Constructing Communities in Virgil's Aeneid: Cultural Memory, Identity, and Ideology.

This review focuses on Tedd A. Wimperis's book *Constructing Communities in Virgil's Aeneid: Cultural Memory, Identity, and Ideology*, which examines the complexity of cultural memory and community formation in Vergil's *Aeneid*. Wimperis argues that the epic constructs multiple imaginative communities, not solely serving Augustan ideology or the gens Iulia, but also representing diverse ethnic identities such as Trojans, Carthaginians, and Italians. The book explores themes including the role of trauma in Roman identity, the rhetorical construction of Italian unity in opposition to Trojan invaders, and the mutable nature of ethnic and cultural identity within the poem. Wimperis's study contributes to ongoing scholarly debates by highlighting the tension between Vergil's ideological purposes and the fluid, often contradictory cultural memories portrayed in the *Aeneid*.