He looks, however, for further justification of the etymology to the cult and mythology of Fortuna. From among her many cult-names he selects two or three which seem suitable. The first of these is Fortuna _huiusce diei_. This Fortuna was, he tells us, like the Ushas of the Veda, ‘the bright light of each day, very much like what we might call “Good morning.”’ But as a matter of fact all we know of this Fortuna is that Aemilius Paullus, the victor of Pydna, vowed a temple to her in which he dedicated certain statues[675]; that Catulus, the hero of Vercellae, may have repaired or rebuilt it, and that on July 30, the day of the latter battle, there was a sacrifice at this temple[676]. Whatever therefore was the origin of this cult (and it may date no further back than Pydna) it seems to have been specially concerned, as its name implies, with the events of particular famous days. It is pure guesswork to imagine that its connexion with such days may have arisen from an older meaning, viz. the _bright light of each day_. Nothing is more natural than the _huiusce diei_, if we believe that this Fortuna simply represented chance, that inexplicable power which appealed so strongly to the later sceptical and Graecized Roman, and which we see in the majority of cult-names by which Fortuna was known in the later Republic. The advocate of the dawn-theory, on the other hand, has to account for the total loss in the popular belief of the nature-meaning of the epithet and cult—a loss which is indeed quite possible, but one which must necessarily make the theory less obvious and acceptable than the ordinary one.
Secondly, the Professor points out, that on June 11, the day of the Matralia, Fortuna was worshipped coincidently with Mater Matuta—the latter being, as he assumes beyond doubt, a dawn-goddess. But we have already seen that this assumption is not a very certain one[677]; and we may now add that the coincident worship must simply mean that two temples had the same dedication-day, which may be merely accidental[678].
But the chief argument is based on the cult of Fortuna Primigenia, ‘the first-born of the gods,’ as he translates the word, in accordance with a recent elaborate investigation of its meaning[679]. This cult does indeed show very curious and interesting characters. It belonged originally to Praeneste, where Fortuna was the presiding deity of an ancient and famous oracle. Here have been found inscriptions to Fortuna, ‘DIOVO[S] FILEA[I] PRIMOGENIA[I],’ the first-born daughter of Jupiter[680]. Here also, strange to say, Cicero describes[681] an enclosure sacred to Jupiter Puer, who was represented there with Juno as sitting in the lap of Fortuna ‘mammam appetens.’ This very naturally attracted Prof. Max Müller’s keenest attention, and he had no difficulty in finding his explanation: Fortuna is ‘the first-born of all the bright powers of the sky, and the daughter of the sky; but likewise from another point of view the mother of the daily sun who is the bright child she carries in her arms.’ This is charming; but it is the language and thought, not of ancient Italians, but of Vedic poets. The great Latin scholar, who had for years been soaking his mind in Italian antiquities, will hardly venture on an explanation at all: ‘haud ignarus quid deceat eum qui Aboriginum regiones attingat[682].’