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Coriolanus (play)
''Coriolanus'' ( or ) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Shakespeare worked on it during the same years he wrote '' Antony and Cleopatra'', making them the last two tragedies written by him. Coriolanus is the name given to a Roman general after his military feats against the Volscians at Corioli. Following his success he seeks to be consul, but his disdain for the plebeians and the mutual hostility of the tribunes lead to his banishment from Rome. He presents himself to the Volscians, then leads them against Rome. Characters ''Romans'' * Caius Marcius – later surnamed Coriolanus * Menenius Agrippa – Senator of Rome * Cominius – consul and commander-in-chief of the army * Titus Larcius – Roman general * Volumnia – Coriolanus' mother (historically, Veturia) * Virgilia – Coriolanus' wife * Young Martius – Coriolanus' so ...
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Thomas Lawrence - John Philip Kemble As Coriolanus (1798)
Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (other) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Apostle * Thomas (bishop of the East Angles) (fl. 640s–650s), medieval Bishop of the East Angles * Thomas (Archdeacon of Barnstaple) (fl. 1203), Archdeacon of Barnstaple * Thomas, Count of Perche (1195–1217), Count of Perche * Thomas (bishop of Finland) (1248), first known Bishop of Finland * Thomas, Earl of Mar (1330–1377), 14th-century Earl, Aberdeen, Scotland Geography Places in the United States * Thomas, Illinois * Thomas, Indiana * Thomas, Oklahoma * Thomas, Oregon * Thomas, South Dakota * Thomas, Virginia * Thomas, Washington * Thomas, West Virginia * Thomas County (other) * Thomas Township (other) Elsewhere * Thomas Glacier (Greenland) Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Thomas'' (Burton novel) ...
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Veturia
Veturia was a Roman matron, the mother of the possibly legendary Roman general Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus. According to Plutarch her name was Volumnia. Veturia came from a patrician family and encouraged her son's involvement in Roman politics. According to Roman historians, Coriolanus was expelled from Rome in the early fifth century BC because he demanded the abolition of the office of Tribune of the Plebs in return for distributing state grain to the starving plebeians. He settled with the Volscians, a people hostile to Rome, while formulating his revenge. Coriolanus and the Volscians marched upon Rome and laid siege to the city. The Romans sent envoys to Coriolanus, but to no avail. Then Veturia, together with Coriolanus' wife Volumnia, plus other family members and matrons of Rome, successfully entreated Coriolanus to break off his siege. The precise versions of the entreaties differ. According to Plutarch, when Veturia came to her son's camp, Coriolanus embraced her a ...
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Tribunes
Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the authority of the senate and the annual magistrates, holding the power of ''ius intercessionis'' to intervene on behalf of the plebeians, and veto unfavourable legislation. There were also military tribunes, who commanded portions of the Roman army, subordinate to higher magistrates, such as the consuls and praetors, promagistrates, and their legates. Various officers within the Roman army were also known as tribunes. The title was also used for several other positions and classes in the course of Roman history. Tribal tribunes The word ''tribune'' is derived from the Roman tribes. The three original tribes known as the ''Ramnes'' or ''Ramnenses'', ''Tities'' or ''Titienses,'' and the ''Luceres,'' were each headed by a tribune, ...
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Plebs
In ancient Rome, the plebeians (also called plebs) were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words " commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins of the group and the term are unclear, but may be related to the Greek, ''plēthos'', meaning masses. In Latin, the word is a singular collective noun, and its genitive is . Plebeians were not a monolithic social class. Those who resided in the city and were part of the four urban tribes are sometimes called the , while those who lived in the country and were part of the 31 smaller rural tribes are sometimes differentiated by using the label . ( List of Roman tribes) In ancient Rome In the annalistic tradition of Livy and Dionysius, the distinction between patricians and plebeians was as old as Rome itself, instituted by Romulus' appointment of the first hundred senators, whose descendants became the patriciate. Modern hypotheses ...
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Patrician (ancient Rome)
The patricians (from la, patricius, Greek: πατρίκιος) were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the Roman Kingdom, and the early Republic, but its relevance waned after the Conflict of the Orders (494 BC to 287 BC). By the time of the late Republic and Empire, membership in the patriciate was of only nominal significance. The social structure of Ancient Rome revolved around the distinction between the patricians and the plebeians. The status of patricians gave them more political power than the plebeians. The relationship between the patricians and the plebeians eventually caused the Conflict of the Orders. This time period resulted in changing the social structure of Ancient Rome. After the Western Empire fell, the term "patrician" continued as a high honorary title in the Eastern Empire. In the Holy Roman Empire and in many medieval Italian republics, medieval patrician classes were once again fo ...
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Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus
Gnaeus (or Gaius) Marcius Coriolanus was a Roman general who is said to have lived in the 5th century BC. He received his toponymic cognomen "Coriolanus" following his courageous actions during a Roman siege of the Volscian city of Corioli. He was subsequently exiled from Rome, and led troops of Rome's enemy the Volsci to besiege the city. In later ancient times, it was generally accepted by historians that Coriolanus was a real historical individual, and a consensus narrative story of his life appeared, retold by leading historians such as Livy, Plutarch, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. More recent scholarship has cast doubt on the historicity of Coriolanus, with some portraying him as either a wholly legendary figure or at least disputing the accuracy of the conventional story of his life or the timing of the events. According to Plutarch, his ancestors included prominent patricians such as Censorinus and even an early King of Rome. The story is the basis for the tragedy of '' ...
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Lucius Tarquinius Superbus
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (died 495 BC) was the legendary seventh and final king of Rome, reigning 25 years until the popular uprising that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic.Livy, '' ab urbe condita libri'', I He is commonly known as Tarquin the Proud, from his cognomen ''Superbus'' (Latin for "proud, arrogant, lofty"). Ancient accounts of the regal period mingle history and legend. Tarquin was said to have been either the son or grandson of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, and to have gained the throne through the murders of both his wife and his elder brother, followed by the assassination of his predecessor, Servius Tullius. His reign has been described as a tyranny that justified the abolition of the monarchy. Background The most ancient sources, such as that of Quintus Fabius Pictor, assert Tarquin was the son of Tarquinius Priscus, but modern historians believe that to be "impossible" under the traditional chronology, indicating eith ...
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Virgilia Bewailing The Absence Of Coriolanus, By Thomas Woolner
Virgilia is the wife of Coriolanus in William Shakespeare's play ''Coriolanus'' (1607–1610), in which same play Volumnia is his mother. Origins The life of the legendary figure Caius Marcius Coriolanus has been recorded more than once. In the very influential account most familiar to Shakespeare, Plutarch's ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', Coriolanus' wife's name is ''Virgilia'', or in John Dryden's translation, ''Vergilia''. However, some accounts (Brewer, 1898) say that his wife's name was actually ''Volumnia'', probably following the Roman historian Livy, wherein the wife is called Volumnia and the mother Veturia. Role in the play Virgilia is Coriolanus' wife and the mother of his son. She goes with her mother-in-law and son to the Volsce' camp to sue to Coriolanus not to make war against Rome. She, like Volumnia, is honored for making this peace. It is also through Virgilia that audiences see a new side of the warrior. Critic Unhae Langis argued tha ...
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Aedile
''Aedile'' ( ; la, aedīlis , from , "temple edifice") was an elected office of the Roman Republic. Based in Rome, the aediles were responsible for maintenance of public buildings () and regulation of public festivals. They also had powers to enforce public order and duties to ensure the city of Rome was well supplied and its civil infrastructure well maintained, akin to modern local government. There were two pairs of aediles: the first were the "plebeian aediles" (Latin ''aediles plebis'') and possession of this office was limited to plebeians; the other two were "curule aediles" (Latin ''aediles curules''), open to both plebeians and patricians, in alternating years. An ''aedilis curulis'' was classified as a '' magister curulis''. The office of the aedilis was generally held by young men intending to follow the ''cursus honorum'' to high political office, traditionally after their quaestorship but before their praetorship. It was not a compulsory part of the cursus, and ...
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Lictor
A lictor (possibly from la, ligare, "to bind") was a Roman civil servant who was an attendant and bodyguard to a magistrate who held ''imperium''. Lictors are documented since the Roman Kingdom, and may have originated with the Etruscans. Origin The lictors were instituted by Rome's first king, Romulus, who appointed twelve lictors to attend him. Livy refers to two competing traditions for the reason that Romulus chose that number of lictors. The first version is that twelve was the number of birds that appeared in the augury, which had portended the kingdom to Romulus. The second version, favoured by Livy, is that the number of lictors was borrowed from the Etruscan kings, who had one lictor appointed from each of their twelve states. Eligibility Originally, lictors were chosen from the plebeians, but through most of Roman history, they seemed to have been freedmen. Centurions from the legions were also automatically eligible to become lictors on retirement from the army. The ...
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Attius Tullius
Attius Tullius was a well-respected and influential political and military leader of the Volsci in the early fifth century BC: according to Plutarch, Plutarch, '' Parallel Lives'', xx. 1-3; xxii. 1 who calls him Tullus Aufidius, his home town was Antium. Tullius sheltered the exiled Roman hero Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, then incited a war with Rome, in which he and Coriolanus led the Volscian forces. He appears in William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Coriolanus'' under the name of Tullus Aufidius. Background The alliance between Tullius and Coriolanus had its roots in the first great confrontation between Rome's patrician and plebeian classes. In 494 BC, under the weight of crushing debt, the entire body of the plebeians seceded from Rome and took to the Mons Sacer. The patrician envoys negotiated a settlement to the dispute, first by agreeing to debt relief, and then by creating the new and sacrosanct office of the Tribune of the Plebs, in order to protect the interests of th ...
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Tiberius Junius Brutus
Lucius Junius Brutus ( 6th century BC) was the semi-legendary founder of the Roman Republic, and traditionally one of its first consuls in 509 BC. He was reputedly responsible for the expulsion of his uncle the Roman king Tarquinius Superbus after the suicide of Lucretia, which led to the overthrow of the Roman monarchy. He was involved in the abdication of fellow consul Tarquinius Collatinus, and executed two of his sons for plotting the restoration of the Tarquins. He was claimed as an ancestor of the Roman gens Junia, including Decimus Junius Brutus, and Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Julius Caesar's assassins. Traditions about his life may have been fictional, and some scholars argue that it was the Etruscan king Porsenna who overthrew Tarquinius. The plebeian status of the ''Junia gens'' has also raised doubts about his position as a consul and the alleged initial patrician domination of the office. Depicted as the nephew of Tarquinius, he may have symbolized ...
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