Abstract

Sallust used Fortuna to. give his story specialized political meaning and to incorporate materials and judgments that extend the purview of his narrative to all of Roman history. Fortuna is a configuration of events that appears at certain moments in a state's existence and presents demands for careful application of intelligence, virtus, animus or ingenium, if things are to proceed well and a new era is to begin . If virtus is not present, fortuna rages and destroys . Admirable men seek gloria through virtus, but also require an historian to reconstruct actions. Fortuna offers men of leisure the opportunity to apply intelligence to a course of events and to write and therefore to create history in a secondary but more lasting sense