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:

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

And here the scholiast naïvely 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.