In all these passages fortune is the power that raises and ruins men without regard to desert. In Herodotus and Plutarch a jealous power waits to overturn great prosperity. Cicero grants Fortune great power but traces most human success and failure to other men; Sallust has her ruling all things by caprice. Boethius and Dante, writing as Christians, keep the figure: Boethius’s Fortune turns a wheel and cannot be blamed for turning it, and Dante’s is a minister appointed by God to move worldly goods.
Chosen by hand, not counted: a passage is here when it is plainly about the topic, and the list is not every mention. Each is shown in the order the books were written, and each links to the section it is in.
Solon tells Croesus that man is a creature of accident and no one is happy before his end.
… Croesus, thou art inquiring about human fortunes of one who well knows that the Deity is altogether envious and apt to disturb our lot. For in the course of long time a man may see many things which he would not desire to see, and suffer also many things which he would not desire to suffer. … Book 1 →Cicero describes Fortune’s twofold power, yet holds that most success and ruin come through other men.
… Who fails to comprehend the enormous, two-fold power of Fortune for weal and for woe? When we enjoy her favouring breeze, we are wafted over to the wished for haven; when she blows against us, we are dashed to destruction. Fortune herself, then, does send those other less usual calamities, arising, first, from inanimate nature--hurricanes, storms, shipwrecks, catastrophes, conflagrations; … Book 2 →Sallust says Fortune rules everything, making deeds famous or obscure by caprice rather than truth.
But, assuredly, Fortune rules in all things. She makes every thing famous or obscure rather from caprice than in conformity with truth. The exploits of the Athenians, as far as I can judge, were very great and glorious, something inferior to what fame has represented them. … Book 1 →Aemilius Paulus, losing two sons at his triumph, speaks of fortune’s jealousy of great success.
… I," he said, "who never yet feared anything that was human, have, amongst such as were divine, always had a dread of fortune as faithless and inconstant; and, for the very reason that in this war she had been as a favorable gale in all my affairs, I still expected some change and reflux of things. In one day I passed the Ionian sea, and reached Corcyra from Brundisium; … Life 14 →Philosophy tells Boethius that Fortune’s constancy is change; a wheel that stops is no wheel.
… Thou deemest Fortune to have changed towards thee; thou mistakest. Such ever were her ways, ever such her nature. Rather in her very mutability hath she preserved towards thee her true constancy. Such was she when she loaded thee with caresses, when she deluded thee with the allurements of a false happiness. Thou hast found out how changeful is the face of the blind goddess. … Book 2 →Virgil explains Fortune as a minister set by God to shift worldly goods from people to people.
… Master,” I said to him, “now tell me also What is this Fortune which thou speakest of, That has the world’s goods so within its clutches?” And he to me: “O creatures imbecile, What ignorance is this which doth beset you? Now will I have thee learn my judgment of her. … Inferno 7 →