All this is very pretty, but it is unfortunately quite impossible, because whatever the time may have been when Fortuna began to be worshipped in Rome, it is certain that the idea of chance did not enter into the concept of her until long after Servius’s day.  Instead the early Fortuna was a goddess of plenty and fertility, among mankind as a protectress of women and of childbirth, among the crops and the herds as a goddess of fertility and fecundity.  Her full name was probably Fors Fortuna, a name which survived in two old temples across the river from Rome proper, in Trastevere, where she was worshipped in the country by the farmers in behalf of the crops.  Fortuna is thus merely the cult-name added to the old goddess Fors to intensify her meaning, which finally broke off from her and became independent, expressing the same idea of a goddess of plenty.  Later under Greek influence the concept of luck, especially good-luck, slowly displaced the older idea.  The possibility of such a transition from fertility to good-luck is shown us in the phrase “arbor felix,” which originally meant a fruitful tree and later a tree of good omen.  As regards Fortuna and Servius therefore there is no inherent reason why they should have been connected, and whenever it was that Fortuna began to exist, be it before or after Servius, she came into the world as a goddess of plenty and did not turn into a goddess of luck till centuries after her birth.

It must not be supposed that Rome in this sixth century before Christ could take into herself all these traders and artisans, and become thus interested also among her own citizens in these new employments, without receiving a corresponding impulse toward a larger political life.  Thus there began that ever-increasing participation in the affairs of the Latin league, which was her first step toward acquiring a world dominion.  It is probable that Rome had always belonged to this league, but at first as a very insignificant member.  Those were the days in which Alba Longa stood out as leader, a leadership which she afterwards lost, but of which the recollection was retained because the Alban Mount behind Alba Longa remained the cult-centre, connected with the worship of the god of the league, the Juppiter of the Latins (Juppiter Latiaris), not only until B.C. 338 when the league ceased to exist, but even later when Rome kept up a sentimental celebration of the old festival.  In the course of time, for reasons which we do not know, Alba Longa’s power declined and the mantle of her supremacy fell upon Aricia, a little town still in existence not far from Albano.  The coming of Aricia to the presidency of the league started a religious movement which is one of the most extraordinary in the checkered history of Roman religion.  The ultimate result of this movement was the introduction of the goddess Diana into the state-cult of Rome, where she was subsequently identified with Apollo’s sister Artemis.  But this is a long story, and to understand it we must go back some distance to make our beginning.