Coriolanus

or C. CORIOLA'NUS, the hero of one of the most beautiful of the early Roman legends, was said to have been the son of a descendant of king Ancus Marcius. His mother's name, according to the best authorities, was Veturia (Plutarch calls her Volumnia). He lost his father while yet a child, and under the training of his mother, whom he loved exceedingly, grew up to be a brave and valiant man; but he was likewise noted for his imperious and proud temper. He was said to have fought in the battle by the lake Regillus, and to have won a civic crown in it. To explain his surname, Coriolanus, the legend told how in a war with the Volscians their capital, Corioli, was attacked by the Romans. When the enemy made a sally, Marcius at the head of a few brave men drove them back, and then, single-handed (for his followers could not support him), drove the Volscians before him to the other side of the town. So in memory of his prowess the surname Coriolanus was given him. But his haughty bearing towards the commons excited their fear and dislike, and when he was a candidate for the consulship, they refused to elect him. After this, when there was a famine in the city, and a Greek prince sent corn from Sicily, Coriolanus advised that it should not be distributed to the commons, unless they gave up their tribunes. For this he was impeached and condemned to exile. He now took refuge among the Volscians, and promised to assist them in war against the Romans. Attius Tullius, the king of the Volscians, found a pretext for a quarrel, and war was declared. Coriolanus was appointed general of the Volscian army. He took many towns, and advanced plundering and burning the property of the commons, but sparing that of the patricians, till he came to the fossa Cluilia, or Cluilian dyke. Here he encamped, and the Romans in alarn (for they could not raise an army) sent as deputies to him five consulars, offering to restore him to his rights. But he refused to make peace unless the Romans would restore to the Volscians all the lands they had taken from them, and receive all the people as aitizens. To these terms the deputies could not agree. After this the Romans sent the ten chief men of the Senate, and then all the priests and augurs. But Coriolanus would not listen to them. Then, at the suggestion of Valeria, the noblest matrons of Rome, headed by Veturia, and Volumnia, the wife of Coriolanus, with his two little children, came to his tent. His mother's reproaches, and the tears of his wife, and the other matrons bent his purpose. He led back his army, and lived in exile among the Volscians till his death. On the spot where he yielded to his mother's words, a temple was dedicated to Fortuna Muliebris, and Valeria was the first priestess.

Such is the substance of the legend. The date assigned to it in the annals is B. C. 490. Its inconsistency with the traces of real history which have come down to us have been pointed out by Niebuhr, who has also shewn that if his banishment be placed some twenty years later, and his attack on the Romans about ten years after that, the groundwork of the story is reconcileable with history. The account of his condemnation is not applicable to the state of things earlier than B. C. 470, about which time a famine happened, while Hiero was tyrant of Syracuse, and might have been induced by his hostility to the Etruscans to send corn to the Romans. Moreover, in B. C. 458, the Volscians obtained from the Romans the very terms which were proposed by Coriolanus. "The list of his conquests is only that of a portion of those made by the Volscians transferred to a Roman whose glory was flattering to national vanity." The circumstance that the story has been referred to a wrong date Niebuhr considers to have arisen from its being mixed up with the foundation of the temple to Fortuna Muliebris. The name Coriolanus may have been derived from his settling in the town of Corioli after his banishment. Whether he had any share in bringing about the peace of 458, Niebuhr considers doubtul.. (Plut. Coriolanvs ; Liv. 2.34_40; Dionys. A. R. 7.20_8.59; Niebuhr, vol. ii. pp. 94-107, 234-260). [C.P.M]

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.