Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/198

 192 THE CITY. BOOK III. ^neas; they cross the seas, and seek a country where H is permitted them to stop. " Considere Teucros Eirantesque Deos agitataque numina Trojje." ^neas seeks a fixed home, small though it be, for his paternal gods, — ' Dis sedem exiguam patriis." But the choice of this home, to which the destiny of the city shall bo forever bound, does not depend upon men ; it belongs to the gods, -^neas consults the priest and interrogates the oracles. He does not himself determine his route or his object; he is directed by the divinity: — " Italiam non sponte sequor." He would have staid in Thrace, in Crete, in Sicily, at Carthage with Dido : Fata obstant. Between him and his desire of rest, between him and his love, there always comes the will of the gods, the levealed word — /ata. We must not deceive ourselves in this : the real hero of the poem is not ^neas; the gods of Troy take the place of a hero; the same gods that, one day, are to be those of Rome. The subject of the ^neid is the struggle of the Roman gods against a hostile divinity. Obstacles of every kind are placed in their way. " Tantae molis erat Eomanatn condere gentem I ' The tempest comes near ingulfing them, the love of a woman almost enslaves them; but they triumph over everything, and arrive at the object sought.
 * ' Fata viani inveniunt."