Each of those gods had his proper office, and the chief of them
their particular attendants. Thus Jupiter had in propriety Ganymede
and Mercury, and Juno had Iris. It was not for Virgil, then, to
Create new ministers; he must take what he found in his religion.
It cannot therefore be said that he borrowed them from Homer, any
more than from Apollo, Diana, and the rest, whom he uses as he finds
occasion for them, as the Grecian poet did; but he invents the
occasions for which he uses them. Venus, after the destruction of
Troy, had gained Neptune entirely to her party; therefore we find
him busy in the beginning of the "AEneis" to calm the tempest raised
by AEolus, and afterwards conducting the Trojan fleet to Cumes in
safety, with the loss only of their pilot, for whom he bargains. I
name those two examples--amongst a hundred which I omit--to prove
that Virgil, generally speaking, employed his machines in performing
those things which might possibly have been done without them. What
more frequent than a storm at sea upon the rising of Orion? What
wonder if amongst so many ships there should one be overset, which
was commanded by Orontes, though half the winds had not been there
which AEolus employed? Might not Palinurus, without a miracle, fall
asleep and drop into the sea, having been over-wearied with
watching, and secure of a quiet passage by his observation of the
skies? At least AEneas, who knew nothing of the machine of Somnus,
takes it plainly in this sense:-
"O nimium coelo et pelago confise sereno,
Nudus in ignota, Palinure, jacebis arena.
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