CORIOLANUS, GNAEUS MARCIUS

legendary Roman hero of patrician descent who was said to have lived in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC; the subject of Shakespeare's play Coriolanus. According to tradition, he owed his surname to his bravery at the siege of Corioli (493 BC) in the war against the Volsci. In 491, when there was a famine in Rome, he advised that the people should not receive grain unless they would consent to the abolition of the office of tribune. For this the tribunes had him condemned to exile. Coriolanus then took refuge with the King of the Volsci and led the Volscian army against Rome, turning back only in response to entreaties from his mother and his wife. He died among the Volsci. The legend is open to serious criticism, but it at least indicates that in the early 5th century Rome suffered from Volscian pressure and from a shortage of grain.