Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
That our best water brought by conduits hither:
And Nobly nam’d, so twice being Censor,
Was his great Ancestor.
(iI. iii. 242.)
Many editors saw that something had dropped out, but no attempt to fill the gap was satisfactory, till Delius, having recourse to North, supplemented,
[And Censorinus, that was so surnamed]
And nobly named so, twice being censor.[252]
These lines also show how Shakespeare reproduces Plutarch’s statement even when they are for him not quite in keeping. Plutarch, writing in the second century, could instance Publius, Quintus and Censorinus as ornaments of the Marcian gens; but Brutus’ reference to them is an anachronism as they come after the supposed date of the play. So too Plutarch says of the attack on the Romans before Corioli:
But Martius being there at that time, ronning out of the campe with a fewe men with him, he slue the first enemies he met withall, and made the rest of them staye upon a sodaine, crying out to the Romaines that had turned their backes, and calling them againe to fight with a lowde voyce. For he was even such another, as Cato would have a souldier and a captaine to be: not only terrible, and fierce to laye about him, but to make the enemie afeard with the sounde of his voyce, and grimnes of his countenaunce.