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Reversal of Fortune (Peripeteia in History)

μεταβολή / περιπέτεια

No man should be called happy until he is dead: even kings on golden thrones are one turn of the wheel from ruin.

Greek historians noticed a recurring rhythm in human affairs: those at the dizzying summit of wealth and power are precisely the ones poised to fall. Herodotus dramatizes this when the sage Solon warns the fabulously rich king Croesus that no life can be judged fortunate until its end, and Croesus duly loses everything. Polybius extends the same lens to whole empires, depicting Scipio weeping over burning Carthage as he foresees that Rome, too, will one day meet its turn. More than a literary flourish, this pattern of reversal became a tool for reading history and a sober moral lesson about the instability of all human greatness.

Where this idea shows up

33 Greek sources

Where to read it