since \"only twice have the spolia opima been offered. So seldom has Fortune granted that glory to men\" (Livy 1.10.7).", "sources": [ "livy-ab-urbe-condita-1" ], "confidence": 0.92 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "When Rome and Alba seek a way to decide their war without a battle, Livy says \"a method was adopted, for which Fortune herself provided the necessary means\" — the triplets on either side, the Horatii and Curiatii (Livy 1.23.10).", "sources": [ "livy-ab-urbe-condita-1" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "Virgil's phrase for courage is Turnus's battle-cry to the Rutulians: \"Fortune will help the brave\" (Aen. 10.215); its dark twin is Sinon's \"Fortune has brought wretched Sinon low; but never shall her cruelty impair his honor and his truth\" (Aen. 2.77).", "sources": [ "virgil-aeneid" ], "confidence": 0.92 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "Fortune is the road the Aeneid's characters are told to take: the Sibyl bids Aeneas \"follow boldly whither Fortune calls\" (Aen. 6.42), Palinurus yields in the storm \"since now the hand of Fortune triumphs, let us where she calls obedient go\" (Aen. 5.1), and Turnus goes to his death on \"that path where Heaven and cruel Fortune call\" (Aen. 12.672).", "sources": [ "virgil-aeneid" ], "confidence": 0.92 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "Evander, sending Pallas to war, prays to Jove and then to her: \"if some curse, too dark to tell, impend from thee, O Fortune blind! I pray thee break my thread of miserable life to-day\" (Aen. 8.554) — Fortuna addressed as a person beside Jupiter, and blind.", "sources": [ "virgil-aeneid" ], "confidence": 0.93 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "Ovid uses her at both ends of hubris: the Sun, handing over the reins, says \"to Fortune I commit thy fate\" (Met. 2.103), and Niobe boasts \"The wealth of my abundance is too strong for Fortune to assail me. Let her rage despoil me of large substance; yet so much would still be mine\" (Met. 6.146) — just before Apollo and Diana kill her children.", "sources": [ "ovid-metamorphoses" ], "confidence": 0.9 } ], "takeaways": [ "In Livy Book 1 and the two epics Fortuna is a personified power — invoked, cursed, followed — but no temple, festival or myth of her own appears; that side of her cult is not in these texts.", "\"Fortune will help the brave\" is Turnus's, spoken by the loser of the poem (Aen. 10.215).", "Blind and cruel in Virgil (Aen. 8.554, 12.672), grudging in Livy (1.10.7), mocked and vindicated in Ovid (Met. 6.146)." ], "faqs": [ { "q": "How does Livy speak of Fortune?", "claim": "c1" }, { "q": "What does \"Fortune favours the brave\" come from?", "claim": "c3" }, { "q": "What does Fortuna do in the Aeneid?", "claim": "c4" }, { "q": "Is Fortuna a goddess or an abstraction?", "claim": "c5" } ], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "theoretical", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": false, "winning_edge": "Instead of a list of temples and epithets this object gives the sentences in which the Latin authors actually address Fortune, and says plainly what they do not contain.", "confidence": 0.9, "last_verified": "2026-09-03", "media": [], "x": { "myth": { "pantheon": "roman", "kind": "deity", "group": "other", "domains": [ "fortune", "chance", "luck", "the turn of events" ], "symbols": [ "wheel", "rudder", "cornucopia" ], "wikidata": "Q4654" } }, "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/fortuna", "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/fortuna.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "Fortuna", "description": "Roman goddess of fortune and chance. In Livy she is the power that grants or withholds glory (only twice has she allowed the spolia opima); in the Aeneid she is the force Aeneas, Palinurus and Turnus are told to follow — \"Fortune will help the brave\" — and the \"Fortune blind\" Evander curses; Ovid's Sun commits Phaethon to her and Niobe boasts she is beyond her reach.", "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/fortuna", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-09-03", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Ovid, Metamorphoses — tr. Brookes More (1922), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0959/phi006/phi0959.phi006.perseus-eng3.xml" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Virgil, Aeneid — tr. Theodore C. Williams (1910), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0690/phi003/phi0690.phi003.perseus-eng2.xml" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, Books 1–10 — tr. Rev. Canon Roberts (1912), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0914/phi001/phi0914.phi001.perseus-eng3.xml" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "Fortuna" } }