Book 2
17.5
Good fortune in its divisionsThe three divisions are noble birth, wealth, and power. The meaning is that the highest kinds of good fortune tend or converge to these (i.e., to noble birth, wealth, and power). κατὰ τὰ μόρια might also mean in part. Hobbes, in his Brief of the Art of Rhetorick, paraphrases: the manners of men that prosper, are compounded of the manners of the nobility, the rich, and those that are in power, for to some of these all prosperity appertains. exhibits characters corresponding to those which have just been mentioned; for those which appear to be the most important kinds of good fortune tend in their direction; further, good fortune furnishes advantages over others in the blessing of children and bodily goods.
17.6
Now, although men are more arrogant and thoughtless owing to good fortune, it is accompanied by a most precious quality. Fortunate men stand in a certain relation to the divinity and love the gods, having confidence in them owing to the benefits they have received from fortune. We have spokenBook 2.12-14, 15-17. of the characters associated with different ages and fortunes; the opposite characters to those described, for instance, of the poor, of the unfortunate, and of the weak, are obvious from their opposites.
