To him had left it solely.
(iV. vii. 12.)
Thus Shakespeare gives Tullus a stronger motive, and in so far a better policy for his treason. On the other hand he bases it more exclusively on personal envy. For in Plutarch the truce of thirty days which Coriolanus grants Rome is the original occasion of the movement against him, in which other Volscians besides Aufidius share; and this movement culminates only after he has conceded peace on conditions which even Plutarch considers unfair to his employers. But in the play, as we have seen, the truce is omitted, and Tullus has determined on the destruction of his supplanter even at a time when he confidently expects that Rome cannot save herself:
When, Caius, Rome is thine,
Thou art poor’st of all: then shortly art thou mine.
(iV. vii. 56.)
Thus the last shred of public spirit is torn away from his selfish ambition and spite.
In contrast with all this lust for precedence and vainglorious egotism, we cannot but feel that Marcius is striving for the reality of honour and is eager to fulfil the conditions on which honour is due.
And connected with this is another point which we might regard as the natural and inevitable consequence, but which Shakespeare only inferred and did not obtain from Plutarch, who gives no indication of it. This is Marcius’ indifference to or rather detestation of all professed praise. His distaste for eulogy does not of course lead him to reject a distinction and acknowledgment like the surname of Coriolanus that he is conscious of having deserved. On the contrary he prizes it and clings to it, and among the circumstances that overthrow his self-control in the final scene, the fact that Aufidius withholds from him this appellation has a chief place.
Aufidius.Marcius!