licitly
his non-interference with the laws of causality:

Sua cuique exorsa laborem
Fortunamque ferent. Rex Jupiter omnibus idem.
Fata viam invenient. (X, 112.)

And here the scholiast naively remarks:

Videtur his ostendisse aliud esse fata, aliud Jovem.[6]

[Footnote 6: Serv. _ad loc_. MacInnis, _Class. Rev_. 1910, p. 172, cites
several other passages to the point in refutation of Heinze.]

Again, contrary to the Stoic creed, the poet conceives of his human
characters as capable of initiating action and even of thwarting fate.
Aeneas in the second book rushes into battle on an impulse; he could
forget his fates and remain in Sicily if he chose (V, 700). He might also
remain in Carthage, and explains fully why he does not; and Dido, if left
_nescla fati_, might thwart the fates (I, 299), and finally does, slaying
herself before her time[7] (IV, 696). The Stoic hypothesis seems to break
down completely in such passages.

[Footnote 7: See Matthaei, _Class. Quart_. 1917, p. 19.]

Can we assume an Epicurean creed with better success? At least in so far
as it places the _foedera naturae_ above the gods and attributes some
freedom of will and action to men, for as we have seen in both of
these matters Vergil agrees with Lucretius. But there is one apparent
difficulty in that Vergil, contrary to his teacher's usual practice,
permits the interference of the gods in human action. The difficulty is,
however, only apparent, if, as Vergil does, we conceive of these gods
simply as heroic and super-human characters in the drama, accepted from
an heroic age in order to keep the ancient atmosphere in which Aeneas had
lived in men's imagination ever since Homer first spoke of him. As such
characters they have the power of initiative and the right to interfere
in action that Epicurus attributes to men, and in so far as they are
of heroic stature their actions may be the more effective. Thus far an
Epicurean might well go, and must go in an epic of the heroic age. This
is, of course, not the same as saying that Vergil adopted the gods
in imitation of Homer or that he needed Olympic machinery because he
supposed it a necessary part of the epic technique. Surely Vergil was
gifted with as much critical acumen as Lucan. But he had to accept these
creatures as subsidiary characters the moment he chose Aeneas as his
hero, for Aeneas was the son of Venus who dwelt with the celestials at
least a part of the time. Her presen