| This dissertation examines the central role played by colonization in the Aeneid, focusing on its representations in four key episodes: Aeneas' journey from Troy to Crete, his sojourn in Helenus' city of Buthrotum, his interactions with Dido in Carthage, and his involvement in Italy's internal affairs. These episodes both establish and problematize authority for the proto-Roman colonizer Aeneas and for other colonizers in the poem.;The narrative of the journey from Troy to Crete contains elements found in traditional Greek colonization narratives. As a reluctant colonizer given divine guidance in his search for a home, Aeneas appropriates foreign land on the basis of ancestral claims. Yet such appropriation is also exposed as inevitably problematic and difficult to justify.;Helenus' city of Buthrotum, an apparently flourishing settlement in Greek territory, is a troubling example of a colony. It is mired in a regressive obsession with Troy's past, as well as inescapably tainted by Helenus' history of collaboration with the Greek enemy. Aeneas, distinguished by his pietas, cannot take Helenus as a model colonizer.;The narrative of Dido's city of Carthage reveals a complex scenario of interactions among the Carthaginians, their indigenous neighbors, and the Trojans. Dido foregoes practical alliances with her wealthy and powerful neighbors, whom she sees as uncivilized and barbaric, in favor of an ill-fated alliance with the indigent Trojans, who come with cultural capital. Dido's ill-advised colonizing strategy is one that Aeneas cannot emulate.;In Italy, Aeneas must establish a presence in a land inhabited by indigenous Italians and heavily colonized by Greeks. As divinely ordained foreigners destined to be the catalysts towards Italian---and ultimately Roman---greatness, and equipped with claims of Italian ancestry, the Trojans possess a unique status as colonizers. This status allows them to secure key alliances with various groups and to establish a home in Italy. Yet Italian resistance to the Trojans, who are perceived as eastern degenerates, presents a problem. The Trojans' uniqueness as colonizers is underscored by the solution to this problem: a process of reverse assimilation, involving the replacement of their foreignness by an Italian---and ultimately Roman---identity. |
