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nationalism The concept of the nation
originated in Europe at the beginning of the
­ the only ones, are German National Socialism
­nineteenth century. In the contemporary world it
has become a universal standard as the legitimate
form of the state. By definition, the nation is con-
stituted on a vast scale; the largest may extend over
a continent. Even the smallest is sufficiently large
that unorchestrated social interactions cannot
make of its population a culturally integrated
community.
The defining principle of nationalism arises
from the problem of the nation’s size—the insist-
ence that the state’s populace should be a unified
community, undivided by competing customs.
Production of a common culture for a geographi-
cally extensive and populous political entity is
possible only with the direction of a centralized
political authority. From its beginnings, this cul-
ture has been spread through public, mandatory
education and through a symbiotic relationship
with the mass media—first via print and later via
radio and television. Thus arises what is called
nationalism (see, e.g., Anderson 1991).
As many national cultures exist as do nations.
Each has its idiosyncrasies, but all share the same
aspiration of creating and maintaining a common
culture among their more or less far-flung popu-
laces. Germany furnishes perhaps the most
instructive and influential example, because
German nationalism emerges early and serves as
a model in the nineteenth century for other states
aspiring to recreate themselves as nations.
Although the political unification of Germany
occurs as late as 1871, the origins of German
nationalism can be traced to the late eighteenth
century. In Germany, cultural nationalism pre-
cedes the political nation. The techniques adopted
for encouraging a sense of national identity in
Germany—above all the educational system—
proved enormously effective, and had corre-
spondingly pervasive impact, both in Europe and
in areas under European colonial control or influ-
ence. The cultivation of national identity, how-
ever, has not been entirely benign. The dangerous
and insidious potential of nationalism has notori-
ously been precipitated by its combination with
biological racism and authoritarian militarism.
The Virgil Encyclopedia, First Edition. Edited by Richard F. Thomas and Jan M. Ziolkowski.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Among the most extreme examples, but far from
and Italian fascism.
National character is imagined to be
founded in the eternities of blood and land but
is  thought to be revealed and perpetuated in
culture—in the particular history, literature,
­
music, and art of the people. In the nineteenth
century, the idea of “national literature,” a litera-
ture that reflected the aboriginal qualities and
values of the nation’s people, was propagated (see
Aborigines). The works of certain authors were
singled out as exemplars of the national character
and as standards of the language: so the qualities
of Englishness are epitomized by Shakespeare’s
writing, as the  English language is itself the
tongue of Shakespeare, to take only the most
familiar case from a world of examples. For
natives of England, to read Shakespeare is to look
into a mirror, where they can see not only them-
selves but also all of their countrymen, reflected
both as they are and as they ought to aspire to be.
The representation of Virgil as “the national
poet of Rome” dates from the early mid-­nineteenth
century. This characterization of Virgil projects
nationalist ideals of literature from the modern
world back into the ancient world. Certainly,
examples of large political entities can be found in
the ancient world—the Roman Empire is only
one—but as a rule, ancient states had no interest in
producing a common culture among all of their
inhabitants, and even if they had, they did not
have the tools, political or communicative, to dis-
seminate a “mass culture.” Nationalism is by his-
tory and nature a modern phenomenon; ancient
Rome was not and could not possibly have become
a nation (Hedrick 2011).
Virgil addresses “Roman” virtues and ideals in
A.: tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento |
(hae tibi erunt artes), pacique imponere morem, |
parcere subiectis et debellare superbos “you,
Roman, be sure to rule the world, these will be
your arts, to crown peace with justice, to spare the
vanquished and to crush the proud” (A. 6.851–
53). Yet it would be a mistake to regard A. as
invoking an identity coextensive with the popula-
tion of the Roman Empire, Italy, or even the city
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of Rome. The virtues described in A. are not
those of the masses; they pertain to the Roman
ruling aristocracy, the exemplary clari et illustres
viri (distinguished and illustrious men). It is
unsurprising that Virgil himself was reportedly
described on his gravestone not as a Roman, but
as a native of a provincial community, Mantua
(see Virgil, epitaph of).
T.S. Eliot called Virgil “the Classic of all
Europe,” which is not the same as being the national
author of every European people (see classic and
classicism). Virgil has a place in many national
traditions, and not only European ones. His status,
however, is not as the avatar of any particular mod-
ern national character: not even Italy (national
unification conventionally in 1871) treats him as
their national poet; that place is reserved for
Dante. Virgil is instead anachronistically revered
as the representative of the ancient Roman charac-
ter. So Benito Mussolini is reported to have
­written to the president of the American Classical
League in 1930 (Thomas 2001: 235–36): “When
the strife of factions, the distraction produced by
long periods of civil war, and, even more, the
avid desire for immediate riches, had taken
the Romans far away from the fields, Virgil sang
the love for harvests and for flocks, the supplica-
tion of the earth which bore the seed, the miracle
of the branch that puts forth the first buds of
the spring time. Then, after having sung of the soil,
he sang of heroes. By making illustrious the origin
and the eternal destiny of Rome, by giving to the
Romans their national poem, he brought them to a
consciousness of their high estate and of their
greatness, thus fulfilling the highest duty of the
poet, that duty which transcends all others.”
To understand the meaning of such statements,
it is necessary to come to grips not only with the
nationalist reception of Virgil, but also with the
function of the idea of pre-Christian antiquity
(Roman and Greek), in the formation of the ide-
als of the modern nation state (see reception
theory).
See also ethnicity; imperialism; imperium
References
Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on
the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Hedrick, C.W. 2011. “Literature and Communication.”
In The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the
Roman World, edited by M. Peachin, 167–90. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Thomas, R.F. 2001. Virgil and the Augustan Reception.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, esp. 222–77.
charles w. hedrick, jr.