Gaius Marcius Coriolanus

Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus supposedly lived in the 5th century BC and won his surname through valour during Rome's siege of the Volscian city of Corioli. Exiled from Rome afterward, he crossed lines entirely: he commanded Volscian troops in a siege against his own former city. Ancient historians like Livy, Plutarch, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus accepted him as real and built a consensus account of his life. Modern scholars have pulled that certainty apart, some arguing he's wholly legendary, others questioning the timing or accuracy of the conventional story. His arc — hero to traitor to ques…