In their genial spokesman, Menenius Agrippa, Shakespeare draws a deft portrait of a successful conservative politician, altogether in the camp of the rich but adept at presenting himself as the people’s friend. Exuding his deep sympathy for their plight, he reminds the rioters—“my good friends, mine honest neighbors” (1.1.55), as he calls them—that the patricians can hardly be held responsible for the bad weather that has caused the famine.
