'Some parcels of their power are forth already' Coriolanus, Act 1, Scene 2
Rome: Superpower in the Making
[First of all, you'll have to forgive me for the predominating focus on Ancient Rome in the last few posts - this is partly due to the RSC's recent Rome Season, partly due to my main research interest - how Shakespeare writes Rome. It is also partly spurred by the fact that I visited Rome last week, and had the time of my life (this also accounts for the sparsity of my posts over the last couple of weeks). Anyway, here's today's extract.]
First SenatorOur army's in the field
We never yet made doubt but Rome was ready
To answer us.
AUFIDIUS
Nor did you think it folly
To keep your great pretences veil'd till when
They needs must show themselves; which
in the hatching,
It seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery.
We shall be shorten'd in our aim, which was
To take in many towns ere almost Rome
Should know we were afoot.
Second Senator
Noble Aufidius,
Take your commission; hie you to your bands:
Let us alone to guard Corioli:
If they set down before 's, for the remove
Bring your army; but, I think, you'll find
They've not prepared for us.
AUFIDIUS
O, doubt not that;
I speak from certainties. Nay, more,
Some parcels of their power are forth already,
And only hitherward.
This week's exploration is a bringing together of several different sources of information:
- Shakespeare's Coriolanus, which is based on events of a much earlier period of Roman history (5th century BC), setting it apart from plays such as Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra.
- Bettany Hughes's Channel 5 programme Eight Days That Made Rome, the first episode of which outlines 'the defeat of the army of the great Carthaginian general Hannibal by Roman upstart Scipio in 202 BC'.
- Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage, also staged recently by the RSC, which follows Virgil's Aeneid and stretches back to a time before Rome was founded.
By drawing together what these sources tell us, we can begin to sketch a rough idea of the kind of Rome that Shakespeare is looking back to in Coriolanus.
History
First of all, let us make sense of where Coriolanus sits in the historical timeline. Legend places the founding of Rome by Aeneas (following the events covered in Marlowe's Dido) at 753 BC. By the time we reach Coriolanus, Rome has only just moved from a monarchy (with the last king, Tarquin the Proud, being expelled in 509 BC), to a Republic. This Republic was more democratic (with the plebians represented by tribunes), but was essentially still an oligarchy, with the most powerful men - consuls, senators, magistrates - in charge. These powerful men were often tyrannical (such as Coriolanus), making the Republic unstable.
Rome's empire begins to grow with its first expansion into the Mediterranean, with conquests in Spain and northern Africa and the defeat of Hannibal of Carthage. Much later, in Julius Caesar, Caesar is assassinated for his ambitions to become a sole ruler, but there can be no denying that the tyrannical Republic is no longer working. The second triumvirate fails in Antony and Cleopatra, and Octavian steps forward as emperor, to restore stability. And it works - though it is not covered in Shakespeare's plays, Octavian's rule was a Golden Age for Rome. When we come to Titus Andronicus, near the end of the Roman Empire, this Golden Age is dimming, and instability returns.
Growing Superpower
In Coriolanus, Rome is only just beginning to flex its muscles. It is nowhere near the empirical superpower we see in Shakespeare's later Rome plays - the prospect of enveloping whole other nations is still centuries away. In this moment, Rome is embroiled in civil wars against neighbouring Italian tribes - in Coriolanus, against the Volsces. There is a reason the Volsces are unfamiliar to many people watching or reading this play - so used are we to seeing Rome conquering superpowers such as Gaul and Egypt, we fail to look back further into Rome's scrappy, more primitive past.
Primitive, maybe - but not without potential. If we take a look at the extract above, we can see evidence that Rome is already becoming a force to be reckoned with. It is already showing militaristic and tactical dominance - the First Senator remarks how, however they set up their army in the battlefield, 'Rome was ready to answer us'. Aufidius confirms this as he comments on the necessity of keeping one's 'pretences veil'd', remarking on how often Rome has preempted newly hatched battle stratagems.
Relatively speaking, the conquests here are only small. The Romans and the Volsces vie for the possession of 'towns', hoping to conquer as many as they can before the other '[sets] down before' (lays siege). But this building of territory and quelling of competitors is how empires are made, and Rome is being very proactive in its expansion - Aufidius notes how the Volsces are 'shorten'd in [their] aim' by Rome's constant moving 'forth', and 'hitherward'. This relentless ambition and forward motion is what will become characteristic of Rome. This is furthered through personification: that Rome can 'know' plans and 'answer' through combat shows that the city is already gaining eminence for its deeds.
On a side note, it is interesting to consider how the notions of building, expanding and rising have been presented in stagings of this play. In the RSC's 2017 production, Coriolanus (Sope Dirisu, above) heaved up a huge metal shutter to get his Romans soldiers through the gates of Corioli. In the RSC's 2007 production, a victorious Coriolanus (William Houston, top) was lifted on high by his men. Perhaps the most literal representation of 'rising to power' was at the National Theatre in 2014, where a ladder formed a large part of the set design (below): in an earlier scene it is scaled by Tom Hiddleston's Coriolanus; in a later scene, his dead body is strung before it in a gruesome display of what great heights can lead to.
Coriolanus's Role
A bit more time might be given to explore the role of Coriolanus in Rome's rise to power. Taken together, Coriolanus's victorious life and his tyrannical death provide the ingredients needed for the growth of a nation.
Whatever he might become in the latter stages of the play, it is undeniable that Coriolanus brings victory and glory to Rome. He is a brilliant leader and a formidable warrior, keeping Rome safe from the Volsces while also bringing back the spoils needed for the city and its people to thrive. His numerous victorious campaigns allow Rome to see what it is capable of achieving: kindling its desire for conquest and feeding its ambition for glory. Later in the play, when Coriolanus has become a tyrant and a traitor, his death reminds Rome of its needs closer to home - the need for a good leader, and a just form of democracy. As with the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud, the death of Coriolanus brings the people together, in finding a fairer and stabler way of moving forward.
Life brings glories and riches; death brings cleasing, a fresh start. In a way, these combined factors have always been at the centre of Rome's story. In Marlowe's Dido, Dido's life brings Aeneas the safe passage and provisions he needs to make it to Italy, while her death liberates Aeneas and allows him to fulfill his duty and found Rome. In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Caesar's conquest over Pompey brings back glory and spoils to Rome, while his death extinguishes the onset of dictatorship; the actions of Brutus and Cassius save Rome from ambitious tyranny, while their deaths put an end to the civil war. Anthony's life, in his being a part of the triumvirate, creates a temporary peace, yet his death in Anthony and Cleopatra puts an end to another war, and gives Rome dominance over Egypt. In Titus Andronicus, Titus and his sons return to Rome victorious over the Goths, yet his death, and the deaths of all those around him, clean the slate of increasingly terrible outcomes.
Life and death are at the centre of Shakespeare's Rome plays. This is unsurprising when we consider that Rome was a nation built on a series of profitable lives and opportune deaths. In Coriolanus, we see not only the rise of a superpower, but also the rise of a pattern that we see repeated throughout the Rome plays, stretching even to Shakespeare's plays about the history of England.
The aforementioned Channel 5 programme, Eight Days That Made Rome, is well worth tuning in to. Here's a trailer:
Photo credits:
William Houston as Coriolanus in the RSC's 2007 production, by Simon Annand, found here.
Tom Hiddleston as Coriolanus in the National Theatre's 2014 production, found here.
Sope Dirisu as Coriolanus in the RSC's 2017 production, by Helen Maybanks, found here.
The National Theatre's 2014 Coriolanus, found on Pinterest.
The RSC's 2017 Coriolanus, by Helen Maybanks, found here.
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