If only the Fates would allow it…

Written by Zeta Hill

This article most directly relates initially to the OCR GCSE Latin Verse Literature B prescription from Virgil Aeneid Book 1. However it would also link to any text with a reference to Fate.

In your GCSE Latin Verse Literature prescription from Aeneid Book 1, Virgil adds a comment when he explains Juno’s intentions. He writes “if only the Fates would allow it”. A little later he states that a race of man was rising from the blood of Troy, who would overthrow Carthage. This is a direct reference to the future Roman success in the Punic Wars and Virgil states “this is the destiny the Fates were unrolling.”

But who were the Fates? How did they have so much power that they could affect the will of the Queen of the gods? What did the Romans and Greeks believe about Fate? This article seeks to answer some of these questions.

Who were the Fates?

The Greeks and Romans believed that a person’s fate could not be changed by any means. They believe in the Fates, or the Moirai, who were three goddesses, named Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Each goddess had a different role to play in a person’s life and destiny. In The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Jenny March explains these roles:

“a mortal’s life was like a thread of yarn. Clotho, whose name meant spinner, spun the yarn of life. Lachesis, whose name meant apportioner, gave the correct length for the yarn. Finally, Atropos, whose name meant inflexible, cut the yarn, essentially symbolizing the end of the mortal’s life.”[1]

How did they have so much power that they could affect the will of the Queen of the gods?

In Hesiod’s Theogony he explains that Fate even applied to Cronos when he writes “ it was fated for him, powerful though he was, to be overthrown by his child”[2] [Zeus/Jupiter]. This early text about the religious beliefs of the Greeks shows that from the beginning Fate superseded all the gods and Fate is listed among the early gods. In the Aeneid Juno is destined to be the patron goddess of the Romans, a race founded by Trojans, whom she hated. In Book 12 Jupiter finally persuades Juno to give up her anger and accept this fate. He states in his argument “Aeneas is a god of this land, he has a right to heaven and is fated to be raised to the stars”[3]. Thus we can see that Fate cannot be altered by the gods.

What did the Romans and Greeks believe about Fate?

Fate appears in many myths and stories but perhaps most famously in the myth of Oedipus. In this myth, the fate of Oedipus is communicated in a number of prophecies via the Delphic oracle. This was an oracle of Apollo in Delphi, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus and in the 5th century BC Greek states regularly consulted this oracle on all kinds of matters.

The story of Oedipus is most famously told in the tragedy Oedipus the King by Sophocles.  At the start of the play, Oedipus is the King of Thebes and he has already fulfilled his tragic fate, although he is unaware of this. Two prophecies lie behind the story. Oedipus’ father, King Laius, was told in a prophecy that he would be killed by his own son. In an attempt to avoid this fate, Laius exposes the infant Oedipus on Mount Cithaeron. The baby Oedipus is found however and raised by the King and Queen of Corinth. Oedipus himself then learns from the Delphic Oracle that he is destined to murder his father and marry his mother. Again, as Laius before him, Oedipus tries to avoid this fate by fleeing away from Corinth and travelling to Thebes. On his way, he kills a man on the road, who turns out to be Laius. Arriving in Thebes he saves the city from the torment of the Sphinx, who will not stop oppressing the people of Thebes until a riddle is solved. Oedipus solves the riddle and as a reward marries the Queen of Thebes, Jocasta, who is also Oedipus’ mother. Both Laius and Oedipus desperately try to avoid their fate but both men cannot do this. They also both make mistakes of their own that drive the plot forward but one is left under no illusion that there was no way, no decision, no action these men could have made or done to avoid the tragic fate, which then pollutes Oedipus’ family.

Returning to Aeneas, his destiny is clear throughout the Aeneid. He was destined to leave Troy, destined to arrive in Italy and destined to win the hand of the princess Lavinia, thus becoming the founder of the Roman race. The ghost of his own wife Creusa tells him this in Book 2 of the Aeneid (lines 776 – 789) and Aeneas himself attributes her death to Fate when he says “my wife Creusa was torn from me by the cruelty of Fate”. (Aeneid II, 738). Finally, the connection between Aeneas and the current emperor Augustus, who ruled at the time Virgil was writing the Aeneid, of course means that, if Aeneas was destined to found the line of kings and emperors of whom Augustus is a part, Augustus himself was also destined to rule.

Questions to consider:

1.      If everything is predestined and determined by Fate, how does this alter a Roman’s perspective on the new emperor Augustus?

2.      How does knowing that the Trojans and Aeneas are destined to reach Italy and establish the Roman race affect the way we read the Aeneid, in particular Aeneas’s time in Carthage with Queen Dido?

3.      Does predestined fate ruin the suspense of a storyline or add to it and how?

[1] March, J. (n.d.). Dictionary of Classical Mythology.

[2] Hesiod Theogony lines 468-469

[3] Aeneid XII lines 794-795