The two great Italian sanctuaries of Fortuna were oracular, and the oracle worked by lot. At Praeneste, modern Palestrina, she was Fortuna Primigenia, the first-born, and Cicero records both the founding story and the procedure: oak tablets inscribed with ancient characters were kept in a chest of olive wood, and a boy drew one at random for the enquirer. Cicero is dismissive of the practice, and admits in the same breath that the shrine was crowded regardless. The sanctuary was enormous, a series of ramped terraces cut into the hillside on a scale that still dominates the town, and it was among the largest religious complexes in Italy.
At Antium the Fortunae were plural, two sisters whose images were said to move in order to give their answers, and Horace addresses the goddess of Antium in an ode that treats her as the power before whom rulers and peoples alike tremble.
At Rome she carried a long list of cult titles, each attaching her to one particular thing: Fortuna Publica for the people, Fortuna Redux for a safe return from campaign, Fortuna Huiusce Diei for the fortune of this day, Fortuna Muliebris and Fortuna Virilis for women and for men. The festival of Fors Fortuna on the twenty-fourth of June was a popular occasion kept with boats on the Tiber and a good deal of drinking, and it belonged to slaves and freedmen as much as to anybody.