What is needed, he openly declares, is for the patricians to have courage enough to take away what the plebeians think they want but what is actually, he believes, hurting them and hurting the state. This means eliminating not only the free food but also the whole institution of tribunes who give the poor a political voice. It is not enough to restrict popular representation—in effect, to practice the Roman equivalent of voter suppression, intimidation, redistricting, and the like. Coriolanus proposes something far more radical.
