god
Fortuna
also: Fortuna, Fortune
The goddess Fortune, personifying chance and destiny; in Fam. 8.14 Caelius says Fortuna was preparing a great spectacle for Cicero in the coming civil strife.
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 5.13 §1 armed and arrayed against fortune
Contra fortunam paratum armatumque: the Stoic ideal of equipping the mind against the blows of Fortune (fortuna), the power of chance over human affairs. Cicero praises Lucceius for this detachment in the depths of his own grief after Tullia's death in 45 BC.
- Ad Familiares 5.16 §2 our life is set up as a target for all the weapons of fortune
The commonplace (consolatio pervulgata) that to be born human is to be exposed to every blow of Fortune (fortuna). This stock opening of the consolation genre tells the mourner that nothing new or unjust has befallen him.