by Plutarch
23. Although the Romans were accustomed to attributing all their great successes to the gods, this victory they credited exclusively to the achievement of their general. The soldiers were heard to say how Publicola had delivered them their enemies lame, blind and all but bound, and thus easily struck down by their swords. The people also acquired a good deal of money from the spoils and from the sale of the prisoners. But no sooner had Publicola celebrated his triumph and handed the government of the city over to the consuls designated to succeed him132 than he died, thereby completing a life characteristic of the best and noblest men. The people, as if they had done nothing in the way of showing him honour while he was alive in exchange for all the gratitude owed him, decreed that he should be buried at public expense133 and that every man should contribute a quadrans134 towards this mark of popular esteem. The women decided privately among themselves to mourn for him for an entire year, also an enviable honour.135 He was buried, in accordance with a law passed by the citizens, inside the city near the so-called Velia, and all his descendants were granted the privilege of burial in that place.136 Today, however, none of the family is interred there. Instead, the corpse is carried to the spot and set down; then someone, taking up a burning torch, holds it beneath the body for a moment but then immediately removes it, attesting by this action that the deceased has a right to this honour but has renounced it. Afterwards, the body is carried outside the city.
Comparison of Solon and Publicola
1 (24). There is something quite singular in this Comparison, something unprecedented in anything I have written so far, and it is this: of our two subjects, one modelled himself on his predecessor, and the earlier man is himself an advocate for the later one.
Consider Solon’s opinion on happiness, which he delivered to Croesus. Clearly it applies more to Publicola than it does to Tellus.1 Although Solon pronounced Tellus the happiest of men on account of his good fortune, his virtue and his excellent offspring, Solon did not mention him as a good man in any of his poems, nor did any of Tellus’ children hold a public office through which he acquired a glorious reputation. Publicola, by contrast, was, so long as he lived, the foremost man among the Romans, both in influence and in reputation, on account of his virtue, and, since his death, the most illustrious of our families, the Publicolae, the Messalae and the Valerii,2 whose genealogies reach back 600 years, ascribe the dignity of their noble birth to him. Furthermore, Tellus fell in battle, though he fought bravely and never retreated, whereas Publicola cut his enemies to pieces, which is a better fortune than being struck down by them. And after he saw his country victorious because of his exertions as consul and general, and after he had celebrated honours and triumphs, he came to that end which Solon had judged happiest and most enviable.
Even Solon’s own desire, expressed in his response to Mimnermus3 on the topic of how long we should live:
Leave me not to an unlamented death, but, when I die,
Let me be a source of sorrow and grieving to my friends4
portrays Publicola as a happy man. For, when he died, it was not only his friends and family but the entire city in its tens of thousands who wept, grieved and mourned his loss. The women of Rome lamented as if they had all lost the same son or brother or father.5
Solon also said:
I want to have wealth, but to acquire it unjustly
I do not desire,6
on the grounds that punishment would supervene. Now, not only did Publicola come to his wealth honestly, he employed it nobly in giving assistance to the poor.7 Therefore, if Solon was the wisest of men, then Publicola was the happiest, for all the good things sought by Solon because they were best and noblest were the very things Publicola had and preserved until the end of his life.
2 (25). In this way, then, Solon himself confirms Publicola’s fine reputation. Similarly, Publicola, through his statesmanship, advances the cause of Solon by marking him out as the best model for anyone trying to organize a democratic state, for he subtracted from the consulship its most arrogant features, and in doing so rendered this magistracy attractive and acceptable to everyone in Rome.8 And he adopted many of Solon’s laws.
Thus he granted the people the right to elect their own rulers, and defendants were allowed to plead their cases before the people, just as Solon permitted them to plead before juries.9 Publicola did not, as Solon did, establish a new senate, but he doubled the membership10 in the existing one. The idea of appointing quaestors to be in charge of official funds was also inspired by Solon. Publicola wished to release honest consuls from routine financial business, so they could concentrate on great affairs, and at the same time deny dishonest consuls opportunities for perpetrating grave injustices if they had in their power both matters of state and the administration of public finances.11 Publicola was fiercer in his hatred of tyranny than Solon was, for, under Solon’s law, if anyone attempted to seize power, he must first be tried before he could be punished, whereas Publicola made it lawful to kill such men without a trial.12
Solon correctly and justly praises himself13 for his refusal to accept absolute power at a time when circumstances urged his doing so and his fellow-citizens would have been glad of it. Still, it was no less noble on Publicola’s part that, when he was invested with tyrannical authority, he made his office more democratic in character and did not make use of all the powers that he actually possessed.14 Solon seems to have appreciated the soundness of this policy even before Publicola carried it out, for he says of the people:
They will be best at following their leaders
When they are neither unrestrained nor oppressed.15
3 (26). Unique to Solon was his remission of debts, the chief means by which he secured the freedom of his fellow-citizens.16 After all, equality under the law means nothing if the poor are in effect deprived of it by their debts. For it is in the very situations where their freedom is most in evidence – in the courts, in the exercise of the magistrates’ duties, in public debates – that the poor are actually in the greatest subjection to the rich. More importantly, although the abolition of debts is invariably followed by sedition, Solon’s reform is the sole exception to this rule: by applying, at just the right moment, a bold but efficacious remedy, he instead brought an end to the sedition that was already present in Athens, and his own virtue and reputation prevailed over the disrepute of his measure and the calumny it provoked.
Now, as for their political careers, Solon’s started off more brilliantly than Publicola’s, for he acted on his own authority and not as anyone’s subordinate, and it was through his own agency – not as a colleague of others – that he realized most of his greatest public achievements. At the end of his career, by contrast, Publicola was the more fortunate and enviable of the two, for Solon lived to see undone the constitution he had established, while Publicola’s preserved his city’s sound government down to the time of the civil wars.17 After he had enacted his laws, Solon left them inscribed on wooden tablets, bereft of any champion, and he removed himself from Athens.18 But Publicola remained in Rome, holding the consulship and continuing in public affairs, thereby strengthening his constitution and assuring its stability. Moreover, although Solon knew in advance of Peisistratus’ intrigues, not only did he fail to stop them but ultimately acquiesced in the tyranny they imposed.19 By contrast, Publicola overthrew and abolished a powerful and long-standing monarchy. His virtue was the equal of Solon’s, and his purpose identical; in addition, he enjoyed good fortune and the capacity to realize his virtue’s ends.
If we turn to their military accomplishments, we find that, according to Daimachus of Plataea,20 Solon did not play the part in the war against the Megarians that I described earlier,21 whereas Publicola, both as a warrior and a commander, was victorious in the greatest battles.22 Let us return again to their political acts. Solon, as if he were playing a game, pretended to be mad so that he could come forward and argue for recovering Salamis,23 whereas Publicola willingly ran the greatest of risks in
opposing the Tarquins and in detecting the treason of their supporters. It was he who was chiefly responsible for capturing and punishing these criminals, and so not only did he expel the tyrants from the city, he also eliminated any prospect of their restoration. Clearly, then, his resolution was bold and steely in affairs that demanded a courageous and vigorous struggle. He excelled still further in situations requiring peaceful diplomacy and gentle persuasion, which is how he won over Porsenna, a man who was an invincible and daunting enemy but whom Publicola made a friend of Rome.24
Someone, however, might object that Solon regained Salamis for the Athenians after they had given it up, whereas Publicola surrendered territories that the Romans had already conquered.25 But actions must be judged on the basis of the circumstances in which they take place. An intelligent statesman approaches each situation in such a way as to win the greatest advantage possible: sometimes, by giving up a part, he saves the whole, and by making light concessions secures greater advantages. This is why Publicola, in that instance, renounced some foreign territory in order to preserve his own country, with the result that, although the Romans had had to struggle hard to protect their city, they thereby secured its safety and even gained the camp of the enemy who had besieged them.26 By making his enemy his judge, Publicola won his case, and through this success acquired for the Romans what they would gladly have surrendered for the sake of victory. For Porsenna ended the war and left behind all his provisions for prosecuting it on account of the virtue and nobility which he attributed to all the Romans because of the actions of their consul.
CORIOLANUS
* * *
Introduction to Coriolanus
History and Legend
The story of Coriolanus is the stuff of legend. A hero of the Volscian Wars, he gained his renown after displaying unmatched courage in the Romans’ capture of the town Corioli. However, the fierceness of his defence of the patrician order in its struggle with the plebeians for political dominance incurred general hostility, and he was eventually prosecuted by the tribunes of the people, who succeeded in driving him into exile. The embittered Coriolanus then retaliated by lending his bravery to Rome’s enemies, to the very Volscians fighting against whom he had previously won his reputation for valour. He led their armies in victory to the gates of Rome, where only the pleas of his mother could turn him back from destroying the city.
Coriolanus’ was a familiar story by the time Plutarch came to tell it. As an example of a great man exiled by an ungrateful people, he was viewed, at least by the late republic, as an apt Roman parallel for the Athenian Themistocles1 – often unfavourably. Extended accounts of Coriolanus’ story can be found in Livy (2.33.5–2.40.12) and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (6.92–8.62). In each there is heavy emphasis on Coriolanus’ natural superiority, his profound connection with the patrician cause in its struggle against an emerging plebeian role in Roman government and his unwillingness to compromise when confronted by tribunician aggression, the unjust result of which was his exile. Coriolanus’ transfer of his loyalty to the Volscians and his subsequent campaign against Rome are duly reported, but for each author the climax lies in Coriolanus’ confrontation with his mother, who persuades her son not to conquer his native city. In the pages of Livy (who here defers to the authority of Fabius Pictor: 7.40.12, 28.29.1) Coriolanus ends his life a broken man, and in later books he emerges as a negative example from the past. For Dionysius, however, who catalogues Coriolanus’ failings along with his virtues (8.61–2), the Roman remains a righteous man, single-mindedly committed to justice but unkindly buffeted by fate (8.62.1), whose reputation as ‘a pious and just man’ (8.62.3) is rightly celebrated. Dionysius is Plutarch’s principal source for his Coriolanus. He may well have consulted other writers, of course, and it is obvious that he has delved into antiquarian literature in order to deepen his and his readers’ understanding of Coriolanus’ historical moment. Still, this biography represents Plutarch’s own, highly creative, adaptation of the material recorded by Dionysius.2
The Conflict of the Orders
The story of Coriolanus, like the career of Camillus, takes place against the background of the Conflict of the Orders. Roman society comprised two kinds of citizens, patricians and plebeians, categories determined by birth. During the republic, the order of the patricians comprised a few hundred wealthy families; plebeians were everyone else and thus the vast majority of Romans. How the patriciate came to be a distinct caste remains unclear, but it is plain enough that in the early republic this order enjoyed a near monopoly on the highest magistracies and played a dominating role in the senate. Unsurprisingly, this state of affairs was resented by those plebeians rich enough, valorous enough and ambitious enough to insist on having their share of honour and political influence. This friction was exacerbated because, during this early period, when Rome was beset by war and by economic crises resulting from its military struggles, poorer Romans often found themselves victims of crushing debts as well as food shortages, for which they held the patricians principally responsible. It was these difficulties that opened a way for plebeian leaders to challenge the paramountcy of the patricians.3
The plebeians, their plight unheeded by the senate, created an independent assembly which selected its own leaders, called tribunes of the people. All plebeians swore an oath to protect their tribunes from harm, thereby conferring a privileged status which these officers could employ in rescuing vulnerable citizens from magisterial injustices and in striving to check senatorial excesses. As a result of continual plebeian pressure, by the fourth century BC, if not actually earlier, most of the patricians’ exclusive rights were abolished, and a new elite, called nobles (nobiles), composed of patricians and plebeians whose families had reached the consulship, began to emerge. The social struggles subsumed under the rubric of the Conflict of the Orders were real enough but remain hard to recover owing to the unreliability that characterizes all ancient narratives of early Roman history.4
Coriolanus’ legendary career, marred by his antagonistic relationship with the common people of Rome, who are plebeians, comes at the beginning of the Conflict of the Orders. And Coriolanus is always depicted as a patrician exponent of patrician supremacy, which is very odd because, although his family, the Marcii, could and did claim descent from Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome, they were, in the historical period at least, plebeian.5
Great Nature, Great Perils
Plutarch rejects the Themistoclean parallel. By the time he came to write this Life, he had already matched Themistocles with Camillus – the saviour of Greece with the saviour of Rome (and each of them an exile).6 Coriolanus he paired with Alcibiades.7 The match comes as something of a surprise, the rude and primitive Roman (so Plutarch at ch. 1) set in parallel with the chic and cosmopolitan Athenian. Still, like the Roman, Alcibiades was an orphan and a talented general. He, too, was exiled and offered his services to the enemies of his country, whom he ultimately let down. In Plutarch’s telling, each man was hounded by the envy of others and each came to a violent end in a foreign land. This decision to link Coriolanus with Alcibiades entailed important implications for the texture of the Roman Life. To a serious Platonist like Plutarch, Alcibiades was a classic example of the truth of the master’s claim that great natures (megalai phuseis), if unequipped with sufficient education or reason, although capable of extraordinary accomplishments, ultimately do great harm to their cities. Plato discusses this phenomenon in his Republic (491d–492a), after which he proceeds to analyse a single specimen that clearly reflects the career of Alcibiades (494b–495a).8 Plutarch shared this view of Alcibiades: in his moral essays, he explicitly adduces him as an example of a man with a great nature (Moralia 552b), and in his Alcibiades he examines the difficulties of understanding his great nature.9 Coriolanus’ Life, drawn in broader strokes, prepares the reader for this investigation.10
Coriolanus is noble and good but, lacking a proper education, he also lacks the reason necessary to temper his passions:
he’s vengeance proud, as Shakespeare puts it, and entirely lacking in moderation. This is made plain in the opening of the Life (ch. 1: ‘Gaius Marcius’ career bears witness to the truth of the view that a naturally generous and noble disposition, if it lacks education, will produce both good and evil fruits at once’) and is emphasized in one of its defining moments, Coriolanus’ failure in the consular elections,
he revealed that he was quite incapable of patience or self-control when faced with a reverse. He had always given free rein to the impulses of spirit and contentiousness in his nature, as if there were some inherent grandeur and nobility in these qualities … it never occurred to him that it might be a symptom of effeminate weakness to be unable to restrain the anger which bursts out like an abscess from the wounded and suffering spirit, and so he went away full of indignation and rancour towards the people.
(ch. 15)
Plutarch’s diagnosis of Coriolanus’ character in this passage is thoroughly Platonic (cf. Epistles 4.321c; and Republic 375b–376c, 440d–442d).
Plutarch’s Coriolanus, then, is, like Alcibiades, a man with a great nature who will do harm as well as good to his city. But the two heroes enact their natures in strikingly different contexts and actions. Coriolanus’ want of a proper education, for instance, was unavoidable:
we must remember that the Romans of those days prized above all else the kind of virtue which finds its expression in warlike and military achievements … the Romans made courage [virtus] stand for virtue in all its aspects, though it only denotes one of them.11
