He continued solitary for a few days in a place in the
country, distracted with a variety of counsels, such as rage and
indignation suggested to him; and proposing to himself no honorable
or useful end, but only how he might best satisfy his revenge on the
Romans, he resolved at length to arouse a heavy war against them from
their nearest neighbors. He determined, first to make trial of the
Volscians, whom he knew to be still vigorous and flourishing, both in
men and treasure, and he imagined their force and power was not so much
abated, as their spite and anger increased, by the late overthrows they
had received from the Romans.

There was a man of Antium, called Tullus Aufidius, who, for his
wealth and bravery and the splendor of his family, had the respect and
privilege of a king among the Volscians, but whom Marcius knew to have
a particular hostility to himself, above all other Romans. Frequent
menaces and challenges had passed in battle between them, and those
exchanges of defiance to which their hot and eager emulation is apt
to prompt young soldiers had added private animosity to their national
feelings of opposition. Yet for all this, considering Tullus to have a
certain generosity of temper, and knowing that no Volscian, so much as
he, desired an occasion to requite upon the Romans the evils they had
done, he put on a dress which completely disguised him and thus, like
Ulysses,--

He entered the town of his mortal foes.

His arrival at Antium was about evening, and though several met him in
the streets, yet he passed along without recognition, and went directly
to the house of Tullus, and entering undiscovered, went up to the
fire-hearth, and seated himself there without speaking a work, covering
up his head. Those of the family could not but wonder, and yet they were
afraid either to raise or question him, for there was a certain air of
majesty both in his posture and silence, but they recounted to Tullus,
then at supper, the strangeness of this accident. He immediately rose
from table and came in, and asked him who he was, and for what business
he came there; and then Marcius, unmuffling himself, and pausing awhile
said, "If you cannot yet call me to mind, Tullus, or do not believe your
eyes concerning me, I must of necessity be my own accuser. I am Gaius
Marcius, the author of so much mischief to the Volscians; of which, were
I seeking to deny it, the surname of Coriolanus I now bear would be a
suff