Following the example of Homer in the Fourth and Eighth Books of the Iliad, Virgil opens this Book with a council of the gods. It seems however to be introduced for its own sake rather than to serve the needs of the poem. It gives occasion to two vigorous speeches, by Venus and Juno: but Jupiter's final deliverance is a conclusion in which nothing is concluded; he simply announces his determination to be passive and to let things take their course as destiny chooses. The gods are blamed for interfering, and yet not forbidden to interfere: in fact, it is the conduct of Latinua repeated on a larger scale. The catalogue of the Etruscan forces is obviously taken from that of the Trojans, which concludes the Second Book of the Iliad. The appearance of the transformed ships is the natural sequel of the story in the preceding Book, but it does not otherwise assist the narrative. Aeneas learns from Cymodoce only what he would have learned a very little later from his own observation; nor does it appear that he is enabled to make any preparations which he would not have made otherwise. The story of the battle is open to objections which beset more or less all stories of battles, at least in heroic times: we feel them however more in reading Virgil than in reading Homer. We have a succession of exploits by different heroes, who are kept from coming into collision with each other till they have contributed their respective quotas to the series of events.