Menenius: The Diplomat Who Fails

Menenius is the patrician who knows how to talk to the people. He tells them the famous 'belly fable' (the story of the body's organs rebelling against the stomach) to defuse a mob in the opening scene. He is genial, clever, and understands politics in a way Coriolanus never will.

He loves Coriolanus genuinely, more than most. He is also clear-eyed about his faults. 'His nature is too noble for the world,' he says, and it reads like both a compliment and a verdict.

In Act 5, when he goes to plead with Coriolanus outside Rome's walls, he is rebuffed. The scene is one of the play's most painful: an old man turned away by someone who was like a son to him.