De fortuna

In default of any information regarding Plutarch’s short essay on Chance, we can only guess that it may have been delivered as a lecture, although Hartman denies such a possibility. The arguing of such subjects has always had a certain attraction for mankind until comparatively recent times, but the development of a more exact knowledge regarding psychology has in later years checked such discussions. Yet a knowledge of psychology will not detract from the interest and enjoyment of anyone who will read this essay.

Man’s ways are chance and not sagacity. Is it true also that man’s ways are not justice either, or equality, or self-control, or decorum, but was it the result of chance and because of chance that Aristeides persevered in his poverty when he could have made himself master of great wealth, and that Scipio, having captured Carthage, neither took nor saw any of the spoil? Was it the result of chance and because of chance that Philocrates, having received money from Philip, “proceeded to spend it on trulls and trout,” and was it due to chance that Lasthenes and Euthycrates lost Olynthus, “measuring happiness by their bellies and the most shameless deeds”? Was it the result of chance that Alexander, the son of Philip, forbore to touch the captive women himself and punished those who offered them insult, and, on the other hand, was it because the Alexander who was the son of Priam yielded to the dictates of an evil genius or of chance that he lay with the wife of his host, and by her abduction filled two of our three continents with war and woes? For if these things happen because of chance, what is to hinder our saying that cats, goats, and apes because of chance are given over to greediness, lustfulness, and mischievous tricks?