[Footnote 3:  Servius, VI, 264, makes the explicit statement:  ex majore parte, Sironem, id est, magistrum Epicureum sequitur.]

It is, however, in the interpretation of the word fatum and the role played by the gods[4] that the test of Vergil’s philosophy is usually applied.  The modern equivalent of fatum is, as Guyau[5] has said, determinism.  Determinism was accepted by both schools but with a difference.  To the Stoic, fatum is a synonym of Providence whose popular name is Zeus.  The Epicurean also accepts fatum as governing the universe, but it is not teleological, and Zeus is not identified with it but is, like man, subordinated to it.  Again, the Stoic is consistently fatalistic.  Even man’s moral obligations, which are admitted, imply no real freedom in the shaping of results, for though man has the choice between pursuing his end voluntarily (which is virtue) or kicking against the pricks (which is vice), the sum total of his accomplishments is not altered by his choice:  ducunt volentern fata, nolentem trahunt.  On the other hand, Vergil’s master, while he affirms the causal nexus for the governance of the universe: 

  nec sanctum numen fati protollere fines
  posse neque adversus naturae foedera niti

[Footnote 4:  The passages have been analyzed and discussed frequently.  See especially Heinze, Vergils Epische Technik, 290 ff., who interprets Zeus as fate; Matthaei, Class.  Quart. 1917, pp. 11-26, who denies the identity; Drachmann, Guderne kos Vergil, 1887; MacInnis, Class.  Rev. 1910, p. 160, and Warde Fowler, Aeneas at the Site of Rome, pp. 122 fF.  For a fuller statement of this question see Am.  Jour.  Phil. 1920.]

[Footnote 5:  Morale d’Epicure, p. 72.]

(Lucr.  V, 309), posits a spontaneous initiative in the soul-atoms of man: 

  quod fati foedera rumpat
  ex infinite ne causam causa sequatur.

(Lucr.  II, 254).  If then Vergil were a Stoic his Jupiter should be omnipotent and omniscient and the embodiment of fatum, and his human characters must be represented as devoid of independent power; but such ideas are not found in the Aeneid.

Jupiter is indeed called “omnipotens” at times, but so are Juno and Apollo, which shows that the term must be used in a relative sense.  In a few cases he can grant very great powers as when he tells Venus:  Imperium sine fine dedi (I, 278).  But very providence he never seems to be.  He draws (sortitur) the lots of fate (III, 375), he does not assign them at will, and he unrolls the book of fate and announces what he finds (I, 261).  He is powerless to grant Cybele’s prayer that the ships may escape decay: 

  Cui tanta deo permissa potestas? (IX, 97.)

He cannot decide the battle between the warriors until he weighs their fates (XII, 725), and in the council of the gods he confesses explicitly his non-interference with the laws of causality: