[402] Invitis divis, the dat., not the abl. The sense is not ‘men can have no confidence when the gods are averse,’ but ‘a man may not safely trust the gods against their will,’ may not rely on Fortune when she has really declared against him. ‘Invitis’ seems to express that the gods are not willing to be trusted, as if by taking advantage of a turn of fortune and improving it by a stratagem Aeneas and his companions were exhibiting a trust in Heaven which they were not entitled to feel. This agrees with ‘haud numine nostro,’ as explained above, and gives a force to the whole context which it would not otherwise possess, the fate of the disguised Trojans being treated as a visitation from the gods for presuming on their aid, or attempting to gain it when it was not to be given. If Serv.'s explanation of v. 396 could be substantiated, the meaning would be more definite; but the passage does not require such a hypothesis. We should bear in mind the prominence given throughout this book to the agency of the gods; the Trojans are blinded by the gods so as to take in the horse: Aeneas rushes out in desperation on hearing that the gods have declared against Troy, v. 336; his very words to his companions, vv. 350 foll., contrast ominously with those of Coroebus, v. 387, the one bidding them accept the doom of the vanquished, “Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem,” the other urging them to avail themselves of the first omen of safety and convert it into a certainty. They are punished; and Aeneas, after witnessing the fate of Priam, is caused by Venus to see the gods visibly arrayed against his country. With the language of this line comp. 5. 800, “Fas omne est, Cytherea, meis te fidere regnis,” which might perhaps be quoted to show that ‘nihil’ here agrees with ‘fas,’ like “nihil opus.”
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John Conington. P. Vergili Maronis opera. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil, with a Commentary by John Conington, M.A. Late Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane. 1876.
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