It is difficult to describe with any certainty the reasons for Shakespeare’s variations from Plutarch in his treatment of the people. They may, like some of those already discussed, be due to the dramatic requirement of compression. They may be due to the deliberate purpose of exonerating the hero. They may, and this is more likely, have arisen quite naturally and unconsciously from Shakespeare’s indifference to questions of constitutional theory and his inability to understand the ideals of an antique self-governing commonwealth controlled by all its free members as a body. In any case the result is a picture of the primitive society, from which some of Plutarch’s inconsistencies, but with them some of the most typical traits, have been removed. The grand characteristic which the Tudor Englishman rejects, or all but rejects, is the intuitive political capacity which Plutarch, perhaps in idealising retrospect, attributes to all classes of citizens in the young republic, and which at any rate in after development formed the distinctive genius of the Roman state. He has indeed an inarticulate sense of it that enables him to suggest the general impression. He could not but have a sense of it; for few men have been so pentrated with the greatness of later Rome as he, and he seems to have felt, as the shapers of the tradition and as Plutarch felt, that such a tree must have sprung from a healthy seed. So when we examine what his story involves, we have evidence enough of a general spirit of moderation, accommodation, compromise, that flow from and minister to an efficient practical patriotism; an ingrafted love of the city; and a conviction of the community of interests among high and low alike. Mr. Watkiss Lloyd puts this with great emphasis, and on the whole with great truth.

Rome is preserved from cleaving in the midst by the virtues of the state, the reverence for the political majority which pervades both contending parties. The senate averts the last evil by the timely concession of the tribunitian power first, and then by sacrifice of a favourite champion of their own order, rather than civil war shall break out and all go to ruin in quarrel for the privilege and supremacy of a part. Rather than this they will concede, and trust to temporising, to negociating, to management, to the material influence of their position and the effect of their own merits and achievements, to secure their power or recover it hereafter. Among the people, on the other hand, there is also a restraining sentiment, a religion that holds back from the worst abuses of successful insurrection and excited faction. The proposition to kill Marcius is easily given up. Even the tribunes are capable of being persuaded to forego the extremity of rancour against the enemy of the people and of their authority, when he is fairly in their power, and commute death for banishment; and, the victory achieved, they counsel tranquility, as Menenius, on the other hand, softens down; and all goes smoothly again like a reconciled household, after experience of the miseries of adjusting wrongs by debate and anger.

Similarly the interests of the country are supreme when Coriolanus, with his new allies, advances to the attack:

Some impatience of the people against the tribunes is natural, but the tribunes with all their faults, take their humiliation not ignobly, and the nobles never for a moment dream of getting a party triumph by foreign aid. The danger of the country engrosses all, and at last Volumnia presses upon her son the right and the noble, and employs all the influences of domestic and natural affection—but all entirely to the great political and national end,—and is as disregardful of the fortunes or interests of the aristocratical party, which might have hoped to seize the opportunity for recovering lost ground, as she is apparently unaware, unconscious, regardless of what may be the consequences personally to her much loved son.

And Mr. Lloyd clinches his plea by his estimate of the catastrophe.

In the concluding scene we appear to see the supremacy of Rome assured.... In the senate house of the Volscians is perpetrated the assassination, from the disgrace of which the better spirit of the Romans preserved their city: Aufidius and his fellows with equal envy and ingratitude take the place of the plotting tribunes, and the senators are powerless to control the conspirators and mob of citizens who abet them.

They are, in short, in comparison with Rome self-condemned; and this becomes more manifest if we contrast the finale of the play with the concluding sentences in Plutarch, which Shakespeare leaves unused.

Now Martius being dead, the whole state of the Volsces hartely wished him alive again. For first of all they fell out with the Æques (who were their friendes and confederates) touching preheminence and place: and this quarrell grew on so farre betwene them, and frayes and murders fell out apon it one with another. After that, the Romaines overcame them in battell, in which Tullus was slaine in the field, and the flower of all their force was put to the sworde: so that they were compelled to accept most shameful conditions of peace, in yelding them selves subject unto the conquerors, and promising to be obedient at their commandement.

It is at first sight rather strange that Shakespeare should give no indication that the Volscians, first by condoning Tullus’ crime, the breach of friendship from desire for pre-eminence, then by repeating it as a community, prepare the way for their own downfall. Perhaps he felt that no finger-post was necessary, and that all must see how in the long run such a state must inevitably succumb to the greater moral force of Rome.

A few slight qualifications would have to be made in Mr. Lloyd’s statement of his thesis to render it absolutely correct, but it is true in the main. Nevertheless, true though it be, it makes no account of two very important considerations. One of these is that despite the general appreciation which Shakespeare shows for the attitude of the Roman Civitas, he has no perception of the real issues between the plebeians and the patricians, or of the course which the controversy took, though these matters constitute the chief claim of the citizens of early Rome to the credit they receive in Plutarch’s narrative. And the other consideration is, that Shakespeare’s general appreciation of the community he describes is perceptible only when we view the play at a distance and in its mass: the impression in detail as we follow it from scene to scene is by no means so favourable to either party.

The first point is well brought out by the total omission in the drama of the initial episode in the discussion between the populace and the senate, and between the populace and Marcius. And the omission is all the more noticeable since Plutarch gives it particular prominence as directly leading to the establishment of the tribunate, which the drama, as we shall see, ascribes merely to an insignificant bread riot. Here is what Shakespeare must have read, and what slips from him without leaving more than a trace, though to modern feeling it is one of the most impressive passages in the whole Life.

Now (Martius) being growen to great credit and authoritie in Rome for his valliantnes, it fortuned there grewe sedition in the cittie, bicause the Senate dyd favour the riche against the people, who dyd complaine of the sore oppression of userers, of whom they borowed money. For those that had litle, were yet spoyled of that litle they had by their creditours, for lack of abilitie to paye the userie: who offered their goodes to be solde, to them that would geve most. And suche as had nothing left, their bodies were layed holde of, and they were made their bonde men, notwithstanding all the woundes and cuttes they shewed, which they had receyved in many battells, fighting for defence of their countrie and common wealth: of the which, the last warre they made, was against the Sabynes, wherein they fought apon the promise the riche men had made them, that from thenceforth they would intreate them more gently, and also upon the worde of Marcus Valerius chief of the Senate, who by authoritie of the counsell, and in the behalfe of the riche, sayed they should performe that they had promised. But after that they had faithfully served in this last battell of all, where they overcame their enemies, seeing they were never a whit the better, nor more gently intreated, and that the Senate would geve no eare to them, but make as though they had forgotten their former promise, and suffered them to be made slaves and bonde men to their creditours, and besides, to be turned out of all that ever they had; they fell then even to flat rebellion and mutinie, and to sturre up daungerous tumultes within the cittie. The Romaines enemies, hearing of this rebellion, dyd straight enter the territories of Rome with a marvelous great power, spoyling and burning all as they came. Whereupon the Senate immediatly made open proclamation by sounde of trumpet, that all those which were of lawfull age to carie weapon, should come and enter their names into the muster masters booke, to goe to the warres: but no man obeyed their commaundement. Whereupon their chief magistrates, and many of the Senate, beganne to be of divers opinions emong them selves. For some thought it was reason, they should somewhat yeld to the poore peoples request, and that they should a little qualifie the severitie of the lawe. Other held hard against that opinion, and that was Martius for one. For he alleaged, that the creditours losing their money they had lent, was not the worst thing that was thereby: but that the lenitie that was favored, was a beginning of disobedience, and that the prowde attempt of the communaltie, was to abolish lawe, and to bring all to confusion. Therefore he sayed; if the Senate were wise, they should betimes prevent, and quenche this ill favored and worse ment beginning. The Senate met many dayes in consultation about it: but in the end they concluded nothing. The poore common people seeing no redresse, gathered them selves one daye together, and one encoraging another, they all forsooke the cittie, and encamped them selves upon a hill, called at this daye the holy hill, alongest the river of Tyber, offering no creature any hurte or violence, or making any shewe of actuall rebellion; saving that they cried as they went up and down, that the riche men had driven them out of the cittie, and that all Italie through they should finde ayer, water and ground to burie them in. Moreover, they sayed, to dwell at Rome was nothing els but to be slaine, or hurte with continuell warres and fighting for defence of the riche mens goodes.

Plutarch goes on to tell how in this crisis the Senate adopts a conciliatory attitude, and how after the fable of Menenius, the mutineers are pacified by the concession of five Tribuni plebis, “whose office should be to defend the poore people from violence and oppression.” Then he concludes this part of his recital:

Hereupon the cittie being growen againe to good quiet and unitie, the people immediatly went to the warres, shewing that they had a good will to doe better than ever they dyd, and to be very willing to obey the magistrates in that they would commaund concerning the warres.

Now, in this account there is no question which side is on the right and has a claim on our sympathies. The plebs is reduced to distress by fighting for the state and for the aristocratic régime that was set up some twenty years before: its misery is aggravated by harsh and inadequate laws, the redress of which it seeks by a policy of passive resistance; its demands are so equitable that they are approved by a portion of the Senate, and so urgent that they are conceded by the Senate as a whole: but such is the strength of class selfishness, that when the hour of need is past, the patricians violate their explicit promise, and the grievances become more intolerable than before. Even now the plebeians break out in no violent rebellion, and hardly show their discontent in a casual riot. In their worst desperation they merely secede, and in their very secession they are far from stubborn. They admit Menenius’ moral that the Senate has an essential function in the state: and as a preliminary to their return, only stipulate for a machinery that will protect them against further oppression.

But hardly a line in the description of this movement which the plebeians conducted so moderately and sagaciously to a successful end, has passed into the picture of Shakespeare. He ignores the reasonableness of their cause, the reasonableness of their means, and fails to perceive the essential efficiency and steadiness of their character, though all these things are expressed or implied in Plutarch’s narrative. This episode, in which the younger contemporary of Nero favours the people, the elder contemporary of Pym summarily dismisses, and substitutes for it another far less important, in which they appear in no very creditable light, but which had nothing to do with the institution of the Tribunate, and occurred in consequence of the dearth only after the capture of Corioli.

Now when this warre was ended, the flatterers of the people beganne to sturre up sedition againe, without any newe occasion, or just matter offered of complainte. For they dyd grounde this seconde insurrection against the Nobilitie and Patricians, apon the people’s miserie and misfortune, that could not but fall out, by reason of the former discorde and sedition, betweene them and the Nobilitie. Bicause the most parte of the errable land within the territorie of Rome, was become heathie and barren for lacke of plowing, for that they had no time nor meane to cause corne, to be brought them out of other countries to sowe, by reason of their warres which made the extreme dearth they had emong them. Now those busie pratlers that sought the peoples good will, by suche flattering wordes, perceyving great scarsitie of corne to be within the cittie, and though there had bene plenty enough, yet the common people had no money to buye it: they spread abroad false tales and rumours against the Nobilitie, that they in revenge of the people, had practised and procured the extreme dearthe emong them.

This circumstance, combined with the still later demand for a distribution of corn, Shakespeare transposes, and makes the surely rather inappropriate cause of the appointment of the tribunes. Inappropriate, that is, to what the logic of the situation requires, and to what the sagacity of the traditional plebs would solicit. They ask for bread and they get a magistrate. But not inappropriate to the unreasoning demands of a frenzied proletariat. Many parallels might be cited from the French revolutions. But this is just an instance of Shakespeare’s inability to conceive a popular rising in other terms than the outbreak of a mob.

And this leads us to the second point. The general moderation and dignity implied in the attitude of Rome, viewed broadly and comprehensively, almost disappears when we are confronted with the full concrete life of the participants in all its picturesque and incisive details.

For consider first a little more closely the treatment of the people. We have seen that in many ways the proceedings which it and its representatives take against Coriolanus are more defensible in Shakespeare than in Plutarch: but, on the other hand, they have less rational grounds for the original insurrection, and are much less clear-sighted and consequent in choosing the means of redress. They are comparatively well-meaning and fair, neither bitter nor narrow-minded, but they are quite inefficient, far from self-reliant, very childish and helpless. They are conspicuously lacking in political aptitude, but they make up for it by a certain soundness of feeling. Plutarch’s plebeians go the right way about protecting themselves from unjust laws, but they pursue Coriolanus with rancorous chicane even when his policy has been overturned. Shakespeare’s plebeians seek to legislate against a natural calamity, but at the crisis they turn quite justifiably, if a little tardily, on a would-be governor who makes no secret of his ill-will. Taken as separate units, they may be unwashed and puzzle-headed, but they are worthy fellows whom misery has driven desperate, yet whose misery claims compassion, though their desperation makes them meddle in things too high for them. In the opening scene, the First Citizen, even when calling for the death of Marcius, does so merely because he imagines that it is the preliminary to getting cheap food:

But even among the maddened and famishing crowd, Marcius is not without his advocate. The Second Citizen admonishes them:

And though these the ringleader discounts on the ground that they were due not to patriotism, but to personal pride and filial affection, his apologist, persisting in his defence, points out that he is not responsible for his inborn tendencies.

All this is candid enough: a benevolent neutral could not say more. These rioters have no thought of libelling their adversary. They deny neither his claims nor his merits; they only assert that these are outweighed by his offences. The Second Citizen proceeds in his plea:

You must in no way say he is covetous;

and the First rejoins:

We have seen how Shakespeare adopts from Plutarch the motive for the plebeians’ initial support of Coriolanus at the election, but he makes it a more striking instance of their fairness, for he represents them as quite aware and mindful of the reasons on the other side.

It is all very well for the candidate to turn this off with a flout, but it is the sober truth. That the despised plebeian should see both sides of the case shows in him more sanity of judgment than Coriolanus ever possessed: that he should nevertheless cast his vote for such an applicant shows more generosity as well. And the generosity, if also the simplicity, of the electors is likewise made more pronounced than in Plutarch by their persevering in their course despite the scorn with which Coriolanus treats them; of which Plutarch of course knows nothing. Even that they forgive till the tribunes irritate the wounds and predict more fatal ones from the new weapon that has been put into such ruthless hands.

All these instances of right feeling and instinctive appreciation of greatness are in Shakespeare’s picture, while they are either not at all or in a much less degree in Plutarch’s. And these citizens are capable of following good leadership as well as bad. They listen to Menenius, and are “almost persuaded” by his argument, without, as in Plutarch, making their acceptance of it merely provisional. Under Cominius they quit themselves, as he says, “like Romans,” and he gives them the praise:

Afterwards too he recognises that they are earning their share of the spoil, even as before they had borne themselves stoutly:

This is said to the volunteers who come forward at Marcius’ summons, an episode for which there is hardly a hint in Plutarch. There, indeed, we read that he cannot call off the looters from the treasures of Corioli:

Whereupon taking those that willingly offered them selves he went out of the cittie:

which supplies the sentence,

But this hint, if hint it were, Shakespeare uses anew with far stronger and brighter colouring in the incident of Marcius’ stirring appeal to Cominius’ men and their enthusiastic response: which is to be found only in the drama:

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:

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:

It is alleged, no doubt, by the mutineers that the “storehouses are crammed with grain,” but there is no confirmation of this in the play, and the way in which “honest” Menenius reports the rumour, and Marcius, who is never less than honest receives it, implies that it is mere tittle tattle and gossip of the chimney corner.

In short their temper is hardly parodied in the modern skit,

Who fills the butchers’ shops with large blue flies?

And if they resemble the ignorant fanatics of later days in the unreasonableness of their complaints, they resemble them too, as we have seen, in the unreasonableness of their remedies. If things were as the play implies what help would lie in constitutional reform? They are no better than the starving Sansculottes who sought to allay their hunger by snatching new morsels of the royal prerogative. It really reads like a scene in Carlyle’s Paris of 1790 a.d., and not like any scene in Plutarch’s Rome of 494 b.c., when Coriolanus describes the delight of the famine-stricken crowds at getting their representatives:

Moreover, when left to themselves, or when their sleeping manhood is not awakened, these plebeians, otherwise than those of Plutarch, have not even the average of physical courage. They can fight creditably under the competent management of Cominius, or heroically under the stimulus of Marcius’ rousing appeal: but if such influences are lacking, they fail. Menenius says of them:

Marcius ironically invites them to the wars by indicating what would be, and turns out to be, provision for their needs:

And the citizens steal away. In truth the low opinion of their mettle seems justified by events. At Corioli the troops under Cominius do well, but those in Marcius’ division, perhaps because his treatment does not call out what is best in them, seem to deserve a part at least of his imprecations:

Nor do they appear in a better light in the moment of partial victory, for they at once fall to plunder instead of following it up and helping their fellows. This touch, of course, Shakespeare derived from Plutarch.

The most parte of the souldiers beganne incontinently to spoyle, to carie awaye, and to looke up the bootie they had wonne. But Martius was marvelous angry with them, and cried out on them, that it was no time now to looke after spoyle, and to ronne straggling here and there to enriche them selves, whilest the other Consul and their fellowe cittizens peradventure were fighting with their enemies; and howe that leaving the spoyle they should seeke to winde them selves out of daunger and perill. Howbeit, crie, and saye to them what he could, very fewe of them would hearken to him.

But Shakespeare is not content with this. He quite without warrant describes the articles as worthless, to emphasise the baseness of the pillagers.

This strain of baseness appears in another way afterwards, when they yell and hoot at their banished enemy, like a pack of curs at a retreating mastiff, or when at his threatened return they eat their words and their deeds.

What then is Shakespeare’s opinion of the people as a whole? Despite his sympathy with those of whom it is composed, it is to him a giant not yet in his teens, with formidable physical strength, with crude natural impulses to the good and the bad, kindly-natured and simple-minded, not incapable of fair-dealing and generosity; but rude, blundering, untaught, and therefore subject to spasms of fury, panic, and greed, fit for useful service only when it finds the right leader, but sure to go wrong if abandoned to its own or evil guidance.

To the danger of evil guidance, however, it is specially exposed, for it loves flattery and is imposed on by professions of goodwill: so Shakespeare reserves his severest treatment for those who cajole it, the demagogues of the Tribunate. No doubt in his tolerant objective way he concedes even to them a measure of justification. He was bound to do so, else they would have been outside the pale of dramatic sympathy; and also the culpability of Coriolanus would have been obscured. So there is something to be said even for their policy and management. They are quite right in fearing the results of Coriolanus’ elevation to the chief place in Rome:

Their admonitions to the electors are such as the organisers of a party are not only entitled but bound to give to a constituency:

These forebodings of what is likely to occur are not only thoroughly justifiable but obvious.

Then, though their abandonment of the methods of violence and acceptance of a trial are discounted partly by the perils of open force, partly by their confidence in and manipulation of a verdict to their minds, their willingness to substitute the penalty of banishment for the extreme sentence of death, must stand, as we have seen, to the credit, if not of their placability, at least of their moderation and prudence. Moreover, if we could disregard the dangers of war, their “platform,” as we should now call it, seems approved by its success. One cannot but sympathise with the satisfaction of Sicinius at the results of Marcius’ expulsion:

And when the citizens pass with their greetings, the tribune has a right to say to Menenius:

Even Menenius has to give a modified and grudging approval of the new position of things:

And when the disastrous news comes in, after the first outburst of incredulous wrath and terrified impatience, the two colleagues bear themselves well enough. There is shrewdness and good sense in Sicinius’ words to the citizens:

When this very natural and probable conjecture proves false, they both rise to the occasion, or seek to do so, the cross-grained Sicinius somewhat more effectually than the glib-tongued Brutus, and show a certain dignity and justness of feeling. Their remonstrance with and petition to Menenius, if we grant the patriotism on the one side as well as the other, are not without their cogency:

When Menenius objects that his mission will be futile, Sicinius’ reply comes near being noble:

When Menenius, returning from his fruitless mission, describes Coriolanus in his unapproachable, inexorable power, the tribune’s rejoinder is again the true one:

Yet these various traits so little interfere with the general impression, that perhaps many tolerably careful readers who are familiar with the play, hardly take them into account. In the total effect they both seem to us pitiful busybodies, whose ill-earned influence only leads to disaster; or, as Menenius describes them:

The first feature we notice in them is their pride, a vice which they blame in Coriolanus, and with which their own is expressly contrasted. For his is the haughty, unbending self-consciousness that is based on the sense of indwelling force, and has a shrinking disgust for praise. Theirs, on the other hand, revels in popularity, and their power depends entirely on the support which that popularity secures them. As Menenius tells them:

They are really consequential and overweening rather than proud. And magnifying their importance and their office, they are apt to take too seriously any trifle in which they are concerned, and to become irritated at any mishap to their own convenience. Having no standard but themselves by which to measure the proportion of things, they are fussy over minor points and lose their tempers over petty troubles. This is the point of Menenius’ banter.

This is, they are disposed to treat a molehill as a mountain, but if they are galled, to break out in indiscriminate and unjustified abuse. Menenius gives it them home in respect of these foibles:

This is the utterance of an enemy; nevertheless it is confirmed by their behaviour, and is moreover a prophecy of their action in regard to Marcius. In the first place their pride has been insulted by his:

A man who gibes at the gods, the moon, and above all the tribunes, is evidently a profane and irreverent fellow who should be got rid of. And perhaps it is anxiety not only for the public good but for their own authority that makes them dread their office may “go sleep,” during his consulship. At any rate the disrespect with which they have been treated is one main motive of their indignation: “Our Aediles smote, ourselves resisted!” they exclaim in pardonable horror (iii. i. 319).

Then the means they take to ruin Coriolanus, though not without its astuteness, and similar enough to what is practised every day in parliamentary tactics, is altogether base: it is the device of mean, paltry, inferior natures. They speculate on the defect of their enemy’s greatness, they reckon on his heroic vehemence and forcefulness to destroy him, and lay plans to betray his nobility to a passion that will embroil him with the people. It is as easy, says Sicinius, to drive him to provocation “as to set dogs on sheep” (ii. i. 273). But easy though it is, they are careful to give minute directions to their gang. Sicinius tells them that any condition proposed to him,