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