Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
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-hearth, 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 a 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 hearth, 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 possess, 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 everything 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, 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
palsy. He was brought into the senate on a litter 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 offense, 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.
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 any 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 pretense, 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 dispatch 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 anything 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