Coriolanus Act Scene 1.2

Scene 1.2

Corioli

The other City

Corioli

The capital of Volsces

Volsci were the land that belonged to the Volsces. They came three hundred years ago on their ships to land after a bad storm had damaged more than two third of their ships. The scouts were sent out to check the land, and the news was favorable. It was uninhabited and their vessels were in dire needs of repairs. The leaders then decided to settle there instead of sailing on. They thrived on the land shadowed by the long range of mountains; delaying their exposure to the outside world. When those mountains were intersected into trails and then roads before the battles began.

The Volsces were not many, but they were reputable in their warring skills. Many enemies feared the Volsces but not the ever-conquering Romans. The two had clashed both as alliance of opposing sides. They won each other respect, but soon their conflict came direct. The Romans had expanded close to the other border, and then stopped but it invited border skirmishes which dragged from brief to extended battles. Soon those battles erupted into war.

The Romans had fought three wars with the Volsces, but each time it ended up in a stalemate.

Corioli was not spared the anguish of a long drawn conflict.

Its people had suffered in silent for the rulers of Volsces were unforgiving for those who revolt. They do not need an excuse to detain the accused and the trials were never needed while verdicts are extracted in torture. The military ruled with an iron fist, with the Tribunal holding sway over the nation’s politics with the other nations.

The people had no say in a number of matters like the age of conscript by force at eighteen for every third male in the pickup every year. The unselected ones are initiated to the farms or work factories. The age of retirement was only by death, maimed or when the age of fifty five where the servicemen would be given a piece of land to toil on until death. On his death, the land reverted to the state.

Such was the law in Volsces.

Tullus Aufidius was a lucky person in the regime. He was in his prime years and held a military rank equivalent of General. Not many would reach that age for the existing Generals were few and fought hard to stay at it till they reached retirement. He was in his late thirties but his experience in the battles was many, and victorious. He had fought the Romans twice in his career and survived to tell the tales. In the last war, he was carried back on a medi-platform, and suffered a year of physical therapy to correct his limbs. It was inflicted on his adversary then, who was also bed ridden for almost the same period.

“Caius Marcius, I shall ensure we would never meet for the fourth.”