What happens in Coriolanus

Starving citizens fill the streets of Rome, ready to kill the man they blame for the grain shortage. That man is Caius Marcius, a brilliant soldier who despises the common people and says so to their faces. The senator Menenius soothes the mob with a fable about the body’s parts, but Marcius only sneers at them as cowards. Then news arrives that the Volsces are marching, and Marcius lights up — war is the one thing he loves. The tribunes Sicinius and Brutus, who speak for the people, watch him go and start plotting his fall.

At the city of Corioli, Marcius fights like a force of nature. He chases the fleeing enemy through the gates alone and is trapped inside, yet his courage cracks the city open. He hunts down his old rival, the Volscian general Aufidius, and drives him back. For this Rome renames him Coriolanus and votes him consul. There is one catch. To take the office he must stand in the marketplace in a humble gown, show the people his battle scars, and beg for their votes. The custom disgusts him. He goes through with it, barely hiding his contempt, and the people grant their voices — then the tribunes coach them to take it back.

Coriolanus returns expecting honor and walks into an ambush. When the tribunes accuse him of wanting to be a tyrant, his pride detonates. He curses the people, the office, and the whole idea of letting the mob rule. That outburst is exactly what Sicinius and Brutus needed. His mother Volumnia, who raised him to be this hard, and Menenius both beg him to go back and act humble for Rome’s sake. He tries, then erupts again when they call him traitor. The tribunes sentence him to banishment, threatening to throw him from the Tarpeian rock if he ever returns.

He leaves Rome alone and full of cold fury. In disguise and in rags, he walks straight into Antium, the enemy city, and offers himself to Aufidius. The Volscian embraces him with joy and gives him joint command of the army that will march on Rome. The news lands in the city like a thunderclap. Coriolanus advances, unstoppable, treating his former home as a target to burn. Rome sends Cominius, then Menenius, to plead with him, and he turns both away without warmth, as if he never knew them.

Only one embassy can reach him. Volumnia comes to his tent with his wife Virgilia and his young son. She lays out the trap he has built: he can either drag her through Rome in chains or trample on his own mother to get there. She kneels, she shames him, she will not stop. Coriolanus holds out as long as he can, then breaks. He takes her hand and agrees to make peace, knowing as he does it that the choice has sealed his death. Rome rejoices and welcomes the women home with flowers and bonfires, the same city that banished the man who saved it.

Coriolanus returns to Antium to face Aufidius, who has been waiting for this. Jealous of the Roman’s hold over his own soldiers, Aufidius brands him a traitor for sparing Rome at his mother’s word. When Coriolanus defends himself, Aufidius needs only one word to finish him — he calls him “boy.” The insult does what armies could not. Coriolanus rages, the conspirators stab him down, and Aufidius stands over the body with feigned sorrow. The Volscian lords, ashamed, grant their fallen enemy a noble funeral.