Ferte coronatae iuvenum convivia lintres:
Multaque per medias vina bibantur aquas.
Plebs colit hanc, quia, qui posuit, de plebe fuisse
Fertur, et ex humili sceptra tulisse loco.
Convenit et servis; serva quia Tullius ortus
Constituit dubiae templa propinqua deae.
H. Peter, in his additional notes to Ovid’s Fasti[[666]], has one so lucid on the subject of the temples of Fors Fortuna mentioned in this passage that I cannot do better than reproduce it. ‘We find three temples of the goddess mentioned, all of which lay on the further side of the Tiber. The first was that of Servius Tullius mentioned by Varro in the following passage[[667]]: “Dies Fortis Fortunae appellatus ab Servio Tullio rege, quod is fanum Fortis Fortunae secundum Tiberim extra urbem Romam dedicavit Iunio mense.” The second is one stated by Livy[[668]] to have been built by the consul Spurius Carvilius in 460 B.C. near the temple of Servius. The third is mentioned by Tacitus[[669]] as having been dedicated at the end of the year 17 A.D. by Tiberius, also on the further side of the Tiber in the gardens of Caesar. Of these three temples the third does not concern us in dealing with Ovid’s lines, because it was completed and dedicated long after the composition of the sixth book of the Fasti, perhaps at a time when Ovid was already dead; we have to do only with the first two. Now we find in the Fasti of Amiternum[[670]] the following note on the 24th of June: “Forti Fortunae trans Tiberim ad milliarium primum et sextum”; and this taken together with Ovid suggests that either besides the temple of Carvilius there were two temples of Fors Fortuna attributed to Servius, or (and this appears to me more probable) the temple of Carvilius itself was taken for a foundation of Servius as it had the same dedication-day and was in the same locality. In this way the difficulties may be solved.’ I am disposed to accept the second suggestion of Peter’s; for, as Mommsen has remarked[[671]], it is quite according to Roman usage that Carvilius should have placed his temple close to a much more ancient fanum of the same deity; i. e. the principle of the locality of cults often held good through many centuries.
Many cults of Fortuna were referred to Servius Tullius, but especially this one, because, as Ovid says, it was particularly a festival of the plebs of which he was the traditional hero; and also because it was open to slaves, a fact which was naturally connected with the supposed servile birth of this king. The jollity and perhaps looseness of the occasion seemed to indicate a connexion between the lower stratum of population and the worship of Fortuna: ‘On foot and in boats,’ says Ovid, ‘the people enjoyed themselves even to the extent of getting drunk.’ We are reminded in fact of the plebeian license of the festival of Anna Perenna in March[[672]]. It is perhaps worth noting that on June 18 the calendar of Philocalus has the note Annae Sacrum, which unluckily finds no corroboration from any other source. Whether it was an early popular cult, whether it was connected in any way with that of Fors Fortuna, and whether both or either of them had any immediate relation to the summer solstice, are questions admitting apparently of no solution.
It has rarely happened that any Roman cult has been discussed at length in the English language, especially by scholars of unquestionable learning and resource. But on the subject of Fortuna, and Fors Fortuna, an interesting paper appeared some years ago by Prof. Max Müller in his volume entitled Biographies of Words[[673]], which I have been at great pains to weigh carefully. The skill and lucidity with which the Professor’s arguments are, as usual, presented, make this an unusually pleasant task.
He starts, we must note, with a method which in dealing with Italian deities has been justly and emphatically condemned[[674]]; he begins with an etymology in order to discover the nature of the deity, and goes on to support this by selecting a few features from the various forms of the cult. This method will not of course be dangerous, if the etymology be absolutely certain; and absolute certainty, so far as our present knowledge reaches, is indeed what the Professor claims for his. Though we may doubt whether the science of Comparative Philology is as yet old and sure enough to justify us in violating a useful principle in order to pay our first attentions to its results, we may waive this scruple for the present and take the etymology in this case at the outset.