Tyche Painting Found But Fortune Is Lost!

A wall painting (fresco) of Tyche, the Greek goddess of fortune, was exposed during the 11th season of excavation at the Sussita site, on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee, which was conducted by a team of excavators of the University of Concordia.

The Romans called her Fortuna; the goddess of fortune and personification of luck. She might bring good or bad luck; she could be represented as veiled and blind. She was also goddess of fate.

Her father was Jupitor; she protected grain supplies and her month is June.

In Greek mythology;  Tyche's father is Zeus and she was represented with different attributes. Holding a rudder, she was conceived as the divinity guiding and conducting the affairs of the world, and in this respect she was called one of the Moirai (Fates); with a ball she represented the varying unsteadiness of fortune--unsteady and capable of rolling in any direction; with Ploutos or the horn of Amalthea, she was the symbol of the plentiful gifts of fortune.

Nemesis (Fair Distribution) was cautiously regarded as the downside of Tyche, one who provided a check on extravagant favors conferred by fortune. The pair were often depicted as companions in Greek vase painting.

Tyche was widely worshiped as the guardian spirit of a city's good fortune. As such she was usually depicted crowned with the turrets of a city-wall and holding a cornucopia (horn of plenty) brimming with the fruits of the earth.

Tyche is also listed as one of the Oceanids (daughters of the Titans Tethys and Okeanos) in the Theogony  of Hesiod. Indeed, paired with her sister Eudora, she and her sibling together represent a combination of Bounty and Luck according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

This same source also indicates that Tyche appears again as a personification associated with Bounty in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.

According to the Greek poet Hesiod, Goddess Tyche was a daughter of the Sea Titans Oceanus and Tethys.

Goddess Tyche was the personification of Hope, Luck and Wealth. She was a labile, yet virtuous spirit, mediating between gods and mortals and leading human lives. She was therefore extraordinarily worshipped by the ancient Greeks.

The main symbol of goddess Tyche was a huge horn, inside of which she was keeping all wealth and richness; the horn once belonged to Amalthea, the goat who fostered Greek god Zeus during his infancy.

Tyche was carrying the horn with her constantly, occasionally turning it upside down to spread all its goods to anyone who would meet her on his way.

In the Roman mythology, she is found in a variety of domestic and personal contexts. During the early Roman Empire, an amulet from the House of Menander in Pompeii links her to the Egyptian goddess Isis, as Isis-Fortuna.

She is functionally related to the God Bonus Eventus, who is often represented as her counterpart: both appear on amulets and intaglio engraved gems across the Roman world.

Her name seems to derive from Vortumna (she who revolves the year): the earliest reference to the Wheel of Fortune, emblematic of the endless changes in life between prosperity and disaster, is 55 BCE.

The wheel characteristically has four shelves, or stages of life, with four human figures, usually labeled on the left regnabo (I shall reign), on the top regno (I reign) and is usually crowned, descending on the right regnavi (I have reigned) and the lowly figure on the bottom is marked sum sine regno  (I have no kingdom).

Medieval representations of Fortune emphasize her duality and instability, such as two faces side by side like Janus; one face smiling the other frowning; half the face white the other black; she may be blindfolded but without scales, blind to justice.

She was associated with the cornucopia, ship's rudder, the ball and the wheel. The cornucopia is where plenty flows from, the Helmsman's rudder steers fate, the globe symbolizes chance (who gets good or bad luck), and the wheel symbolizes that luck, good or bad, never lasts.

In Astrology the term ‘Pars Fortuna’ represents a mathematical point in the zodiac derived by the longitudinal positions of the Sun, Moon and Ascendant (Rising sign) in the birth chart of an individual. It represents an especially beneficial point in the horoscopic chart. In Arabic Astrology, this point is called Arabian Parts.

The procedure followed for fixing one’s Pars Fortuna in ancient and traditional astrology depended on the time of birth, viz., during daylight or night time (whether the Sun was above or below the horizon).

In modern western astrology the day time formula only was used for many years, but with more knowledge of ancient astrology, the two calculation method is now often used.

The formula for calculating the day time Part of Fortune (PF) is (using the 360 degree positions for each point):

PF = Ascendant + Moon - Sun

The formula for the night-time Part of Fortune is PF = Ascendant + Sun - Moon

Each calculation method results in a different zodiac position for the Part of Fortune.

Al Biruni (973 – 1048), an 11th-century Persian mathematician, astronomer and scholar, who was the greatest proponent of this system of prediction, listed a total of 97 Arabic Parts, which were widely used for astrological consultations.

Paul Vachier has prepared an Arabic Parts Calculator for all the Arabic Parts.

Between the Greek and Italian economic catastrophes and disasters, it seems that both Tyche and Fortuna, have held up their wheels and closed their horns not only on Greece and Italy; but also on the whole world.

Since we are not able to find solutions to our economic problems, I do suggest that we turn again to Mythology and Astrology; and pledge the Goddesses of Fortune to give us a pity look and save us from total ruin.

Today, the World leaders are in the United Nations; discussing how to solve the problem of a billion hungry human beings on planet Earth, and they are failing on details...

There are more billions of people who are hungry also to have equal chances of living...

Why Fortune these days is only a synonym of power?

Why Fortune can not be again a synonym of just?

Maybe because Tyche and Fortuna are killed, and decided not to reborn....

The Ball stopped rolling.... and Fortune lost its balance

Sami Cherkaoui