[They all shout and wave their swords, take him
up in their arms, and cast up their caps.]
(I. vi. 67.)
If they are handled in the right way, these citizen soldiers can play their part well. But they need to be rightly handled, they need to have their feelings stirred. They have no rational initiative of their own, and cannot do without inspiration and guidance. For, consider the grounds for their rising. Shakespeare not only completely suppresses the remarkable secession to the Mons Sacer, but barely mentions the social grievances that led to it. The First Citizen says indeed of the patricians:
[They] make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will.
(I. i. 83.)
But this is a mere passing remark, and no stress is laid on these, the real causes of the discontent, in comparison with the dearth, which for the rest seems to end with the Coriolan campaign, when there is, as Cominius promises, a “common distribution” of the spoils. Now the dearth is represented as a mere disastrous accident, for which no one is responsible, and for which there is no remedy save prayer—or such a foray as presently took place. Menenius expressly says so:
For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, made it, and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help.