History of Rome

​Then the matrons gathered in large numbers at the house of Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, and Volumnia, his wife. Whether this was a public decision or female fear, is not sufficiently agreed upon;

​at all events, they succeeded in ensuring that both Veturia, a woman of advanced age, and Volumnia, carrying her two small sons by Marcius, should go with them into the enemy’s camp, and that, since the men could not defend the city with arms, the women should defend it with prayers and tears.

​When they had arrived at the camp and it was announced to Coriolanus that a huge train of women was present, at first, as one who had been moved neither by the public majesty in the envoys nor by such great religious awe cast before his eyes and mind in the priests, he was much more obstinate against female tears.

​Then one of his familiars, who had recognized Veturia standing between her daughter-in-law and grandsons, distinguished among the others by her sadness, said, “Unless my eyes deceive me, your mother, wife, and children are here.”

​Coriolanus, threw himself from his seat almost like a madman, and as he was bearing an embrace to meet his mother, the woman, turning from prayers to anger, said, “Before I receive your embrace, let me know, I pray, whether I have come to an enemy or to a son, and whether I am a captive or a mother in your camp.

​Has a long life and unhappy old age dragged me to this, that I should see you an exile, and then an enemy? Could you ravage this land which begot and nourished you?

​Did not your anger fall from you, however hostile and threatening your mind was as you entered the borders? Did it not occur to you, when Rome was in sight, ‘Within those walls are my home and household gods, ​my mother, wife, and children?’ Therefore, had I not given birth, Rome would not now be besieged; had I not a son, I should have died free in a free country. But I can now suffer nothing that is either more shameful for you or more miserable for me, nor, though I be most miserable, shall I be so for long;

​look to these, whom, if you go on, either an untimely death or long servitude awaits.” Then his wife and children embraced him, and the weeping that arose from the whole crowd of women and their lamentation for themselves and their country finally broke the man.

​Thereupon he dismissed his kindred from his embrace; he himself moved his camp back from the city. Then, after the legions had been led away from the Roman territory, some say he perished, overwhelmed by the hatred of the deed, by one death, others by another. In Fabius, by far the most ancient authority, I find that the same man lived even to old age;

​at least he reports that he often used this expression in his advanced years: that exile was much more miserable for an old man. The Roman men did not grudge the women their praise—so free from detraction of another’s glory did people live then—

​and as a monument of this, the temple of Female Fortune was built and dedicated. Afterwards the Volscians returned into the Roman territory with the Aequi joined to them, but the Aequi would tolerate Attius Tullius as leader no longer.

​From this, out of a dispute as to whether the Volscians or the Aequi should give a commander to the combined army, a sedition and then a fierce battle arose. There the good fortune of the Roman people destroyed the two armies of the enemy in a contest no less destructive than stubborn.

​The consuls were Titus Sicinius and Gaius Aquilius. To Sicinius the Volscians, to Aquilius the Hernici—for they too were in arms—fell as their province. In that year the Hernici were thoroughly defeated; with the Volscians, the battle ended on equal terms.