Quaestiones Romanae

Why do the Romans reverence Fortuna Primigenia,[*](Cf. 281 e, supra, 322 f, infra; Cicero, De Legibus, ii. 11; Livy, xxxiv. 53.) or First-born, as one might translate it?

Is it because by Fortune, as they say, it befell Servius, born of a maidservant, to become a famous king of Rome? This is the assumption which the majority of Romans make.

Or is it rather because Fortune supplied the origin and birth of Rome?[*](Cf. 320 b ff., infra.)

Or does the matter have an explanation more natural and philosophic, which assumes that Fortune is the origin of everything, and Nature acquires its solid frame by the operation of Fortune, whenever order is created in any store of matter gathered together at haphazard.

Why do the Romans call the Dionysiac artists[*](Cf.Moralia, 87 f.) histriones [*](Cf. Livy, vii. 2; closely followed by Valerius Maximus, ii. 4. 4.)?

Is it for the reason that Cluvius Rufus[*](Peter, Frag. Hist. Rom. p. 314, Cluvius, Frag. 4.) has recorded? For he states that in very ancient times, in the consulship of Gaius Sulpicius and Licinius Stolo,[*](In 361 b.c.) a pestilential disease arose in Rome and destroyed to a man all persons appearing on the stage. Accordingly, at the request of the Romans, there came many excellent artists from Etruria, of whom the first in repute and the one who for the longest time enjoyed success in their theatres, was named Hister: and therefore ali actors are named histriones from him.