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O Fortuna! Like the moon everchanging, rising first then declining. - Carmina Burana |
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Although one of the most important Goddesses of late antiquity, Tyche had almost no mythology to speak of. She was always described as the daughter of Zeus, though authors disagreed as to whether she belonged in the company of the Okeanids (Hesiod's Theogony 360) or, as most put her, with the Moirai or Fates (Pindar Frag 21). Her name comes from the Greek word tynchano "made to happen", and could mean "good fortune" or "success" on the one hand, and "chance" or "luck" on the other. Tyche presided over both good and bad luck, and it was in this capacity that she had the widest cult. Life in ancient times was uncertain. There were always wars, or plagues, or sudden droughts to contend with. People felt battered on the winds of Fate, insignificant, and unnoticed in the grand scheme of things. Praying to a Goddess who had control over uncertainty was a means of gaining some measure of certainty in life. Frequently she was addressed as Tyche Soteira (Tyche the Savior) or Agathe Tyche (Good Fortune). Pindar called her the one who "upholds the city" (Frag 39) and as early as the fourth century BCE, a public cult to ensure her protection for the whole city was established at Thebes. This custom spread quickly, and before long she had temples in almost all of the major Greek cities. Numerous cities not only erected temples in her honor but made her their official Goddess and patron - among them Thera, Selgae, Trapezopolis, Thasos, Statonicia, Syllium, Rhodiapolis, Smyrna, and Ephesus. (Dictionary of Roman Religion, Adkins and Adkins) At Mytilene, she was known as Magna Tyche or the Great Tyche of Mytilene, and was always associated with the fortune of Kings and Emperors. However, Tyche was not always a benevolent and kindly Goddess. Indeed, she was thought of as capricious and violent, suddenly changing her mind without giving a bit of warning. (Pliny's Natural History 2.5.22 and Euripides' Alcestes 785) Her iconogrophy is very telling. Tyche is often depicted as a standing woman steering a course with a rudder in her right hand and holding a cornucopia in her left. (Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Van Der Toorn) According to Dio Chrysostomus, "the rudder indicates that Tyche directs the life of men; and the horn of Amaltheia calls attention to the giving of good things and prosperity." (Or. 63.7) She was also associated with a globe to symbolize her universal rule, or, as on coins, a wheel - an image of changeability, again according to Chrysostomus. At an early period, Tyche was associated with the Roman Goddess Fortuna. Fortuna may have originally been the Etruscan Goddess Nortia, who was a Goddess of fertility and chance. Fortuna adopted the wheel and cornucopia of Tyche, but whereas Tyche is almost always depicted as standing, Fortuna can sometimes be seen sitting upon a throne, from which she looks out upon the affairs of mortal men. Very rarely she is depicted as blindfolded. The Romans recognized a number of different aspects of the Goddess Fortuna. As Fortuna Augusta she was associated specifically with the luck of the Emperor. Altars to her under this name are widespread. As Fortuna Balnearis "Fortuna of the Baths" she watched over Roman soldiers in foreign lands. Altars with this inscription were set up in military bathhouses, often with the further inscriptions Fortuna Salutaris "Fortuna of health and well-being" and Fortuna Redux "Fortuna the home-bringer" - important aspects obviously on the minds of soldiers in far-flung lands. There was Fortuna Privata "Fortuna of the Individual" as opposed to Fortuna Publica "Fortuna of the People" or Fortuna Romana who looked after the fate of the whole Roman population. Even after the Empire had been converted to Christianity, this aspect of the Goddess was still worshipped, and Constantine built a temple to her in Constantinople, the first "purely Christian" city. Other aspects of the Goddess are Fortuna Virgo "the Virgin Fortune" in whose honor girls dedicated their robes upon marriage, and also Fortuna Muliebris "Fortuna of Women", who watched over a woman her whole life. Fortuna Primigenia had a sanctuary near Praeneste, in Latium, Italy. This name means "The Firstborn Fortuna" and may indicate that this was the original site of her worship in Italy. This was a large complex, which included a theater and oracular center. The method of divination included oak tablets which had answers inscribed on them. They were chosen at random, and the interpretation of the answer was left to the person consulting the Oracle. Feast days for the various aspects of Fortuna included May 25, June 11, August 13, and November 13. It remains for one thing more to be said: why I honor this Goddess in the modern world. Tyche is no longer publicly associated with the fates of cities and great men. She has no regular feast days, nor do men any longer erect great altars in her honor. But she is still a very important Goddess. For she represents the element of chance and randomness in the kosmos. It is very appealing to see things as a closed system, pre-ordained from the beginning to follow a specific pattern. But when one accepts this as the truth, the natural outcomes are pessimism and submission. Pessimism, because this becomes the best of all possible worlds, ordained by God - with no better option open to us. It stifles the creative energy within us, forces us to accept unpleasant circumstances, such as the awful poverty and filth in India, or abuse and shame within Fundamentalist Christianity - without striving to change them because it is "the will of God" that it should be so. Determinism also makes our lives a joke. We are just pawns on a chess board in a game set in motion long before us. Everything that happens - even a little child being run over by a car - happens as a result of God's will and intent. We are powerless to stop it. Yet, we instinctively recoil at such thoughts. When we witness acts of horror, we know that things aren't as they should be, or could be. Any man worth the name would rush out to save the child, risking his life to stop the events already set in motion. Some part of our brain knows the truth, that the issue is not closed, that we can change things, that our lives have intrinsic meaning, and not just through our submission to external authority. While the life of the man who saved the baby may not be significant in the grand scheme of things, to that child, and its parents, he is the most important person who ever lived. Readily accepting chance, randomness, and the unexpected in life is the only way to truly live. Otherwise we're just robots, in a clockwork universe. Primary texts consulted for this article:
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