> exploits. He afterwards won many more crowns in battle, and became one

of the most famous of Roman soldiers.



One of his memorable exploits took place during a war with the

Volscians, in which the Romans attacked the city of Corioli. The

citizens made a sally, and drove the Romans back to their camp. But

Caius, with a few followers, stopped them and turned the tide of battle,

driving the Volscians back. As they fled into the city through the open

gates, he cried, "Those gates are set open for us rather than for the

Volscians. Why are we afraid to rush in?" And suiting his act to his

words, the daring soldier pursued the enemy into the town.



Here he found himself almost alone, for very few had followed him. The

enemy turned on the bold invaders, but Caius proved so strong of hand

and stout of heart that he drove them all before him, keeping a way

clear for the Romans, who soon thronged in through the open gate and

took the city. The army gave Caius the sole credit for the victory,

saying that he alone had taken Corioli; and the general said, "Let him

be called after the name of the city." He was, therefore, afterwards

known by the name of Caius Marcius Coriolanus.



Courage was not the only marked quality of Coriolanus. His pride was

equally great. He was a noble of the nobles, so haughty in demeanor and

so disdainful of the commons that they grew to hate him bitterly. At

length came a time of great scarcity of food. The people were on the

verge of famine, to relieve which shiploads of corn were sent from

Sicily to Rome. The senate resolved to distribute this corn among the

suffering people, but Coriolanus opposed this, saying, "If they want

corn let them show their obedience to the Patricians, as their fathers

did, and give up their tribunes. If they do this we will let them have

corn, and take care of them."



When the people heard of what the proud noble had said they broke into

such fury that a mob gathered around the doors of the senate house,

prepared to seize and tear him to pieces when he came out. They were

checked in this by the tribunes, who said, "Let us not have violence. We

will accuse him of treason before the assembly, and you shall be his

judges."



The tribunes, therefore, as the law gave them the right, summoned

Coriolanus to appear before the popular tribunal and answer to the

charges against him. But he, knowing how deeply he had offended them,

and that they would show him no mercy, stayed not for the trial, but

fled from Rome, exiled from his native land by his pride and disdain of

the people.



The exile made his way to the land of the Volscians, and seating himself

by the hearth-fire of Attius Tullius, their chief, waited there with

covered head till his late bitter foe should come in. How Attius would

receive him he knew not; but he was homeless, and had now only his

enemies to trust. But when the chieftain entered, and learned that the

man who sat crouched beside his hearth, subject to his will, was the

great warrior who by his own hands had taken a Volscian city, but was

now banished and a fugitive, he was filled with compassion. He greeted

him kindly and offered him a home, saying to himself, "Caius, our worst

foe, is now our friend and a foe to Rome; we will make war against that

proud city, and by his aid will conquer it."



But the Volscians were not eager for war. They were afraid of the

Romans, who had so often defeated them, and Attius sought in vain to

stir them to hostility. Failing to rouse them by eloquence, he practised

craft. There was a great festival at Rome, to which had come the people

of various cities, among them many of the Volscians. Attius now went

privately to the Roman consuls and bade them beware of the Volscians,

lest they should stir up a riot and make trouble in the city, hinting

that mischief was intended. In consequence of this warning proclamation

was made that every Volscian should leave Rome before the setting of the

sun.



This produced the effect which Attius had hoped. He met the Volscians on

their way home, and found them fired with indignation against Rome. He

pretended similar indignation. "You have been made a show of before all

the nations," he cried. "You and your wives and children have been

basely insulted. They have made war on us while their guests; if you are

men you will make them rue this deed."



His words inflamed his countrymen. The story of the insult spread widely

through the country, all the tribes of the Volscians took up the

quarrel, and a great army was raised and set in march towards Rome, with

Attius and Coriolanus at its head.



The Volscian force was greater than the Romans were prepared to meet,

and the army marched victoriously onward, taking city after city, and

finally encamping within five miles of Rome. When the Volscians entered

Roman territory they laid waste, by order of Coriolanus, the lands of

the commons, but spared those of the nobles, the exiled patrician

deeming the former his foes and the latter his friends. The approach of

this powerful army threw the Romans into dismay. They had been assailed

so suddenly that they had made no preparations for defence, and the city

seemed to lie at the mercy of its foes. The women ran to the temples to

pray for the favor of the gods. The people demanded that the senate

should send deputies to the invading army to treat for peace. The

senate, apparently no less frightened than the people, obeyed, sending

five leading Patricians to the Volscian camp.



These deputies were haughtily received by Coriolanus, who offered them

the following severe terms: "We will give you no peace till you restore

to the Volscians all the land and cities which Rome has ever taken from

them, and till you make them citizens of Rome, and give them all the

rights in your city which you have yourselves."



These conditions the deputies had no power to accept, and they threw the

senate into dismay. The deputies were sent again, instructed to ask for

gentler terms, but now, Coriolanus refused even to let them enter his

camp.



This harsh repulse plunged Rome into mortal terror. The senate, helpless

to resist, now sent the priests of the gods and the augurs, all clothed

in their sacred garments, and bearing the sacred emblems from the

temples. But even this solemn delegation Coriolanus refused to receive,

and sent them back to Rome unheard.



Where all this time was the Roman army, which always before and after

made itself heard and felt? This we are not told. We are in the land of

legend, and cannot look for too much consistency. For once in its

history Rome seems to have forgotten that its mission was not to plead,

but to fight. Perhaps its armies had been beaten and demoralized in

previous battles. At any rate we can but tell the story as it is told to

us.



The help of delegates, priests, and augurs having proved unavailing,

that of women was next sought. A noble lady, Valeria by name, who with

other suppliants had sought the Temple of Jupiter, was inspired by a

sudden thought, which seemed sent by the god himself. Rising, and

bidding the other noble ladies to accompany her, she proceeded to the

house of Volumnia, the mother of Coriolanus, whom she found with

Virgilia, his wife, and his little children.



"We have come to ask you to join us," she said, "in order that we women,

without aid from man, may deliver our country, and win for ourselves a

name more glorious even than that of the Sabine wives of old, who

stopped the battle between their husbands and fathers. Come with us to

the camp of Caius, and let us pray him to show us mercy."



"It is well thought of; we shall go with you," said Volumnia, and, with

Virgilia and her children, the noble matron prepared to seek the camp

and tent of her exiled son.



It was a sad and solemn spectacle, as this train of noble ladies, clad

in their habiliments of woe, and with bent heads and sorrowful faces,

wound through the hostile camp, from which they were not excluded, like

the men. Even the Volscian soldiers watched them with pitying eyes, and

spoke no word as they moved slowly past. On reaching the midst of the

camp, they saw Coriolanus on the general's seat, with the Volscian

chiefs gathered around him.



At first he wondered who these women could be. But when they came near,

and he saw his mother at the head of the train, his deep love for her

welled up so strongly in his heart that he could not restrain himself,

but sprang up and ran to meet and kiss her. The Roman matron stopped him

with a dignified gesture, saying,--



"Ere you kiss me, let me know whether I am speaking to an enemy or to my

son; whether I stand here as your prisoner or your mother."



He stood before her in silence, with bent head, and unable to speak.



"Must it then be that if I had never borne a son, Rome would have never

seen the camp of an enemy?" said Volumnia, in sorrowful tones. "But I am

too old to bear much longer your shame and my misery. Think not of me,

but of your wife and children, whom you would doom to death or to life

in bondage."



Then Virgilia and the children came up and kissed him, and all the noble

ladies in the train burst into tears and bemoaned the peril of their

country. Coriolanus still stood silent, his face working with contending

thoughts. At length he cried out, in heart-rending accents, "O mother,

what have you done to me?"



Clasping her hand, he wrung it vehemently, saying, "Mother, the victory

is yours! A happy victory for you and Rome, but shame and ruin to your

son."



Then he embraced her with yearning heart, and afterwards clasped his

wife and children to his breast, bidding them return with their tale of

conquest to Rome. As for himself, he said, only exile and shame

remained.



Before the women reached home the army of the Volscians was on its

homeward march. Coriolanus never led them against Rome again. He lived

and died in exile, far from his wife and children. When very old, he

sadly remarked, "That now in his old age he knew the full bitterness of

banishment."



The Romans, to honor Volumnia and those who had gone with her to the

Volscian camp, built a temple to "Woman's Fortune" on the spot where

Coriolanus had yielded to his mother's entreaties; and the first

priestess of this temple was Valeria, who had been inspired in the

temple of Jupiter with the thought that saved Rome.