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$Unique_ID{bob00945}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Plutarch's Lives
Part II}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Plutarch}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{marcius
romans
volscians
upon
tullus
himself
war
now
senate
yet}
$Date{c75}
$Log{}
Title:       Plutarch's Lives
Book:        Coriolanus
Author:      Plutarch
Date:        c75
Translation: Dryden, Arthur Hugh Clough

Part II

     During the interval before the appointed time (for the Romans hold their
sessions every ninth day, which from that cause are called nundianoe in
Latin), as war fell out with the Antiates, likely to be of some continuance,
which gave them hope they might one way or other elude the judgment. The
people, they presumed, would become tractable, and their indignation lessen
and languish by degrees in so long a space, if occupation and war did not
wholly put it out of their mind. But when, contrary to expectation, they made
a speedy agreement with the people of Antium, and the army came back to Rome,
the patricians were again in great perplexity, and had frequent meetings to
consider how things might be arranged, without either abandoning Marcius, or
yet giving occasion to the popular orators to create new disorders. Appius
Claudius, whom they counted among the senators most averse to th popular
interest, made a solemn declaration, and told them beforehand, that the senate
would utterly destroy itself and betray the government, if they should once
suffer the people to assume the authority of pronouncing sentence upon any of
the patricians; but the oldest senators and most favorable to the people
maintained, on the other side, that the people would not be so harsh and
severe upon them, as some were pleased to imagine, but rather become more
gentle and humane upon the concession of that power, since it was not contempt
of the senate, but the impression of being contemned by it, which made them
pretend to such a prerogative. Let that be once allowed them as a mark of
respect and kind feeling, and the mere possession of this power of voting
would at once dispossess them of their animosity.

     When, therefore, Marcius saw that the senate was in pain and suspense
upon his account, divided, as it were, betwixt their kindness for him and
their apprehensions from the people, he desired to know of the tribunes what
the crimes were they intended to charge him with, and what the heads of the
indictment they would oblige him to plead to before the people; and being told
by them that he was to be impeached for attempting usurpation, and that they
would prove him guilty of designing to establish arbitrary government,
stepping forth upon this, "Let me go then," he said, "to clear myself from
that imputation before an assembly of them; I freely offer myself to any sort
of trial, nor do I refuse any kind of punishment whatsoever; only," he
continued, "let what you now mention be really made my accusation, and do not
you play false with the senate." On their consenting to these terms, he came
to his trial. But when the people met together, the tribunes, contrary to all
former practice, extorted first, that votes should be taken, not by centuries,
but tribes; a change, by which the indigent and factious rabble, that had no
respect for honesty and justice, would be sure to carry it against those who
were rich and well known, and accustomed to serve the state in war. In the
next place, whereas they had engaged to prosecute Marcius upon no other head
but that of tyranny, which could never be made out against him, they
relinquished this plea, and urged instead, his language in the senate against
an abatement of the price of corn, and for the overthrow of the tribunician
power; adding further, as a new impeachment the distribution that was made by
him of the spoil and booty he had taken from the Antiates, when he overran
their country, which he had divided among those that had followed him, whereas
it ought rather to have been brought into the public treasury; which last
accusation did, they say, more discompose Marcius than all the rest, as he had
not anticipated he should ever be questioned on that subject, and, therefore,
was less provided with any satisfactory answer to it on the sudden. And when,
by way of excuse, he began to magnify the merits of those who had been
partakers with him in the action, those that had stayed at home, being more
numerous than the other, interrupted him with outcries. In conclusion, when
they came to vote, a majority of three tribes condemned him; the penalty being
perpetual banishment. The sentence of his condemnation being pronounced, the
people went away with greater triumph and exultation than they had ever shown
for any victory over enemies; while the senate was in grief and deep
dejection, repenting now and vexed to the soul that they had not done and
suffered all things rather than give way to the insolence of the people, and
permit them to assume and abuse so great an authority. There was no need then
to look at men's dresses, or other marks of distinction, to know one from
another: any one who was glad was, beyond all doubt, a plebeian; any one who
looked sorrowful, a patrician.

     Marcius alone, himself, was neither stunned nor humiliated. In mien,
carriage, and countenance, he bore the appearance of entire composure, and
while all his friends were full of distress, seemed the only man that was not
touched with his misfortune. Not that either reflection taught him, or
gentleness of temper made it natural for him, to submit: he was wholly
possessed, on the contrary, with a profound and deep-seated fury, which passes
with many for no pain at all. And pain, it is true, transmuted, so to say, by
its own fiery heat into anger, loses every appearance of depression and
feebleness; the angry man makes a show of energy, as the man in a high fever
does of natural heat, while, in fact, all this action of the soul is but mere
diseased palpitation, distention, and inflammation. That such was his
distempered state appeared presently plainly enough in his actions. On his
return home, after saluting his mother and his wife, who were all in tears and
full of loud lamentations, and exhorting them to moderate the sense they had
of his calamity, he proceeded at once to the city gates, whither all the
nobility came to attend him; and so, not so much as taking any thing with him,
or making any request to the company, he departed from them, having only three
or four clients with him. He continued solitary for a few days in place in the
country, distracted with a variety of counsels, such as rage and indignation
suggested to him; and proposing to himself no honorable or useful end, but
only how he might best satisfy his revenge on the Romans, he resolved at
length to raise up a heavy war against them from their nearest neighbors. He
determined, first to make trial of the Volscians, whom he knew to be still
vigorous and flourishing, both in men and treasure, and he imagined their
force and power was not so much abated, as their spite and anger increased, by
the late overthrows they had received from the Romans.

     There was a man of Antium, called Tullus Aufidius, who, for his wealth
and bravery and the splendor of his family, had the respect and privilege of a
king among the Volscians, but whom Marcius knew to have a particular hostility
to himself, above all other Romans. Frequent menaces and challenges had passed
in battle between them, and those exchanges of defiance to which their hot and
eager emulation is apt to prompt young soldiers had added private animosity to
their national feelings of opposition. Yet for all this, considering Tullus to
have a certain generosity of temper, and knowing that no Volscian, so much as
he, desired an occasion to requite upon the Romans the evils they had done, he
did what much confirms the saying, that

     "Hard and unequal is with wrath the strife,
     Which makes us buy its pleasure with our life."

Putting on such a dress as would make him appear to any whom he might meet
most unlike what he really was, thus, like Ulysses, -

     "The town he entered of his mortal foes."

His arrival at Antium was about evening, and though several met him in the
streets, yet he passed along without being known to any, and went directly to
the house of Tullus, and, entering undiscovered, went up to the fire-heart,
and seated himself there without speaking a word, covering up his head. Those
of the family could not but wonder, and yet they were afraid either to raise
or question him, for there was a certain air of majesty both in his posture
and silence, but they recounted to Tullus, being then at supper, the
strangeness of this accident. He immediately rose from table and came in, and
asked him who he was, and for what business he came thither; and then Marcius,
unmuffling, himself, and pausing awhile, "If," said he, "you cannot yet call
me to mind, Tullus, or do not believe your eyes concerning me, I must of
necessity be my own accuser. I am Caius Marcius, the author of so much
mischief to the Volscians; of which, were I seeking to deny it, the surname of
Coriolanus I now bear would be sufficient evidence against me. The one
recompense I received for all the hardships and perils I have gone through,
was the title that proclaims my enmity to your nation, and this is the only
thing which is still left me. Of all other advantages, I have been stripped
and deprived by the envy and outrage of the Roman people, and the cowardice
and treachery of the magistrates and those of my own order. I am driven out as
an exile, and become an humble suppliant at your heart, not so much for safety
and protection (should I have come hither, had I been afraid to die?), as to
seek vengeance against those that expelled me; which, methinks, I have already
obtained, by putting myself into your hands. If, therefore, you have really a
mind to attack your enemies, come then, make use of that affliction you see me
in to assist the enterprise, and convert my personal infelicity into a common
blessing to the Volscians; as, indeed, I am likely to be more serviceable in
fighting for than against you, with the advantage, which I now posses, of
knowing all the secrets of the enemy that I am attacking. But if you decline
to make any further attempts, I am neither desirous to live myself, nor will
it be well in you to preserve a person who has been your rival and adversary
of old, and now, when he offers you his service, appears unprofitable and
useless to you."

     Tullus on hearing this, was extremely rejoiced, and giving him his right
hand, exclaimed, "Rise, Marcius, and be of good courage; it is a great
happiness you bring to Antium, in the present you make us of yourself; expect
every thing that is good from the Volscians." He then proceeded to feast and
entertain him with every display of kindness, and for several days after they
were in close deliberation together on the prospects of a war.

     While this design was forming, there were great troubles and commotions
at Rome, from the animosity of the senators against the people, heightened
just now by the late condemnation of Marcius. Besides that, their soothsayers
and priests, and even private persons, reported signs and prodigies not to be
neglected; one of which is stated to have occurred as follows: Titus Latinus,
^3 a man of ordinary condition, but of a quiet and virtuous character, free
from all superstitious fancies, and yet more from vanity and exaggeration, had
an apparition in his sleep, as if Jupiter came and bade him tell the senate,
that it was with a bad and unacceptable dancer that they had headed his
procession. Having beheld the vision, he said, he did not much attend to it at
the first appearance; but after he had seen and slighted it a second and third
time, he had lost a hopeful son, and was himself struck with a palsy. He was
brought into the senate on a liter to tell this, and the story goes, that he
had no sooner delivered his message there, but he at once felt his strength
return, and got upon his legs, and went home alone, without need of any
support. The senators, in wonder and surprise, made a diligent search into the
matter. That which his dream alluded to was this: some citizen had, for some
heinous offence, given up a servant of his to the rest of his fellows, with
charge to whip him first through the market, and then to kill him; and while
they were executing this command, and scourging the wretch, who screwed and
turned himself into all manner of shapes and unseemly motions, through the
pain he was in, the solemn procession in honor of Jupiter chanced to follow at
their heels. Several of the attendants on which were, indeed, scandalized at
the sight, yet no one of them interfered, or acted further in the matter than
merely to utter some common reproaches and execrations on a master who
inflicted so cruel a punishment. For the Romans treated their slaves with
great humanity in these times, when, working and laboring themselves, and
living together among them they naturally were more gentle and familiar with
them. It was one of the severest punishments for a slave who had committed a
fault, to have to take the piece of wood which supports the pole of a wagon,
and carry it about through the neighborhood; a slave who had once undergone
the shame of this, and been thus seen by the household and the neighbors, had
no longer any trust or credit among them, and had the name of furcifer; furca
being the Latin word for a prop, or support.

[Footnote 3: The correct name is probably Titus Latinius, for which Tiberius
Atinius, in Livy, is merely a misreading.]

     When, therefore, Latinus had related his dream, and the senators were
considering who this disagreeable and ungainly dancer could be, some of the
company, having been struck with the strangeness of the punishment, called to
mind and mentioned the miserable slave who was lashed through the streets and
afterward put to death. The priests, when consulted confirmed the conjecture;
the master was punished; and orders given for a new celebration of the
procession and the spectacles in honor of the god. Numa, in other respects
also a wise arranger of religious offices, would seem to have been especially
judicious in his direction, with a view to the attentiveness of the people,
that, when the magistrates or priests performed and divine worship, a herald
should go before, and proclaim with a loud voice, Hoc age. Do this you are
about, and so warn them to mind whatever sacred action they were engaged in,
and not suffer any business or worldly avocation to disturb and interrupt it;
most of the things which men do of this kind, being in a manner forced from
them, and effected by constraint. It is usual with the Romans to recommence
their sacrifices and processions and spectacles, not only upon such a cause as
this, but for any slighter reason. If but one of the horses which drew the
chariots called Tensae, upon which the images of their gods were placed,
happened to fail and falter, or if the driver took hold of the reins with his
left hand, they would decree that the whole operation should commence anew;
and, in latter ages, one and the same sacrifice was performed thirty times
over, because of the occurrence of some defect or mistake or accident in the
service. Such was the Roman reverence and caution in religious matters.

     Marcius and Tullus were now secretly discoursing of their project with
the chief men of Antium, advising them to invade the Romans while they were at
variance among themselves. And when shame appeared to hinder them from
embracing the motion, as they had sworn to a truce and cessation of arms for
the space of two years, the Romans themselves soon furnished them with a
pretence, by making proclamation, out of some jealousy or slanderous report,
in the midst of the spectacles, that all the Volscians who had come to see
them should depart the city before sunset. Some affirm that this was a
contrivance of Marcius, who sent a man privately to the consuls, falsely to
accuse the Volscians of intending to fall upon the Romans during the games,
and to set the city on fire. This public affront roused and inflamed their
hostility to the Romans; and Tullus, perceiving it, made his advantage of it,
aggravating the fact, and working on their indignation, till he persuaded
them, at last, to despatch ambassadors to Rome, requiring the Romans to
restore that part of their country and those towns which they had taken from
the Volscians in the late war. When the Romans heard the message, they
indignantly replied, that the Volscians were the first that took up arms, but
the Romans would be the last to lay them down. This answer being brought back,
Tullus called a general assembly of the Volscians; and the vote passing for a
war, he then proposed that they should call in Marcius, laying aside the
remembrance of former grudges, and assuring themselves that the services they
should now receive from him as a friend and associate, would abundantly
outweigh any harm or damage he had done them when he was their enemy. Marcius
was accordingly summoned, and having made his entrance, and spoken to the
people, won their good opinion of his capacity, his skill, counsel, and
boldness, not less by his present words than by his past actions. They joined
him in commission with Tullus, to have full power as general of their forces
in all that related to the war. And he, fearing lest the time that would be
requisite to bring all the Volscians together in full preparation might be so
long as to lose him the opportunity of action, left order with the chief
persons and magistrates of the city to provide other things, while he himself,
prevailing upon the most forward to assemble and march out with him as
volunteers without staying to be enrolled, made a sudden inroad into the Roman
confines, when nobody expected him, and possessed himself of so much booty,
that the Volscians found they had more than they could either carry away or
use in the camp. The abundance of provision which he gained, and the waste and
havoc of the country which he made, were, however, of themselves and in his
account, the smallest results of that invasion; the great mischief he
intended, and his special object in all, was to increase at Rome the
suspicions entertained of the patricians, and to make them upon worse terms
with the people. With this view, while spoiling all the fields and destroying
the property of other men, he took special care to preserve their farms and
lands untouched, and would not allow his soldiers to ravage there, or seize
upon any thing which belonged to them. From hence their invectives and
quarrels against one another broke out afresh, and rose to a greater height
than ever; the senators reproaching those of the commonalty with their late
injustice to Marcius; while the plebeians, on their side, did not hesitate to
accuse them of having, out of spite and revenge, solicited him to this
enterprise, and thus, when others were involved in the miseries of a war by
their means, they sat like unconcerned spectators, as being furnished with a
guardian and protector abroad of their wealth and fortunes, in the very person
of the public enemy. After this incursion and exploit, which was of great
advantage to the Volscians, as they learned by it to grow more hardy and to
contemn their enemy, Marcius drew them off, and returned in safety.

     But when the whole strength of the Volscians was brought together into
the field, with great expedition and alacrity, it appeared so considerable a
body, that they agreed to leave part in garrison, for the security of their
towns, and with the other part to march against the Romans. Marcius now
desired Tullus to choose which of the two charges would be most agreeable to
him. Tullus answered, that since he knew Marcius to be equally valiant with
himself, and far more fortunate, he would have him take the command of those
that were going out to the war, while he made it his care to defend their
cities at home, and provide all conveniences for the army abroad. Marcius thus
reinforced, and much stronger than before, moved first towards the city called
Circaeum, a Roman colony. He received its surrender, and did the inhabitants
no injury; passing thence, he entered and laid waste the country of the
Latins, where he expected the Romans would meet him, as the Latins were their
confederates and allies, and had often sent to demand succors from them. The
people, however, on their part, showing little inclination for the service,
and the consuls themselves being unwilling to run the hazard of a battle, when
the time of their office was almost ready to expire, they dismissed the Latin
ambassadors without any effect; so that Marcius, finding no army to oppose
him, marched up to their cities, and, having taken by force Toleria, Lavici,
Peda, and Bola, all of which offered resistance, not only plundered their
houses, but made a prey likewise of their persons. Meantime, he showed
particular regard for all such as came over to his party, and, for fear they
might sustain any damage against his will, encamped at the greatest distance
he could, and wholly abstained from the lands of their property.

     After, however, that he had made himself master of Bola, a town not above
ten miles from Rome, where he found great treasure, and put almost all the
adults to the sword; and when, on this, the other Volscians that were ordered
to stay behind and protect their cities, hearing of his achievements and
success, had not patience to remain any longer at home, but came hastening in
their arms to Marcius, saying that he alone was their general and the sole
commander they would own; with all this, his name and renown spread throughout
all Italy, and universal wonder prevailed at the sudden and mighty revolution
in the fortunes of two nations which the loss and the accession of a single
man had effected.