Caius Marcius Coriolanus

Caius Marcius, whose life I now write, lost his father at an early age, and was reared by his widowed mother. He showed, however, that such loss of a father, although otherwise bad for a boy, need not prevent him from becoming a worthy and excellent man, and that it is wrong for worthless men to lay upon it the blame for their perverted natures, which are due, as they say, to early neglect. On the other hand, the same Marcius bore witness for those who hold that a generous and noble nature, if it lack discipline, is apt to produce much that is worthless along with its better fruits, like a rich soil deprived of the husbandman’s culture