Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare based on the life of the legendary Roman leader.

The tragedy revolves around Caius Martius Coriolanus, a brilliant Roman general who ultimately is banished from Rome and leads an assault on that same city. Only the pleadings of his mother stop him from sacking Rome, a change of heart which leads to his destruction.

This is one of Shakespeare's later plays, appearing about 1607.

Shakespeare's "Tragedy" was largely based on the Life of Coriolanus as it was described in Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans

External links

• Text of the play by Shakespeare:
  • http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/coriolanus/ -- Full text of Shakespeare's play
  • The Tragedie of Coriolanus - HTML version of this title.
  • Coriolanus - plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg
• Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus :
  • Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus - 17th century English translation by John Dryden
  • Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus - 19th century English translation by Aubrey Stewart and George Long