Caius Marcius Coriolanus

Now in Rome, at the time of which I speak, various groups of women visited the various temples, but the greater part of them, and those of highest station, carried their supplications to the altar of Jupiter Capitolinus. Among these was Valeria, a sister of that Publicola who had done the Romans so many eminent services both as warrior and statesman. Publicola, indeed, had died some time before, as I have related in his Life;[*](Chapter xxiii.) but Valeria was still enjoying her repute and honour in the city, where her life was thought to adorn her lineage.

This woman, then, suddenly seized with one of those feelings which I have been describing, and laying hold of the right expedient with a purpose not uninspired of heaven, rose up herself; bade the other women all rise, and came with them to the house of Volumnia,[*](Then the matrons came in a body to Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, and Volumnia, his wife. Whether this was the result of public counsel, or of the women’s fear, I cannot ascertain.—Livy, ii. 40, 1. In Dionysius also (vii. 39, 40), whom Plutarch seems otherwise to be following, Verturia is the mother, and Volumnia the wife, of Marcius.) the mother of Marcius. After entering and finding her seated with her daughter-in-law, and holding the children of Marcius on her lap, Valeria called about her the women who had followed, and said: