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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Coriolanus
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(c.1608) One of the last and most stark of *Shakespeare's tragedies. The brilliant but arrogant general Caius Martius, known as Coriolanus from his capture of the Volscian town of Corioli, is Rome's natural leader but is too proud to disguise his scorn for the common people. He is banished and in revenge offers his services to the Volscians, whom he leads to the very walls of Rome. The Romans plead for mercy in vain, until they send out to him his aged mother. At her request he turns back, and is himself killed by the Volscians.
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