by Plutarch
In this crisis the ruling class were again divided among themselves as to how they should act. Some believed that they ought to make concessions to the poor, and that the state of the law was too strict and ought to be relaxed. Others opposed any leniency of this kind, and one of them was Marcius. He did so not because he attached any great importance to the matter of the people’s debts, but rather because he regarded this as an insolent and presumptuous attempt on the part of the common people to overthrow the laws, and he sternly warned the magistrates that if they had any foresight they would put a stop to this threat without further ado.
6. The senate held a number of meetings within the space of a few days to debate this question, but they failed to reach a decision. Thereupon the people suddenly assembled in a body, and after encouraging each other in their resolution marched out of the city,27 seized the hill which is now known as the Sacred Mount and established themselves beside the River Anio.28 They did not attempt any violence or revolutionary action, but merely shouted aloud as they marched along that they had long ago been driven out of their own city by the wealthy classes. Any part of Italy, they said, would provide them with air to breathe, water to drink and a place to lay their bones, and this was all they possessed if they stayed in Rome, except for the privilege of being wounded or dying in wars fought for the protection of the rich.
These proceedings frightened the senate, and they therefore selected from among their older members those who were the most moderate and reasonably disposed towards the people, and sent them out to negotiate. Their chief spokesman was Menenius Agrippa.29 He began by appealing to the people to come to terms; next he put before them a frank defence of the senate’s position, and he concluded his speech with a well-known fable.30 Once upon a time, he told them, all the parts of the human body revolted against the belly. They accused it of being the only member which sat idly in its place and contributed nothing to the common good, while the others suffered great hardships and performed great services, all for the sake of keeping the belly’s appetites supplied. But the belly only laughed at them for being so simple as not to understand that while it received all the body’s nourishment, it also sent it out again and distributed it to every organ. ‘So you see, my fellow-citizens,’ he went on, ‘this is exactly the part that the senate plays. It is there that the various proposals and affairs of state are studied and transformed into action, and the decisions which we take bring results which are useful and profitable to you all.’
7. In the end they succeeded in resolving their difference, but only after the people had asked and been granted by the senate the right to elect five men to act as protectors of any citizen who might be in need of help. It is these officers who are now known as the tribunes of the people.31 The first men to be elected to this office were Junius Brutus and Sicinius Vellutus,32 who had led the people when they marched out of Rome. Then as soon as the city had been restored to unity, the people immediately hurried to enlist and enthusiastically offered the consuls33 their services for the war. Marcius was vexed that the people should have won a political victory at the expense of the aristocracy, but when he saw that many of the nobility shared his feelings, he reminded them that they must on no account be outdone in patriotism by common people. On the contrary, they should prove that their superiority to the people lay in their valour rather than in their political strength.
8. At this time Rome was at war with the Volscian people,34 and the most important city in their territory was Corioli.35 Cominius the consul laid siege to it, whereupon the Volscians became alarmed that it might be captured, and they gathered their forces from all quarters to defend it, their intention being to force a battle in front of the city and then attack the Romans from both sides at once. To counter this plan Cominius divided his army into two groups. He himself advanced to meet the relieving force, while Titus Larcius,36 one of the bravest Roman soldiers of that time, was left in charge of the siege operations. The men of Corioli, who now felt contemptuous of the weakness of the besieging force, made a sortie, attacked the Romans and in the first engagement routed them and chased them back to their entrenchments.
At this point Marcius collected a small body of men and hurried to the rescue. He cut down the leading ranks of the enemy, checked their advance and in a loud voice summoned the Romans to return to the fight. Marcius went into action, as Cato insisted that a soldier should do,37 not only with a strong sword-arm, but with a powerful voice and a ferocious expression, so that his very appearance struck terror into the enemy and made him an almost irresistible opponent. Many of the Romans now rallied to support him and the enemy fell back in panic. Not content with this, Marcius pressed on and finally drove the men of Corioli in headlong flight up to the very gates of their city.
Here he saw the Romans beginning to slacken their pursuit. They had now come within range of a shower of missiles which were being discharged from the walls, and none of them dared to think of mingling with the crowds of fugitives and so forcing their way into the city. But Marcius stood firm and exhorted them to make the attempt, cheering on his companions and shouting out that fortune had now thrown open the city to the pursuers no less than to the pursued. Only a handful of men volunteered to follow him, but putting himself at their head he fought his way through the enemy, rushed the gates and broke into the city before a single man dared to oppose him. However, when the Volscians saw that only a handful of Romans all told had made their way inside, their courage returned and they attacked the intruders. In the hand-to-hand fighting that followed, Marcius, finding himself surrounded by a struggling mass in which friend and foe were inextricably intermingled, hewed his way out with a speed, a daring and a sheer fury of attack which passed all belief. He bore down all resistance before him, so that some of these opponents took refuge in the farthest parts of the city, while other threw down their arms, and finally Larcius was able to lead in his troops without striking a blow.
9. After Corioli had been captured in this way, many of the Roman soldiers fell to looting and pillaging the city. This enraged Marcius and he declared angrily that it was disgraceful for these soldiers, at the very moment when the consul Cominius and their fellow-citizens might be engaged in a battle with the Volscian army, to be roaming the streets of Corioli looking for plunder or hiding from danger under the pretext of collecting the spoils of war. Only a few paid any attention to his protest, whereupon he gathered together those who were willing to follow him and started out along the road which he had learned Cominius’ army had taken. As they marched, he urged on his companions, begged them not to slacken their pace and offered up prayer after prayer to the gods that they might not be too late for the battle, but arrive in time to share the trials and dangers of their fellow-countrymen.
In those days it was a custom among the Romans, when they were on the point of going into action and were preparing to gird up their tunics and take their shields in their hands, to make at the same time an unwritten will38 by naming their heirs in the presence of three or four witnesses, and this was what Cominius’ soldiers were doing when Marcius came upon them. Some of the men were dismayed at first, when they saw him arrive covered in blood and sweat and leading no more than a handful of men. But when he ran up to the consul with a jubilant expression, stretched out his hand and gave him the news that Corioli had been captured, and when Cominius embraced him and kissed him, the soldiers took courage. Some of them actually heard him speak of the victory, while others guessed what had happened, and finally they all shouted to the consul to lead them into action. Marcius then asked Cominius what was the enemy’s order of battle and where their best troops had been stationed. The consul said he believed that the finest and bravest soldiers in the Volscian army were the men of Antium,39 and that they were posted in the centre, whereupon Marcius answered: ‘I beg and demand of you to place us opposite them.’ The consul was filled with admiration at his spirit and granted his request.
As soon as the armies came within range of ea
ch other and spears began to fly, Marcius ran out ahead of the Roman line. The Volscians opposite him could not face his charge, and the Romans broke through at the point where he had attacked. But the troops on either side wheeled inwards and surrounded him with their weapons, so that the consul became alarmed for his safety and dispatched his best men to the rescue. A furious battle raged around Marcius and men fell thick and fast, but Cominius’ troops never slackened the pressure of their attack and finally drove the enemy from the field. When they started in pursuit, they urged Marcius, who by this time was stumbling with fatigue and the pain of his wounds, to retire to the camp. His only reply was that the victor has no business to be weary, and he immediately set off on the heels of the flying enemy. In the end the entire Volscian army suffered a crushing defeat, many were killed and large numbers taken prisoner.
10. On the following day Lartius’ troops joined them and the whole army was paraded before the consul. Cominius then mounted the speaker’s platform,40 and after offering up the thanks that were due to the gods for two such glorious successes, he addressed himself to Marcius. He began by paying tribute to Marcius’ extraordinary exploits, some of which he had seen for himself in the battle, while the others had been reported to him by Larcius. An enormous quantity of booty as well as prisoners and horses had been captured, and out of these spoils he ordered Marcius to choose a tenth share for himself before anything was distributed to the rest of the army, and over and above all this he presented him with a charger equipped with a splendid harness as a special prize for his valour.41 The Romans cheered this speech, whereupon Marcius stepped forward and declared that he gladly accepted the horse and was grateful for the consul’s words of praise. But he felt that he must decline the other rewards because they seemed to him to represent not so much an honour as a payment for his services, and so he would be content to take his single share like the rest. ‘But there is one special favour’, he went on, ‘which I beg may be granted me. There is a friend of mine among the Volscians, whose guest I have been. He is a just and kindly man, but now he has become a prisoner, and so has lost all his wealth and happiness and has been reduced to the condition of a slave. He has suffered many misfortunes, but I should like to rescue him from one at least – the fate of being sold into slavery.’
These words were greeted with louder applause, for there were even more admirers of Marcius’ indifference to personal gain than of the courage he had shown on the battlefield. The very men who had felt a certain jealousy towards him on account of the extraordinary honours which he had been paid, now considered that he deserved great rewards for the very reason that he would not accept them, and they were more impressed by the virtue which enabled him to despise such prizes than by the exploits for which he had earned them. For it is a nobler achievement to have mastered the use of wealth than the use of weapons, but it is nobler still to have no need for it.
11. When the cheers which followed Marcius’ speech had died down, Cominius spoke again and said: ‘Fellow-soldiers, we cannot force a man to accept these gifts against his will, but there is another reward which he can scarcely refuse when it is offered him. I propose that we give him this and pass a vote that he shall henceforth be named Coriolanus, although you might think that his gallantry at Corioli had already earned him the title.’ This was the origin of his third name, Coriolanus, and the story makes it clear that Gaius was his personal name, that his second name, in this instance Marcius, was the common name of his family or clan, while the third was added afterwards and was given because of some exploit, stroke of fortune, physical peculiarity or notable virtue.42
In the same way, the Greeks in times past used to give men names that were derived from some action, for example Soter and Callinicus; or from a physical feature, such as Physcon and Grypus; or from some outstanding excellence, such as Euergetes or Philadelphus; or from a stroke of good fortune, such as Eudaemon, the name give to the second Battus.43 On the other hand, some of the Greek rulers have had names given them in irony, such as Antigonus Doson and Ptolemy Lathyrus.44 The Romans used surnames of this kind even more frequently. For example, one member of the Metellus family was named Diadematus45 because he suffered for a long time from a running sore and was always to be seen with a bandage wrapped around his forehead like a diadem. Another member of this same family was named Celer46 because he so hastened to provide the public with funeral games in which gladiators took part – within days after his father’s death – that the speed and urgency of his preparations were considered extraordinary. To this day, some Roman children take their name from the circumstances of their birth. Thus a boy may be called Proculus47 if he is born while his father is away from home, or Postumus if his father is dead, or, if twins are born of whom one survives while the other dies, he is called Vopsicus. Again the Romans often give names because of physical peculiarities, and they choose not only such epithets as Sulla, Niger and Rufus, but also Caecus and Claudius.48 And indeed, it is a wise practice to accustom men not to regard blindness or any other physical disability as a disgrace or a matter for reproach, but to answer to these names as if they were their own. However, this is not the place for me to pursue this subject.
12. The war was no sooner over than the leaders of the popular party began to stir up fresh quarrels. They had no fresh cause for complaint nor any just ground for making accusations, but they exploited the various evils which had inevitably grown out of the earlier disputes and disturbances, and made these their excuse for opposing the patricians. The greater part of the countryside had been left unplanted and untilled, and the war had allowed no opportunity to arrange for supplies to be imported from other territories. The result was a severe shortage of food, and when the popular leaders saw that there were no provisions in the market, and that even if there had been the people had no money to buy them, they spread malicious stories to the effect that the rich had deliberately created the famine to revenge themselves on the people.
At this moment there arrived a delegation from the people of Velitrae,49 who offered to hand over their city to the Romans and begged them to send out colonists to live in it. They had been attacked by a plague which had ravaged their country so terribly that barely a tenth of the whole population had survived. Those who could consider the matter without prejudice thought that this appeal from the people of Velitrae had come at a most fortunate moment, since the scarcity of food made it necessary to reduce the population at Rome, and at the same time they hoped that this seditious agitation would be broken up if the unruly elements and those who were most easily roused by the popular leaders could be purged away like some unhealthy discharge from the body. Accordingly, the consuls selected a number of citizens of this type, who were known to be discontented, and ordered them to go and colonize Velitrae, while others were conscripted for a campaign against the Volscians. The consuls’ intention was to keep them too well occupied to create disturbances at home, but they also hoped that when patricians, plebeians – rich and poor alike – once more found themselves bearing arms together in the same camp and exerting themselves for the common good, they would learn to show more goodwill and to treat one another with greater tolerance.
13. However, Sicinius and Brutus, the popular leaders, immediately intervened. They protested bitterly that this apparently harmless scheme of sending out a colony was the cover for a most dastardly outrage. In reality the authorities were thrusting these poor citizens into a plague pit by sending them to a city where the air was full of infection and the stench of unburied corpses, and where they would live within the grasp of an alien – and lethal – divinity. And finally, as if the consuls were not satisfied with killing off some of their fellow-citizens by famine and exposing others to plague, they must also plunge the Roman people into a war of their own making: indeed, it would seem that they were determined that the city should suffer every possible misfortune merely because it refused to remain enslaved to the rich. These speeches aroused such feelings of indignation among th
e people that they refused to obey the consuls’ orders to enlist and were filled with suspicion against the proposed colony.
The senate was at a loss what to do, but in the meantime Marcius had come to feel that he was a man of importance. He cherished lofty ambitions, and since he knew that he had earned the admiration of some of the most influential men in the state, he openly took the initiative in opposing the popular leaders. Accordingly, the colony was sent out, and the men who were chosen by lot to occupy it were forced to go on pain of severe penalties. Finally, when the people flatly refused to take part in the campaign against the Volscians, Marcius organized a force made up of his own clients50 and as many other men as he could persuade to join him, and launched a raid on the territory of Antium. There he found large stocks of grain and captured great numbers of prisoners and of cattle. He kept none of these spoils for himself, but marched his troops back to Rome laden with booty of every kind. This success quickly produced a change of heart among the rest of the people. They envied their more fortunate fellow-citizens – and they were filled with anger against Marcius. They deeply resented the rapid growth of his power and reputation, because they believed that it would be used against the interests of the people.
14. Not long afterwards, however, Marcius stood for the consulship. The people then relented and reflected what a shame it would be to insult and humiliate a man who had no superior either in the nobility of his birth or in his courage, and who had rendered so many notable services to the state. Now it was the custom at Rome that the candidates for office should address their fellow-citizens and appeal to them personally for their votes, and they would walk about in the forum dressed in a toga, but without a tunic underneath it.51 They did this in some cases to emphasize their humility by the simplicity of their dress, or else, if they had wounds to show, to display the evidence of their courage. Certainly the people’s insistence that their candidates should present themselves ungirt and without a tunic had nothing to do with any suspicion of bribery, for it was not until long afterwards that the abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining the election. Later on, however, this process of corruption spread to the law courts and to the army, and finally, when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was converted into an autocracy. For it has rightly been said that the man who first offers banquets and bribes to the people is the first to destroy their liberties. In Rome this evil seems to have crept in stealthily and gradually, and it was many years before it became apparent. We do not know, for example, who was the first Roman to bribe the people or the courts of law, whereas at Athens Anytus,52 the son of Anthemion, has been named as the first man to give money to jurymen. He did this when he was tried on a charge of treason for his failure to relieve Pylos. However, this was at a time when the golden age still prevailed at Rome and the forum was dominated by men of uncorrupted virtue.