HKB
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Often appears with: unexpected reversals · the rise and fall of greatness · perseus’s ruin · fortune’s mutability · fortune and the turn of the wheel · fate, destiny, and necessity
Usually: reflection (1) · the fall of the great (1) · curiosity (1) · detachment (1)
“Fortune, whose influence on our life is incalculable, who displays her power by surprises, is even now I think, showing all mankind, by her elevation of the Macedonians into the high prosperity once enjoyed by the Persians, that she has merely lent them these advantages until she may otherwise determine concerning them.” Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 2 (of 2) · insight
“It is quite the way of Fortune to confound human calculations by surprises; and when she has helped a man for a time, and caused her balance to incline in his favour, to turn round upon him as though she repented, throw her weight into the opposite scale, and mar all his successes.” Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 2 (of 2) · insight
Polybius uses Demetrius of Phalerum’s example of Fortune’s mutability from the rise of Macedon over Persia to interpret Perseus’s ruin, then notes that unexpected threats arise for rulers after victories.
[Sidenote: Demetrius of Phalerum on mutability.] +21.+ One is often reminded of the words of Demetrius of Phalerum. In his treatise on Fortune, wishing to give the world a distinct view of her mutability, he fixed upon the period of Alexander, when that monarch destroyed the Persian dynasty, and thus expresses himself: “If you will take, I don’t say unlimited time or many generations, but only these last fifty years…