Tullus Aufidius is the Volscian general whose hatred of Coriolanus mirrors Coriolanus’s contempt for Rome itself. Throughout the play, Aufidius embodies the principle that rivalry can be as binding as alliance—he has fought Coriolanus five times on the battlefield, and each defeat has deepened not just his enmity but also a strange obsession. When Coriolanus arrives at his tent in rags, banished from Rome and seeking vengeance against his own city, Aufidius embraces him not as a conquered foe but as the answer to a long-nursed prayer. In that moment, Aufidius seems capable of transcending the limits of his pride; he offers Coriolanus equal command, calls him “more a friend than e’er an enemy,” and places his entire army under the Roman’s direction. Yet this alliance contains the seeds of its own destruction, rooted in Aufidius’s fundamental inability to accept subordination to anyone, even to a man he claims to love.
The tragedy of Aufidius lies in his recognition of Coriolanus’s superiority and his simultaneous refusal to accept it. As Coriolanus grows in popularity with the Volscian troops and begins to eclipse Aufidius in the eyes of their soldiers, Aufidius’s gratitude curdles into resentment. He confesses that he has been reduced to a follower rather than a partner, treated with contempt despite his devotion. When Coriolanus yields to his mother’s pleas and negotiates peace with Rome—an act of human feeling that Aufidius correctly reads as mercy, not weakness—Aufidius sees his opportunity. He orchestrates Coriolanus’s murder not out of patriotic duty but out of wounded pride and the calculation that his rival’s fall will restore his own authority. The conspiracy is presented as justice to the Volscian lords, but it is in truth the jealousy of an aging warrior who cannot bear to share glory or to be forgotten in the shadow of a greater man.
Aufidius’s final act is one of startling sincerity. After the conspirators kill Coriolanus, Aufidius stands over the body and speaks words that seem to pierce the fog of his own ambition: “My rage is gone; / And I am struck with sorrow.” He orders a noble funeral, commands that the drum be beaten in mourning, and pledges that Coriolanus “shall have a noble memory.” In this moment, with murder accomplished and power reclaimed, Aufidius discovers that he has gained nothing. The contempt and envy that drove him to kill his rival do not vanish with Coriolanus’s death; they persist, now mingled with genuine grief and the hollow recognition of what he has destroyed. Aufidius emerges as a study in the corruption of honor by ambition—a warrior of real courage who poisons himself by refusing to accept his place in a world where one man can be greater than himself.
