Career
He won glory at the siege of Corioli and took his cognomen, Coriolanus, from the episode. As a member of the aristocratic party he attempted to eliminate the tribunes, officials of the common people, by threatening to withhold grain during a famine. Prosecuted, he fled to Rome's Volscian foes. He was chosen leader of a Volscian army, and he attacked Roman territory (491 b.c.) and Rome itself. He turned back when only five miles (8 km) away at the Fossa Cluilia because of the entreaties of his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia, and was put to death by the Volscians (or according to Fabius, died old in exile). Besides discrepant versions, historical improbabilities abound in the story: the name is probably plebeian; cognomens were not used so early; Corioli was Latin; and it is unlikely that a Volscian army would be commanded by a Roman. Yet the earliest Roman historian, Fabius, knew of him. Some memory of a time of distress in Rome and of a Volscian raid over Latium may lie behind the story of a Volscian leader or a local hero of Corioli. The later Roman annalists supplied the romantic coloring.