Coriola`nus, a celebrated Roman general of patrician rank, who rallied his countrymen when, in besieging Corioli, they were being driven back, so that he took the city, and was in consequence called Coriolanus; having afterwards offended the plebs, he was banished from the city; took refuge among the people he had formerly defeated; joined cause with them, and threatened to destroy the city, regardless of every entreaty to spare it, till his mother, his wife, and the matrons of Rome overcame him by their tears, upon which he withdrew and led back his army to Corioli, prepared to suffer any penalty his treachery to them might expose him.