We move swiftly to the Capitol, the seat of the government, where the people are gathered to elect the new consuls, of whom Coriolanus is odds-on favorite to be one.
However, to achieve the goal, Coriolanus must get the vote of the people, and the way in which this was done was to flatter and cajole them, very much as in our own time. In early Roman times, it was customary for a candidate for the consulate to dress humbly, speak softly, and show the scars won in battle. He did so in an unadorned white toga (hence our word "candidate," from the Latin word for "dressed in white").
The routine begins with the equivalent of a nominating speech from Cominius, the then-consul, and it sounds very much (allowing for changes in times and manners) like a nominating speech one might make today. Cominius begins:
—Act II, scene ii, lines 88-90
If we allow Tarquin's earliest battle to regain Rome to have been in 509 b.c. and if Coriolanus was sixteen then, we can say he was born in 525 b.c. and was thirty-two years old at the taking of Corioli. If the reference is to one of Tarquin's later attempts, then Coriolanus was younger than thirty-two.
The eloquent summary by Cominius of a career of heroic battling wins over the patricians and Menenius says it remains only to speak to the people. Coriolanus demurs rather churlishly, and the tribunes, seeing their chance, at once demand that the candidate live up to the letter of the custom.
Coriolanus has this to say of the custom:
—Act II, scene ii, lines 145-47
The tribunes could ask no better attitude than that. To say baldly that he wishes to take privileges from the people is absolutely no way to get their vote, and the tribunes rush away to see to it that the plebeians are made aware of Coriolanus' attitude.
Coriolanus does put on the uniform of humility, grumbling fiercely at every stage of the game and keeping poor Menenius in a sweat, for the old man is working overtime to keep him quiet and respectful just long enough.
Coriolanus cannot be so. Try as he might, he ends by being contemptuous as the voting citizens approach. He asks one of them:
—Act II, scene iii, lines 77-78
To which the citizen makes a most reasonable reply, giving the price of anything requested, however deserving it may be:
—Act II, scene iii, line 79
And that is precisely what Coriolanus, thanks to his mother's teachings, cannot do.
Almost creaking in the attempt, Coriolanus manages to bend an absolute minimum so that he might make it seem, to inquiring citizens, that he does indeed "ask it kindly." That, combined with his great reputation of the moment, lures the people into promising to vote for him.
It is only afterward, by comparing notes, that they realize his bending was more seeming than actual and that he did not, for instance, actually show his scars to anyone. (This too sounds like modesty, but it can be interpreted as the result of arrogance. He will not stoop to win the approval of anyone. He wants it as his right and without question.)
The tribunes are disgusted that the plebeians have been so easily fooled, and Brutus demands impatiently:
—Act II, scene iii, lines 205-9
The plebeians, seeing the good sense in this, veer about and decide to withdraw their approval while there is still time and the official vote has not yet been taken.
(Plutarch says that Coriolanus actually showed his scars and won their favor more fairly. It was only when, on the actual voting day, he showed up with an escort of patricians, in all his pomp and pride, that the plebeians turned from him. Shakespeare's modification fits better the personality the dramatist has decided to portray.)
The plebeians are rather embarrassed at having to reverse their votes and the tribunes offer to take the blame. They say the plebeians might claim to have been against Coriolanus all along but that the tribunes had talked them into favoring him. Now, in turning against him, they had merely shaken off the tribunes' propaganda.
This seems awfully poor. The tribunes were the very spearhead of the antipaitrician and, in particular, anti-Coriolanus, movement. Could the patricians for a moment believe that they had spoken in favor of Coriolanus? Or was Shakespeare merely seizing the opportunity to insert a passage from Plutarch that would lend another bit of historical authenticity to the play?
He has Brutus tell them all the wonderful things the tribunes would have said about Coriolanus in persuading the plebeians to vote for him:
—Act II, scene iii, lines 244-48
This is straight out of North's translation of Plutarch, almost word for word.
The Numa referred to is Numa Pompilius, who reigned as second king of Rome, coming to the throne, according to legend, in 716 b.c., after the death of Romulus, Rome's founder. He was a mild and exemplary king, upon whom Roman legend fixed the founding of Roman religion. There was peace in his reign and he was always looked back to as an ideal ruler.
He reigned till 673 b.c. and was followed by Tullus Hostilius, who ruled till 641 b.c. and who is also mentioned in this passage.
Following Hostilius, the throne was voted to Ancus Marcius, who, as the passage states, was a grandson of Numa on his mother's side. Thus, Coriolanus was descended from two of Rome's seven kings.
So much is legendary. The next is probably anachronistic. The city of Rome, in its great days, had its water supplied through aqueducts. No other city of ancient or medieval times had such an elaborate water system. In fact, Rome had a better water system than Shakespeare's London did. Naturally, writers of both ancient and later times tended to be awed by Rome's aqueducts and, if anything, to overemphasize them.
The Rome of Coriolanus' day was still a small town, quite rude and uncivilized. It certainly had no elaborate aqueducts, but relied on wells and on the Tiber River. The first important aqueducts to be built were constructed in 312 b.c., nearly two centuries after Coriolanus' time.
Brutus continues listing Coriolanus' ancestors:
—Act II, scene iii, lines 244-51
It is very unlikely that Censorinus could have existed. He too must be an anachronism born of the deliberate putting back of Roman customs into the legendary days before the Gallic sack. In Coriolanus' time, there had scarcely been time for one man to serve as censor twice, especially since the office was not founded till 443 b.c., half a century after the events in this play.