No record is known of the earliest performances. We first hear of the play in the theatre in a bad adaptation by Nahum Tate, The Ingratitude of a Commonwealth, or The Fall of Coriolanus, published in 1682, ‘as it is acted at the Theatre-Royal’ (title-page). We cannot assign any nearer date than this year; Downes in his Roscius Anglhanus (1708) does not mention the play. The printed edition gives no cast. Tate frequently murders Shakespeare's poetry by pointless rewording; but for his first four acts he follows the original plot, with many cuts and curtailments. He also introduces one new character, Nigridius, a discharged Roman officer, who has joined Aufidius and inflames him against Coriolanus. At the end of Act 4 (=Shakespeare's 5.3) the hero incredibly supposes the women have come to join him as ‘Spectators of our keen Revenge’—his burning of Rome. Thereafter Tate remodels the rest of Act 5, borrowing little from Shakespeare. In this new climax we sup full with horror. The women and the young boy are imprisoned by Aufidius, and he and Coriolanus fight and wound each other. Aufidius, passionately in love with Virgilia, says he will rape her before her husband's face, but when she is brought in self-wounded, he expires on seeing ‘the piteous sight’. So, after a love-dialogue of 27 lines, does Virgilia.