The legend of Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, as related by Livy in the History of Early Rome, takes place between 493 and 488 BC. Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and a film adaptation of it starring Ralph Fiennes are but two of many treatments of the tale, ranging from early Roman accounts to modern day. The story cautions about the dangers of pride and fickleness of political power, with the line between triumph and tragedy vanishingly small.

Coriolanus was a patrician soldier of singular ferocity, who during the siege of Corioli in 493 BC, personally assaulted the gates and captured the city. He earned the cognomen Coriolanus—the man from Corioli—in recognition of his remarkable feat. At first a hero and candidate for consul, Coriolanus held great contempt for plebeians, whom he called rabble unfit to govern. 

During the food shortage of 492 BC, he advocated for withholding grain from plebeians unless they abolished the newly won office of tribunus plebis, tribune of the people, which had been created in 494 BC in response to the First Secession of the Plebs. His proposal caused outrage among the commoners and tribunes and resulted in his trial for tyranny, which ended with his exile from Rome in 491 BC. 

Consumed by rage, Coriolanus fled to the very people he had conquered at Corioli—the Volscians. He struck an alliance with his arch-rival, Tullus Aufidius, and led a Volscian army on a sweeping campaign against Rome. By 488 BC, he had an army camped five miles outside Rome, which lacked the leaders and army to oppose him. Priests and former friends were sent to plead for mercy, which Coriolanus refused to give. 

What he could not refuse was the rebuke of his mother, Veturia, who approached him on behalf of Rome. Veturia asked if she stood before a son or an enemy and vowed that he would have to march over her dead body to get to Rome. Coriolanus wept and withdrew his forces, saying she had saved Rome, but lost her son.

Some sources said he lived the rest of his life in bitter exile, while others, Shakespeare among them, suggested that he was assassinated by the Volscians for his refusal to capture Rome when he had the city in the palm of his hand.

The 17th-century Baroque painting by Ciro Ferri, Coriolanus at the Gates of Rome, depicts the moment of his mother’s appeal. Guilt and shame proved stronger than his lust for revenge. Ferri manages to merge the political tale of Livy with the Shakespearean rendering of a Roman hero whose unbending will becomes his fatal flaw.

It was neither the first nor last time that a woman’s resolve altered the fate of Rome. The Temple of Fortuna Muliebris was dedicated in 486 BC to honor the role of Rome’s women in opposing Coriolanus and his army.