I argue that the most efficacious way of establishing a national literature was through the translation of major, high-prestige, foreign texts, such as Greco-Roman epic poetry: translation of Virgil’s poems has had a significant role in creating and honing literary language in European vernaculars and has sometimes served proto-nationalistic and nationalistic agendas. After analysis of the scope of ‘nationalism’ and its relevance to Virgil, I examine examples of the appropriation of cultural authority through translation of the Aeneid in French translations from the sixteenth century, then in other languages including Russian, Hungarian, Portuguese (in both Portugal and Brazil), Catalan, Katharevousa Greek, Maltese and Welsh, with special discussion of the foundational work of Ukrainian literature. I then discuss cases of translation as a proto-nationalist phenomenon, in Hebrew and Argentinian Spanish, and as a transnational phenomenon, in Esperanto. I conclude by relating translation and nation in both outward-looking and inward-looking modalities and in vertical and horizontal dimensions.