Chapter 3 - Stoic World Fate and the Gods of the Aeneid

Summary

Jupiter is subject to World Fate just as much as any other god or human in the Aeneid. He has to unravel the secret scroll of fate to find out what it is. He is presented as a Quindecimvir Sacris Faciundis inspecting the Sibylline Oracles. As a Stoic would, he tries to find out fate and see it through, as when he says, ‘the fates shall find a way’, but like a Homeric deity he can be inconsistent and often goes against it. Juno has complete knowledge of what fate has in store, but she rejects it, so that her interventions can only retard fate by causing individual fates like Dido’s or Turnus’. Her reasons are Homeric: her Homeric self-assertion cannot stand the affronts to her dignity. The individual fortunes of her protégés are tragic in the strict sense. Ultimately, however, she assents to fate, and even shapes it in her bargain with Jupiter. Venus has an ‘impulse’, her love of her son, she knows fate from Jupiter, and she assents to it, but she is capricious even towards Aeneas in her various disguises to him, even while healing him. She is devious in her agreement with Juno to manipulate Dido, but she does make sure fate comes about even through her indirection.