Caius Marcius Coriolanus, exiled from Rome by the seditious Tribunes
and by his own indomitable pride, so far forgot all patriotic feelings
as to engage the Volscians to make war against his country. Here we
beg to draw the attention of our young readers to the very different
conduct of Themistocles, his contemporary, under similar circumstances.
The Volscians, proud of the assistance of such a distinguished hero,
made him their general: he took the field with vengeance in his heart.
After a great number of victories, he marched straight to Rome, for the
purpose of laying siege to it. So bold a design threw the patricians
and the people equally into a state of the greatest alarm. Hatred gave
way to fear: deputies were sent to Coriolanus, who received them with
all the haughtiness of an enemy determined upon making his will the
law. The Roman generals, instead of boldly meeting him in the field,
exhorted him to grant them peace; they conjured him to have pity on
his country, and forget the injuries offered to him by the populace,
who were already sufficiently punished by the evils he had inflicted
upon them. But they brought back nothing but the stern reply, “that
they must restore to the Volscians all they had taken from them, and
grant them the right of citizenship.” Other deputies were dismissed
in the same manner. The courage of these Romans, so proud and so
intrepid, appeared to have passed with Coriolanus over to the side of
the Volscians. Obedience to the laws was at an end; military discipline
was neglected: they took counsel of nothing but their fear. At length,
after many tumultuous deliberations, the ministers of religion were
sent to endeavour to bend the will of the angry compatriot. Priests,
clothed in their sacred habiliments advanced with mournful steps
to the camp of the Volscians, and the most venerable amongst them
implored Coriolanus to give peace to his country, and, in the name
of the gods, to have compassion on the Romans, his fellow-citizens
and brothers: but they found him equally stern and inflexible. When
the people saw the holy priests return without success, they indeed
supposed the republic lost. They filled the temples, they embraced the
altars of the gods, and gathered in clusters about the city, uttering
cries and lamentations: Rome presented a picture of profound grief and
debasement. Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, and Volumnia, his wife,
saved their unhappy country. They presented themselves before him, and
conjured him by all that he held most sacred, to spare a city which had
given him birth, and which still contained his mother, his wife, and
his children. His mother was a woman of great spirit,--a Roman, almost
a Spartan mother: she had, from his boyhood, stimulated him to the
performance of noble and heroic deeds: she might be called the parent
of his glory, as well as of his vigorous person. Coriolanus loved his
mother tenderly, almost idolized her, and could not resist her tears.
He raised the siege, and delivered Rome from the greatest alarm it had
ever experienced.