In the Iliad the supernatural cause of the action is the wrath of Apollo, acting from the personal desire to avenge the wrong done to his priest Chryses: in the Odyssey, it is the wrath of Poseidon acting from the personal desire to avenge the suffering of his son whom Odysseus blinded:—
ἀλλὰ Ποσειδάων γαιήοχος ἀσκελὲς αἰεί
Κύκλωπος κεχόλωται, ὃν ὀφθαλμοῦ ἀλάωσεν[472].
The gods in both cases act from personal passion without moral purpose or political object. So too the powers which befriend Odysseus act from personal regard to him and acknowledgment of his wisdom and piety:—
ὃς περὶ μὲν νόον ἐστὶ βροτῶν, περὶ δ’ ἱρὰ θεοῖσιν
ἀθανάτοισιν ἔδωκε, τοὶ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχουσιν[473].
In the Aeneid, Juno, by whose agency in hindering the settlement of Aeneas in Italy the events of the poem are brought about, acts from two sets of motives; the first bringing the action into connexion with one of the great crises in the history of Rome, the second bringing it into connexion with the Trojan traditions. Prominence is given to the first motive, in the announcement of which the deadly struggle between Rome and Carthage, ‘when all men were in doubt under whose empire they should fall by land and sea[474],’ is anticipated:—
Urbs antiqua fuit, Tyrii tenuere coloni,
Karthago ...
hoc regnum dea gentibus esse,