I
The Volsci, in nowise terrified by the misfortunes of their neighbors, made war against the Romans and laid siege to their colonies.
II
Y.R. 263The people refused to elect Marcius (Coriolanus) when B.C. 491 he sought the consulship, not because they considered him unfit, but because they feared his domineering spirit.
III
Y.R. 265Marcius being inflamed against the Romans when they B.C. 489 banished him went over to the Volsci, meditating no small revenge.
IV
Y.R. 266When he arrived there, having renounced his own country B.C. 488 and kin, he did not meditate anything in particular, but intended to side with the Volsci against his country.Mendelssohn considers this whole fragment corrupt.
V
When Marcius had been banished, and had taken refuge with the Volsci, and made war against the Romans, and was encamped at a distance of only four hundred stades from the city, the people threatened to betray the walls to the enemy unless the Senate would send an embassy to him to treat for peace. The Senate reluctantly sent plenipotentiaries for this purpose. When they arrived at the camp of the Volsci and were brought into his presence and that of the Volscian chiefs, they offered oblivion and permission to return to the city if he would discontinue the war, and they reminded him that the Senate had never done him any wrong. He, while accusing the people of the many wrongs they had done to him and to the Volsci, promised nevertheless that the latter would come to terms with them if they would surrender the land and towns they had taken from the Volsci and admit them to citizenship on the same terms as the Latins. But if the vanquished were to keep what belonged to the victors, he did not see how peace could be made. Having named these conditions, he dismissed the ambassadors and gave them thirty days to consider. Then he turned against the remaining Latin towns, and having captured seven of them in the thirty days, he came back to receive the answer of the Romans.
