Fors-Fortuna in Marco Pacuvio e nel mondo romano

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This study focuses on the system of thought from which the belief in chance (fors) originated, and reconstructs the process of the abstraction of the term "fortuna" into a deity--one who is unusual in the polytheistic system. Fortuna is represented in the works of several Latin authors, including Pacuvius, who approaches the topic with skepticism, and Ennius, Cicero, and Virgil, who determine the shift from superstitio to ratio, opposing the belief in the influence of fortuna on the quality of virtus. Along with an examination of literary and epigraphical sources, this work also offers an investigation into the reasons for the construction of temples and monumental systems such as the sanctuary of Praeneste, dedicated to the cult of Fortuna Primagenia, widespread in the Roman world, which interpreted sortes and predicted the future. This sort of cult, engendered by superstition and intrinsically connected to the ambiguous role of fortuna, was in reality an effective means of societal control by the establishment and, at the same time, an inexhaustible source of wealth, as attested by Cicero in the De divinatione.