His last boast is of his feat at Corioli in entering the city and fighting alone. At the end as at the beginning he is alone in the universe, he with his mother. Is that being a boy, he asks? Of course it is. A foolish act of boyish braggadocio is no less foolish because it succeeds.
And once again, Coriolanus' rage and tactlessness draws down anger upon himself. He is killed by numerous swords that have been prepared for the purpose by Aufidius himself.
The Volscian nobles are taken aback. They regret the sudden killing without trial, but one says of Coriolanus:
His own impatience
Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.
Let's make the best of it.
- Act V, scene vi, lines 145-47
It is at this point of the climax of self-ruin that Shakespeare ends the tale.
Plutarch tells a little more. Coriolanus is honorably buried and the city of Rome pays homage to the mother, if not the son, by allowing her to mourn for him the full period of ten months that was then customary.
And at some time, in a future battle, Tullus Aufidius died in arms against Rome. Roman power grew steadily and Volscian power declined, and in the end it was Rome, Rome, Rome, over all Latium, all Italy, all the Mediterranean world.
Part II. Roman 11. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
The first Plutarchian play (see page I-213) written by Shakespeare (probably in 1599) concerned the time four and a half centuries after Coriolanus. Rome had survived the Gallic sack and the onslaught of Hannibal of Carthage. It had spread itself west and east over the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and now all those shores were either Roman territory or under the control of some Roman puppet king.
But Rome's troubles were coming from within. There was no longer any serious question of conquest from without. That was impossible and would remain impossible for several centuries. Now, however, there had come an inner struggle. For half a century there had been a sputtering string of conflicts, between generals, for control, and the play opens when the conflict seems to have been decided.
The victor is the greatest Roman of them all-Julius Caesar.
.. .get you home
The events of the first scene, in the streets of the city of Rome, are those of October 45 b.c. Caesar has just returned from Spain, where he defeated the last armies of those adversaries that had stood out against him.
He was now undisputed master of all the Roman realm, from end to end of the Mediterranean Sea. It seemed Rome was ready now to experience a rich and prosperous period of peace under the great Julius.
Not all of Rome is delighted by this turn of events, however. Those who had opposed Caesar and his policies might have been beaten into silence, but not into approval-and not even always into silence.
Caesar stood for an utter and thoroughgoing reform of the political system of the Roman Republic, which in the last century had fallen into decay and corruption. In this, he was supported chiefly by the commons and opposed chiefly by the senators and the aristocratic families.
In the first scene, though, Shakespeare pictures not the aristocratic opposition, but that of a pair of tribunes, Flavius and Marullus. This is odd, for the office of tribune was originally established to protect the commons against the aristocrats (an event which is at the core of the events in Cor-iolanus, see page I-222). One would have thought they would be more likely to support Caesar than oppose him.
Actually, however, the matter of the tribunes is borrowed by Shakespeare from Plutarch, but is moved earlier in time. If the incident had been left in its Plutarchian place, it would have seemed more apt.
At any rate, in Shakespeare's version the populace is swarming out to greet the homecoming Caesar, when they are met by the tribunes. One of them, Flavius, cries out:
Hence! Home, you idle creatures, get you home!
- Act I, scene i, line 1
... rejoice in his triumph
One of the populace, a cobbler, explains the activity:
... indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Caesar
and to re joice in his triumph.
- Act I, scene i, lines 33-34
The "triumph" was an old Roman custom borrowed from the ancient Etruscans centuries before Caesar's time. A victorious general entered the city in state, preceded by government officials