DECOLONISING THE AENEID

 

I have reached the inescapable conclusion that the Aeneid should be cancelled. Frankly, I am astonished it has survived this long. Here we have a poem produced by a member of a colonial power that conquered Greece, dismantled its political independence, appropriated its religion, philosophy, literature and mythology, and then presented the resulting cultural package as the foundation of Roman greatness. If this does not qualify as deeply problematic, then the term has surely lost all meaning.

I draw the reader’s attention gently towards a Rome that i. colonises Greece, ii. extracts Greek cultural capital and iii. rebrands Greek civilisation as a Roman achievement. Then Vergil arrives, ChatGPT's Homer with remarkable enthusiasm, changes a few names, inserts an imperial destiny, dedicates the whole enterprise to Augustus and somehow acquires the reputation of being one of history's greatest original poets. One searches the Aeneid in vain for a bibliography, an acknowledgement of Country, a positionality statement, a trigger warning or even a footnote acknowledging that substantial portions of the narrative derive from Indigenous Hellenic knowledge systems generously shared without any apparent benefit accruing to the source community. Homer receives no recognition whatsoever for his emotional labour or intellectual generosity.

Indeed, the entire poem appears to embody the familiar dynamics of colonial knowledge production. The stories of a conquered people are detached from their original cultural setting, curated by representatives of the imperial centre and redeployed in the service of empire. Greek epic becomes Roman propaganda, while Homer is transformed into an unpaid creative consultant whose contribution somehow slipped through the peer-review process. One is left wondering whether anyone sought the informed consent of the descendants of the aoidoi before proceeding with this ambitious exercise in literary extraction. The silence surrounding these ethical concerns arguably constitutes a form of epistemic violence. Indeed, every uncritical reading of the Aeneid today perpetuates that violence afresh. By inviting students to inhabit the perspective of the coloniser while consuming appropriated Hellenic narratives as though they were naturally Roman, the text continually reproduces structures of imperial privilege. Reading, therefore, is never a neutral act. Every page turned without adequate decolonial framing risks reinscribing the original colonial encounter. The Aeneid thus exemplifies extractive storytelling, whereby privileged authors mine the narrative resources of historically marginalised communities while simultaneously receiving grants, prizes and enduring places on university reading lists.

Even the opening line demands scrutiny. Arma virumque cano. Really? Homer had already covered war and covered heroes. At what point does inspiration become unauthorised content recycling? The distinction feels increasingly difficult to sustain, especially when the recycling produces twelve books instead of two. One hesitates to employ the word "plagiarism," although one suspects an anonymous referee might have been tempted. Contemporary publishers would almost certainly have requested a sensitivity reader from Bronze Age Anatolia.

Defenders invariably insist that Vergil was simply paying homage to Homer. This is a generous interpretation. One rarely hears museum curators describe the contents of the British Museum as an elaborate tribute to the civilisations from which they originated. Admiration, after all, has often proved remarkably compatible with appropriation, particularly when accompanied by overwhelming military superiority and excellent public relations. It is extraordinary how frequently empire expresses its admiration through what would today be recognised as respectful cultural theft.

The representation of Greece itself also raises deeply uncomfortable questions. Greek voices remain present only insofar as they facilitate the emergence of what purports to be Roman identity. Their myths become raw material, their literature becomes scaffolding and their cultural authority is carefully absorbed into a narrative whose ultimate purpose is to legitimise Roman imperial expansion. It is difficult to avoid the impression that Greece has been invited to participate in the conversation primarily as source material, while Rome moderates the panel, writes the conference proceedings and awards itself the keynote address. Greek mythology functions throughout the poem as a resource to be harvested rather than a living tradition to be engaged with on its own epistemic terms. Rome, after all, had already carried away Greek spoils, appropriated Greek sacred spaces, dismissed the conquered as Graeculi, and then proceeded to market Greek civilisation as compelling evidence of Roman greatness. The Aeneid is simply the literary equivalent of loading another statue onto a cart, chiselling "Made in Rome" onto the base and applying for UNESCO recognition. The Hellenic voice is simultaneously centred as an object of study and marginalised as a speaking subject, a contradiction requiring urgent deconstruction by scholars who will naturally speak on its behalf, preferably without consulting any actual Greeks.

The educational implications of these larcenous practices, are obvious. Every copy of the Aeneid should begin with an acknowledgement that the poem was composed upon appropriated cultural foundations. Students ought first to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Homeric tradition before engaging with the Latin text. Appropriate trigger warnings would also seem advisable: “This work contains extensive appropriation of Greek mythology, imperial triumphalism, symbolic acts of cultural extraction and repeated assertions of Roman exceptionalism. Reader discretion is advised. Side effects may include admiration for Augustus, internalised Latin privilege and an uncritical acceptance of hegemonic narratives.” Students should also be reminded that they are guests within the Homeric narrative landscape and invited to reflect critically upon the privileges they bring to reading Latin literature before attempting any translation. They should also complete a short reflective statement acknowledging that the very act of reading the Aeneid may unintentionally perpetuate colonial structures of interpretation and cause intergenerational harm to descendants of the Homeric tradition.

One also wonders whether Vergil possessed the necessary lived experience to narrate Trojan identity. Was there no suitably qualified Trojan available to tell the story? Were the Trojans even considered White? Once again, an imperial author occupies narrative space belonging to a displaced community, speaks on its behalf and receives universal acclaim for doing so. The absence of Trojan self-representation reveals a troubling pattern of narrative ventriloquism in which imperial authors continue to profit from identities they do not themselves inhabit. Such asymmetries deserve closer examination, preferably by a grant-funded interdisciplinary research cluster over the course of three years, culminating in a twelve-volume report recommending the establishment of a Centre for Decolonial Vergilian Studies. We can fund it via the savings gained by discontinuing the teaching of Modern Greek at La Trobe.

Predictably, some classicists will object that this entire critique is hopelessly anachronistic, that ancient societies possessed different assumptions about authorship, cultural exchange and literary imitation. That observation is undoubtedly correct, which makes it all the more awkward when precisely the same historical context is denied to almost every other civilisation. Consistency, surely, remains one of scholarship's highest virtues, provided it is deployed with sufficient selectivity.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that Roman “admiration” for Greece was so profound that they simply shop-lifted everything they encountered. Their gods were Greek. Their philosophy was Greek. Their literature was Greek. Their education was Greek. Their mythology was Greek. Their artistic vocabulary was Greek. Pizza and Macaroni were invented by Greeks. Their greatest national epic was Greek, lightly edited, translated into Latin, branded with an Augustan logo and relaunched as an exemplar of authentic Roman creativity. The Aeneid is thus no epic. Rather, it is the most successful act of intellectual property theft in Western literary history. It therefore follows that every modern edition sold without payment to the descendants of the original cultural stakeholders perpetuates this extractive economy. Penguin Classics should immediately enter negotiations regarding retrospective royalties payable to the Greek people, while the Government of Italy ought to establish a Vergilian Reparations Fund as a tangible act of restorative literary justice. Two thousand years of unpaid intellectual property is, after all, a substantial debt, which could fund further Consumer Price Indexed pay-rises for prelates belonging to the Church of Greece.

Accordingly, I look forward to the forthcoming conference, Decolonising the Aeneid: Towards an Ethical, Inclusive and Decentred Engagement with Augustan Epic. The conference will open with a Welcome to Epic Country, acknowledging the traditional custodians of the Homeric narrative landscape, followed by the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Classical Literature to hear the lived experiences of communities affected by two millennia of uncontextualised Vergilian reception. The opening keynote will examine extractive poetics as a manifestation of imperial privilege, after which delegates will attend workshops on creating culturally safe reading environments for displaced Trojans, decolonising the Latin curriculum, and best-practice guidelines for citing Homer without reproducing colonial hierarchies or perpetuating Augustan normativity.

Delegates will then participate in a facilitated listening circle during which the Aeneid will be invited to reflect upon the harm it has caused over the past two millennia, accept accountability for its narrative choices and begin its journey as an ally text. A restorative justice panel will explore pathways towards healing for descendants of Homeric knowledge holders, while another will debate whether continued teaching of Latin without an accompanying Anti-Imperial Impact Statement constitutes an ongoing act of epistemic violence. A further workshop will examine the unconscious bias embedded within dactylic hexameter and develop strategies for creating more inclusive metrical practices that centre historically silenced voices. A separate session will develop trauma-informed pedagogies for readers who experience affective harm while encountering uncontextualised Latin, while another will consider whether the phrase "Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit," should henceforth be preceded by an appropriate content warning, and another still will debate whether: “Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento” can continue to be taught without normalising settler-colonial governance structures.

The conference will conclude with the ceremonial repatriation of the dactylic hexameter to its rightful cultural custodians, the conferral of Certificates of Allyship in Homeric Studies, the signing of the Rome Declaration on Ethical Epic Consumption, and a collective commitment to ongoing reflexive engagement with participants' own internalised Latin privilege. Proceedings will appear, naturally, in a special issue entitled Reimagining Latin Through Decolonial Praxis, accompanied by an open letter inviting Vergil to undertake a process of restorative listening before any future republication of the Aeneid is contemplated, whereupon all copies of the Aeneid will be transferred from the Classics shelves to the True Crime section. Gentle reader, you have been warned: citing Vergil without simultaneously citing Homer now ranks among the gravest anti-Hellenic microaggressions, surpassed only by being required to obtain a document from your nearest Greek Consulate-General. Until the Greek Ministry of Culture funds Nolan's version, that is.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 22 August 2026