[428] Visum, of the decrees of the gods, 3. 2. The meaning of course is not the gods did not think him just, but that they did not deal with him as they might have been expected to deal with a just man. The expression is one of piety, as we might say ‘Heaven's ways are not as ours,’ not unmixed with reproach, the latter feeling appearing more strongly in the parallel passage in Od. 1. 234, νῦν δ᾽ ἑτέρως ἐβάλοντο θεοὶ κακὰ μητιόωντες, which will illustrate the peculiar use of ἄλλος or ἕτερος in the sense of evil or inauspicious. Sen. Ep. 98 recommends his friend on the occasion of any loss, to say constantly without complaining, “Dis aliter visum est,” or rather, as a nobler and wiser ejaculation, “Di melius.”
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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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