Note 886 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 8)

It may be as well to note here that the actual representation of God in the Aeneid is its weakest point. It was an epic poem, and could not dispense with the Homeric machinery: hence Jupiter is practically the representative of the Stoic all-pervading deity, with the Fates behind him. But it is not unlikely that Virgil may thus have actually helped to make the way clear for a nobler monotheistic idea by damaging Jupiter in the course of this treatment; see Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero, p. 341 foll.