I. TYCHE, THE GRECIAN GODDESS OF GOOD LUCK

Among the more popular divinities of the early Grecians was Tyche, the goddess of good luck, whose worship, according to Plutarch, complemented that of Destiny. She ruled over accidental events, and was the dispenser alike of blessings and misfortunes; but when too lavish in the distribution of her favors she was liable to incur the jealousy of Nemesis, the goddess of retribution.

Tyche, the Goddess of Fortune, is not mentioned in the works of the earliest Grecian poets, but Homer and Hesiod both allude to an ocean nymph of this name who was gathering flowers with Proserpina when the latter was carried off by Pluto.

The Theban lyric poet Pindar appears to have originated the worship of Tyche, whom he celebrated in verse, and invested with the title Pharopolis, or Protectress of Cities;[233] and in Greece, towards the close of the fifth century B. C., this goddess was generally believed to be the ruler of worldly affairs. While Zeus was, indeed, the most powerful of the gods, Tyche was regarded by some as having the character of Providence;[234] yet she was more generally thought to be identical with Chance or Luck. The famous Ionic philosopher Anaxagoras said that Fortune was a cause unknown to human reason; for some things come by Necessity, some by fatal Destiny, and others by deliberate Counsel.[235]

II. THE ROMAN GODDESS FORTUNA

The worship of the Goddess of Chance, Fortuna, was introduced among the Romans from Greece during the reign of Servius Tullius, and soon became very popular. Indeed, at one period Fortuna was the chief Italian divinity, and the plebeians and slaves held an annual festival on the twenty-fourth day of June in honor of her who could bestow riches and liberty. Pliny wrote that the Chance or Fortune by means of which we acquire so much is a divine power; and Plutarch, in his work on the Fortune of the Romans, attempts to show that the great achievements of that people were to be attributed to good luck rather than to sagacity or prowess. As an example he cites their escape from invasion by the opportune death of Alexander the Great at Babylon, B. C. 323, at a time when he was preparing to overwhelm Italy with his armies.

The Roman biographer, Cornelius Nepos, in speaking of the Greek general, Emenes the Cardian (B. C. 361-317), said that, even if the favors shown him by Fortune had been commensurate with his great abilities, he would not for that reason have been more eminent; for great men should be measured by their qualities, and not by their good or bad fortune. The Dutch savant, Desiderius Erasmus, wrote that Diogenes was wont to rebuke with asperity those who blamed the goddess when their affairs did not prosper; and he also severely criticised the prevalent habit of craving at the hands of Mistress Fortune, not such things as were substantially good, but rather such as seemed to be so in the fancy of the petitioners. Philip of Macedon, on the receipt of the news of great victories won by his generals, thanked Fortune for her great goodness, modestly beseeching of her only some “light and shrewd turn again at another season.” And Erastus, commenting on Philip’s moderation and good sense in not being unduly elated by prosperity, quaintly remarked that this great king, having profound wisdom and experience, did not insolently leap and skip about on the receipt of joyful tidings, but rather mistrusted the pampering of Fortune, whom he knew to be a fickle jade.

III. THE CHARACTER OF FORTUNE

Of all the pagan deities, Fortune was the most absolute and the most universally worshiped; for she kept all men at her feet, the prosperous through fear and the unfortunate through hope.[236] She was also an eccentric goddess, not only favoring the brave, according to the familiar maxim of Terence, but likewise being decidedly partial to fools, if we may believe another classical saying, Fortuna favet fatuis. And again, as an ancient poet wrote, Legem veretur nocens, Fortunam innocens. The satirist Juvenal said that, if men were discreet, Fortune had no power over them. When she entered Rome she folded her wings as a sign that she wished to remain there; and, as has been aptly remarked, she is there still, for the modern Roman is as firm a believer in luck, whether good or bad, as was the Roman citizen two thousand years ago.[237] Among the ancients, a lucky event, something opportune occurring unexpectedly, was ascribed to a sudden caprice or whim on the part of the goddess, while success in an undertaking was thought to be due to her favor when in a sober mood.[238]

“Why was Fortune made a goddess?” asked St. Augustine, since she is so blind that she runs to anybody without distinction, and often passes by her admirers to cling to those who despise her.[239] And Cicero remarked that Fortune was not only blind herself, but often deprived her votaries of sight.

Pliny, in discoursing about the religious beliefs current in his time, says:—

The representations of Fortune, which are to be seen in ancient statues, bas-reliefs, medals, and coins, exhibit the many different attributes of her character. The earliest image of the goddess was probably at Smyrna, and was the work of the eminent sculptor Bupalus, who lived in the sixth century B. C. She was here shown as bearing on her head a hemisphere, and with the horn of AmalthÆa in her left hand, thus typifying the distribution of all good things.[240]

Her lack of discernment has been symbolized by artists, who have portrayed her with a bandage before her eyes; with a rudder, as guiding worldly affairs; or with a wheel or ball, as types of instability. In a painting by Sulzer, Fortune is shown seated on a throne, which is borne aloft in the air by contrary winds. In her hand is a magic wand, and her countenance expresses inconstancy and fickleness, while in her train follow Riches, Poverty, Despotism, and Slavery. In the Villa d’Este, near the Italian town of Tivoli, is a painting by Zucchari showing Fortune astride of an ostrich, which has been supposed to be an allegorical intimation that the goddess has a preference for simpletons.[241] In her temple at Thebes, she held Wealth in her arms. Sometimes she was accompanied by a winged youth named Favor, to denote how speedily her favors may fly away from us;[242] or by a winged Cupid, which has been thought to signify that, in Love, Beauty has a less permanent influence than Fortune.[243]

Her numerous titles were usually complimentary, as Golden or Royal Fortune, but she was disrespectfully spoken of by Horace, Ovid, and other writers, by whom she was characterized as unjust, fickle, and delighting in mischief. One reproachful epithet applied to her was viscosa, tenacious or sticky, because men are caught in her toils like birds in quicklime.[244]

The AbbÉ Banier, in his “Mythology and Fables of the Ancients,” thus moralizes regarding Fortune, good and bad:—

We learn from the historian Suetonius that the early Roman emperors were wont to cherish small images of Fortune, which they venerated as special tutelary deities.

The goddess is said to have once appeared in a vision to the Emperor Galba, who reigned A. D. 68-69, and to have informed him that she was standing weary before his door, and that, if she were not quickly admitted, every one dear to him would become her prey. On awakening he found outside the entrance-hall of his palace a bronze figure of Fortune, which he concealed beneath his garments and carried to his summer residence at Tusculum. There he set apart a sanctuary for the image, and offered prayers to it each month, keeping, moreover, in its honor an all-night vigil every year. On one occasion Galba had intended to present his little guardian genius with a necklace of pearls and precious stones, but changed his mind and gave it to the Capitoline Venus. The following night Fortune, in angry mood, again appeared to the emperor in a dream, complaining that she had been cheated out of the intended gift, and threatening to take away the many benefits which she had bestowed upon him. Alarmed at this, Galba sent a messenger early in the morning to prepare a sacrificial offering, and he himself hastened to Tusculum, but found on the altar of the sanctuary nothing but warm ashes; and near by stood an old man clothed in black, holding in one hand a glass plate containing incense, and in the other an earthenware vessel full of sacrificial wine.[245]

Some verses containing uncomplimentary allusions to the character of Fortune were formerly to be seen on the wall of a chamber in Wressell Castle, Yorkshire, a building of the latter part of the fourteenth century, which was destroyed by fire in 1796:—

Among most civilized nations of the present day the Goddess Fortune is not openly worshiped, although the Japanese have their seven Gods of Luck, which are comparatively modern deities, brought together from various sources, including their own primitive Shinto religion, Buddhism, and the Taouism of China.[247]

The Lamas of Tibet perform each year a peculiar scapegoat rite called the Chase of the Demon of Ill-luck. One of their number, in fantastic garb and with grotesquely painted face, sits in the market-place for a week previously, and on the day of the ceremony this worthy, who is known as a ghost-king, wanders about shaking a black yak’s tail over the heads of the people, whereby their ill-luck is in some mystic way transferred to him.[248]

IV. TEMPLES OF FORTUNE

Temples in honor of the Goddess Tyche were built at Elis, Corinth, and in other Grecian cities; and in the second century A. D. the eminent philanthropist, Herodes Atticus, erected for her a temple in Athens, the ruins of which are believed still to exist.[249]

The western suburb of Syracuse, in Sicily, was called ????, after a temple of Tyche which adorned it.

Among the Italians the worship of Fortune became so popular that her temples outnumbered all others. “We have built a thousand temples to Fortune and not one to Reason,” remarked Fronto, the worthy tutor of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Of all these pagan edifices in Rome, but a single one now remains, the temple of Fortuna Virilis, now the church of Santa Maria Egiziaca.[250] It is a small Ionic tetrastyle building on the left bank of the Tiber, a little north of the so-called Temple of the Sun. But the most famous Italian temple of Fortune was at Preneste, an ancient Latin town, now called Palestrina. Here oracles were consulted and fugitives found a place of refuge.

In Great Britain there still exist a number of altars in honor of Fortune, which date from the Roman occupation. One of these, on the line of the wall of Antoninus in Scotland, was erected by soldiers of the second and sixth legions. Another altar, dedicated to the same goddess, was found at the headquarters of the sixth legion at Eboracum, the modern city of York, and is still to be seen at the museum there.[251] The inscription on this altar was copied by the writer during a recent visit to York, and reads as follows:—

DEÆ FORTUNÆ
SOSIA
IUNCINA
Q. ANTONI
ISAURICI
LEG. AUG.

V. LUCK, ANCIENT AND MODERN

Our English word luck, according to some authorities, is of Scandinavian origin, while others consider it to be the past tense of an Anglo-Saxon verb meaning “to catch.” Luck signifies, therefore, a good catch, and is analogous to the German GlÜck. It has been aptly remarked that very many so-called strong-minded persons, who would not for a moment admit that they are superstitious, are yet not insensible to the fascination of this little monosyllable. As Christian people, we profess to believe implicitly in Divine Providence; yet often because we cannot understand its workings, we so far relapse into paganism as to worship secretly the Goddess Fortune. The fact is, that superstition is an ineradicable element of human nature. The combined forces of religion, education, philosophy, and common sense are allied in a perpetual warfare against it. The thousand and one little credulities which form such an important part of modern folk-lore may be intrinsically the veriest whimsies and trifles, but they are evidence of the tenacity of traditional beliefs.

The modern sailor carries in his pocket a bit of sealskin, or an eagle’s beak, to shield him from the lightning; and the Southern negro has his rabbit’s foot, and a host of other outlandish fetiches, all for luck.

The millions of American negroes have, indeed, a deeply-rooted love for the supernatural, and their character exhibits a peculiar blending of superstition and religion. Among the mixed colored races in Missouri, for example, we find a bewildering jumble of African Voodoo credulities, the traditions of the American Indian, and religious fanaticism. Thus, in “Voodoo Tales,” by Mary A. Owen, we read of an old crone who kept her medicine-pipe and eagle-bone whistle alongside of her books of devotion, carried a rosary and rabbit’s foot in the same pocket, and wore a saint’s toe dangling on her bosom, and a luck-ball under her right arm.

It has been well said that only those whose minds are predisposed to entertain idle fancies are wont to regard misfortune as a natural sequence of the legion of alleged evil omens. Yet we know that in all ages and countries such notions have prevailed. The ancient Chaldeans made use of magic formulÆ to ward off ill-luck, and Tacitus relates that the most trivial events were regarded as portentous by the Roman people. What a contrast to the credulity of a superstitious age is afforded by the often quoted remark of Cato the Censor, who refused to regard it as ominous when informed that his boots had been gnawed by rats! “If the boots had gnawed the rats,” he said, “it might have portended evil.”

There is a deal of philosophy in the Irish saying, “Every man has bad luck awaiting him some time or other, but leave the bad luck to the last; perhaps it may never come.”

In attributing the sundry and divers misfortunes of our lives to bad luck, we surely ignore the fact that these same unwelcome experiences are often the logical sequences of our own shortcomings, and that the fickle goddess cannot with fairness be made always to masquerade as our scapegoat.