ick my lance."

Like all conservative, aristocratic men, he sees in the first granting
of political power to the people the beginning of revolution.

"It will in time
Win power upon and throw forth greater themes
For insurrection's arguing."

He regards the people as a necessary, evil-smelling, many-headed beast,
good enough, under the leadership of men like himself, to make inferior
troops to be spent as the State pleases. It is possible that Napoleon
and Bismarck looked upon the mob with similar scorn. The ideas are those
of an absolute monarch or super-man. The country squire holds those
ideas, though want of power and want of intellect combine to keep him
from applying them. The sincerity of the ideas is tested from time to
time, in free countries, by general elections.

Much of the pride of Coriolanus springs from a sense of his superiority
to others in the gifts of fortune. Much of it comes from the knowledge
that he is superior in himself. Leading, as becomes his birth, in the
war against the Volscians he shows himself so much superior to others
that the campaign is his triumph. He is "the man" whom Napoleon counted
"everything in war." The knowledge of his merit is so bright within
himself that he is unable to see that it is less bright in others. He is
willing to become the head of the State if the post may be given to him
as a right due to merit, not as a favour begged. He has no lust for
power. But knowing himself to be the best man in Rome, he thinks that
his merit is sufficiently great to excuse him from the indignity of
sueing for it. The laws of free countries prescribe that he who wishes
to be elected must appeal to the electors whether he love them or loathe
them. Instead of appealing to them, Coriolanus insults them with such
arrogance that they drive him from the city.

He fails as a traitor, because he is too noble to be fiercely
revengeful. A lesser man, a Richard III, or an Iago, would have exacted
a bloody toll from Rome. Coriolanus cannot bring himself to be stern, in
the presence of his old mother and his wife. Something generous and
truly aristocratic in him makes him a second time a traitor, this time
to his hosts the Volscians. He spares Rome by the sacrifice of those who
have given him a shelter and a welcome. Treachery (even from a noble
motive) is never forgiven in these plays. It is always avenged, seldom
mercifully. The Volscians avenge themselves o