After asking the consul which were the finest enemy troops and learning that without doubt it was the Antiates, who the Volsci had positioned in the front line, he sought as reward for the capture of Corioles the privilege to confront them. You, Romans, know he obtained this favour, that his god-guided arm had the honour of breaking the front lines of the enemy, that he alone charged an army to show Romans how to scorn his own life to master that of others, and this stupendous valour also met with success. After victory was declared in our favour, the consul begged my son to consider his condition and remember that his blood flowed just as that of the enemies through wounds he had received. But his response was that it wasn't for victors to retreat. Thus, putting word into deed, he pursued the fleeing till nightfall. Being the first to enter battle, he was the last to leave.

Perhaps one could say that the desire for reward inspired such courage in my son, but nobody can ignore that he refused every reward offered to him. On the contrary, his modesty was so great that after storming a city, winning a victory and saving the honour of the army and the Republic, he only asked as reward for all his efforts the freedom of a single man, Tullus, who had once been his host and friend, but who was then a prisoner of war among the Romans. I well remember that the name Coriolanus, which he wore, was given to him on that occasion to immortalise this action. But I also remember that Rome which had called him Coriolanus later unjustly accused him of being a troublemaker, an enemy to Rome, and a tyrant of the Senate.

Since that day, do you know what he has accomplished? Perhaps you can recall that dreadful year when famine hit Rome hard, when all the people groaned, when hunger brought death to the less fortunate, and even the richest were exposed to the same peril. You know well it was Coriolanus who, with his courage and spirit, brought abundance back to Rome, breathed life back into the people, and all this at the cost of his own blood, requesting no other reward than having saved the lives of his fellow citizens. But in return for such services, such heroic deeds, so many wounds endured and so much blood shed, when he sought the consulship, an honour accorded to many others who deserved it no less than he, they branded him heinous and a criminal, turned him over to the hands of the Aediles as the worst of men, and exiled him from his homeland. I should have appealed for mercy to those who treated my son so unfairly. But would this distressed son have granted it to me? Faced with all the insults that Coriolanus suffered, what did he do in revenge? Was it discovered that he sought to corrupt any of our consuls? Did he secretly divert funds to support the Volsci army, or did he supply them with soldiers?

No, Coriolanus did none of these things, and he limited his revenge on Rome to simply handing over the most faithful citizen into the hands of its enemies. 

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