Entre herói e traidor: o exemplum de Coriolano

Maria Cristina Pimentel

doi:10.34624/agora.1.43437

Authors

Maria Cristina Pimentel Centro de Estudos Clássicos, Faculdade de Letras – Universidade de Lisboa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34624/agora.1.43437

Keywords:

Coriolanus, exemplum, Livy, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch, Camões

Abstract

This study examines the stages of Coriolanus’s life as transmitted by classical Greek and Latin authors, identifying questions raised by the ancient sources that may challenge the historical plausibility of the character. Alongside this analysis, it also highlights aspects that lend him historical consistency, as well as the functions his story fulfills (e.g., etiological, didactic, political). The aim is to identify Roman identity markers promoted through the construction of Coriolanus as an exemplum, and to observe the consolidation, in Antiquity and over time in other literatures, of a paradigm embodied by the character: that of the traitor to his homeland who is nevertheless moved by filial pietas. Among the testimonies of Coriolanus’s literary afterlife, special attention is given to Camões, Lusíadas IV.33.

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References

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