Fortuna Respiciens ("Fortune Who Provides") is one
aspect of the Roman Goddess of Chance and Fate, Fortuna. She is that type of
chance that provides what is needed to the lucky, even though the odds may be
against them. Her title can also be interpreted as "Provident Fortune";
and in this we see the idea of divine assistance or intervention in times of
need. In his essay On the Fortune of the Romans, Plutarch says of Fortuna:
"
whenever she busies herself and takes command, she provides from
unexpected sources against all emergencies by implanting intelligence in the
unreasoning and senseless, and prowess and daring in the craven."
Her temple in Rome was located somewhere on the Esquiline Hill;
like many of Fortuna's temples in Rome, its building was attributed to Servius
Tullius, an early King of Rome and devotée of Fortuna. She had another
shrine on the Palatine, and a street there that presumably led to it or passed
by it was known as the Vicus Fortunae Respicientis.
Fortuna Respiciens, though Roman, was also known by a couple
of epithets in Greek: Epistrephomenê, "[She Who] Turns Around",
probably referring to Her ability to change bad luck to good; and Ouk Euaphêgêton,
"Not Easy to Describe", perhaps meaning "the Instrutable".