Marcius then leads part of the army to join Cominius and together they defeat the Volscians under Tullus Aufidius.
Now the army rings with praises for Marcius, but when Titus Lartius tries to put those praises into words, Marcius says, gruffly:
Pray now, no more. My mother,
Who has a charter to extol her blood,
When she does praise me grieves me.
- Act I, scene ix, lines 13-15
This sounds like modesty, like superhuman modesty, but is it? Marcius is a loner. His universe consists of himself alone, plus his mother. He is willing to enter Corioli alone, to fight alone against an army; the soldiers under his command are but a source of annoyance to him.
Why, then, should he want their praise? Who are they to praise him? Far from this being a true mark of modesty, it might rather be interpreted as the sign of a most confounded arrogance. Only his mother has a right to praise him and even that is not entirely acceptable to him. In the remark, further, he naively reveals the fact that he places his mother (as far as the right of praise is concerned) above Rome.
Nevertheless, he is not to get away without some mark of favor. Cominius, the consul, gives him an added name, saying:
... from this time,
For what he did before Corioles, call him,
With all th'applause and clamor of the host,
Caius Marcius Coriolanus.
- Act I, scene ix, lines 62-65
It was a Roman custom, when one of their generals won a signal victory over some particular foreign enemy, to give him an additional name taken from the conquered place or people. Sometimes the individual was thereafter known by his new title almost exclusively.
The most renowned case of this in Roman history is that of Publius Cornelius Scipio. Scipio was the final conqueror of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, the greatest and most feared enemy Rome ever had in the days of its greatness, and certainly one of the most remarkable captains in the lamentable history of warfare. The battle in which Scipio finally overcame Hannibal was fought at Zama in 202 b.c., a city in northern Africa. As a consequence, the title "Africanus" was added to Scipio's name.
"Coriolanus" is formed in the same fashion. From this point on in the play, his speeches are marked "Coriolanus" rather than "Marcius" and it is the former name that is given to the tragedy itself.
... Lycurguses. ..
Back at Rome, the citizens are still waiting for news from the army. The two tribunes, Brutus and Sicinius, cannot help but hope for a little bad news, since that would weaken the position of Marcius (they don't yet know his new title).
Menenius, the friend of Marcius and one who, because of his age, considers himself practically a foster father of the younger man, is also onstage and rails wittily at the uncomfortable tribunes, who lack the verbal agility to stand up to him. Menenius is particularly annoyed because the tribunes call Marcius proud, and at one point he says to them:
Meeting such wealsmen as you are-
I cannot call you Lycurguses.. .
- Act II, scene i, lines 54-56
"Wealsmen" are statesmen, a term Menenius uses ironically, since he considers them anything but that. And lest their denseness allow them to mistake his remark for a compliment, he specifically denies that they can be compared to Lycurgus.
Lycurgus, according to tradition, was a Spartan leader of the ninth century b.c. who devised the social, economic, and political system under which the Spartans lived in ancient times. The Spartan aristocracy devoted themselves to a military regime that made even the Roman system look pallid. (Actually it was developed in the seventh century b.c. and may have been attributed to the legendary Lycurgus to give it greater authority.)
It was a narrow, constricted, miserable way of life that won the Spartans many victories and therefore gained them much praise by those who valued victories for themselves and who did not have to live in Sparta at the time. It cost Sparta everything else but military victory, and in the end the narrow and inflexible outlook it gave them cost them victory as well.
Nevertheless, Lycurgus remained as the byword for the statesman and lawgiver.
Menenius grows wordier and more articulate with each speech as the tribunes become more and more beaten down. Finally, he makes the direct comparison: