Tedd Wimperis’s book makes a significant contribution to the study of cultural identity in Vergil’s Aeneid, a topic that has attracted much attention in recent years. The book is well written, well structured, and develops a sustained argument deserving the attention of all scholars of Vergil. W. approaches the formation of group identities in the poem with the theoretical framework of memory studies. The term ‘cultural memory’ in the title of W.’s book refers to the influential work of the cultural historian Jan Assmann and designates ‘processes of communal remembrance … that sustain group consciousness and reinforce shared identity over time’ (4).

W.’s premise is that the fictional characters in Vergil’s poem employ the same strategies as real-life Greeks and Romans in constructing their sense of collective identity, and that a cultivation of communal memories, such as myths, symbols and ritual acts, is central to this construction, in the fictional sphere as in the non-fictional. After a discussion of ‘the Aeneas myth in Roman cultural memory as an illustrative model of the interrelation of cultural memory, identity, and political ideology’ (13) in ch. 1, the book examines, in a series of close readings in ch. 2, the construction of the identities of four ‘ethnographically developed’ (34) communities in the poem: the Trojans, the Carthaginians, the Latins and the Arcadians. Discussing in the same chapter the role cultural memory plays in the diplomatic exchanges between the poem’s ethnic groups, W. compares these with the real-life ‘rhetoric of kinship diplomacy in Hellenistic and Roman practice’ (29).

In ch. 3, W. expands his earlier analysis of the cultural memories of the Trojans by reading ‘the Trojans’ journey to Italy as a narrative of exile, insecurity, and collective trauma’ (29). This chapter is the most compelling part of the book. Citing Edward Said’s (2000) Reflections on Exile as a theoretical framework, W. brings out a dimension of Vergil’s narrative that is particularly relevant in our time: W. regularly calls the Trojans ‘refugees’ (2 and passim), while Said calls our own age the ‘age of the refugee’ (Said 2000, 174). W. distinguishes between two narratives that develop simultaneously over the course of the poem: the story of Rome’s future glory unfolding in the prophecies, and the story of the Trojan refugees’ hopes for their future, and of the pain of their collective trauma. This trauma, the loss of their homeland, is the driving factor for the actions of those Trojans who follow the prophecies in search of a promised new home and of the Trojan women who burn the ships in book 5. Their common motivation is not an expectation of future glory, but a desire for a new home. Making this distinction clarifies a lot: the glorious future promised to their descendants cannot make up for the Trojans’ suffering.

While I agree with W.’s analysis of the cultural memories of the four groups he discusses, I hesitate to accept his frequently expressed equation of the role of cultural memories in the formation of the collective identities of Vergil’s fictional communities with the dynamics of cultural memories among real-life Greeks and Romans. W.’s sketch of the role of the Aeneas myth in Roman politics and culture is too brief to show, as other scholars cited by W. have done, just how complex the process is by which myths become important markers of identity in communities. The cultural memories of Vergil’s fictive communities, on the other hand, are by necessity far less multi-layered, and are filtered solely through the poet’s voice. When W. observes differences between the profiles of the different groups’ cultural memories, as when he observes that the Carthaginians are the only one of the poem’s four ethnic groups examined who lack placenames commemorating ancestors (49), he does not draw any conclusions. One conclusion might be that Vergil is engaging in some othering of the Carthaginians, the only group discussed that is not intimately connected to Rome’s origin story. This conclusion would, however, diminish W.’s claim (173) that Vergil has only his war-mongering Italian leaders use a ‘virulent rhetoric of “us” versus “them”’ and that the poet himself offers such rhetoric (as he does in the depiction of Antony’s forces in the battle of Actium on Aeneas’ shield in book 8) solely in order to expose it to readers as flawed (189).

This is the argument W. makes in ch. 4, claiming that the rhetoric of a common Italian identity used by Vergil’s Italian leaders is similar to the first-century b.c.e. rhetoric of tota Italia employed by Octavian before the battle of Actium. In both the historical and the literary context Italian identity is at best precarious, forged in war for the purpose of uniting disparate groups. The novelty of Roman citizenship among Italians after the Social War does provide a historical parallel for Vergil’s Italians with respect to a relative lack of unity. W. compares the Eastern stereotypes that some of Vergil’s Italian characters use to taunt the Trojans with the narrator’s use of these stereotypes about Easterners in the shield description. He argues that since Vergil’s war-mongering Italian leaders mischaracterise the Trojans with these stereotypes ‘the caricatures of the Egyptians on Aeneas’ shield also lie open to critique’ (189). This may be so, but even Vergil may occasionally deviate from twenty-first century sensibilities.

Despite this caveat, W. is to be commended for breaking new ground in Vergil scholarship, and for many stimulating insights.