Caius Marcius Coriolanus

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. IV. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1916.

He went home, where his mother and his wife met him with wailings and loud lamentations, and after embracing them and bidding them to bear with equanimity the fate that had come upon them, he straightway departed and went to the city gate. Thither all the patricians in a body escorted him, but without taking anything or asking for anything he departed, having only three or four of his clients with him.

For a few days he remained by himself at some country place, torn by many conflicting counsels, such as his anger suggested to him, purposing no good or helpful thing at all, but only how he might take vengeance on the Romans. At last he determined to incite some neighbouring nation to a formidable war against them. Accordingly, he set out to make trial of the Volscians first, knowing that they were still abundantly supplied with men and money, and thinking that they had been not so much crippled in power by their recent defeats as filled with contentious wrath against the Romans.