Coriolānus, Gaius
Marcius
A distinguished Roman of patrician rank, whose story forms a brilliant legend in the early
history of Rome. His name at first was Gaius Marcius, but having contributed, mainly by his
great personal valour, to the capture of Corioli, and the defeat of a Volscian army, assembled
for its aid, on the same day, he received for this gallant exploit the surname of Coriolanus.
Not long after this, however, during a scarcity at Rome, he opposed the distribution of a
supply of provisions, in part sent by Gelon of Sicily, and advised the patricians to make this
a means of recovering the power which had been wrested from them by the commons. For this and
other conduct of a similar nature, he was tried in the Comitia Tributa and condemned to
perpetual banishment. To gratify his vindictive spirit, Coriolanus presented himself as a
suppliant to Tullius Aufidius, the leading man among the Volsci; was well received by him and
the whole nation; and, war being declared, was invested, along with Aufidius, with the command
of the Volscian forces. By his military skill and renown Coriolanus at once defeated and
appalled the Romans, till, having taken almost all their subject-cities, he advanced at the
head of the Volscian army against Rome itself and encamped only five miles from it, at the
Fossae Cluiliae. All was terror and confusion in the Roman capital. Embassy after embassy was
sent to Coriolanus, to entreat him to spare his country, but he remained inexorable, and would
grant peace only on condition that the Romans restored all the cities and lands which they had
taken from the Volsci and gave to the latter the freedom of Rome, as had been done in the case
of the Latins. After all other means of conciliation had failed, a number of Roman matrons,
headed by the mother (Veturia) and the wife (Volumnia) of Coriolanus, proceeded to his tent,
where their lofty remonstrances were more powerful than the arms of Rome had proved; and
the son, after a brief struggle with his feelings, yielded to their request, exclaiming at the
same time, “Oh, mother, thou hast saved Rome, but destroyed thy son!” The
Volscian forces were then withdrawn, and Rome was thus saved, by feminine influence alone,
from certain capture. On returning to the Volsci with his army, Coriolanus, according to one
account, was summoned to trial for his conduct, and was slain in a tumult during the hearing
of the cause, a faction having been excited against him by Tullius Aufidius, who was jealous
of his renown (Dion. Hal.
Ant. Rom. viii. 59). According to another statement,
he lived to an advanced age among the Volscian people, often towards the close of his life
exclaiming, “How miserable is the state of an old man in banishment!”
(
Coriol.;
Liv.ii. 33 foll.). Niebuhr, who writes the name Gnaeus Marcius , on
what he considers good authority, indulges in some acute speculations on the legend of
Coriolanus. He thinks that poetical invention has here most thoroughly stifled the historical
tradition. He regards the name Coriolanus as of the same kind merely with such appellations as
Camerinus, Collatinus, Mugillanus, Vibulanus, etc., which, when taken from an independent
town, were assumed by its
πρόξενος, when from a dependent
one, by its
patronus. The capture of Corioli belongs merely, in his
opinion, to an heroic poem. As for Coriolanus himself, he thinks that he merely attended the
Volscian standard as leader of a band of Roman exiles. The story of Coriolanus has received a
brilliant setting from the genius of Shakespeare.
