The first house of worship in the area of modern Magliana Vecchia is a temple founded in 293 BC by the consul Carvilius with part of the spoils from the victorious war against the Etruscans and Samnites. This temple was dedicated to Fors Fortuna (Good Luck), whose festival was celebrated on June 24th with a first sacrifice in another temple dedicated to her at the first mile of the Via Campana. The procession would then move along the road and the river to the goddess’s second temple, located five miles ahead. The most solid archaeological evidence for the presence of the worship of Fortuna in the area consists of inscriptions, dated back to the Late Republican period. She would have been a goddess associated with the crops, who was prayed to ask for abundant harvests, or to thank for protection from the changing seasons, or as a solar deity connected to the days around the summer solstice.
The festival was known as the dies Fortis Fortunae (Day of Fors Fortuna) and was joyous, celebrated by all Romans, but especially by plebeians and slaves. The Roman writer Ovid describes people moving on foot or by boat in a pilgrimage to the temple, where naval games among boats decorated with garlands and banquets would take place, after which the participants would return to Rome. Cicero mentions the festival Tiberina Descensio (descending to the Tiber river), celebrated with a great cheerfulness, probably another name for the same feast.
Fors would indicate chance or a fortuitous event, especially in its positive sense of a favorable occurrence or good luck. According to another interpretation the name would derive from the same root as the Latin verb fero, meaning ‘to bring,’ intending her as the goddess “who brings” or “takes away,” linked to the liturgy of the summer solstice.
The team from the École française de Rome, involved in excavation campaigns in the area from 1975 to 1988, hypothetically locates the temple where the current Piazza Madonna di Pompei -the main square- is, to the west and a short distance from where the Temple of the goddess Dia was later erected. In their opinion, there are no links between Fors Fortuna and the goddess Dia.
According to Marcattili the two temples would have had elements in common, although unrelated, such as the circularity of the plan, connected with light, the contrast between water and fire, and the presence of the Tiber River. The festival of Fors Fortuna fell shortly after the summer solstice, on June 24th: characteristics of Roman solstice celebrations linked to the course of the sun and the role played by the light of the sun’s rays are often still present in Christian feasts, such as that of St. John, which -not for a coincidence- falls on the same day. Concerning the goddess Dia, who protected the final maturation of cereals with her beneficial light, her nature is both urania and chthonic, celestial and agrarian, meaning linked to the sky and the earth. The close connection with water is particularly evident in the thermal baths and in the decorative motif of the shell, linked to both the celestial (urania) and aquatic spheres, which recurs in the architectural decoration of the temple.
Reference Bibliography:
F. Marcattili, Tra terra e cielo: la topografia ed il culto del lucus Deae Diae. 2020 in Journal of Roman Archaeology, Volume 35, Issue 2 / December 2022. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2023, pp. 1022-1027, print publication: December 2022
H. Broise, J. Scheid, Tra terra e cielo: la topografia ed il culto del lucus Deae Diae, in Recherches archéologiques à La Magliana, 3. Un bois sacré du Suburbium romain : topographie générale du site ad Deam Diam. Roma Antica 8. Roma: École française de Rome; Soprintendenza Speciale Archeologia Belle Arti Paesaggio di Roma, 2020
J. Scheid, Gli Arvali e il sito ad Deam Diam, in R. Friggeri, M. Magnani Clementi, C. Caruso, Terme di Diocleziano. Il chiostro piccolo della certosa di Santa Maria degli Angeli, Milano 20214